THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER
BY The American Anti-Slavery Society
1836
No. 1. To the People of the United States; or, To Such Americans
As Value Their Rights, and Dare to Maintain Them.
No. 2. Appeal to the Christian Women of the South.
No. 2. Appeal to the Christian Women of the South. Revised and
Corrected.
No. 3. Letter of Gerrit Smith to Rev. James Smylie, of the State
of Mississippi.
No. 4. The Bible Against Slavery. An Inquiry Into the
Patriarchal and Mosaic Systems on the Subject of Human
Rights.
No. 4. The Bible Against Slavery. An Inquiry Into the
Patriarchal and Mosaic Systems on the Subject of
Human Rights. Third Edition--Revised.
No. 4. The Bible Against Slavery. An Inquiry Into the
Patriarchal and Mosaic Systems on the Subject of Human
Rights. Fourth Edition--Enlarged.
No. 5. Power of Congress Over the District of Columbia.
No. 5. Power of Congress Over the District of Columbia. With
Additions by the Author.
No. 5. Power of Congress Over the District of Columbia. Fourth
Edition.
No. 6. NARRATIVE OF JAMES WILLIAMS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE.
No. 7. EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES.
No. 8. CORRESPONDENCE, BETWEEN THE HON. F.H. ELMORE, ONE OF THE
SOUTH CAROLINA DELEGATION IN CONGRESS, AND JAMES G.
BIRNEY, ONE OF THE SECRETARIES OF THE AMERICAN
ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.
No. 9. LETTER OF GERRIT SMITH, TO HON. HENRY CLAY.
No. 10. EMANCIPATION In The WEST INDIES, IN 1838.
THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE THE ABHORRENCE OF JESUS CHRIST AND
THE APOSTLES; OR NO REFUGE FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY IN THE NEW
TESTAMENT. 1839.
No. 10. American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand
Witnesses.
No. 10. Speech of Hon. Thomas Morris, of Ohio, in Reply to the
Speech of the Hon. Henry Clay.
No. 11. The Constitution A Pro-Slavery Compact Or Selections
From the Madison Papers, &c.
No. 11. The Constitution A Pro-Slavery Compact Or Selections
From the Madison Papers, &c. Second Edition,
Enlarged.
No. 12. Chattel Principle The Abhorrence of Jesus Christ
and the Apostles; Or No Refuge for American Slavery
in the New Testament.
On the Condition of the Free People of Color in the
United States.
No. 13. Can Abolitionists Vote or Take Office Under the United
States Constitution?
Address to the Friends of Constitutional Liberty, on the
Violation by the United States House of Representatives
of the Right of Petition at the Executive Committee of
the American Anti-Slavery Society.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER
VOL. I. AUGUST, 1836. NO. 1.
TO THE
PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES;
OR, TO SUCH AMERICANS AS VALUE THEIR RIGHTS, AND
DARE TO MAINTAIN THEM.
FELLOW COUNTRYMEN!
A crisis has arrived, in which rights the most important which civil
society can acknowledge, and which have been acknowledged by our
Constitution and laws, in terms the most explicit which language can
afford, are set at nought by men, whom your favor has invested with a
brief authority. By what standard is your liberty of conscience, of
speech, and of the press, now measured? Is it by those glorious charters
you have inherited from your fathers, and which your present rulers have
called Heaven to witness, they would preserve inviolate? Alas! another
standard has been devised, and if we would know what rights are conceded
to us by our own servants, we must consult the COMPACT by which the
South engages on certain conditions to give its trade and votes to
Northern men. All rights not allowed by this compact, we now hold by
sufferance, and our Governors and Legislatures avow their readiness to
deprive us of them, whenever in their opinion, legislation on the
subject shall be "necessary[A]." This compact is not indeed published to
the world, under the hands and seals of the contracting parties, but it
is set forth in official messages,--in resolutions of the State and
National Legislatures--in the proceedings of popular meetings, and in
acts of lawless violence. The temples of the Almighty have been sacked,
because the worshipers did not conform their consciences to the
compact[B]. Ministers of the gospel have been dragged as criminals from
the altar to the bar, because they taught the people from the Bible,
doctrines proscribed by the compact[C]. Hundreds of free citizens,
peaceably assembled to express their sentiments, have, because such an
expression was forbidden by the compact, been forcibly dispersed, and
the chief actor in this invasion on the freedom of speech, instead of
being punished for a breach of the peace, was rewarded for his fidelity
to the compact with an office of high trust and honor[D].
[Footnote A: See the Messages of the Governors of New-York and
Connecticut, the resolutions of the New-York Legislature, and the bill
introduced into the Legislature of Rhode Island.]
[Footnote B: Churches in New-York attacked by the mob in 1834.]
[Footnote C: See two cases within the last twelve months in New
Hampshire.]
[Footnote D: Samuel Beardsley, Esq. the leader of the Utica riot, was
shortly afterwards appointed Attorney General of the state of New-York.]
* * * * *
POSTAGE--This Periodical contains one sheet, postage under 100 miles, is
1 1-2 cents over 100 miles, 2 1-2 cents.
"The freedom of the press--the palladium of liberty," was once a
household proverb. Now, a printing office[A] is entered by ruffians, and
its types scattered in the highway, because disobedient to the compact.
A Grand Jury, sworn to "present all things truly as they come to their
knowledge," refuse to indict the offenders; and a senator in Congress
rises in his place, and appeals to the outrage in the printing office,
and the conduct of the Grand Jury as evidence of the good faith with
which the people of the state of New York were resolved to observe the
compact[B].
[Footnote A: Office of the Utica Standard and Democrat newspaper.]
[Footnote B: See speech of the Hon. Silas Wright in the U.S. Senate of
Feb. 1836.]
The Executive Magistrate of the American Union, unmindful of his
obligation to execute the laws for the equal benefit of his fellow
citizens, has sanctioned a censorship of the press, by which papers
incompatible with the compact are excluded from the southern mails, and
he has officially advised Congress to do by law, although in violation
of the Constitution, what he had himself virtually done already in
despite of both. The invitation has indeed been rejected, but by the
Senate of the United States only, after a portentous struggle--a
struggle which distinctly exhibited the _political_ conditions of the
compact, as well as the fidelity with which those conditions are
observed by a northern candidate for the Presidency. While in compliance
with these conditions, a powerful minority in the Senate were forging
fetters for the PRESS, the House of Representatives were employed in
breaking down the right of PETITION. On the 26th May last, the following
resolution, reported by a committee was adopted by the House, viz.
"Resolved, that all Petitions, Memorials, Resolutions and
Propositions relating in any way, or to any extent whatever, to
the subject of Slavery, shall without being either printed or
referred, be laid on the table, and that no further action
whatever shall be had thereon." Yeas, 117. Nays, 68.
Bear with us, fellow countrymen, while we call your attention to the
outrage on your rights, the contempt of personal obligations and the
hardened cruelty involved in this detestable resolution. Condemn us not
for the harshness of our language, before you hear our justification. We
shall speak only the truth, but we shall speak it as freemen.
The right of petition is founded in the very institution of civil
government, and has from time immemorial been acknowledged as among the
unquestionable privileges of our English ancestors. This right springs
from the great truth that government is established for the benefit of
the governed; and it forms the medium by which the people acquaint their
rulers with their wants and their grievances. So accustomed were the
Americans to the exercise of this right, even during their subjection to
the British crown, that, on the formation of the Federal Constitution,
the Convention not conceiving that it could be endangered, made no
provision for its security. But in the very first Congress that
assembled under the new Government, the omission was repaired. It was
thought some case might possibly occur, in which this right might prove
troublesome to a dominant faction, who would endeavor to stifle it. An
amendment was therefore proposed and adopted, by which Congress is
restrained from making any law abridging "the right of the People,
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances." Had it not been for this prudent jealousy of our Fathers,
instead of the resolution I have transcribed, we should have had a LAW,
visiting with pains and penalties, all who dared to petition the Federal
Government, in behalf of the victims of oppression, held in bondage by
its authority. The present resolution cannot indeed consign such
petitioners to the prison or the scaffold, but it makes the right to
petition a congressional boon, to be granted or withheld at pleasure,
and in the present case effectually withholds it, by tendering it
nugatory.
Petitions are to inform the Government of the wishes of the people, and
by calling forth the action of the Legislature, to inform the
constituents how far their wishes are respected by their
representatives. The information thus mutually given and received is
essential to a faithful and enlightened exercise of the right of
legislation on the one hand, and of suffrage on the other. But the
resolution we are considering, provides that no petition in relation to
slavery, shall be printed for the information of the members, nor
referred to a committee to ascertain the truth of its statements; nor
shall any vote be taken, in regard to it, by which the People may learn
the sentiments of their representatives.
If Congress may thus dispose of petitions on one subject, they may make
the same disposition of petitions on any and every other subject. Our
representatives are bound by oath, not to pass any law abridging the
right of petition, but if this resolution is constitutional, they may
order every petition to be delivered to their door-keeper, and by him to
be committed to the flames; for why preserve petitions on which _no
action can be had_? Had the resolution been directed to petitions for an
object palpably unconstitutional, it would still have been without
excuse. The construction of the Constitution is a matter of opinion, and
every citizen has a right to express that opinion in a petition, or
otherwise.
But this usurpation is aggravated by the almost universal admission that
Congress does possess the constitutional power to legislate on the
subject of slavery in the District of Columbia and the Territories. No
wonder that a distinguished statesman refused to sanction the right of
the House to pass such a resolution by even voting against it[A]. The
men who perpetrated this outrage had sworn to support the Constitution,
and will they hereafter plead at the bar of their Maker, that they had
kept their oath, because they had abridged the right of petition _by a
resolution_, and not by law!
[Footnote A: Mr. J.Q. Adams, on his name being called, refused to vote,
saying, "the resolution is in direct violation of the Constitution of
the United States, and the privileges of the members of this House."]
This resolution not only violates the rights of the people, but it
nullifies the privileges and obligations of their representatives. It is
an undoubted right and duty of every member of Congress to propose any
measure within the limits of the Constitution, which he believes is
required by the interests of his constituents and the welfare of his
country. Now mark the base surrender of this right--the wicked
dereliction of this duty. All "resolutions and propositions" relating
"in _any way_ or to _any extent_ whatever to the subject of slavery,"
shall be laid on the table, and "no further action _whatever_ shall be
had thereon." What a spectacle has been presented to the American
people!--one hundred and seventeen members of Congress relinquishing
their own rights, cancelling their own solemn obligations, forcibly
depriving the other members of their legislative privileges, abolishing
the freedom of debate, condemning the right of petition, and prohibiting
present and future legislation on a most important and constitutional
subject, by a rule of order!
In 1820, the New-York Legislature instructed the representatives from
that state in Congress, to insist on making "the prohibition of slavery
an indispensable condition of admission" of certain territories into the
union. In 1828, the Legislature of Pennsylvania instructed the
Pennsylvania members of Congress, to vote for the abolition of slavery
in the district of Columbia. In vain hereafter shall a representative
present the instructions of his constituents, or the injunctions of a
sovereign state. No question shall be taken, or any motion he may offer,
in _any way_, or to _any extent_, relating to slavery!
Search the annals of legislation, and you will find no precedent for
such a profligate act of tyranny, exercised by a majority over their
fellow legislators, nor for such an impudent contempt of the rights of
the people.
But this resolution is no less barbarous than it is profligate and
impudent. Remember, fellow countrymen! that the decree has gone forth,
that there shall be no legislation by Congress, _in any way_, or to _any
extent whatever_, on the subject of slavery. Now call to mind, that
Congress is the local and only legislature of the District of Columbia,
which is placed by the Constitution under its "exclusive jurisdiction
_in all cases whatsoever_." In this District, there are thousands of
human beings divested of the rights of humanity, and subjected to a
negotiable despotism; and Congress is the only power that can extend the
shield of law to protect them from cruelty and abuse; and that shield,
it is now resolved, shall not be extended in any way, or to any extent!
But this is not all. The District has become the great slave-market of
North America, and the port of Alexandria is the Guinea of our proud
republic, whence "cargoes of despair" are continually departing[A].
[Footnote A: One dealer, John Armfield, advertises in the National
Intelligencer of the 10th of February last, that he has three vessels in
the trade, and they will leave the port of Alexandria on the first and
fifteenth of each month.]
In the city which bears the name of the Father of his country, dealers
in human flesh receive licenses for the vile traffic, at four hundred
dollars each per annum; and the gazettes of the Capital have their
columns polluted with the advertisements of these men, offering cash for
children and youth, who, torn from their parents and families, are to
wear out their existence on the plantations of the south.[A] For the
safe keeping of these children and youth, till they are shipped for the
Mississippi, private pens and prisons are provided, and the UNITED
STATES' JAIL used when required. The laws of the District in relation to
slaves and free negroes are of the most abominable and iniquitous
character. Any free citizen with a dark skin, may be arrested on
pretence of being a fugitive slave, and committed to the UNITED STATES'
PRISON, and unless within a certain number of days he proves his
freedom, while immured within its walls, he is, under authority of
Congress, sold as a slave for life. Do you ask why? Let the blood mantle
in your cheeks, while we give you the answer of the LAW--"to pay his
jail fees!!"
[Footnote A: Twelve hundred negroes are thus advertised for in the
National Intelligencer of the 28th of March last. The negroes wanted are
generally from the age of ten or twelve years to twenty-five, and of
both sexes.]
On the 11th of January, 1827, the Committee for the District of
Columbia, (themselves slaveholders) introduced a bill providing that the
jail fees should hereafter be a county charge. The bill did not pass;
and by the late resolution, a statute unparalleled for injustice and
atrocity by any mandate of European despotism, is to be like the law of
the Medes and Persians, that altereth not, since no proposition for its
repeal or modification can be entertained.
The Grand Jury of Alexandria presented the slave trade of that place, as
"disgraceful to our character as citizens of a free government," and as
"a grievance demanding legislative redress;" that is, the interposition
of Congress--but one hundred and seventeen men have decided that there
shall be "no action whatever" by Congress in relation to slavery.
In March, 1816, John Randolph submitted the following resolution to the
House of Representatives: "_Resolved_, That a Committee be appointed to
inquire into the existence of an _inhuman_ and illegal traffic of
slaves, carried on in and through the District of Columbia, and to
report whether any, and what measures are necessary for putting a stop
to the same." The COMPACT had not then been formed and the resolution
_was adopted_. Such a resolution would _now_ "be laid on the table," and
treated with silent contempt.
In 1828, eleven hundred inhabitants of the District presented a petition
to Congress, complaining of the "DOMESTIC SLAVE-TRADE" as a grievance
disgraceful in its character, and "even more demoralizing its influence"
than the foreign traffic. The petition concluded as follows: "The people
of this District have within themselves no means of legislative redress,
and we therefore appeal to your Honorable body as the _only one_ vested
by the American Constitution with power to relieve us." No more shall
such appeals be made to the national council. What matters it, that the
people of the District are annoyed by the human shambles opened among
them? What matters it, that Congress is "the only body vested by the
American Constitution with power to relieve" them? The compact requires
that no action shall be had on _any_ petition relating to slavery.
The horse or the ox may be protected in the District, by act of
Congress, from the cruelty of its owner; but MAN, created in the image
of God, shall, if his complexion be dark, be abandoned to every outrage.
The negro may be bound alive to the stake in front of the Capitol, as
well as in the streets of St. Louis--his shrieks may resound through the
representative hall--and the stench of his burning body may enter the
nostrils of the law-givers--but no vote may rebuke the abomination--no
law forbid its repetition.
The representatives of the nation may regulate the traffic in sheep and
swine, within the ten miles square; but the SLAVERS of the District may
be laden to suffocation with human cattle--the horrors of the middle
passage may be transcended at the wharves of Alexandria; but Congress
may not limit the size of the cargoes, or provide for the due feeding
and watering the animals composing them!--The District of Columbia is
henceforth to be the only spot on the face of the globe, subjected to a
civilized and Christian police, in which avarice and malice may with
legal impunity inflict on humanity whatever sufferings ingenuity can
devise, or depravity desire.
And this accumulation of wickedness, cruelty and baseness, is to render
the seat of the federal government the scoff of tyrants and the reproach
of freemen FOREVER! On the 9th of January 1829, the House of
Representatives passed the following vote. "_Resolved_, that the
committee of the District of Columbia be instructed to inquire into the
expediency of providing by law, for the gradual abolition of Slavery in
the District, in such manner that no individual shall be injured
thereby." Never again while the present rule of order is in force, can
similar instructions be given to a committee--never again shall even an
inquiry be made into the expediency of abolishing slavery and the
slave-trade in the District. What stronger evidence can we have, of the
growing and spreading corruption caused by slavery, than that one
hundred and seventeen republican legislators professed believers in
Christianity--many of them from the North, aye even from the land of the
Pilgrims, should strive to render such curses PERPETUAL!
The flagitiousness of this resolution is aggravated if possible by the
arbitrary means by which its adoption was secured. No representative of
the People was permitted to lift up his voice against it--to plead the
commands of the Constitution which is violated--his own privileges and
duties which it contemned--the rights of his constituents on which it
trampled--the chains of justice and humanity which it impiously
outraged. Its advocates were afraid and ashamed to discuss it, and
forbidding debate, they perpetrated in silence the most atrocious act
that has ever disgraced an American Legislature[A]. And was no reason
whatever, it may be asked, assigned for this bold invasion of our
rights, this insult to the sympathies of our common nature?
Yes--connected with the resolution was a preamble explaining its OBJECT.
Read it, fellow countrymen, and be equally astonished at the impudence
of your rulers in avowing such an object, and at their folly in adopting
such an expedient to effect it. The lips of a free people are to be
sealed by insult and injury!
[Footnote A: A debate was allowed on a motion to re-commit the report,
for the purpose of preparing a resolution that Congress has no
constitutional power to interfere with slavery in the District of
Columbia; but when the sense of the House was to be taken on the
resolution reported by the committees, all debate was prevented by the
previous question.]
"Whereas, it is extremely important and desirable that the AGITATION on
this subject should be finally ARRESTED, for the purpose of restoring
_tranquillity_ to the public mind, your committee respectfully recommend
the following resolution."
ORDER REIGNS IN WARSAW, were the terms in which the triumph of Russia
over the liberties of Poland was announced to the world. When the right
of petition shall be broken down--when no whisper shalt be heard in
Congress in behalf of human rights--when the press shall be muzzled, and
the freedom of speech destroyed by gag-laws, then will the slaveholders
announce, that TRANQUILLITY IS RESTORED TO THE PUBLIC MIND!
Fellow countrymen! is such the tranquillity you desire--is such the
heritage you would leave to your children? Suffer not the present
outrage, by effecting its avowed object, to invite farther aggressions
on your rights. The chairman of the committee boasted that the number of
petitioners the present session, for the abolition of slavery in the
District, was _only_ thirty-four thousand! Let us resolve, we beseech
you, that at the next session the number shall be A MILLION. Perhaps our
one hundred and seventeen representatives will then abandon in despair
their present dangerous and unconstitutional expedient for tranquilizing
the public mind.
The purpose of this address, is not to urge upon you our own views of
the sinfulness of slavery, and the safety of its immediate abolition;
but to call your attention to the conduct of your rulers. Let no one
think for a moment, that because he is not an abolitionist, his
liberties are not and will not be invaded. _We_ have no rights, distinct
from the rights of the whole people. Calumny, falsehood, and popular
violence, have been employed in vain, to tranquilize abolitionists. It
is now proposed to soothe them, by despoiling them of their
Constitutional rights; but they cannot be despoiled _alone_. The right
of petition and the freedom of debate are as sacred and valuable to
those who dissent from our opinions, as they are to ourselves. Can the
Constitution at the same time secure liberty to you, and expose us to
oppression--give you freedom of speech, and lock our lips--respect your
right of petition, and treat ours with contempt? No, fellow
countrymen!--we must be all free, or all slaves together. We implore
you, then, by all the obligations of interest, of patriotism, and of
religion--by the remembrance of your Fathers--by your love for your
children, to unite with us in maintaining our common, and till lately,
our unquestioned political rights.
We ask you as men to insist that your servants acting as the local
legislators of the District of Columbia, shall respect the common rights
and decencies of humanity.--We ask you as freemen, not to permit your
constitutional privileges to be trifled with, by those who have sworn to
maintain them.--We ask you as Christian men, to remember that by
sanctioning the sinful acts of your agents, you yourselves assume their
guilt.
We have no candidates to recommend to your favor--we ask not your
support for any political party; but we do ask you to give your
suffrages hereafter only to such men as you have reason to believe will
not sacrifice your rights, and their own obligations, and the claims of
mercy and the commands of God, to an iniquitous and mercenary COMPACT.
If we cannot have northern Presidents and other officers of the general
government except in exchange for freedom of conscience, of speech, of
the press and of legislation, then let all the appointments at
Washington be given to the South. If slaveholders will not trade with
us, unless we consent to be slaves ourselves, then let us leave their
money, and their sugar, and their cotton, to perish with them.
Fellow countrymen! we wish, we recommend no action whatever,
inconsistent with the laws and constitutions of our country, or the
precepts of our common religion, but we beseech you to join with us in
resolving, that while we will respect the rights of others, we will at
every hazard maintain our own.
_In behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Society._
ARTHUR TAPPAN, \
WM. JAY, \
JNO. RANKIN, \
LEWIS TAPPAN, \
S.S. JOCELYN, \
S.E. CORNISH, | _Executive Committee_.
JOSHUA LEAVITT, /
ABRAHAM L. COX, /
AMOS A. PHELPS, /
LA ROY SUNDERLAND, /
THEO. S. WRIGHT, /
ELIZUR WRIGHT, JR. /
* * * * *
Published by the American Anti-Slavery Society, corner of Spruce and
Nassau Streets.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
VOL. I. SEPTEMBER 1836. No. 2.
APPEAL
TO THE
CHRISTIAN WOMEN OF THE SOUTH,
BY A.E. GRIMKÉ.
"Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not within
thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all
the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time,
then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews
from another place: but thou and thy father's house shall be
destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom
for such a time as this. And Esther bade them return Mordecai
this answer:--and so will I go in unto the king, which is not
according to law, and _if I perish, I perish._" Esther IV.
13-16.
RESPECTED FRIENDS,
It is because I feel a deep and tender interest in your present and
eternal welfare that I am willing thus publicly to address you. Some of
you have loved me as a relative, and some have felt bound to me in
Christian sympathy, and Gospel fellowship; and even when compelled by a
strong sense of duty, to break those outward bonds of union which bound
us together as members of the same community, and members of the same
religious denomination, you were generous enough to give me credit, for
sincerity as a Christian, though you believed I had been most strangely
deceived. I thanked you then for your kindness, and I ask you _now_, for
the sake of former confidence, and former friendship, to read the
following pages in the spirit of calm investigation and fervent prayer.
It is because you have known me, that I write thus unto you.
But there are other Christian women scattered over the Southern States,
and of these, a very large number have never seen me, and never heard my
name, and feel _no_ personal interest whatever in _me_. But I feel an
interest in _you_, as branches of the same vine from whose root I daily
draw the principle of spiritual vitality--Yes! Sisters in Christ I feel
an interest in _you_, and often has the secret prayer arisen on your
behalf, Lord "open thou their eyes that they may see wondrous things out
of thy Law"--It is then, because I _do feel_ and _do pray_ for you, that
I thus address you upon a subject about which of all others, perhaps you
would rather not hear any thing; but, "would to God ye could bear with
me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me, for I am jealous over
you with godly jealousy." Be not afraid then to read my appeal; it is
_not_ written in the heat of passion or prejudice, but in that solemn
calmness which is the result of conviction and duty. It is true, I am
going to tell you unwelcome truths, but I mean to speak those _truths in
love_, and remember Solomon says, "faithful are the _wounds_ of a
friend." I do not believe the time has yet come when _Christian women_
"will not endure sound doctrine," even on the subject of Slavery, if it
is spoken to them in tenderness and love, therefore I now address _you_.
* * * * *
POSTAGE.--This periodical contains four and a half sheets. Postage under
100 miles, 6 3-4 cents; over 100 miles, 11 1-4 cents. Please read and
circulate.
To all of you then, known or unknown, relatives or strangers, (for you
are all _one_ to Christ,) I would speak. I have felt for you at this
time, when unwelcome light is pouring in upon the world on the subject
of slavery; light which even Christians would exclude, if they could,
from our country, or at any rate from the southern portion of it,
saying, as its rays strike the rock bound coasts of New England and
scatter their warmth and radiance over her hills and valleys, and from
thence travel onward over the Palisades of the Hudson, and down the soft
flowing waters of the Delaware and gild the waves of the Potomac,
"hitherto shalt thou come and no further;" I know that even professors
of His name who has been emphatically called the "Light of the world"
would, if they could, build a wall of adamant around the Southern States
whose top might reach unto heaven, in order to shut out the light which
is bounding from mountain to mountain and from the hills to the plains
and valleys beneath, through the vast extent of our Northern States. But
believe me, when I tell you, their attempts will be as utterly fruitless
as were the efforts of the builders of Babel; and why? Because moral,
like natural light, is so extremely subtle in its nature as to overleap
all human barriers, and laugh at the puny efforts of man to control it.
All the excuses and palliations of this system must inevitably be swept
away, just as other "refuges of lies" have been, by the irresistible
torrent of a rectified public opinion. "The _supporters_ of the slave
system," says Jonathan Dymond in his admirable work on the Principles of
Morality, "will _hereafter_ be regarded with the _same_ public feeling,
as he who was an advocate for the slave trade _now is_." It will be, and
that very soon, clearly perceived and fully acknowledged by all the
virtuous and the candid, that in _principle_ it is as sinful to hold a
human being in bondage who has been born in Carolina, as one who has
been born in Africa. All that sophistry of argument which has been
employed to prove, that although it is sinful to send to Africa to
procure men and women as slaves, who have never been in slavery, that
still, it is not sinful to keep those in bondage who have come down by
inheritance, will be utterly overthrown. We must come back to the good
old doctrine of our forefathers who declared to the world, "this self
evident truth that _all_ men are created equal, and that they have
certain _inalienable_ rights among which are life, _liberty_, and the
pursuit of happiness." It is even a greater absurdity to suppose a man
can be legally born a slave under _our free Republican_ Government, than
under the petty despotisms of barbarian Africa. If then, we have no
right to enslave an African, surely we can have none to enslave an
American; if it is a self evident truth that _all_ men, every where and
of every color are born equal, and have an _inalienable right to
liberty_, then it is equally true that _no_ man can be born a slave, and
no man can ever _rightfully_ be reduced to _involuntary_ bondage and
held as a slave, however fair may be the claim of his master or mistress
through wills and title-deeds.
But after all, it may be said, our fathers were certainly mistaken, for
the Bible sanctions Slavery, and that is the highest authority. Now the
Bible is my ultimate appeal in all matters of faith and practice, and it
is to _this test_ I am anxious to bring the subject at issue between us.
Let us then begin with Adam and examine the charter of privileges which
was given to him. "Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the
earth." In the eighth Psalm we have a still fuller description of this
charter which through Adam was given to all mankind. "Thou madest him to
have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things
under his feet. All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field,
the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through
the paths of the seas." And after the flood when this charter of human
rights was renewed, we find _no additional_ power vested in man. "And
the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the
earth, and every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the
earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they
delivered." In this charter, although the different kinds of
_irrational_ beings are so particularly enumerated, and supreme dominion
over _all of them_ is granted, yet _man_ is _never_ vested with this
dominion _over his fellow man;_ he was never told that any of the human
species were put _under his feet;_ it was only _all things_, and man,
who was created in the image of his Maker, _never_ can properly be
termed a _thing_, though the laws of Slave States do call him "a chattel
personal;" _Man_ then, I assert _never_ was put _under the feet of man_,
by that first charter of human rights which was given by God, to the
Fathers of the Antediluvian and Postdiluvian worlds, therefore this
doctrine of equality is based on the Bible.
But it may be argued, that in the very chapter of Genesis from which I
have last quoted, will be found the curse pronounced upon Canaan, by
which his posterity was consigned to servitude under his brothers Shem
and Japheth. I know this prophecy was uttered, and was most fearfully
and wonderfully fulfilled, through the immediate descendants of Canaan,
_i.e._ the Canaanites, and I do not know but it has been through all the
children of Ham, but I do know that prophecy does _not_ tell us what
_ought to be_, but what actually does take place, ages after it has been
delivered, and that if we justify America for enslaving the children of
Africa, we must also justify Egypt for reducing the children of Israel
to bondage, for the latter was foretold as explicitly as the former. I
am well aware that prophecy has often been urged as an excuse for
Slavery, but be not deceived, the fulfillment of prophecy will _not
cover one sin_ in the awful day of account. Hear what our Saviour says
on this subject; "it must needs be that offences come, but _woe unto
that man through whom they come_"--Witness some fulfillment of this
declaration in the tremendous destruction of Jerusalem, occasioned by
that most nefarious of all crimes the crucifixion of the Son of God. Did
the fact of that event having been foretold, exculpate the Jews from sin
in perpetrating it; No--for hear what the Apostle Peter says to them on
this subject, "Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, _ye_ have taken, and by _wicked_ hands have
crucified and slain." Other striking instances might be adduced, but
these will suffice.
But it has been urged that the patriarchs held slaves, and therefore,
slavery is right. Do you really believe that patriarchal servitude was
like American slavery? Can you believe it? If so, read the history of
these primitive fathers of the church and be undeceived. Look at
Abraham, though so great a man, going to the herd himself and fetching a
calf from thence and serving it up with his own hands, for the
entertainment of his guests. Look at Sarah, that princess as her name
signifies, baking cakes upon the hearth. If the servants they had were
like Southern slaves, would they have performed such comparatively
menial offices for themselves? Hear too the plaintive lamentation of
Abraham when he feared he should have no son to bear his name down to
posterity. "Behold thou hast given me no seed, &c., one born in my house
_is mine_ heir." From this it appears that one of his _servants_ was to
inherit his immense estate. Is this like Southern slavery? I leave it to
your own good sense and candor to decide. Besides, such was the footing
upon which Abraham was with _his_ servants, that he trusted them with
arms. Are slaveholders willing to put swords and pistols into the hands
of their slaves? He was as a father among his servants; what are
planters and masters generally among theirs? When the institution of
circumcision was established, Abraham was commanded thus; "He that is
eight days old shall be circumcised among you, _every_ man-child in your
generations; he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any
stranger which is not of thy seed." And to render this command with
regard to his _servants_ still more impressive it is repeated in the
very next verse; and herein we may perceive the great care which was
taken by God to guard the _rights of servants_ even under this "dark
dispensation." What too was the testimony given to the faithfulness of
this eminent patriarch. "For I know him that he will command his
children and his _household_ after him, and they shall keep the way of
the Lord to do justice and judgment." Now my dear friends many of you
believe that circumcision has been superseded by baptism in the Church;
_Are you_ careful to have _all_ that are born in your house or bought
with money of any stranger, baptized? Are _you_ as faithful as Abraham
to command _your household to keep the way of the Lord?_ I leave it to
your own consciences to decide. Was patriarchal servitude then like
American Slavery?
But I shall be told, God sanctioned Slavery, yea commanded Slavery under
the Jewish Dispensation. Let us examine this subject calmly and
prayerfully. I admit that a species of _servitude_ was permitted to the
Jews, but in studying the subject I have been struck with wonder and
admiration at perceiving how carefully the servant was guarded from
violence, injustice and wrong. I will first inform you how these
servants became servants, for I think this a very important part of our
subject. From consulting Horne, Calmet and the Bible, I find there were
six different ways by which the Hebrews became servants legally.
1. If reduced to extreme poverty, a Hebrew might sell himself, i.e. his
services, for six years, in which case _he_ received the purchase money
_himself_. Lev. xxv, 39.
2. A father might sell his children as servants, i.e. his _daughters_,
in which circumstance it was understood the daughter was to be the wife
or daughter-in-law of the man who bought her, and the _father_ received
the price. In other words, Jewish women were sold as _white women_ were
in the first settlement of Virginia--as _wives_, _not_ as slaves. Ex.
xxi, 7.
3. Insolvent debtors might be delivered to their creditors as servants.
2 Kings iv, 1.
4. Thieves not able to make restitution for their thefts, were sold for
the benefit of the injured person. Ex. xxii, 3.
5. They might be born in servitude. Ex. xxi, 4.
6. If a Hebrew had sold himself to a rich Gentile, he might be redeemed
by one of his brethren at any time the money was offered; and he who
redeemed him, was _not_ to take advantage of the favor thus conferred,
and rule over him with rigor. Lev. xxv, 47-55.
Before going into an examination of the laws by which these servants
were protected, I would just ask whether American slaves have become
slaves in any of the ways in which the Hebrews became servants. Did they
sell themselves into slavery and receive the purchase money into their
own hands? No! Did they become insolvent, and by their own imprudence
subject themselves to be sold as slaves? No! Did they steal the property
of another, and were they sold to make restitution for their crimes? No!
Did their present masters, as an act of kindness, redeem them from some
heathen tyrant to whom _they had sold themselves_ in the dark hour of
adversity? No! Were they born in slavery? No! No! not according to
_Jewish Law_, for the servants who were born in servitude among them,
were born of parents who had _sold themselves_ for six years: Ex. xxi,
4. Were the female slaves of the South sold by their fathers? How shall
I answer this question? Thousands and tens of thousands never were,
_their_ fathers _never_ have received the poor compensation of silver or
gold for the tears and toils, the suffering, and anguish, and hopeless
bondage of _their_ daughters. They labor day by day, and year by year,
side by side, in the same field, if haply their daughters are permitted
to remain on the same plantation with them, instead of being as they
often are, separated from their parents and sold into distant states,
never again to meet on earth. But do the _fathers of the South ever sell
their daughters?_ My heart beats, and my hand trembles, as I write the
awful affirmative, Yes! The fathers of this Christian land often sell
their daughters, _not_ as Jewish parents did, to be the wives and
daughters-in-law of the man who buys them, but to be the abject slaves
of petty tyrants and irresponsible masters. Is it not so, my friends? I
leave it to your own candor to corroborate my assertion. Southern slaves
then have _not_ become slaves in any of the six different ways in which
Hebrews became servants, and I hesitate not to say that American masters
_cannot_ according to _Jewish law_ substantiate their claim to the men,
women, or children they now hold in bondage.
But there was one way in which a Jew might illegally be reduced to
servitude; it was this, he might he _stolen_ and afterwards sold as a
slave, as was Joseph. To guard most effectually against this dreadful
crime of manstealing, God enacted this severe law. "He that stealeth a
man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be
put to death[A]." As I have tried American Slavery by _legal_ Hebrew
servitude, and found, (to your surprise, perhaps,) that Jewish law
cannot justify the slaveholder's claim, let us now try it by _illegal_
Hebrew bondage. Have the Southern slaves then been stolen? If they did
not sell themselves into bondage; if they were not sold as insolvent
debtors or as thieves; if they were not redeemed from a heathen master
to whom they had sold themselves; if they were not born in servitude
according to Hebrew law; and if the females were not sold by their
fathers as wives and daughters-in-law to those who purchased them; then
what shall we say of them? what can we say of them? but that according
_to Hebrew Law they have been stolen_.
[Footnote A: And again, "If a man be found stealing any of his brethren
of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth
him; then _that thief shall die_, and thou shalt put away evil from
among you." Deut. xxiv, 7.]
But I shall be told that the Jews had other servants who were absolute
slaves. Let us look a little into this also. They had other servants who
were procured in two different ways.
1. Captives taken in war were reduced to bondage instead of being
killed; but we are not told that their children were enslaved. Deut. xx,
14.
2. Bondmen and bondmaids might be bought from the heathen round about
them; these were left by fathers to their children after them, but it
does not appear that the _children_ of these servants ever were reduced
to servitude. Lev. xxv, 44.
I will now try the right of the southern planter by the claims of Hebrew
masters over their _heathen_ slaves. Were the southern slaves taken
captive in war? No! Were they bought from the heathen? No! for surely,
no one will _now_ vindicate the slave-trade so far as to assert that
slaves were bought from the heathen who were obtained by that system of
piracy. The only excuse for holding southern slaves is that they were
born in slavery, but we have seen that they were _not_ born in servitude
as Jewish servants were, and that the children of heathen slaves were
not legally subjected to bondage even under the Mosaic Law. How then
have the slaves of the South been obtained?
I will next proceed to an examination of those laws which were enacted
in order to protect the Hebrew and the Heathen servant; for I wish you
to understand that _both_ are protected by Him, of whom it is said "his
mercies are over all his works." I will first speak of those which
secured the rights of Hebrew servants. This code was headed thus:
1. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor, but shalt fear thy God.
2. If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in the
seventh year he shall go out free for nothing. Ex. xx, 2[A].
[Footnote A: And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt
not let him go away empty: Thou shalt furnish him _liberally_ out of thy
flock and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press: of that wherewith
the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, shalt thou give unto him. Deut. xv,
13, 14.]
3. If he come in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were
married, then his wife shall go out with him.
4. If his master have given him a wife and she have borne him sons and
daughters, the wife and her children shall be his master's, and he shall
go out by himself.
5. If the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my
children; I will not go out free; then his master shall bring him unto
the Judges, and he shall bring him to the door, or unto the door-post,
and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall
serve him _forever_. Ex. xxi, 3-6.
6. If a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that
it perish, he shall let him go _free_ for his eye's sake. And if he
smite out his man servant's tooth or his maid servant's tooth, he shall
let him go _free_ for his tooth's sake. Ex. xxi, 26, 27.
7. On the Sabbath rest was secured to servants by the fourth
commandment. Ex. xx, 10.
8. Servants were permitted to unite with their masters three times in
every year in celebrating the Passover, the feast of Pentecost, and the
feast of Tabernacles; every male throughout the land was to appear
before the Lord at Jerusalem with a gift; here the bond and the free
stood on common ground. Deut. xvi.
9. If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under
his hand, he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a
day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money. Ex. xxi, 20,
21.
From these laws we learn that Hebrew men servants were bound to serve
their masters _only six_ years, unless their attachment to their
employers, their wives and children, should induce them to wish to
remain in servitude, in which case, in order to prevent the possibility
of deception on the part of the master, the servant was first taken
before the magistrate, where he openly declared his intention of
continuing in his master's service, (probably a public register was kept
of such) he was then conducted to the door of the house, (in warm
climates doors are thrown open,) and _there_ his ear was _publicly_
bored, and by submitting to this operation he testified his willingness
to serve him _forever_, i.e. during his life, for Jewish Rabbins who
must have understood Jewish _slavery_, (as it is called,) "affirm that
servants were set free at the death of their masters and did _not_
descend to their heirs:" or that he was to serve him until the year of
Jubilee, when _all_ servants were set at liberty. To protect servants
from violence, it was ordained that if a master struck out the tooth or
destroyed the eye of a servant, that servant immediately became _free_,
for such an act of violence evidently showed he was unfit to possess the
power of a master, and therefore that power was taken from him. All
servants enjoyed the rest of the Sabbath and partook of the privileges
and festivities of the three great Jewish Feasts; and if a servant died
under the infliction of chastisement, his master was surely to be
punished. As a tooth for a tooth and life for life was the Jewish law,
of course he was punished with death. I know that great stress has been
laid upon the following verse: "Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or
two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money."
Slaveholders, and the apologists of slavery, have eagerly seized upon
this little passage of scripture, and held it up as the masters' Magna
Charta, by which they were licensed by God himself to commit the
greatest outrages upon the defenceless victims of their oppression. But,
my friends, was it designed to be so? If our Heavenly Father would
protect by law the eye and the tooth of a Hebrew servant, can we for a
moment believe that he would abandon that same servant to the brutal
rape of a master who would destroy even life itself. Do we not rather
see in this, the _only_ law which protected masters, and was it not
right that in case of the death of a servant, one or two days after
chastisement was inflicted, to which other circumstances might have
contributed, that the master should be protected when, in all
probability, he never intended to produce so fatal a result? But the
phrase "he is his money" has been adduced to show that Hebrew servants
were regarded as mere _things_, "chattels personal;" if so, why were so
many laws made to _secure their rights as men_, and to ensure their
rising into equality and freedom? If they were mere _things_, why were
they regarded as responsible beings, and one law made for them as well
as for their masters? But I pass on now to the consideration of how the
_female_ Jewish servants were protected by _law_.
1. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then
shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto another nation he shall
have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.
2. If he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after
the manner of daughters.
3. If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of
marriage, shall he not diminish.
4. If he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out _free_
without money.
On these laws I will give you Calmet's remarks; "A father could not sell
his daughter as a slave, according to the Rabbins, until she was at the
age of puberty, and unless he were reduced to the utmost indigence.
Besides, when a master bought an Israelitish girl, it was _always_ with
the presumption that he would take her to wife." Hence Moses adds, "if
she please not her master, and he does not think fit to marry her, he
shall set her at liberty," or according to the Hebrew, "he shall let her
be redeemed." "To sell her to another nation he shall have no power,
seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her;" as to the engagement
implied, at least of taking her to wife. "If he have betrothed her unto
his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters, i.e. he
shall take care that his son uses her as his wife, that he does not
despise or maltreat her. If he make his son marry another wife, he shall
give her her dowry, her clothes and compensation for her virginity; if
he does none of these three, she shall _go out free_ without money."
Thus were the _rights of female servants carefully secured by law_ under
the Jewish Dispensation; and now I would ask, are the rights of female
slaves at the South thus secured? Are _they_ sold only as wives and
daughters-in-law, and when not treated as such, are they allowed to _go
out free_? No! They have _all_ not only been illegally obtained as
servants according to Hebrew law, but they are also illegally _held_ in
bondage. Masters at the South and West have all forfeited their claims,
(_if they ever had any_,) to their female slaves.
We come now to examine the case of those servants who were "of the
heathen round about;" Were _they_ left entirely unprotected by law?
Horne in speaking of the law, "Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor,
but shalt fear thy God," remarks, "this law Lev. xxv, 43; it is true
speaks expressly of slaves who were of Hebrew descent; but as _alien
born_ slaves were ingrafted into the Hebrew Church by circumcision,
_there is no doubt_ but that it applied to _all_ slaves;" if so, then we
may reasonably suppose that the other protective laws extended to them
also; and that the only difference between Hebrew and Heathen servants
lay in this, that the former served but six years unless they chose to
remain longer; and were always freed at the death of their masters;
whereas the latter served until the year of Jubilee, though that might
include a period of forty-nine years,--and were left from father to son.
There are however two other laws which I have not yet noticed. The one
effectually prevented _all involuntary_ servitude, and the other
completely abolished Jewish servitude every fifty years. They were
equally operative upon the Heathen and the Hebrew.
1. "Thou shall _not_ deliver unto his master the servant that is escaped
from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in
that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh
him best: thou shall _not_ oppress him." Deut. xxxiii; 15, 16.
2. "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim _Liberty_
throughout _all_ the land, unto _all_ the inhabitants thereof: it shall
be a jubilee unto you." Deut. xxv, 10.
Here, then, we see that by this first law, the _door of Freedom was
opened wide to every servant who_ had any cause whatever for complaint;
if he was unhappy with his master, all he had to do was to leave him,
and _no man_ had a right to deliver him back to him again, and not only
so, but the absconded servant was to _choose_ where he should live, and
no Jew was permitted to oppress him. He left his master just as our
Northern servants leave us; we have no power to compel them to remain
with us, and no man has any right to oppress them; they go and dwell in
that place where it chooseth them, and live just where they like. Is it
so at the South? Is the poor runaway slave protected _by law_ from the
violence of that master whose oppression and cruelty has driven him from
his plantation or his house? No! no! Even the free states of the North
are compelled to deliver unto his master the servant that is escaped
from his master into them. By _human_ law, under the _Christian
Dispensation_, in the _nineteenth century_ we are commanded to do, what
_God_ more than _three thousand_ years ago, under the _Mosaic
Dispensation_, _positively commanded_ the Jews _not_ to do. In the wide
domain even of our free states, there is not _one_ city of refuge for
the poor runaway fugitive; not one spot upon which he can stand and say,
I am a free man--I am protected in my rights as a _man_, by the strong
arm of the law; no! _not one_. How long the North will thus shake hands
with the South in sin, I know not. How long she will stand by like the
persecutor Saul, _consenting_ unto the death of Stephen, and keeping the
raiment of them that slew him, I know not; but one thing I do know, the
_guilt of the North_ is increasing in a tremendous ratio as light is
pouring in upon her on the subject and the sin of slavery. As the sun of
righteousness climbs higher and higher in the moral heavens, she will
stand still more and more abashed as the query is thundered down into
her ear, "_Who_ hath required _this_ at thy hand?" It will be found _no_
excuse then that the Constitution of our country required that _persons
bound to service_ escaping from their masters should be delivered up; no
more excuse than was the reason which Adam assigned for eating the
forbidden fruit. _He was condemned and punished because_ he hearkened to
the voice of _his wife_, rather than to the command of his Maker; and
_we_ will assuredly be condemned and punished for obeying _Man_ rather
than _God_, if we do not speedily repent and bring forth fruits meet for
repentance. Yea, are we not receiving chastisement even _now_?
But by the second of these laws a still more astonishing fact is
disclosed. If the first effectually prevented _all involuntary
servitude_, the last absolutely forbade even _voluntary servitude being
perpetual_. On the great day of atonement every fiftieth year the
Jubilee trumpet was sounded throughout the land of Judea, and _Liberty_
was proclaimed to _all_ the inhabitants thereof. I will not say that the
servants' _chains_ fell off and their _manacles_ were burst, for there
is no evidence that Jewish servants _ever_ felt the weight of iron
chains, and collars, and handcuffs; but I do say that even the man who
had voluntarily sold himself and the _heathen_ who had been sold to a
Hebrew master, were set free, the one as well as the other. This law was
evidently designed to prevent the oppression of the poor, and the
possibility of such a thing as _perpetual servitude_ existing among
them.
Where, then, I would ask, is the warrant, the justification, or the
palliation of American Slavery from Hebrew servitude? How many of the
southern slaves would now be in bondage according to the laws of Moses;
Not one. You may observe that I have carefully avoided using the term
_slavery_ when speaking of Jewish servitude; and simply for this reason,
that _no such thing_ existed among that people; the word translated
servant does _not_ mean _slave_, it is the same that is applied to
Abraham, to Moses, to Elisha and the prophets generally. _Slavery_ then
_never_ existed under the Jewish Dispensation at all, and I cannot but
regard it as an aspersion on the character of Him who is "glorious in
Holiness" for any one to assert that "_God sanctioned, yea commanded
slavery_ under the old dispensation." I would fain lift my feeble voice
to vindicate Jehovah's character from so foul a slander. If slaveholders
are determined to hold slaves as long as they can, let them not dare to
say that the God of mercy and of truth _ever_ sanctioned such a system
of cruelty and wrong. It is blasphemy against Him.
We have seen that the code of laws framed by Moses with regard to
servants was designed to _protect them_ as _men and women_, to secure to
them their _rights_ as _human beings_, to guard them from oppression and
defend them from violence of every kind. Let us now turn to the Slave
laws of the South and West and examine them too. I will give you the
substance only, because I fear I shall trespass too much on your time,
were I to quote them at length.
1. _Slavery_ is hereditary and perpetual, to the last moment of the
slave's earthly existence, and to all his descendants to the latest
posterity.
2. The labor of the slave is compulsory and uncompensated; while the
kind of labor, the amount of toil, the time allowed for rest, are
dictated solely by the master. No bargain is made, no wages given. A
pure despotism governs the human brute; and even his covering and
provender, both as to quantity and quality, depend entirely on the
master's discretion[A].
[Footnote A: There are laws in some of the slave states, limiting the
labor which the master may require of the slave to fourteen hours daily.
In some of the states there are laws requiring the masters to furnish a
certain amount of food and clothing, as for instance, _one quart_ of
corn per day, or _one peck_ per week, or _one bushel_ per month, and
"one linen shirt and pantaloons for the summer, and a linen shirt and
woolen great coat and pantaloons for the winter," &c. But "still," to
use the language of Judge Stroud "the slave is entirely under the
control of his master,--is unprovided with a protector,--and, especially
as he cannot be a witness or make complaint in any known mode against
his master, the apparent object of these laws may _always_ be defeated."
ED.]
3. The slave being considered a personal chattel may be sold or pledged,
or leased at the will of his master. He may be exchanged for marketable
commodities, or taken in execution for the debts or taxes either of a
living or dead master. Sold at auction, either individually, or in lots
to suit the purchaser, he may remain with his family, or be separated
from them for ever.
4. Slaves can make no contracts and have no _legal_ right to any
property, real or personal. Their own honest earnings and the legacies
of friends belong in point of law to their masters.
5. Neither a slave nor a free colored person can be a witness against
any _white_, or free person, in a court of justice, however atrocious
may have been the crimes they have seen him commit, if such testimony
would be for the benefit of a _slave_; but they may give testimony
_against a fellow slave_, or free colored man, even in cases affecting
life, if the _master_ is to reap the advantage of it.
6. The slave may be punished at his master's discretion--without
trial--without any means of legal redress; whether his offence be real
or imaginary; and the master can transfer the same despotic power to any
person or persons, he may choose to appoint.
7. The slave is not allowed to resist any free man under _any_
circumstances, _his_ only safety consists in the fact that his _owner_
may bring suit and recover the price of his body, in case his life is
taken, or his limbs rendered unfit for labor.
8. Slaves cannot redeem themselves, or obtain a change of masters,
though cruel treatment may have rendered such a change necessary for
their personal safety.
9. The slave is entirely unprotected in his domestic relations.
10. The laws greatly obstruct the manumission of slaves, even where the
master is willing to enfranchise them.
11. The operation of the laws tends to deprive slaves of religious
instruction and consolation.
12. The whole power of the laws is exerted to keep slaves in a state of
the lowest ignorance.
13. There is in this country a monstrous inequality of law and right.
What is a trifling fault in the _white_ man, is considered highly
criminal in the _slave_; the same offences which cost a white man a few
dollars only, are punished in the negro with death.
14. The laws operate most oppressively upon free people of color[A].
[Footnote A: See Mrs. Child's Appeal, Chap. II.]
Shall I ask you now my friends, to draw the _parallel_ between Jewish
_servitude_ and American _slavery_? No! For there is _no likeness_ in
the two systems; I ask you rather to mark the contrast. The laws of
Moses _protected servants_ in their _rights as men and women_, guarded
them from oppression and defended them from wrong. The Code Noir of the
South _robs the slave of all his rights_ as a _man_, reduces him to a
chattel personal, and defends the _master_ in the exercise of the most
unnatural and unwarrantable power over his slave. They each bear the
impress of the hand which formed them. The attributes of justice and
mercy are shadowed out in the Hebrew code; those of injustice and
cruelty, in the Code Noir of America. Truly it was wise in the
slaveholders of the South to declare their slaves to be "chattels
personal;" for before they could be robbed of wages, wives, children,
and friends, it was absolutely necessary to deny they were human beings.
It is wise in them, to keep them in abject ignorance, for the strong man
armed must be bound before we can spoil his house--the powerful
intellect of man must be bound down with the iron chains of nescience
before we can rob him of his rights as a man; we must reduce him to a
_thing_; before we can claim the right to set our feet upon his neck,
because it was only _all things_ which were originally _put under the
feet of man_ by the Almighty and Beneficent Father of all, who has
declared himself to be _no respecter_ of persons, whether red, white, or
black.
But some have even said that Jesus Christ did not condemn slavery. To
this I reply, that our Holy Redeemer lived and preached among the Jews
only. The laws which Moses had enacted fifteen hundred years previous to
his appearance among them, had never been annulled, and these laws
_protected_ every servant in Palestine. That he saw nothing of
_perpetual_ servitude is certain from the simple declaration made by
himself in John, viii, 35. "The servant abideth _not_ in the house for
ever, the son abideth ever." If then He did not condemn Jewish
_temporary_ servitude, this does not prove that he would not have
condemned such a monstrous system as that of AMERICAN _slavery_, if that
had existed among them. But did not Jesus condemn slavery? Let us
examine some of his precepts. "_Whatsoever_ ye would that men should do
to you, do _ye even so to them_." Let every slaveholder apply these
queries to his own heart; Am _I_ willing to be a slave--Am _I_ willing
to see _my_ husband the slave of another--Am _I_ willing to see my
mother a slave, or my father, my _white_ sister, or my _white_ brother?
If _not_, then in holding others as slaves, I am doing what I would
_not_ wish to be done to me or any relative I have; and thus have I
broken this golden rule which was given _me_ to walk by.
But some slaveholders have said, "we were never in bondage to any man,"
and therefore the yoke of bondage would be insufferable to us, but
slaves are accustomed to it, their backs are fitted to the burden. Well,
I am willing to admit that you who have lived in freedom would find
slavery even more oppressive than the poor slave does, but then you may
try this question in another form--Am I willing to reduce _my little
child_ to slavery? You know that _if it is brought up a slave_, it will
never know any contrast between freedom and bondage; its back will
become fitted to the burden just as the negro child's does--_not by
nature_--but by daily, violent pressure, in the same way that the head
of the Indian child becomes flattened by the boards in which it is
bound. It has been justly remarked that "_God never made a slave_," he
made man upright; his back was _not_ made to carry burdens as the slave
of another, nor his neck to wear a yoke, and the _man_ must be crushed
within him, before _his_ back can be _fitted_ to the burden of perpetual
slavery; and that his back is _not_ fitted to it, is manifest by the
insurrections that so often disturb the peace and security of
slave-holding countries. Who ever heard of a rebellion of the beasts of
the field; and why not? simply because _they_ were all placed _under the
feet of man_, into whose hand they were delivered; it was originally
designed that they should serve him, therefore their necks have been
formed for the yoke, and their backs for the burden; but _not so with
man_, intellectual, immortal man! I appeal to you, my friends, as
mothers; Are you willing to enslave _your_ children? You start back with
horror and indignation at such a question. But why, if slavery is _no
wrong_ to those upon whom it is imposed? why, if, as has often been
said, slaves are happier than their masters, freer from the cares and
perplexities of providing for themselves and their families? why not
place _your children_ in the way of being supported without your having
the trouble to provide for them, or they for themselves? Do you not
perceive that as soon as this golden rule of action is applied to
_yourselves_, that you involuntarily shrink from the test; as soon as
_your_ actions are weighed in _this_ balance of the sanctuary, that _you
are found wanting?_ Try yourselves by another of the Divine precepts,
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Can we love a man _as_ we
love _ourselves_ if we do, and continue to do unto him, what we would
not wish any one to do to us? Look too, at Christ's example, what does
he say of himself, "I came _not_ to be ministered unto, but to
minister." Can you for a moment imagine the meek, and lowly, and
compassionate Saviour, a _slaveholder_? do you not shudder at this
thought as much as at that of his being a _warrior_? But why, if slavery
is not sinful?
Again, it has been said, the Apostle Paul did not condemn Slavery, for
he sent Onesimus back to Philemon. I do not think it can be said he sent
him back, for no coercion was made use of. Onesimus was not thrown into
prison and then sent back in chains to his master, as your runaway
slaves often are--this could not possibly have been the case, because
you know Paul as a Jew, was _bound to protect_ the runaway, _he had no
right_ to send any fugitive back to his master. The state of the case
then seems to have been this. Onesimus had been an unprofitable servant
to Philemon and left him--he afterwards became converted under the
Apostle's preaching, and seeing that he had been to blame in his
conduct, and desiring by future fidelity to atone for past error, he
wished to return, and the Apostle gave him the letter we now have as a
recommendation to Philemon, informing him of the conversion of Onesimus,
and entreating him as "Paul the aged to receive him, _not_ now as a
_servant_, but _above_ a servant, a brother beloved, especially to me,
but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If thou
count _me_ therefore as a partner, _receive him as myself._" This then
surely cannot be forced into a justification of the practice of
returning runaway slaves back to their masters, to be punished with
cruel beatings and scourgings as they often are. Besides the word
[Greek: doulos] here translated servant, is the same that is made use of
in Matt. xviii, 27. Now it appears that this servant owed his lord ten
thousand talents; he possessed property to a vast amount. Onesimus could
not then have been a _slave_, for slaves do not own their wives, or
children; no, not even their own bodies, much less property. But again,
the servitude which the apostle was accustomed to, must have been very
different from American slavery, for he says, "the heir (or son), as
long as he is a child, differeth _nothing from a servant_, though he be
lord of all. But is under _tutors_ and governors until the time
appointed of the father." From this it appears, that the means of
_instruction_ were provided for _servants_ as well as children; and
indeed we know it must have been so among the Jews, because their
servants were not permitted to remain in perpetual bondage, and
therefore it was absolutely necessary they should be prepared to occupy
higher stations in society than those of servants. Is it so at the
South, my friends? Is the daily bread of instruction provided for _your
slaves_? are their minds enlightened, and they gradually prepared to
rise from the grade of menials into that of _free_, independent members
of the state? Let your own statute book, and your own daily experience,
answer these questions.
If this apostle sanctioned _slavery_, why did he exhort masters thus in
his epistle to the Ephesians, "and ye, masters, do the same things unto
them (i.e. perform your duties to your servants as unto Christ, not unto
me) _forbearing threatening_; knowing that your master also is in
heaven, neither is _there respect of persons with him_." And in
Colossians, "Masters give unto your servants that which is _just and
equal_, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven." Let slaveholders
only _obey_ these injunctions of Paul, and I am satisfied slavery would
soon be abolished. If he thought it sinful even to _threaten_ servants,
surely he must have thought it sinful to flog and to beat them with
sticks and paddles; indeed, when delineating the character of a bishop,
he expressly names this as one feature of it, "_no striker_." Let
masters give unto their servants that which is _just_ and _equal_, and
all that vast system of unrequited labor would crumble into ruin. Yes,
and if they once felt they had no right to the _labor_ of their servants
without pay, surely they could not think they had a right to their
wives, their children, and their own bodies. Again, how can it be said
Paul sanctioned slavery, when, as though to put this matter beyond all
doubt, in that black catalogue of sins enumerated in his first epistle
to Timothy, he mentions "_menstealers_," which word may be translated
"_slavedealers_." But you may say, we all despise slavedealers as much
as any one can; they are never admitted into genteel or respectable
society. And why not? Is it not because even you shrink back from the
idea of associating with those who make their fortunes by trading in the
bodies and souls of men, women, and children? whose daily work it is to
break human hearts, by tearing wives from their husbands, and children
from their parents? But why hold slavedealers as despicable, if their
trade is lawful and virtuous? and why despise them more than the
_gentlemen of fortune and standing_ who employ them as _their_ agents?
Why more than the _professors of religion_ who barter their
fellow-professors to them for gold and silver? We do not despise the
land agent, or the physician, or the merchant, and why? Simply because
their professions are virtuous and honorable; and if the trade of
men-jobbers was honorable, you would not despise them either. There is
no difference in _principle_, in _Christian ethics_, between the
despised slavedealer and the _Christian_ who buys slaves from, or sells
slaves to him; indeed, if slaves were not wanted by the respectable, the
wealthy, and the religious in a community, there would be no slaves in
that community, and of course no _slavedealers_. It is then the
_Christians_ and the _honorable men_ and _women_ of the South, who are
the _main pillars_ of this grand temple built to Mammon and to Moloch.
It is the _most enlightened_ in every country who are _most_ to blame
when any public sin is supported by public opinion, hence Isaiah says,
"_When_ the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount _Zion_ and on
_Jerusalem_, (then) I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the
king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks." And was it not so?
Open the historical records of that age, was not Israel carried into
captivity B.C. 606, Judah B.C. 588, and the stout heart of the heathen
monarchy not punished until B.C. 536, fifty-two years _after_ Judah's,
and seventy years _after_ Israel's captivity, when it was overthrown by
Cyrus, king of Persia? Hence, too, the apostle Peter says, "judgment
must _begin at the house of God_." Surely this would not be the case, if
the _professors of religion_ were not _most worthy_ of blame.
But it may be asked, why are _they_ most culpable? I will tell you, my
friends. It is because sin is imputed to us just in proportion to the
spiritual light we receive. Thus the prophet Amos says, in the name of
Jehovah, "_You only_ have I known of all the families of the earth:
_therefore_ I will punish you for all your iniquities." Hear too the
doctrine of our Lord on this important subject; "The servant who _knew_
his Lord's will and _prepared not_ himself, neither did according to his
will, shall be beaten with _many_ stripes": and why? "For unto
whomsoever _much_ is given, _of him_ shall _much_ be required; and to
whom men have committed _much_, of _him_ they will ask the _more_." Oh!
then that the _Christians_ of the south would ponder these things in
their hearts, and awake to the vast responsibilities which rest _upon
them_ at this important crisis.
I have thus, I think, clearly proved to you seven propositions, viz.:
First, that slavery is contrary to the declaration of our independence.
Second, that it is contrary to the first charter of human rights given
to Adam, and renewed to Noah. Third, that the fact of slavery having
been the subject of prophecy, furnishes _no_ excuse whatever to
slavedealers. Fourth, that no such system existed under the patriarchal
dispensation. Fifth, that _slavery never_ existed under the Jewish
dispensation; but so far otherwise, that every servant was placed under
the _protection of law_, and care taken not only to prevent all
_involuntary_ servitude, but all _voluntary perpetual_ bondage. Sixth,
that slavery in America reduces a _man_ to a _thing_, a "chattel
personal," _robs him_ of _all_ his rights as a _human being_, fetters
both his mind and body, and protects the _master_ in the most unnatural
and unreasonable power, whilst it _throws him out_ of the protection of
law. Seventh, that slavery is contrary to the example and precepts of
our holy and merciful Redeemer, and of his apostles.
But perhaps you will be ready to query, why appeal to _women_ on this
subject? _We_ do not make the laws which perpetuate slavery. _No_
legislative power is vested in _us_; _we_ can do nothing to overthrow
the system, even if we wished to do so. To this I reply, I know you do
not make the laws, but I also know that _you are the wives and mothers,
the sisters and daughters of those who do_; and if you really suppose
_you_ can do nothing to overthrow slavery, you are greatly mistaken. You
can do much in every way: four things I will name. 1st. You can read on
this subject. 2d. You can pray over this subject. 3d. You can speak on
this subject. 4th. You can _act_ on this subject. I have not placed
reading before praying because I regard it more important, but because,
in order to pray aright, we must understand what we are praying for; it
is only then we can "pray with the understanding and the spirit also."
1. Read then on the subject of slavery. Search the Scriptures daily,
whether the things I have told you are true. Other books and papers
might be a great help to you to this investigation, but they are not
necessary, and it is hardly probable that your Committees of Vigilance
will allow you to have any other. The _Bible_ then is the book I want
you to read in the spirit of inquiry, and the spirit of prayer. Even the
enemies of Abolitionists, acknowledge that their doctrines are drawn
from it. In the great mob in Boston, last autumn, when the books and
papers of the Anti-Slavery Society, were thrown out of the windows of
their office, one individual laid hold of the Bible and was about
tossing it out to the ground, when another reminded him that it was the
Bible he had in his hand. "O! _'tis all one_," he replied, and out went
the sacred volume, along with the rest. We thank him for the
acknowledgment. Yes, "_it is all one_," for our books and papers are
mostly commentaries on the Bible, and the Declaration. Read the _Bible
_then, it contains the words of Jesus, and they are spirit and life.
Judge for yourselves whether _he sanctioned_ such a system of oppression
and crime.
2. Pray over this subject. When you have entered into your closets, and
shut to the doors, then pray to your father, who seeth in secret, that
he would open your eyes to see whether slavery is _sinful_, and if it
is, that he would enable you to bear a faithful, open and un-shrinking
testimony against it, and to do whatsoever your hands find to do,
leaving the consequences entirely to him, who still says to us whenever
we try to reason away duty from the fear of consequences, "_What is that
to thee, follow thou me_." Pray also for that poor slave, that he may be
kept patient and submissive under his hard lot, until God is pleased to
open the door of freedom to him without violence or bloodshed. Pray too
for the master that his heart may be softened, and he made willing to
acknowledge, as Joseph's brethren did, "Verily we are guilty concerning
our brother," before he will be compelled to add in consequence of
Divine judgment, "therefore is all this evil come upon us." Pray also
for all your brethren and sisters who are laboring in the righteous
cause of Emancipation in the Northern States, England and the world.
There is great encouragement for prayer in these words of our Lord.
"Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to
you"--Pray then without ceasing, in the closet and the social circle.
3. Speak on this subject. It is through the tongue, the pen, and the
press, that truth is principally propagated. Speak then to your
relatives, your friends, your acquaintances on the subject of slavery;
be not afraid if you are conscientiously convinced it is _sinful_, to
say so openly, but calmly, and to let your sentiments be known. If you
are served by the slaves of others, try to ameliorate their condition as
much as possible; never aggravate their faults, and thus add fuel to the
fire of anger already kindled, in a master and mistress's bosom;
remember their extreme ignorance, and consider them as your Heavenly
Father does the _less_ culpable on this account, even when they do wrong
things. Discountenance _all_ cruelty to them, all starvation, all
corporal chastisement; these may brutalize and _break_ their spirits,
but will never bend them to willing, cheerful obedience. If possible,
see that they are comfortably and _seasonably_ fed, whether in the house
or the field; it is unreasonable and cruel to expect slaves to wait for
their breakfast until eleven o'clock, when they rise at five or six. Do
all you can, to induce their owners to clothe them well, and to allow
them many little indulgences which would contribute to their comfort.
Above all, try to persuade your husband, father, brothers and sons, that
_slavery is a crime against God and man_, and that it is a great sin to
keep _human beings_ in such abject ignorance; to deny them the privilege
of learning to read and write. The Catholics are universally condemned,
for denying the Bible to the common people, but, _slaveholders must not_
blame them, for _they_ are doing the _very same thing_, and for the very
same reason, neither of these systems can bear the light which bursts
from the pages of that Holy Book. And lastly, endeavour to inculcate
submission on the part of the slaves, but whilst doing this be faithful
in pleading the cause of the oppressed.
"Will _you_ behold unheeding,
Life's holiest feelings crushed,
Where _woman's_ heart is bleeding,
Shall _woman's_ voice be hushed?"
4. Act on this subject. Some of you _own_ slaves yourselves. If you
believe slavery is _sinful_, set them at liberty, "undo the heavy
burdens and let the oppressed go free." If they wish to remain with you,
pay them wages, if not let them leave you. Should they remain teach
them, and have them taught the common branches of an English education;
they have minds and those minds, _ought to be improved_. So precious a
talent as intellect, never was given to be wrapt in a napkin and buried
in the earth. It is the _duty_ of all, as far as they can, to improve
their own mental faculties, because we are commanded to love God with
_all our minds_, as well as with all our hearts, and we commit a great
sin, if we _forbid or prevent_ that cultivation of the mind in others,
which would enable them to perform this duty. Teach your servants then
to read &c., and encourage them to believe it is their _duty_ to learn,
if it were only that they might read the Bible.
But some of you will say, we can neither free our slaves nor teach them
to read, for the laws of our state forbid it. Be not surprised when I
say such wicked laws _ought to be no barrier_ in the way of your duty,
and I appeal to the Bible to prove this position. What was the conduct
of Shiphrah and Puah, when the king of Egypt issued his cruel mandate,
with regard to the Hebrew children? "_They_ feared _God_, and did _not_
as the King of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive."
Did these _women_ do right in disobeying that monarch? "_Therefore_
(says the sacred text,) _God dealt well_ with them, and made them
houses" Ex. i. What was the conduct of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,
when Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden image in the plain of Dura, and
commanded all people, nations, and languages, to fall down and worship
it? "Be it known, unto thee, (said these faithful _Jews_) O king, that
_we will not_ serve thy gods, nor worship the image which thou hast set
up." Did these men _do right in disobeying the law_ of their sovereign?
Let their miraculous deliverance from the burning fiery furnace, answer;
Dan. iii. What was the conduct of Daniel, when Darius made a firm decree
that no one should ask a petition of any man or God for thirty days? Did
the prophet cease to pray? No! "When Daniel _knew that the writing was
signed_, he went into his house, and his windows being _open_ towards
Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and
gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." Did Daniel do right
thus to _break_ the law of his king? Let his wonderful deliverance out
of the mouths of the lions answer; Dan. vii. Look, too, at the Apostles
Peter and John. When the rulers of the Jews, "_commanded them not_ to
speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus," what did they say?
"Whether it be right in the sight of God, to hearken unto you more than
unto God, judge ye." And what did they do? "They spake the word of God
with boldness, and with great power gave the Apostles witness of the
_resurrection_ of the Lord Jesus;" although _this_ was the very
doctrine, for the preaching of which, they had just been cast into
prison, and further threatened. Did these men do right? I leave _you_ to
answer, who now enjoy the benefits of their labors and sufferings, in
that Gospel they dared to preach when positively commanded _not to teach
any more_ in the name of Jesus; Acts iv.
But some of you may say, if we do free our slaves, they will be taken up
and sold, therefore there will be no use in doing it. Peter and John
might just as well have said, we will not preach the gospel, for if we
do, we shall be taken up and put in prison, therefore there will be no
use in our preaching. _Consequences_, my friends, belong no more to
_you_, than they did to these apostles. Duty is ours and events are
God's. If you think slavery is sinful, all _you_ have to do is to set
your slaves at liberty, do all you can to protect them, and in humble
faith and fervent prayer, commend them to your common Father. He can
take care of them; but if for wise purposes he sees fit to allow them to
be sold, this will afford you an opportunity of testifying openly,
wherever you go, against the crime of _manstealing_. Such an act will be
_clear robbery_, and if exposed, might, under the Divine direction, do
the cause of Emancipation more good, than any thing that could happen,
for, "He makes even the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder of
wrath he will restrain."
I know that this doctrine of obeying _God_, rather than man, will be
considered as dangerous, and heretical by many, but I am not afraid
openly to avow it, because it is the doctrine of the Bible; but I would
not be understood to advocate resistance to any law however oppressive,
if, in obeying it, I was not obliged to commit _sin_. If for instance,
there was a law, which imposed imprisonment or a fine upon me if I
manumitted a slave, I would on no account resist that law, I would set
the slave free, and then go to prison or pay the fine. If a law commands
me to _sin I will break it_; if it calls me to _suffer_, I will let it
take its course _unresistingly_. The doctrine of blind obedience and
unqualified submission to _any human_ power, whether civil or
ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place
among Republicans and Christians.
But you will perhaps say, such a course of conduct would inevitably
expose us to great suffering. Yes! my christian friends, I believe it
would, but this will _not_ excuse you or any one else for the neglect of
_duty_. If Prophets and Apostles, Martyrs, and Reformers had not been
willing to suffer for the truth's sake, where would the world have been
now? If they had said, we cannot speak the truth, we cannot do what we
believe is right, because the _laws of our country or public opinion are
against us_, where would our holy religion have been now? The Prophets
were stoned, imprisoned, and killed by the Jews. And why? Because they
exposed and openly rebuked public sins; they opposed public opinion; had
they held their peace, they all might have lived in ease and died in
favor with a wicked generation. Why were the Apostles persecuted from
city to city, stoned, incarcerated, beaten, and crucified? Because they
dared to _speak the truth_; to tell the Jews, boldly and fearlessly,
that _they_ were the _murderers_ of the Lord of Glory, and that, however
great a stumbling-block the Cross might be to them, there was no other
name given under heaven by which men could be saved, but the name of
Jesus. Because they declared, even at Athens, the seat of learning and
refinement, the self-evident truth, that "they be no gods that are made
with men's hands," and exposed to the Grecians the foolishness of
worldly wisdom, and the impossibility of salvation but through Christ,
whom they despised on account of the ignominious death he died. Because
at Rome, the proud mistress of the world, they thundered out the terrors
of the law upon that idolatrous, war-making, and slave-holding
community. Why were the martyrs stretched upon the rack, gibbetted and
burnt, the scorn and diversion of a Nero, whilst their tarred and
burning bodies sent up a light which illuminated the Roman capital? Why
were the Waldenses hunted like wild beasts upon the mountains of
Piedmont, and slain with the sword of the Duke of Savoy and the proud
monarch of France? Why were the Presbyterians chased like the partridge
over the highlands of Scotland--the Methodists pumped, and stoned, and
pelted with rotten eggs--the Quakers incarcerated in filthy prisons,
beaten, whipped at the cart's tail, banished and hung? Because they
dared to _speak_ the _truth_, to _break_ the unrighteous _laws_ of their
country, and chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God,
"not accepting deliverance," even under the gallows. Why were Luther and
Calvin persecuted and excommunicated, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer
burnt? Because they fearlessly proclaimed the truth, though that truth
was contrary to public opinion, and the authority of Ecclesiastical
councils and conventions. Now all this vast amount of human suffering
might have been saved. All these Prophets and Apostles, Martyrs, and
Reformers, might have lived and died in peace with all men, but
following the example of their great pattern, "they despised the shame,
endured the cross, and are now set down on the right hand of the throne
of God," having received the glorious welcome of "well _done_ good and
faithful servants, enter ye into the joy of your Lord."
But you may say we are _women_, how can _our_ hearts endure persecution?
And why not? Have not _women_ stood up in all the dignity and strength
of moral courage to be the leaders of the people, and to bear a faithful
testimony for the truth whenever the providence of God has called them
to do so? Are there no _women_ in that noble army of martyrs who are now
singing the song of Moses and the Lamb? Who led out the women of Israel
from the house of bondage, striking the timbrel, and singing the song of
deliverance on the banks of that sea whose waters stood up like walls of
crystal to open a passage for their escape? It was a _woman_; Miriam,
the prophetess, the sister of Moses and Aaron. Who went up with Barak to
Kadesh to fight against Jabin, King of Canaan, into whose hand Israel
had been sold because of their iniquities? It was a _woman!_ Deborah the
wife of Lapidoth, the judge, as well as the prophetess of that
backsliding people; Judges iv, 9. Into whose hands was Sisera, the
captain of Jabin's host delivered? Into the hand of a _woman_. Jael the
wife of Heber! Judges vi, 21. Who dared to _speak the truth_ concerning
those judgments which were coming upon Judea, when Josiah, alarmed at
finding that his people "had not kept the word of the Lord to do after
all that was written in the book of the Law," sent to enquire of the
Lord concerning these things? It was a _woman_. Huldah the prophetess,
the wife of Shallum; 2, Chron. xxxiv, 22. Who was chosen to deliver the
whole Jewish nation from that murderous decree of Persia's King, which
wicked Haman had obtained by calumny and fraud? It was a _woman_; Esther
the Queen; yes, weak and trembling _woman_ was the instrument appointed
by God, to reverse the bloody mandate of the eastern monarch, and save
the _whole visible church_ from destruction. What human voice first
proclaimed to Mary that she should be the mother of our Lord? It was a
_woman!_ Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias; Luke i, 42, 43. Who united
with the good old Simeon in giving thanks publicly in the temple, when
the child, Jesus, was presented there by his parents, "and spake of him
to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem?" It was a _woman!_
Anna the prophetess. Who first proclaimed Christ as the true Messiah in
the streets of Samaria, once the capital of the ten tribes? It was a
_woman!_ Who ministered to the Son of God whilst on earth, a despised
and persecuted Reformer, in the humble garb of a carpenter? They were
_women!_ Who followed the rejected King of Israel, as his fainting
footsteps trod the road to Calvary? "A great company of people and of
_women_;" and it is remarkable that to _them alone_, he turned and
addressed the pathetic language, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for
me, but weep for yourselves and your children." Ah! who sent unto the
Roman Governor when he was set down on the judgment seat, saying unto
him, "Have thou nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered
many things this day in a dream because of him?" It was a _woman_! the
wife of Pilate. Although "_he knew_ that for envy the Jews had delivered
Christ," yet _he_ consented to surrender the Son of God into the hands
of a brutal soldiery, after having himself scourged his naked body. Had
the _wife_ of Pilate sat upon that judgment seat, what would have been
the result of the trial of this "just person?"
And who last hung round the cross of Jesus on the mountain of Golgotha?
Who first visited the sepulchre early in the morning on the first day of
the week, carrying sweet spices to embalm his precious body, not knowing
that it was incorruptible and could not be holden by the bands of death?
These were _women_! To whom did he _first_ appear after his
resurrection? It was to a _woman_! Mary Magdalene; Mark xvi, 9. Who
gathered with the apostles to wait at Jerusalem, in prayer and
supplication, for "the promise of the Father;" the spiritual blessing of
the Great High Priest of his Church, who had entered, _not_ into the
splendid temple of Solomon, there to offer the blood of bulls, and of
goats, and the smoking censer upon the golden altar, but into Heaven
itself, there to present his intercessions, after having "given himself
for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor?"
_Women_ were among that holy company; Acts i, 14. And did _women_ wait
in vain? Did those who had ministered to his necessities, followed in
his train, and wept at his crucifixion, wait in vain? No! No! Did the
cloven tongues of fire descend upon the heads of _women_ as well as men?
Yes, my friends, "it sat upon _each one of them_;" Acts ii, 3. _women_
as well as men were to be living stones in the temple of grace, and
therefore _their_ heads were consecrated by the descent of the Holy
Ghost as well as those of men. Were _women_ recognized as fellow
laborers in the gospel field? They were! Paul says in his epistle to the
Philippians, "help those _women_ who labored with me, in the gospel;"
Phil. iv, 3.
But this is not all. Roman _women_ were burnt at the stake, _their_
delicate limbs were torn joint from joint by the ferocious beasts of the
Amphitheatre, and tossed by the wild bull in his fury, for the diversion
of that idolatrous, warlike, and slaveholding people. Yes, _women_
suffered under the ten persecutions of heathen Rome, with the most
unshrinking constancy and fortitude; not all the entreaties of friends,
nor the claims of new born infancy, nor the cruel threats of enemies
could make _them_ sprinkle one grain of incense upon the altars of Roman
idols. Come now with me to the beautiful valleys of Piedmont. Whose
blood stains the green sward, and decks the wild flowers with colors not
their own, and smokes on the sword of persecuting France? It is
_woman's_, as well as man's? Yes, _women_ were accounted as sheep for
the slaughter, and were cut down as the tender saplings of the wood.
But time would fail me, to tell of all those hundreds and thousands of
_women_, who perished in the Low countries of Holland, when Alva's sword
of vengeance was unsheathed against the Protestants, when the Catholic
Inquisitions of Europe became the merciless executioners of vindictive
wrath, upon those who dared to worship God, instead of bowing down in
unholy adoration before "my Lord God the _Pope_," and when England, too,
burnt her Ann Ascoes at the stake of martyrdom. Suffice it to say, that
the Church, after having been driven from Judea to Rome, and from Rome
to Piedmont, and from Piedmont to England, and from England to Holland,
at last stretched her fainting wings over the dark bosom of the
Atlantic, and found on the shores of a great wilderness, a refuge from
tyranny and oppression--as she thought, but _even here_, (the warm blush
of shame mantles my cheek as I write it,) _even here, woman_ was beaten
and banished, imprisoned, and hung upon the gallows, a trophy to the
Cross.
And what, I would ask in conclusion, have _women_ done for the great and
glorious cause of Emancipation? Who wrote that pamphlet which moved the
heart of Wilberforce to pray over the wrongs, and his tongue to plead
the cause of the oppressed African? It was a _woman_, Elizabeth Heyrick.
Who labored assiduously to keep the sufferings of the slave continually
before the British public? They were _women_. And how did they do it? By
their needles, paint brushes and pens, by speaking the truth, and
petitioning Parliament for the abolition of slavery. And what was the
effect of their labors? Read it in the Emancipation bill of Great
Britain. Read it, in the present state of her West India Colonies. Read
it, in the impulse which has been given to the cause of freedom, in the
United States of America. Have English women then done so much for the
negro, and shall American women do nothing? Oh no! Already are there
sixty female Anti-Slavery Societies in operation. These are doing just
what the English women did, telling the story of the colored man's
wrongs, praying for his deliverance, and presenting his kneeling image
constantly before the public eye on bags and needle-books, card-racks,
pen-wipers, pin-cushions, &c. Even the children of the north are
inscribing on their handy work, "May the points of our needles prick the
slaveholder's conscience." Some of the reports of these Societies
exhibit not only considerable talent, but a deep sense of religious
duty, and a determination to persevere through evil as well as good
report, until every scourge, and every shackle, is buried under the feet
of the manumitted slave.
The Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society of Boston was called last fall, to a
severe trial of their faith and constancy. They were mobbed by "the
gentlemen of property and standing," in that city at their anniversary
meeting, and their lives were jeoparded by an infuriated crowd; but
their conduct on that occasion did credit to our sex, and affords a full
assurance that they will _never_ abandon the cause of the slave. The
pamphlet, Right and Wrong in Boston, issued by them in which a
particular account is given of that "mob of broad cloth in broad day,"
does equal credit to the head and the heart of her who wrote it. I wish
my Southern sisters could read it; they would then understand that the
women of the North have engaged in this work from a sense of _religious
duty_, and that nothing will ever induce them to take their hands from
it until it is fully accomplished. They feel no hostility to you, no
bitterness or wrath; they rather sympathize in your trials and
difficulties; but they well know that the first thing to be done to help
you, is to pour in the light of truth on your minds, to urge you to
reflect on, and pray over the subject. This is all _they_ can do for
you, _you_ must work out your own deliverance with fear and trembling,
and with the direction and blessing of God, _you can do it_. Northern
women may labor to produce a correct public opinion at the North, but if
Southern women sit down in listless indifference and criminal idleness,
public opinion cannot be rectified and purified at the South. It is
manifest to every reflecting mind, that slavery must be abolished; the
era in which we live, and the light which is overspreading the whole
world on this subject, clearly show that the time cannot be distant when
it will be done. Now there are only two ways in which it can be
effected, by moral power or physical force, and it is for _you_ to
choose which of these you prefer. Slavery always has, and always will
produce insurrections wherever it exists, because it is a violation of
the natural order of things, and no human power can much longer
perpetuate it. The opposers of abolitionists fully believe this; one of
them remarked to me not long since, there is no doubt there will be a
most terrible overturning at the South in a few years, such cruelty and
wrong, must be visited with Divine vengeance soon. Abolitionists
believe, too, that this must inevitably be the case, if you do not
repent, and they are not willing to leave you to perish without
entreating you, to save yourselves from destruction; well may they say
with the apostle, "am I then your enemy because I tell you the truth,"
and warn you to flee from impending judgments.
But why, my dear friends, have I thus been endeavoring to lead you
through the history of more than three thousand years, and to point you
to that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before, "from works to
rewards?" Have I been seeking to magnify the sufferings, and exalt the
character of woman, that she "might have praise of men?" No! no! my
object has been to arouse _you_, as the wives and mothers, the daughters
and sisters, of the South, to a sense of your duty as _women_, and as
Christian women, on that great subject, which has already shaken our
country, from the St. Lawrence and the lakes, to the Gulf of Mexico, and
from the Mississippi to the shores of the Atlantic; _and will continue
mightily to shake it_, until the polluted temple of slavery fall and
crumble into ruin. I would say unto each one of you, "what meanest thou,
O sleeper! arise and call upon thy God, if so be that God will think
upon us that we perish not." Perceive you not that dark cloud of
vengeance which hangs over our boasting Republic? Saw you not the
lightnings of Heaven's wrath, in the flame which leaped from the
Indian's torch to the roof of yonder dwelling, and lighted with its
horrid glare the darkness of midnight? Heard you not the thunders of
Divine anger, as the distant roar of the cannon came rolling onward,
from the Texian country, where Protestant American Rebels are fighting
with Mexican Republicans--for what? For the re-establishment of
_slavery_; yes! of American slavery in the bosom of a Catholic Republic,
where that system of robbery, violence, and wrong, had been legally
abolished for twelve years. Yes! citizens of the United States, after
plundering Mexico of her land, are now engaged in deadly conflict, for
the privilege of fastening chains, and collars, and manacles--upon whom?
upon the subjects of some foreign prince? No! upon native born American
Republican citizens, although the fathers of these very men declared to
the whole world, while struggling to free themselves from the three
penny taxes of an English king, that they believed it to be a
_self-evident_ truth that _all men_ were created equal, and had an
_unalienable right to liberty_.
Well may the poet exclaim in bitter sarcasm,
"The fustian flag that proudly waves
In solemn mockery _o'er a land of slaves_."
Can you not, my friends, understand the signs of the times; do you not
see the sword of retributive justice hanging over the South, or are you
still slumbering at your posts?--Are there no Shiphrahs, no Puahs among
you, who will dare in Christian firmness and Christian meekness, to
refuse to obey the _wicked laws_ which require _woman to enslave, to
degrade and to brutalize woman?_ Are there no Miriams, who would rejoice
to lead out the captive daughters of the Southern States to liberty and
light? Are there no Huldahs there who will dare to _speak the truth_
concerning the sins of the people and those judgments, which it requires
no prophet's eye to see, must follow if repentance is not speedily
sought? Is there no Esther among you who will plead for the poor devoted
slave? Read the history of this Persian queen, it is full of
instruction; she at first refused to plead for the Jews; but, hear the
words of Mordecai, "Think not within thyself, that _thou_ shalt escape
in the king's house more than all the Jews, for _if thou altogether
holdest thy peace at this time_, then shall there enlargement and
deliverance arise to the Jews from another place: but _thou and thy
father's house shall be destroyed._" Listen, too, to her magnanimous
reply to this powerful appeal; "_I will go_ in unto the king, which is
not according to law, and if I perish. I perish." Yes! if there were but
_one_ Esther at the South, she _might_ save her country from ruin; but
let the Christian women there arise, as the Christian women of Great
Britain did, in the majesty of moral power, and that salvation is
certain. Let them embody themselves in societies, and send petitions up
to their different legislatures, entreating their husbands, fathers,
brothers and sons, to abolish the institution of slavery; no longer to
subject _woman_ to the scourge and the chain, to mental darkness and
moral degradation; no longer to tear husbands from their wives, and
children from their parents; no longer to make men, women, and children,
work _without wages;_ no longer to make their lives bitter in hard
bondage; no longer to reduce _American citizens_ to the abject condition
of _slaves_, of "chattels personal;" no longer to barter the _image of
God_ in human shambles for corruptible things such as silver and gold.
The _women of the South can overthrow_ this horrible system of
oppression and cruelty, licentiousness and wrong. Such appeals to your
legislatures would be irresistible, for there is something in the heart
of man which _will bend under moral suasion_. There is a swift witness
for truth in his bosom, which _will respond to truth_ when it is uttered
with calmness and dignity. If you could obtain but six signatures to
such a petition in only one state, I would say, send up that petition,
and be not in the least discouraged by the scoffs and jeers of the
heartless, or the resolution of the house to lay it on the table. It
will be a great thing if the subject can be introduced into your
legislatures in any way, even by _women_, and _they_ will be the most
likely to introduce it there in the best possible manner, as a matter of
_morals_ and _religion_, not of expediency or politics. You may
petition, too, the different, ecclesiastical bodies of the slave states.
Slavery must be attacked with the whole power of truth and the sword of
the spirit. You must take it up on _Christian_ ground, and fight against
it with Christian weapons, whilst your feet are shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace. And _you are now_ loudly called upon
by the cries of the widow and the orphan, to arise and gird yourselves
for this great moral conflict, with the whole armour of righteousness
upon the right hand and on the left.
There is every encouragement for you to labor and pray, my friends,
because the abolition of slavery as well as its existence, has been the
theme of prophecy. "Ethiopia (says the Psalmist) shall stretch forth her
hands unto God." And is she not now doing so? Are not the Christian
negroes of the south lifting their hands in prayer for deliverance, just
as the Israelites did when their redemption was drawing nigh? Are they
not sighing and crying by reason of the hard bondage? And think you,
that He, of whom it was said, "and God heard their groaning, and their
cry came up unto him by reason of the hard bondage," think you that his
ear is heavy that he cannot _now_ hear the cries of his suffering
children? Or that He who raised up a Moses, an Aaron, and a Miriam, to
bring them up out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, cannot
now, with a high hand and a stretched out arm, rid the poor negroes out
of the hands of their masters? Surely you believe that his arm is _not_
shortened that he cannot save. And would not such a work of mercy
redound to his glory? But another string of the harp of prophecy
vibrates to the song of deliverance: "But they shall sit every man under
his vine, and under his fig-tree, and _none shall make them afraid_; for
the mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it." The _slave_ never can do
this as long as he is a _slave_; whilst he is a "chattel personal" he
can own _no_ property; but the time _is to come_ when _every_ man is to
sit under _his own_ vine and _his own_ fig-tree, and no domineering
driver, or irresponsible master, or irascible mistress, shall make him
afraid of the chain or the whip. Hear, too, the sweet tones of another
string: "Many shall run to and fro, and _knowledge_ shall be increased."
Slavery is an insurmountable barrier to the increase of knowledge in
every community where it exists; _slavery, then, must be abolished
before_ this prediction can be fulfiled. The last chord I shall touch,
will be this, "They shall _not_ hurt nor destroy in all my holy
mountain."
_Slavery, then, must be overthrown before_ the prophecies can be
accomplished, but how are they to be fulfiled? Will the wheels of the
millennial car be rolled onward by miraculous power? No! God designs to
confer this holy privilege upon _man_; it is through _his_
instrumentality that the great and glorious work of reforming the world
is to be done. And see you not how the mighty engine of _moral power_ is
dragging in its rear the Bible and peace societies, anti-slavery and
temperance, sabbath schools, moral reform, and missions? or to adopt
another figure, do not these seven philanthropic associations compose
the beautiful tints in that bow of promise which spans the arch of our
moral heaven? Who does not believe, that if these societies were broken
up, their constitutions burnt, and the vast machinery with which they
are laboring to regenerate mankind was stopped, that the black clouds of
vengeance would soon burst over our world, and every city would witness
the fate of the devoted cities of the plain? Each one of these societies
is walking abroad through the earth scattering the seeds of truth over
the wide field of our world, not with the hundred hands of a Briareus,
but with a hundred thousand.
Another encouragement for you to labor, my friends, is, that you will
have the prayers and co-operation of English and Northern
philanthropists. You will never bend your knees in supplication at the
throne of grace for the overthrow of slavery, without meeting there the
spirits of other Christians, who will mingle their voices with yours, as
the morning or evening sacrifice ascends to God. Yes, the spirit of
prayer and of supplication has been poured out upon many, many hearts;
there are wrestling Jacobs who will not let go of the prophetic promises
of deliverance for the captive, and the opening of prison doors to them
that are bound. There are Pauls who are saying, in reference to this
subject, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" There are Marys sitting
in the house now, who are ready to arise and go forth is this work as
soon as the message is brought, "the master is come and calleth for
thee." And there are Marthas, too, who have already gone out to meet
Jesus, as he bends his footsteps to their brother's grave, and weeps,
_not_ over the lifeless body of Lazarus bound hand and foot in
grave-clothes, but over the politically and intellectually lifeless
slave, bound hand and foot in the iron chains of oppression and
ignorance. Some may be ready to say, as Martha did, who seemed to expect
nothing but sympathy from Jesus, "Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he
hath been dead four days." She thought it useless to remove the stone
and expose the loathsome body of her brother; she could not believe that
so great a miracle could be wrought, as to raise _that putrefied body_
into life; but "Jesus said, take _ye_ away the stone;" and when _they_
had taken away the stone where the dead was laid, and uncovered the body
of Lazarus, then it was that "Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father,
I thank thee that thou hast heard me," &c. "And when he had thus spoken,
he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth." Yes, some may be ready
to say of the colored race, how can _they_ ever be raised politically
and intellectually, they have been dead four hundred years? But _we_
have _nothing_ to do with _how_ this is to be done; _our business_ is to
take away the stone which has covered up the dead body of our brother,
to expose the putrid carcass, to show _how_ that body has been bound
with the grave-clothes of heathen ignorance, and his face with the
napkin of prejudice, and having done all it was our duty to do, to stand
by the negro's grave, in humble faith and holy hope, waiting to hear the
life-giving command of "Lazarus, come forth." This is just what
Anti-Slavery Societies are doing; they are taking away the stone from
the mouth of the tomb of slavery, where lies the putrid carcass of our
brother. They want the pure light of heaven to shine into that dark and
gloomy cave; they want all men to see _how_ that dead body has been
bound, _how_ that face has been wrapped in the _napkin of prejudice_;
and shall they wait beside that grave in vain? Is not Jesus still the
resurrection and the life? Did He come to proclaim liberty to the
captive, and the opening of prison doors to them that are bound, in
vain? Did He promise to give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness unto
them that mourn in Zion, and will He refuse to beautify the mind, anoint
the head, and throw around the captive negro the mantle of praise for
that spirit of heaviness which has so long bound him down to the ground?
Or shall we not rather say with the prophet, "the zeal of the Lord of
Hosts _will_ perform this?" Yes, his promises are sure, and amen in
Christ Jesus, that he will assemble her that halteth, and gather her
that is driven out, and her that is afflicted.
But I will now say a few words on the subject of Abolitionism. Doubtless
you have all heard Anti-Slavery Societies denounced as insurrectionary
and mischievous, fanatical and dangerous. It has been said they publish
the most abominable untruths, and that they are endeavoring to excite
rebellions at the South. Have you believed these reports, my friends?
have _you_ also been deceived by these false assertions? Listen to me,
then, whilst I endeavor to wipe from the fair character of Abolitionism
such unfounded accusations. You know that _I_ am a Southerner; you know
that my dearest relatives are now in a slave State. Can you for a moment
believe I would prove so recreant to the feelings of a daughter and a
sister, as to join a society which was seeking to overthrow slavery by
falsehood, bloodshed, and murder? I appeal to you who have known and
loved me in days that are passed, can _you_ believe it? No! my friends.
As a Carolinian, I was peculiarly jealous of any movements on this
subject; and before I would join an Anti-Slavery Society, I took the
precaution of becoming acquainted with some of the leading
Abolitionists, of reading their publications and attending their
meetings, at which I heard addresses both from colored and white men;
and it was not until I was fully convinced that their principles were
_entirely pacific_, and their efforts _only moral_, that I gave my name
as a member to the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Philadelphia. Since
that time, I have regularly taken the Liberator, and read many
Anti-Slavery pamphlets and papers and books, and can assure you I
_never_ have seen a single insurrectionary paragraph, and never read any
account of cruelty which I could not believe. Southerners may deny the
truth of these accounts, but why do they not _prove_ them to be false.
Their violent expressions of horror at such accounts being believed,
_may_ deceive some, but they cannot deceive _me_, for I lived too long
in the midst of slavery, not to know what slavery is. When _I_ speak of
this system, "I speak that I do know," and I am not at all afraid to
assert, that Anti-Slavery publications have _not_ overdrawn the
monstrous features of slavery at all. And many a Southerner _knows_ this
as well as I do. A lady in North Carolina remarked to a friend of mine,
about eighteen months since, "Northerners know nothing at all about
slavery; they think it is perpetual bondage only; but of the _depth of
degradation_ that word involves, they have no conception; if they had,
_they would never cease_ their efforts until so _horrible_ a system was
overthrown." She did not know how faithfully some Northern men and
Northern women had studied this subject; how diligently they had
searched out the cause of "him who had none to help him," and how
fearlessly they had told the story of the negro's wrongs. Yes,
Northerners know _every_ thing about slavery now. This monster of
iniquity has been unveiled to the world, her frightful features
unmasked, and soon, very soon will she be regarded with no more
complacency by the American republic than is the idol of Juggernaut,
rolling its bloody wheels over the crushed bodies of its prostrate
Victims.
But you will probably ask, if Anti-Slavery societies are not
insurrectionary, why do Northerners tell us they are? Why, I would ask
you in return, did Northern senators and Northern representatives give
their votes, at the last sitting of congress, to the admission of
Arkansas Territory as a state? Take those men, one by one, and ask them
in their parlours, do you _approve of slavery?_ ask them on _Northern_
ground, where they will speak the truth, and I doubt not _every man_ of
them will tell you, _no!_ Why then, I ask, did _they_ give their votes
to enlarge the mouth of that grave which has already destroyed its tens
of thousands? All our enemies tell _us_ they are as much anti-slavery as
we are. Yes, my friends, thousands who are helping you to bind the
fetters of slavery on the negro, despise you in their hearts for doing
it; they rejoice that such an institution has not been entailed upon
them. Why then, I would ask, do _they_ lend you their help? I will tell
you, "they love _the praise of men more_ than the praise of God." The
Abolition cause has not yet become so popular as to induce them to
believe, that by advocating it in congress, they shall sit still more
securely in their seats there, and like the _chief rulers_ in the days
of our Saviour, though many believed on him, yet they did _not_ confess
him, lest they should _be put out of the synagogue_; John xii, 42, 43.
Or perhaps like Pilate, thinking they could prevail nothing, and fearing
a tumult, they determined to release Barabbas and surrender the just
man, the poor innocent slave to be stripped of his rights and scourged.
In vain will such men try to wash their hands, and say, with the Roman
governor, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person." Northern
American statesmen are no more innocent of the crime of slavery, than
Pilate was of the murder of Jesus, or Saul of that of Stephen. These are
high charges, but I appeal to _their hearts_; I appeal to public opinion
ten years from now. Slavery then is a national sin.
But you will say, a great many other Northerners tell us so, who can
have no political motives. The interests of the North, you must know, my
friends, are very closely combined with those of the South. The Northern
merchants and manufacturers are making _their_ fortunes out of the
_produce of slave labor_; the grocer is selling your rice and sugar; how
then can these men bear a testimony against slavery without condemning
themselves? But there is another reason, the North is most dreadfully
afraid of Amalgamation. She is alarmed at the very idea of a thing so
monstrous, as she thinks. And lest this consequence _might_ flow from
emancipation, she is determined to resist all efforts at emancipation
without expatriation. It is not because _she approves of slavery_, or
believes it to be "the corner stone of our republic," for she is as much
_anti-slavery_ as we are; but amalgamation is too horrible to think of.
Now I would ask _you_, is it right, is it generous, to refuse the
colored people in this country the advantages of education and the
privilege, or rather the _right_, to follow honest trades and callings
merely because they are colored? The same prejudice exists here against
our colored brethren that existed against the Gentiles in Judea. Great
numbers cannot bear the idea of equality, and fearing lest, if they had
the same advantages we enjoy, they would become as intelligent, as
moral, as religious, and as respectable and wealthy, they are determined
to keep them as low as they possibly can. Is this doing as they would be
done by? Is this loving their neighbor _as themselves_? Oh! that _such_
opposers of Abolitionism would put their souls in the stead of the free
colored man's and obey the apostolic injunction, to "remember them that
are in bonds _as bound with them_." I will leave you to judge whether
the fear of amalgamation ought to induce men to oppose anti-slavery
efforts, when _they_ believe _slavery_ to be _sinful_. Prejudice against
color, is the most powerful enemy we have to fight with at the North.
You need not be surprised, then, at all, at what is said _against_
Abolitionists by the North, for they are wielding a two-edged sword,
which even here, cuts through the _cords of caste_, on the one side, and
the _bonds of interest_ on the other. They are only sharing the fate of
other reformers, abused and reviled whilst they are in the minority; but
they are neither angry nor discouraged by the invective which has been
heaped upon them by slaveholders at the South and their apologists at
the North. They know that when George Fox and William Edmundson were
laboring in behalf of the negroes in the West Indies in 1671 that the
very _same_ slanders were propogated against them, which are _now_
circulated against Abolitionists. Although it was well known that Fox
was the founder of a religious sect which repudiated _all_ war, and
_all_ violence, yet _even he_ was accused of "endeavoring to excite the
slaves to insurrection and of teaching the negroes to cut their master's
throats." And these two men who had their feet shod with the preparation
of the Gospel of Peace, were actually compelled to draw up a formal
declaration that _they were not_ trying to raise a rebellion in
Barbadoes. It is also worthy of remark that these Reformers did not at
this time see the necessity of emancipation under seven years, and their
principal efforts were exerted to persuade the planters of the necessity
of instructing their slaves; but the slaveholder saw then, just what the
slaveholder sees now, that an _enlightened_ population _never_ can be a
_slave_ population, and therefore they passed a law, that negroes should
not even attend the meetings of Friends. Abolitionists know that the
life of Clarkson was sought by slavetraders; and that even Wilberforce
was denounced on the floor of Parliament as a fanatic and a hypocrite by
the present King of England, the very man who, in 1834, set his seal to
that instrument which burst the fetters of eight hundred thousand slaves
in his West India colonies. They know that the first Quaker who bore a
_faithful_ testimony against the sin of slavery was cut off from
religious fellowship with that society. That Quaker was a _woman_. On
her deathbed she sent for the committee who dealt with her--she told
them, the near approach of death had not altered her sentiments on the
subject of slavery and waving her hand towards a very fertile and
beautiful portion of country which lay stretched before her window, she
said with great solemnity, "Friends, the time will come when there will
not be friends enough in all this district to hold one meeting for
worship, and this garden will be turned into a wilderness."
The aged friend, who with tears in his eyes, related this interesting
circumstance to me, remarked, that at that time there were seven
meetings of friends in that part of Virginia, but that when he was there
ten years ago, not a single meeting was held, and the country was
literally a desolation. Soon after her decease, John Woolman began his
labors in our society, and instead of disowning a member for testifying
_against_ slavery, they have for fifty-two years positively forbidden
their members to hold slaves.
Abolitionists understand the slaveholding spirit too well to be
surprised at any thing that has yet happened at the South or the North;
they know that the greater the sin is, which is exposed, the more
violent will be the efforts to blacken the character and impugn the
motives of those who are engaged in bringing to light the hidden things
of darkness. They understand the work of Reform too well to be driven
back by the furious waves of opposition, which are only foaming out
their own shame. They have stood "the world's dread laugh," when only
twelve men formed the first Anti-Slavery Society in Boston in 1831. They
have faced and refuted the calumnies of their enemies, and proved
themselves to be emphatically _peace men_ by _never resisting_ the
violence of mobs, even when driven by them from the temple of God, and
dragged by an infuriated crowd through the streets of the emporium of
New-England, or subjected by _slaveholders_ to the pain of corporal
punishment. "None of these things move them;" and, by the grace of God,
they are determined to persevere in this work of faith and labor of
love: they mean to pray, and preach, and write, and print, until slavery
is completely overthrown, until Babylon is taken up and cast into the
sea, to "be found no more at all." They mean to petition Congress year
after year, until the seat of our government is cleansed from the sinful
traffic of "slaves and the souls of men." Although that august assembly
may be like the unjust judge who "feared not God neither regarded man,"
yet it must yield just as he did, from the power of importunity. Like
the unjust judge, Congress _must_ redress the wrongs of the widow, lest
by the continual coming up of petitions, it be wearied. This will be
striking the dagger into the very heart of the monster, and once 'tis
done, he must soon expire.
Abolitionists have been accused of abusing their Southern brethren. Did
the prophet Isaiah _abuse_ the Jews when he addressed to them the
cutting reproofs contained in the first chapter of his prophecies, and
ended by telling them, they would be _ashamed_ of the oaks they had
desired, and _confounded_ for the garden they had chosen? Did John the
Baptist _abuse_ the Jews when he called them "_a generation of vipers_,"
and warned them "to bring forth fruits meet for repentance?" Did Peter
abuse the Jews when he told them they were the _murderers_ of the Lord
of Glory? Did Paul abuse the Roman Governor when he reasoned before him
of righteousness, temperance, and judgment, so as to send conviction
home to his guilty heart, and cause him to tremble in view of the crimes
he was living in? Surely not. No man will now accuse the prophets and
apostles of _abuse_, but what have Abolitionists done more than they? No
doubt the Jews thought the prophets and apostles in their day, just as
harsh and uncharitable as slaveholders now, think Abolitionists; if they
did not, why did they beat, and stone, and kill them?
Great fault has been found with the prints which have been employed to
expose slavery at the North, but my friends, how could this be done so
effectually in any other way? Until the pictures of the slave's
sufferings were drawn and held up to public gaze, no Northerner had any
idea of the cruelty of the system, it never entered their minds that
such abominations could exist in Christian, Republican America; they
never suspected that many of the _gentlemen_ and _ladies_ who came from
the South to spend the summer months in travelling among them, were
petty tyrants at home. And those who had lived at the South, and came to
reside at the North, were too _ashamed of slavery_ even to speak of it;
the language of their hearts was, "tell it _not_ in Gath, publish it
_not_ in the streets of Askelon;" they saw no use in uncovering the
loathsome body to popular sight, and in hopeless despair, wept in secret
places over the sins of oppression. To such hidden mourners the
formation of Anti-Slavery Societies was as life from the dead, the first
beams of hope which gleamed through the dark clouds of despondency and
grief. Prints were made use of to effect the abolition of the
Inquisition in Spain, and Clarkson employed them when he was laboring to
break up the Slave trade, and English Abolitionists used them just as we
are now doing. They are powerful appeals and have invariably done the
work they were designed to do, and we cannot consent to abandon the use
of these until the _realities_ no longer exist.
With regard to those white men, who, it was said, did try to raise an
insurrection in Mississippi a year ago, and who were stated to be
Abolitionists, none of them were proved to be members of Anti-Slavery
Societies, and it must remain a matter of great doubt whether, even they
were guilty of the crimes alledged against them, because when any
community is thrown into such a panic as to inflict Lynch law upon
accused persons, they cannot be supposed to be capable of judging with
calmness and impartiality. _We know_ that the papers of which the
Charleston mail was robbed, were _not_ insurrectionary, and that they
were _not_ sent to the colored people as was reported. _We know_ that
Amos Dresser was _no insurrectionist_ though he was accused of being so,
and on this false accusation was publicly whipped in Nashville in the
midst of a crowd of infuriated _slaveholders_. Was that young man
disgraced by this infliction of corporal punishment? No more than was
the great apostle of the Gentiles who five times received forty stripes,
save one. Like him, he might have said, "henceforth I bear in my body
the marks of the Lord Jesus," for it was for the _truth's sake, he
suffered_, as much as did the Apostle Paul. Are Nelson, and Garrett, and
Williams, and other Abolitionists who have recently been banished from
Missouri, insurrectionists? _We know_ they are _not_, whatever
slaveholders may choose to call them. The spirit which now asperses the
character of the Abolitionists, is the _very same_ which dressed up the
Christians of Spain in the skins of wild beasts and pictures of devils
when they were led to execution as heretics. Before we condemn
individuals, it is necessary, even in a wicked community, to accuse them
of some crime; hence, when Jezebel wished to compass the death of
Naboth, men of Belial were suborned to bear _false_ witness against him,
and so it was with Stephen, and so it ever has been, and ever will be,
as long as there is any virtue to suffer on the rack, or the gallows.
_False_ witnesses must appear against Abolitionists before they can be
condemned.
I will now say a few words on George Thompson's mission to this country.
This Philanthropist was accused of being a foreign emissary. Were La
Fayette, and Steuben, and De Kalb, foreign emissaries when they came
over to America to fight against the tories, who preferred submitting to
what was termed, "the yoke of servitude," rather than bursting the
fetters which bound them to the mother country? _They_ came with _carnal
weapons_ to engage in _bloody_ conflict against American citizens, and
yet, where do their names stand on the page of History. Among the
honorable, or the low? Thompson came here to war against the giant sin
of slavery, _not_ with the sword and the pistol, but with the smooth
stones of oratory taken from the pure waters of the river of Truth. His
splendid talents and commanding eloquence rendered him a powerful
coadjutor in the Anti-Slavery cause, and in order to neutralize the
effects of these upon his auditors, and rob the poor slave of the
benefits of his labors, his character was defamed, his life was sought,
and he at last driven from our Republic, as a fugitive. But was
_Thompson_ disgraced by all this mean and contemptible and wicked
chicanery and malice? No more than was Paul, when in consequence of a
vision he had seen at Troas, he went over to Macedonia to help the
Christians there, and was beaten and imprisoned, because he cast out a
spirit of divination from a young damsel which had brought much gain to
her masters. Paul was as much a _foreign emissary_ in the Roman colony
of Philippi, as George Thompson was in America, and it was because he
was a _Jew_, and taught customs it was not lawful for them to receive or
observe, being Romans, that the Apostle was thus treated.
It was said, Thompson was a felon, who had fled to this country to
escape transportation to New Holland. Look at him now pouring the
thundering strains of his eloquence, upon crowded audiences in Great
Britain, and see in this a triumphant vindication of his character. And
have the slaveholder, and his obsequious apologist, gained any thing by
all their violence and falsehood? No! for the stone which struck Goliath
of Gath, had already been thrown from the sling. The giant of slavery
who had so proudly defied the armies of the living God, had received his
death-blow before he left our shores. But what is George Thompson doing
there? Is he not now laboring there, as effectually to abolish American
slavery as though he trod our own soil, and lectured to New York or
Boston assemblies? What is he doing there, but constructing a stupendous
dam, which will turn the overwhelming tide of public opinion over the
wheels of that machinery which Abolitionists are working here. He is now
lecturing to _Britons_ on _American Slavery_, to the _subjects_ of a
_King_, on the abject condition of the _slaves of a Republic_. He is
telling them of that mighty confederacy of petty tyrants which extends
ever thirteen States of our Union. He is telling them of the munificent
rewards offered by slaveholders, for the heads of the most distinguished
advocates for freedom in this country. He is moving the British Churches
to send out to the churches of America the most solemn appeals,
reproving, rebuking, and exhorting them with all long suffering and
patience to abandon the sin of slavery immediately. Where then I ask,
will the name of George Thompson stand on the page of History? Among the
honorable, or the base?
What can I say more, my friends, to induce _you_ to set your hands, and
heads, and hearts, to this great work of justice and mercy. Perhaps you
have feared the consequences of immediate Emancipation, and been
frightened by all those dreadful prophecies of rebellion, bloodshed and
murder, which have been uttered. "Let no man deceive you;" they are the
predictions of that same "lying spirit" which spoke through the four
thousand prophets of old, to Ahab king of Israel, urging him on to
destruction. _Slavery_ may produce these horrible scenes if it is
continued five years longer, but Emancipation _never will_.
I can prove the _safety_ of immediate Emancipation by history. In St.
Domingo in 1793 six hundred thousand slaves were set free in a white
population of forty-two thousand. That Island "marched as by enchantment
towards its ancient splendor", cultivation prospered, every day produced
perceptible proofs of its progress, and the negroes all continued
quietly to work on the different plantations, until in 1802, France
determined to reduce these liberated slaves again to bondage. It was at
_this time_ that all those dreadful scenes of cruelty occurred, which we
so often _unjustly_ hear spoken of, as the effects of Abolition. They
were occasioned _not_ by Emancipation, but by the base attempt to fasten
the chains of slavery on the limbs of liberated slaves.
In Guadaloupe eighty-five thousand slaves were freed in a white
population of thirteen thousand. The same prosperous effects followed
manumission here, that had attended it in Hayti, every thing was quiet
until Buonaparte sent out a fleet to reduce these negroes again to
slavery, and in 1802 this institution was re-established in that Island.
In 1834, when Great Britain determined to liberate the slaves in her
West India colonies, and proposed the apprenticeship system; the
planters of Bermuda and Antigua, after having joined the other planters
in their representations of the bloody consequences of Emancipation, in
order if possible to hold back the hand which was offering the boon of
freedom to the poor negro; as soon as they found such falsehoods were
utterly disregarded, and Abolition must take place, came forward
voluntarily, and asked for the compensation which was due to them,
saying, _they preferred immediate emancipation_, and were not afraid of
any insurrection. And how is it with these islands now? They are
decidedly more prosperous than any of those in which the apprenticeship
system was adopted, and England is now trying to abolish that system, so
fully convinced is she that immediate Emancipation is the _safest_ and
the best plan.
And why not try it in the Southern States, if it _never_ has occasioned
rebellion; if _not a drop of blood_ has ever been shed in consequence of
it, though it has been so often tried, why should we suppose it would
produce such disastrous consequences now? "Be not deceived then, God is
not mocked," by such false excuses for not doing justly and loving
mercy. There is nothing to fear from immediate Emancipation, but _every
thing_ from the continuance of slavery.
Sisters in Christ, I have done. As a Southerner, I have felt it was my
duty to address you. I have endeavoured to set before you the exceeding
sinfulness of slavery, and to point you to the example of those noble
women who have been raised up in the church to effect great revolutions,
and to suffer for the truth's sake. I have appealed to your sympathies
as women, to your sense of duty as _Christian women_>. I have attempted
to vindicate the Abolitionists, to prove the entire safety of immediate
Emancipation, and to plead the cause of the poor and oppressed. I have
done--I have sowed the seeds of truth, but I well know, that even if an
Apollos were to follow in my steps to water them, "_God only_ can give
the increase." To Him then who is able to prosper the work of his
servant's hand, I commend this Appeal in fervent prayer, that as he
"hath _chosen the weak things of the world_, to confound the things
which are mighty," so He may cause His blessing, to descend and carry
conviction to the hearts of many Lydias through these speaking pages.
Farewell.--Count me not your "enemy because I have told you the truth,"
but believe me in unfeigned affection,
Your sympathizing Friend,
ANGELINA E. GRIMKÉ.
Published by the American Anti-Slavery Society, corner of Spruce and
Nassau Streets.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
* * * * *
VOL. I. SEPTEMBER, 1836. No. 2.
* * * * *
APPEAL
TO THE
CHRISTIAN WOMEN OF THE SOUTH,
BY A.E. GRIMKÉ REVISED AND CORRECTED.
"Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not within
thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all
the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time,
then shalt there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews
from another place: but thou and thy father's house shall be
destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom
for such a time as this. And Esther bade them return Mordecai
this answer:--and so will I go in unto the king, which is not
according to law, and _if I perish, I perish_."
Esther IV. 13-16.
RESPECTED FRIENDS,
It is because I feel a deep and tender interest in your present and
eternal welfare that I am willing thus publicly to address you. Some of
you have loved me as a relative, and some have felt bound to me in
Christian sympathy, and Gospel fellowship; and even when compelled by a
strong sense of duty, to break those outward bonds of union which bound
us together as members of the same community, and members of the same
religious denomination, you were generous enough to give me credit, for
sincerity as a Christian, though you believed I had been most strangely
deceived. I thanked you then for your kindness, and I ask you _now_, for
the sake of former confidence, and former friendship, to read the
following pages in the spirit of calm investigation and fervent prayer.
It is because you have known me, that I write thus unto you.
But there are other Christian women scattered over the Southern States,
of whom a very large number have never seen me, and never heard my name,
and feel _no_ personal interest whatever in _me_. But I feel an interest
in _you_, as branches of the same vine from whose root I daily draw the
principle of spiritual vitality--Yes! Sisters in Christ I feel an
interest in _you_, and often has the secret prayer arisen on your
behalf, Lord "open thou their eyes that they may see wondrous things out
of thy Law"--It is then, because I _do feel_ and _do pray_ for you, that
I thus address you upon a subject about which of all others, perhaps you
would rather not hear any thing; but, "would to God ye could bear with
me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me, for I am jealous over
you with godly jealousy." Be not afraid then to read my appeal; it is
_not_ written in the heat of passion or prejudice, but in that solemn
calmness which is the result of conviction and duty. It is true, I am
going to tell you unwelcome truths, but I mean to speak these _truths in
love_, and remember Solomon says, "faithful are the _wounds_ of a
friend." I do not believe the time has yet come when _Christian women_
"will not endure sound doctrine," even on the subject of Slavery, if it
is spoken to them in tenderness and love, therefore I now address _you_.
* * * * *
POSTAGE.--This periodical contains four and a half sheets. Postage under
100 miles, 6 3-4 cents; over 100 miles, 11 1-4 cents.
_PLEASE READ AND CIRCULATE._
* * * * *
To all of you then, known or unknown, relatives or strangers, (for you
are all _one_ in Christ,) I would speak. I have felt for you at this
time, when unwelcome light is pouring in upon the world on the subject
of slavery; light which even Christians would exclude, if they could,
from our country, or at any rate from the southern portion of it,
saying, as its rays strike the rock bound coasts of New England and
scatter their warmth and radiance over her hills and valleys, and from
thence travel onward over the Palisades of the Hudson, and down the soft
flowing waters of the Delaware and gild the waves of the Potomac,
"hitherto shalt thou come and no further;" I know that even professors
of His name who has been emphatically called the "Light of the world"
would, if they could, build a wall of adamant around the Southern States
whose top might reach unto heaven, in order to shut out the light which
is bounding from mountain to mountain and from the hills to the plains
and valleys beneath, through the vast extent of our Northern States. But
believe me, when I tell you, their attempts will be as utterly fruitless
as were the efforts of the builders of Babel; and why? Because moral,
like natural light, is so extremely subtle in its nature as to overleap
all human barriers, and laugh at the puny efforts of man to control it.
All the excuses and palliations of this system must inevitably be swept
away, just as other "refuges of lies" have been, by the irresistible
torrent of a rectified public opinion. "The _supporters_ of the slave
system," says Jonathan Dymond in his admirable work on the Principles of
Morality, "will _hereafter_ be regarded with the _same_ public feeling,
as he who was an advocate for the slave trade _now_ is." It will be, and
that very soon, clearly perceived and fully acknowledged by all the
virtuous and the candid, that in _principle_ it is as sinful to hold a
human being in bondage who has been born in Carolina, as one who has
been born in Africa. All that sophistry of argument which has been
employed to prove, that although it is sinful to send to Africa to
procure men and women as slaves, who have never been in slavery, that
still, it is not sinful to keep those in bondage who have come down by
inheritance, will be utterly overthrown. We must come back to the good
old doctrine of our forefathers who declared to the world, "this self
evident truth that _all_ men are created equal, and that they have
certain _inalienable_ rights among which are life, _liberty_, and the
pursuit of happiness." It is even a greater absurdity to suppose a man
can be legally born a slave under _our free Republican_ Government, than
under the petty despotisms of barbarian Africa. If then, we have no
right to enslave an African, surely we can have none to enslave an
American; if it is a self evident truth that _all_ men, every where and
of every color are born equal, and have an _inalienable right to
liberty_, then it is equally true that _no_ man can be born a slave, and
no man can ever _rightfully_ be reduced to _involuntary_ bondage and
held as a slave, however fair may be the claim of his master or mistress
through wills and title-deeds.
But after all, it may be said, our fathers were certainly mistaken, for
the Bible sanctions Slavery, and that is the highest authority. Now the
Bible is my ultimate appeal in all matters of faith and practice, and it
is to _this test_ I am anxious to bring the subject at issue between us.
Let us then begin with Adam and examine the charter of privileges which
was given to him. "Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the
earth." In the eighth Psalm we have a still fuller description of this
charter which through Adam was given to all mankind. "Thou madest him to
have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things
under his feet. All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field,
the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through
the paths of the seas." And after the flood when this charter of human
rights was renewed, we find _no additional_ power vested in man. "And
the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the
earth, and every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the
earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they
delivered." In this charter, although the different kinds of
_irrational_ beings are so particularly enumerated, and supreme dominion
over _all of them_ is granted, yet _man_ is _never_ vested with this
dominion _over his fellow man_; he was never told that any of the human
species were put _under his feet_; it was only _all things_, and man,
who was created in the image of his Maker, _never_ can properly be
termed a _thing_, though the laws of Slave States do call him "a chattel
personal;" _Man_ then, I assert _never_ was put _under the feet of man_,
by that first charter of human right, which was given by God, to the
Fathers of the Antediluvian and Postdiluvian worlds, therefore this
doctrine of equality is based on the Bible.
But it may be argued, that in the very chapter of Genesis from which I
have last quoted, will be found the curse pronounced upon Canaan, by
which his posterity was consigned to servitude under his brothers Shem
and Japheth. I know this prophecy was uttered, and was most fearfully
and wonderfully fulfilled, through the immediate descendants of Canaan,
i.e. the Canaanites, and I do not know but it has been through all the
children of Ham, but I do know that prophecy does _not_ tell us what
_ought to be_, but what actually does take place, ages after it has been
delivered, and that if we justify America for enslaving the children of
Africa, we must also justify Egypt for reducing the children of Israel
to bondage, for the latter was foretold as explicitly as the former. I
am well aware that prophecy has often been urged as an excuse for
Slavery, but be not deceived, the fulfilment of prophecy will _not cover
one sin_ in the awful day of account. Hear what our Saviour says on this
subject; "it must needs be that offences come, but _woe unto that man
through whom they come_"--Witness some fulfilment of this declaration in
the tremendous destruction of Jerusalem, occasioned by that most
nefarious of all crimes the crucifixion of the Son of God. Did the fact
of that event having been foretold, exculpate the Jews from sin in
perpetrating it; No--for hear what the Apostle Peter says to them on
this subject, "Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, _ye_ have taken, and by _wicked_ hands have
crucified and slain." Other striking instances might be adduced, but
these will suffice.
But it has been urged that the patriarchs held slaves, and therefore,
slavery is right. Do you really believe that patriarchal servitude was
like American slavery? Can you believe it? If so, read the history of
these primitive fathers of the church and be undeceived. Look at
Abraham, though so great a man, going to the herd himself and fetching a
calf from thence and serving it up with his own hands, for the
entertainment of his guests. Look at Sarah, that princess as her name
signifies, baking cakes upon the hearth. If the servants they had were
like Southern slaves, would they have performed such comparatively
menial offices for themselves? Hear too the plaintive lamentation of
Abraham when he feared he should have no son to bear his name down to
posterity. "Behold thou hast given me no seed, &c., one born in my house
is _mine_ heir." From this it appears that one of his _servants_ was to
inherit his immense estate. Is this like Southern slavery? I leave it to
your own good sense and candor to decide. Besides, such was the footing
upon which Abraham was with _his_ servants, that he trusted them with
arms. Are slaveholders willing to put swords and pistols into the hands
of their slaves? He was as a father among his servants; what are
planters and masters generally among theirs? When the institution of
circumcision was established, Abraham was commanded thus; "He that is
eight days old shall be circumcised among you, _every_ man-child in your
generations; he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any
stranger which is not of thy seed." And to render this command with
regard to his _servants_ still more impressive it is repeated in the
very next verse; and herein we may perceive the great care which was
taken by God to guard the _rights of servants_ even under this "dark
dispensation." What too was the testimony given to the faithfulness of
this eminent patriarch. "For I know him that he will command his
children and his _household_ after him, and they shall keep the way of
the Lord to do justice and judgment." Now my dear friends many of you
believe that circumcision has been superseded by baptism in the Church;
_Are you_ careful to have _all_ that are born in your house or bought
with money of any stranger, baptized? Are _you_ as faithful as Abraham
to command _your household_ to _keep the way of the Lord?_ I leave it to
your own consciences to decide. Was patriarchal servitude then like
American Slavery?
But I shall be told, God sanctioned Slavery, yea commanded Slavery under
the Jewish Dispensation. Let us examine this subject calmly and
prayerfully. I admit that a species of _servitude_ was permitted to the
Jews, but in studying the subject I have been struck with wonder and
admiration at perceiving how carefully the servant was guarded from
violence, injustice, and wrong. I will first inform you how these
servants became servants, for I think this a very important part of our
subject. From consulting Horne, Calmet, and the Bible, I find there were
six different ways by which the Hebrews became servants legally.
1. A Hebrew, whose father was still alive, and who on that account had
not inherited his patrimonial estate, might sell himself, i.e., his
services, for six years, in which case _he_ received the purchase money
_himself_. Ex. xxi, 2.
2. A father might sell his children as servants, i.e., his _daughters_,
in which circumstance it was understood the daughter was to be the wife
or daughter-in-law of the man who bought her, and the _father_ received
the price. In other words, Jewish women were sold as _white women_ were
in the first settlement of Virginia--as _wives, not_ as slaves. Ex. xxi,
7-11.
3. Thieves not able to make restitution for their thefts, were sold for
the benefit of the injured person. Ex. xxii, 3.
4. They might be born in servitude. Ex. xxi, 4.
5. If reduced to extreme poverty, a Hebrew might sell himself; but in
such a case he was to serve, not as a bondsman, whose term of service
was only six years, nor was he to serve as a hired servant, who received
his wages every evening, nor yet as a sojourner or temporary resident in
the family, but he was to serve his master until the year of Jubilee[A].
Lev. xxv, 39, 40.
[Footnote A: If the reader will leave out the italicised words--But and
And, in the 40th verse--he will find that I am fully authorized in the
meaning I have attached to it. But and And are _not_ in the original
Hebrew; have been introduced by the translators, and entirely destroy
the true sense of the passage.]
6. If a Hebrew had sold himself to a rich Gentile, he might be redeemed
by one of his brethren at any time the money was offered; and he who
redeemed him, was _not_ to take advantage of the favor thus conferred,
and rule over him with rigor. Lev. xxv, 47-55.
Before going into an examination of the laws by which these servants
were protected, I would just ask whether American slaves have become
slaves in any of the ways in which the Hebrews became servants. Did they
sell themselves into slavery and receive the purchase money into their
own hands? No! No! Did they steal the property of another, and were they
sold to make restitution for their crimes? No! Did their present
masters, as an act of kindness, redeem them from some heathen tyrant to
whom _they had sold themselves_ in the dark hour of adversity? No! Were
they born in slavery? No! No! Not according to _Jewish Law_, for the
servants who were born in servitude among them, were born of parents who
had _sold themselves_: Ex. xxi, 4; Lev. xxv, 39, 40. Were the female
slaves of the South sold by their fathers? How shall I answer this
question? Thousands and tens of thousands never were, _their_ fathers
_never_ have received the poor compensation of silver or gold for the
tears and toils, the suffering, and anguish, and hopeless bondage of
_their_ daughters. They labor day by day, and year by year, side by
side, in the same field, if haply their daughters are permitted to
remain on the same plantation with them, instead of being, as they often
are, separated from their parents and sold into distant states, never
again to meet on earth. But do the _fathers of the South ever sell their
daughters?_ My heart beats, and my hand trembles, as I write the awful
affirmative, Yes! The fathers of this Christian land often sell their
daughters, _not_ as Jewish parents did, to be the wives and
daughters-in-law of the men who buy them, but to be the abject slaves of
petty tyrants and irresponsible masters. Is it not so, my friends? I
leave it to your own candor to corroborate my assertion. Southern slaves
then have _not_ become slaves in any of the six different ways in which
Hebrews became servants, and I hesitate not to say that American masters
_cannot_ according to _Jewish law_ substantiate their claim to the men,
women, or children they now hold in bondage.
But there was one way in which a Jew might illegally be reduced to
servitude; it was this, he might be _stolen_ and afterwards sold as a
slave, as was Joseph. To guard most effectually against this dreadful
crime of manstealing, God enacted this severe law. "He that stealeth a
man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be
put to death." And again, "If a man be found stealing any of his
brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or
selleth him; then _that thief shall die_; and thou shalt put away evil
from among you." Deut. xxiv, 7. As I have tried American Slavery by
_legal_ Hebrew servitude, and found, (to your surprise, perhaps,) that
Jewish law cannot justify the slaveholder's claim, let us now try it by
_illegal_ Hebrew bondage. Have the Southern slaves then been stolen? If
they did not sell themselves into bondage; if they were not sold as
thieves; if they were not redeemed from a heathen master to whom _they
had sold themselves;_ if they were not born in servitude according to
Hebrew law; and if the females were not sold by their fathers as wives
and daughters-in-law to those who purchased them; then what shall we say
of them? what can we say of them? but that according _to Hebrew Law they
have been stolen._
But I shall be told that the Jews had other servants who were absolute
slaves. Let us look a little into this also. They had other servants who
were procured from the heathen.
Bondmen and bondmaids might be bought of the heathen round about them.
Lev. xxv, 44.
I will now try the right of the southern planter by the claims of Hebrew
masters to their _heathen_ servants. Were the southern slaves bought
from the heathen? No! For surely, no one will _now_ vindicate the
slave-trade so far as to assert that slaves were bought from the heathen
who were obtained by that system of piracy. The only excuse for holding
southern slaves is that they were born in slavery, but we have seen that
they were _not_ born in servitude as Jewish servants were, and that the
children of heathen servants were not legally subjected to bondage, even
under the Mosaic Law. How then have the slaves of the South been
obtained?
I will next proceed to an examination of those laws which were enacted
in order to protect the Hebrew and the Heathen servant; for I wish you
to understand that _both_ were protected by Him, of whom it is said "his
mercies are over _all_ his works." I will first speak of those which
secured the rights of Hebrew servants. This code was headed thus:
1. Thou shalt _not_ rule over him with _rigor_, but shalt fear thy God.
2. If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in the
seventh year he shall go out free for nothing. Ex. xxi, 2. And when thou
sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:
Thou shalt furnish him _liberally_ out of thy flock and out of thy
floor, and out of thy wine-press: of that wherewith the Lord thy God
hath blessed thee, shalt thou give unto him. Deut. xv, 13, 14.
3. If he come in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were
married, then his wife shall go out with him. Ex. xxi, 3.
4. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons and
daughters, the wife and her children shall be his master's, and he shall
go out by himself. Ex. xxi, 4.
5. If the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my
children; I will not go out free; then his master shall bring him unto
the Judges, and he shall bring him to the door, or unto the door-post,
and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall
serve him _for ever_. Ex. xxi, 5, 6.
6. If a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that
it perish, he shall let him go _free_ for his eye's sake. And if he
smite out his man servant's tooth or his maid servant's tooth, he shall
let him go _free_ for his tooth's sake. Ex. xxi, 26, 27.
7. On the Sabbath, rest was secured to servants by the fourth
commandment. Ex. xx, 10.
8. Servants were permitted to unite with their masters three times in
every year in celebrating the Passover, the feast of Weeks, and the
feast of Tabernacles; every male throughout the land was to appear
before the Lord at Jerusalem with a gift; here the bond and the free
stood on common ground. Deut. xvi.
9. If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under
his hand, he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a
day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money. Ex. xxi, 20,
21.
From these laws we learn, that one class of Hebrew men servants were
bound to serve their masters _only six_ years, unless their attachment
to their employers, their wives and children, should induce them to wish
to remain in servitude, in which case, in order to prevent the
possibility of deception on the part of the master, the servant was
first taken before the magistrate, where he openly declared his
intention of continuing in his master's service, (probably a public
register was kept of such,) he was then conducted to the door of the
house, (in warm climates doors are thrown open.) and _there_ his ear was
_publicly_ bored, and by submitting to this operation, he testified his
willingness to serve him in subserviency to the law of God; for let it
be remembered, that the door-post was covered with the precepts of that
law. Deut. vi, 9. xi, 20: _for ever_, i.e., during his life, for Jewish
Rabbins, who must have understood Jewish _slavery_ (as it is called),
"affirm that servants were set free at the death of their masters, and
did _not_ descend to their heirs;" or that he was to serve him until the
year of Jubilee, when _all_ servants were set at liberty. The other
class, when they first sold themselves, agreed to remain until the year
of Jubilee. To protect servants from violence, it was ordained, that if
a master struck out the tooth or destroyed the eye of a servant, that
servant immediately became _free_, for such an act of violence evidently
showed he was unfit to possess the power of a master, and therefore that
power was taken from him. All servants enjoyed the rest of the Sabbath,
and partook of the privileges and festivities of the three great Jewish
Feasts; and if a servant died under the infliction of chastisement, his
master was surely to be punished. As a tooth for a tooth and life for
life was the Jewish law, of course he was punished with death. I know
that great stress has been laid upon the following verse:
"Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished,
for he is his money."
Slaveholders, and the apologists of slavery, have eagerly seized upon
this little passage of Scripture, and held it up as the masters' Magna
Charta, by which they were licensed by God himself to commit the
greatest outrages upon the defenceless victims of their oppression. But,
my friends, was it designed to be so? If our Heavenly Father would
protect by law the _eye_ and the _tooth_ of a Hebrew servant, can we for
a moment believe that he would abandon that same servant to the brutal
rage of a master who would destroy even life itself? Let us then examine
this passage with the help of the context. In the 18th and 19th verses
we have a law which was made for _freemen_ who strove together. Here we
find, that if one man smote another, so that he died not, but only kept
his bed from being disabled, and he rose again and walked abroad upon
his staff, then _he_ was to be paid for the loss of his time, and all
the expenses of his sickness were to be borne by the man who smote him.
The freeman's time was _his own_, and therefore he was to be remunerated
for the loss of it. But _not_ so with the _servant_, whose time was, as
it were, _the money of his master_, because he had already paid for it:
If he continued a day or two after being struck, to keep his bed in
consequence of any wound received, then his lost time was _not_ to be
paid for, because it was _not his own_, but his master's, who had
already paid him for it. The loss of his time was the _master's loss_,
and _not_ the servant's. This explanation is confirmed by the fact, that
the Hebrew word translated continue, means "to stand still;" _i.e._, to
be unable to go out about his master's work.
Here then we find this stronghold of slavery completely demolished.
Instead of its being a license to inflict such chastisement upon a
servant as to cause even death itself, it is in fact a law merely to
provide that a man should not be required to pay his servant twice over
for his time. It is altogether an unfounded assumption on the part of
the slaveholder, that this servant _died_ after a day or two; the text
does not say so, and I contend that he _got well_ after a day or two,
just as the man mentioned in the 19th verse recovered from the effects
of the blows he received. The cases are completely parallel, and the
first law throws great light on the second. This explanation is far more
consonant with the character of God, and were it not that our vision has
been so completely darkened by the existence of slavery in our country,
we never could so far have dishonored Him as to have supposed that He
sanctioned the murder of a servant; although slaveholding legislators
might legalize the killing of a slave in _four_ different
ways.--(_Stroud's Sketch of Slave Laws_.)
But I pass on now to the consideration of how the _female_ Jewish
servants were protected by _law_.
1. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then
shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto another nation he shall
have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.
2. If he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after
the manner of daughters.
3. If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of
marriage, shall he not diminish.
4. If he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out _free_
without money.
On these laws I will give you Calmet's remarks; "A father could not sell
his daughter as a slave, according to the Rabbins, until she was at the
age of puberty, and unless he were reduced to the utmost indigence.
Besides, when a master bought an Israelitish girl, it was _always_ with
the presumption that he would take her to wife. Hence Moses adds, 'if
she please not her master, and he does not think fit to marry her, he
shall set her at liberty,' or according to the Hebrew, 'he shall let her
be redeemed.' 'To sell her to another nation he shall have no power,
seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her;' as to the engagement
implied, at least of taking her to wife. 'If he have betrothed her unto
his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters;' i.e., he
shall take care that his son uses her as his wife, that he does not
despise or maltreat her. If he make his son marry another wife, he shall
give her her dowry, her clothes, and compensation for her virginity; if
he does none of these three, she shall _go out free_ without money."
Thus were the _rights of female servants carefully secured by law_ under
the Jewish Dispensation; and now I would ask, are the rights of female
slaves at the South thus secured? Are _they_ sold only as wives and
daughters-in-law, and when not treated as such, are they allowed to _go
out free?_ No! They have _all_ not only been illegally obtained as
servants according to Hebrew law, but they are also illegally _held_ in
bondage. Masters at the South and West have all forfeited their claims,
(_if they ever had any,_) to their female slaves.
We come now to examine the case of those servants who were "of the
heathen round about;" Were _they_ left entirely unprotected by law?
Horne, in speaking of the law, "Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor,
but shalt fear thy God," remarks, "this law, Lev. xxv, 43, it is true,
speaks expressly of slaves who were of Hebrew descent; but as _alien
born_ slaves were ingrafted into the Hebrew Church by circumcision,
_there is no doubt_ but that it applied to _all_ slaves:" if so, then we
may reasonably suppose that the other protective laws extended to them
also; and that the only difference between Hebrew and Heathen servants
lay in this, that the former served but six years, unless they chose to
remain longer, and were always freed at the death of their masters;
whereas, the latter served until the year of Jubilee, though that might
include a period of forty-nine years,--and were left from father to son.
There are, however, two other laws which I have not yet noticed. The one
effectually prevented _all involuntary_ servitude, and the other
completely abolished Jewish servitude every fifty years. They were
equally operative upon the Heathen and the Hebrew.
1. "Thou shalt _not_ deliver unto his master the servant that is escaped
from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in
that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh
him best: thou shalt _not_ oppress him." Deut. xxiii, 15, 16.
2. "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim _Liberty_
throughout _all_ the land, unto _all_ the inhabitants thereof; it shall
be a jubilee unto you." Lev. xxv, 10.
Here, then, we see that by this first law, the _door of Freedom was
opened wide to every servant who_ had any cause whatever for complaint;
if he was unhappy with his master, all he had to do was to leave him,
and _no man_ had a right to deliver him back to him again, and not only
so, but the absconded servant was to _choose_ where he should live, and
no Jew was permitted to oppress him. He left his master just as our
Northern servants leave us; we have no power to compel them to remain
with us, and no man has any right to oppress them; they go and dwell in
that place where it chooseth them, and live just where they like. Is it
so at the South? Is the poor runaway slave protected _by law_ from the
violence of that master whose oppression and cruelty has driven him from
his plantation or his house? No! no! Even the free states of the North
are compelled to deliver unto his master the servant that is escaped
from his master into them. By _human_ law, under the _Christian
Dispensation_, in the _nineteenth century we_ are commanded to do, what
_God_ more than _three thousand_ years ago, under the _Mosaic
Dispensation_, _positively commanded_ the Jews _not_ to do. In the wide
domain even of our free states, there is not _one_ city of refuge for
the poor runaway fugitive; not one spot upon which he can stand and say,
I am a free man--I am protected in my rights as a _man_, by the strong
arm of the law; no! _not one_. How long the North will thus shake hands
with the South in sin, I know not. How long she will stand by like the
persecutor Saul, _consenting_ unto the death of Stephen, and keeping the
raiment of them that slew him. I know not; but one thing I do know, the
_guilt of the North_ is increasing in a tremendous ratio as light is
pouring in upon her on the subject and the sin of slavery. As the sun of
righteousness climbs higher and higher in the moral heavens, she will
stand still more and more abashed as the query is thundered down into
her ear, "_Who_ hath required _this_ at thy hand?" It will be found _no_
excuse then that the Constitution of our country required that _persons
bound to service_ escaping from their masters should be delivered up; no
more excuse than was the reason which Adam assigned for eating the
forbidden fruit. _He was condemned and punished because_ he hearkened to
the voice of _his wife_, rather than to the command of his Maker; and
_we_ shall assuredly be condemned and punished for obeying _Man_ rather
than _God_, if we do not speedily repent and bring forth fruits meet for
repentance. Yea, are we not receiving chastisement even _now_?
But by the second of these laws a still more astonishing fact is
disclosed. If the first effectually prevented _all involuntary
servitude_, the last absolutely forbade even _voluntary servitude being
perpetual_. On the great day of atonement every fiftieth year the
Jubilee trumpet was sounded throughout the land of Judea, and _Liberty_
was proclaimed to _all_ the inhabitants thereof. I will not say that the
servants' _chains_ fell off and their _manacles_ were burst, for there
is no evidence that Jewish servants _ever_ felt the weight of iron
chains, and collars, and handcuffs; but I do say that even the man who
had voluntarily sold himself and the _heathen_ who had been sold to a
Hebrew master, were set free, the one as well as the other. This law was
evidently designed to prevent the oppression of the poor, and the
possibility of such a thing as _perpetual servitude_ existing among
them.
Where, then, I would ask, is the warrant, the justification, or the
palliation of American Slavery from Hebrew servitude? How many of the
southern slaves would now be in bondage according to the laws of Moses;
Not one. You may observe that I have carefully avoided using the term
_slavery_ when speaking of Jewish servitude; and simply for this reason,
that _no such thing_ existed among that people; the word translated
servant does _not_ mean _slave_, it is the same that is applied to
Abraham, to Moses, to Elisha and the prophets generally. _Slavery_ then
_never_ existed under the Jewish Dispensation at all, and I cannot but
regard it as an aspersion on the character of Him who is "glorious in
Holiness" for any one to assert that "_God sanctioned, yea commanded
slavery_ under the old dispensation." I would fain lift my feeble voice
to vindicate Jehovah's character from so foul a slander. If slaveholders
are determined to hold slaves as long as they can, let them not dare to
say that the God of mercy and of truth _ever_ sanctioned such a system
of cruelty and wrong. It is blasphemy against Him.
We have seen that the code of laws framed by Moses with regard to
servants was designed to _protect them_ as _men and women_, to secure to
them their _rights_ as _human beings_, to guard them from oppression and
defend them from violence of every kind. Let us now turn to the Slave
laws of the South and West and examine them too. I will give you the
substance only, because I fear I shall trespass too much on your time,
were I to quote them at length.
1. _Slavery_ is hereditary and perpetual, to the last moment of the
slave's earthly existence, and to all his descendants to the latest
posterity.
2. The labor of the slave is compulsory and uncompensated; while the
kind of labor, the amount of toil, the time allowed for rest, are
dictated solely by the master. No bargain is made, no wages given. A
pure despotism governs the human brute; and even his covering and
provender, both as to quantity and quality, depend entirely on the
master's discretion[A].
[Footnote A: There are laws in some of the slave states, limiting the
labor which the master may require of the slave to fourteen hours daily.
In some of the states there are laws requiring the masters to furnish a
certain amount of food and clothing, as for instance, _one quart_ of
corn per day, or _one peck_ per week, or _one bushel_ per month, and
"_one_ linen shirt and pantaloons for the summer, and a linen shirt and
woolen great coat and pantaloons for the winter," &c. But "still," to
use the language of Judge Stroud "the slave is entirely under the
control of his master.--is unprovided with a protector,--and, especially
as he cannot be a witness or make complaint in any known mode against
his master, the _apparent_ object of these laws may _always_ be
defeated." ED.]
3. The slave being considered a personal chattel may be sold or pledged,
or leased at the will of his master. He may be exchanged for marketable
commodities, or taken in execution for the debts or taxes either of a
living or dead master. Sold at auction, either individually, or in lots
to suit the purchaser, he may remain with his family, or be separated
from them for ever.
4. Slaves can make no contracts and have no _legal_ right to any
property, real or personal. Their own honest earnings and the legacies
of friends belong in point of law to their masters.
5. Neither a slave nor a free colored person can be a witness against
any _white_, or free person, in a court of justice, however atrocious
may have been the crimes they have seen him commit, if such testimony
would be for the benefit of a _slave_; but they may give testimony
_against a fellow slave_, or free colored man, even in cases affecting
life, if the _master_ is to reap the advantage of it.
6. The slave may be punished at his master's discretion--without
trial--without any means of legal redress; whether his offence be real
or imaginary; and the master can transfer the same despotic power to any
person or persons, he may choose to appoint.
7. The slave is not allowed to resist any free man under _any_
circumstances, _his_ only safety consists in the fact that his _owner_
may bring suit and recover the price of his body, in case his life is
taken, or his limbs rendered unfit for labor.
8. Slaves cannot redeem themselves, or obtain a change of masters,
though cruel treatment may have rendered such a change necessary for
their personal safety.
9. The slave is entirely unprotected in his domestic relations.
10. The laws greatly obstruct the manumission of slaves, even where the
master is willing to enfranchise them.
11. The operation of the laws tends to deprive slaves of religious
instruction and consolation.
12. The whole power of the laws is exerted to keep slaves in a state of
the lowest ignorance.
13. There is in this country a monstrous inequality of law and right.
What is a trifling fault in the _white_ man, is considered highly
criminal in the _slave_; the same offences which cost a white man a few
dollars only, are punished in the negro with death.
14. The laws operate most oppressively upon free people of color[A].
[Footnote A: See Mrs. Child's Appeal, Chap. II.]
Shall I ask you now my friends, to draw the _parallel_ between Jewish
_servitude_ and American _slavery_? No! For there is _no likeness_ in
the two systems; I ask you rather to mark the contrast. The laws of
Moses _protected servants_ in their _rights_ as _men and women_, guarded
them from oppression and defended them from wrong. The Code Noir of the
South _robs the slave of all his rights_ as a _man_, reduces him to a
chattel personal, and defends the _master_ in the exercise of the most
unnatural and unwarrantable power over his slave. They each bear the
impress of the hand which formed them. The attributes of justice and
mercy are shadowed out in the Hebrew code; those of injustice and
cruelty, in the Code Noir of America. Truly it was wise in the
slaveholders of the South to declare their slaves to be "chattels
personal;" for before they could be robbed of wages, wives, children,
and friends, it was absolutely necessary to deny they were human beings.
It is wise in them, to keep them in abject ignorance, for the strong man
armed must be bound before we can spoil his house--the powerful
intellect of man must be bound down with the iron chains of nescience
before we can rob him of his rights as a man; we must reduce him to a
_thing_ before we can claim the right to set our feet upon his neck,
because it was only _all things_ which were originally _put under the
feet of man_ by the Almighty and Beneficent Father of all, who has
declared himself to be _no respecter_ of persons, whether red, white or
black.
But some have even said that Jesus Christ did not condemn slavery. To
this I reply that our Holy Redeemer lived and preached among the Jews
only. The laws which Moses had enacted fifteen hundred years previous to
his appearance among them, had never been annulled, and these laws
protected every servant in Palestine. If then He did not condemn Jewish
servitude this does not prove that he would not have condemned such a
monstrous system as that of American _slavery_, if that had existed
among them. But did not Jesus condemn slavery? Let us examine some of
his precepts. "_Whatsoever_ ye would that men should do to you, do _ye
even so to them_." Let every slaveholder apply these queries to his own
heart; Am _I_ willing to be a slave--Am _I_ willing to see my wife the
slave of another--Am _I_ willing to see my mother a slave, or my father,
my sister or my brother? If not, then in holding others as slaves, I am
doing what I would _not_ wish to be done to me or any relative I have;
and thus have I broken this golden rule which was given _me_ to walk by.
But some slaveholders have said, "we were never in bondage to any man,"
and therefore the yoke of bondage would be insufferable to us, but
slaves are accustomed to it, their backs are fitted to the burden. Well,
I am willing to admit that you who have lived in freedom would find
slavery even more oppressive than the poor slave does, but then you may
try this question in another form--Am I willing to reduce _my little
child_ to slavery? You know that _if it is brought up a slave_ it will
never know any contrast, between freedom and bondage, its back will
become fitted to the burden just as the negro child's does--_not by
nature_--but by daily, violent pressure, in the same way that the head
of the Indian child becomes flattened by the boards in which it is
bound. It has been justly remarked that "_God never made a slave_," he
made man upright; his back was _not_ made to carry burdens, nor his neck
to wear a yoke, and the _man_ must be crushed within him, before _his_
back can be _fitted_ to the burden of perpetual slavery; and that his
back is _not_ fitted to it, is manifest by the insurrections that so
often disturb the peace and security of slaveholding countries. Who ever
heard of a rebellion of the beasts of the field; and why not? simply
because _they_ were all placed _under the feet of man_, into whose hand
they were delivered; it was originally designed that they should serve
him, therefore their necks have been formed for the yoke, and their
backs for the burden; but _not so with man_, intellectual, immortal man!
I appeal to you, my friends, as mothers; Are you willing to enslave
_your_ children? You start back with horror and indignation at such a
question. But why, if slavery is _no wrong_ to those upon whom it is
imposed? why, if as has often been said, slaves are happier than their
masters, free from the cares and perplexities of providing for
themselves and their _wanting_? Try yourselves by another of the Divine
precepts, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Can we love a man
_as_ we love _ourselves if we do, and continue to do_ unto him, what we
would not wish any one to do to us? Look, too, at Christ's example, what
does he say of himself, "I came _not_ to be ministered unto, but to
minister." Can you for a moment imagine the meek and lowly, and
compassionate Saviour, _a slaveholder_? Do you not shudder at this
thought as much as at that of his being _a warrior_? But why, if slavery
is not sinful?
Again, it has been said, the Apostle Paul did not condemn slavery, for
he sent Onesimus back to Philemon. I do not think it can be said he sent
him back, for no coercion was made use of. Onesimus was not thrown into
prison and then sent back in chains to his master, as your runaway
slaves often are--this could not possibly have been the case, because
you know Paul as a Jew, was _bound to protect_ the runaway; _he had no
right_ to send _any_ fugitive back to his master. The state of the case
then seems to have been this. Onesimus had been an unprofitable servant
to Philemon and left him--he afterwards became converted under the
Apostle's preaching, and seeing that he had been to blame in his
conduct, and desiring by future fidelity to atone for past error, he
wished to return, and the Apostle gave him the letter we now have as a
recommendation to Philemon, informing him of the conversion of Onesimus,
and entreating him as "Paul the aged" "to receive him, _not_ now as a
_servant_, but _above_ a servant, a _brother beloved_, especially to me,
but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If thou
count _me_ therefore as a partner, _receive him as myself_." This, then,
surely cannot be forced into a justification of the practice of
returning runaway slaves back to their masters, to be punished with
cruel beatings and scourgings as they often are. Besides the word
_doulos_ here translated servant, is the same that is made use of in
Matt. xviii, 27. Now it appears that this servant _owed_ his lord ten
thousand talents; he possessed property to a vast amount. And what is
still more surprising, if he was a _slave_, is, that "forasmuch as he
had not to pay, his lord commanded _him_ to be sold, and his wife and
children, and all that he had, and payment to be made." Whoever heard of
a slaveholder selling a _slave_ and his family to pay himself a debt due
to him from a _slave_? What would he gain by it when the slave is
himself his _property_, and his wife and children also? Onesimus could
not, then, have been a _slave_, for slaves do not own their wives or
children; no, not even their own bodies, much less property. But again,
the servitude which the apostle was accustomed to, must have been very
different from American slavery, for he says, "the heir (or son), as
long as he is a child, differeth _nothing from a servant_, though he be
lord of all. But is under _tutors_ and governors until the time
appointed of the father." From this it appears, that the means of
_instruction_ were provided for _servants_ as well as children; and
indeed we know it must have been so among the Jews, because their
servants were not permitted to remain in perpetual bondage, and
therefore it was absolutely necessary they should be prepared to occupy
higher stations in society than those of servants. Is it so at the
South, my friends? Is the daily bread of instruction provided for _your
slaves_? are their minds enlightened, and they gradually prepared to
rise from the grade of menials into that of _free_, independent members
of the state? Let your own statute book, and your own daily experience,
answer these questions.
If this apostle sanctioned _slavery_, why did he exhort masters thus in
his epistle to the Ephesians, "and ye, masters, do the same things unto
them (i.e. perform your duties to your servants as unto Christ, not unto
men) _forbearing threatening_; knowing that your master also is in
heaven, neither is _there respect of persons with him_." And in
Colossians, "Masters give unto your servants that which is _just and
equal_, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven." Let slaveholders
only _obey_ these injunctions of Paul, and I am satisfied slavery would
soon be abolished. If he thought it sinful even to _threaten_ servants,
surely he must have thought it sinful to flog and to beat them with
sticks and paddles; indeed, when delineating the character of a bishop,
he expressly names this as one feature of it, "_no striker_." Let
masters give unto their servants that which is _just_ and _equal_, and
all that vast system of unrequited labor would crumble into ruin. Yes,
and if they once felt they had no right to the _labor_ of their servants
without pay, surely they could not think they had a right to their
wives, their children, and their own bodies. Again, how can it be said
Paul sanctioned slavery, when, as though to put this matter beyond all
doubt, in that black catalogue of sins enumerated in his first epistle
to Timothy, he mentions "_menstealers_," which word may be translated
"_slavedealers_." But you may say, we all despise slavedealers as much
as any one can; they are never admitted into genteel or respectable
society. And why not? Is it not because even you shrink back from the
idea of associating with those who make their fortunes by trading in the
bodies and souls of men, women, and children? whose daily work it is to
break human hearts, by tearing wives from their husbands, and children
from their parents? But why hold slavedealers as despicable, if their
trade is lawful and virtuous? and why despise them more than the
_gentlemen of fortune and standing_ who employ them as _their_ agents?
Why more than the _professors of religion_ who barter their
fellow-professors to them for gold and silver? We do not despise the
land agent, or the physician, or the merchant, and why? Simply because
their processions are virtuous and honorable; and if the trade of
men-jobbers was honorable, you would not despise them either. There is
no difference in _principle_, in _Christian ethics_, between the
despised slavedealer and the _Christian_ who buys slaves from, or sells
slaves to him; indeed, if slaves were not wanted by the respectable, the
wealthy, and the religious in a community, there would be no slaves in
that community, and of course no _slavedealers_. It is then the
_Christians_ and the _honorable men_ and _women_ of the South, who are
the _main pillars_ of this grand temple built to Mammon and to Moloch.
It is the _most enlightened_, in every country who are _most_ to blame
when any public sin is supported by public opinion, hence Isaiah says,
"_When_ the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount _Zion_ and on
_Jerusalem_, (then) I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the
king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks." And was it not so?
Open the historical records of that age, was not Israel carried into
captivity B.C. 721, Judah B.C. 588, and the stout heart of the heathen
monarchy not punished until B.C. 536, fifty-two years _after_ Judah's,
and 185 years, _after_ Israel's captivity, when it was overthrown by
Cyrus, king of Persia? Hence, too, the apostle Peter says, "judgment
must _begin at the house of God_." Surely this would not be the case, if
the _professors of religion_ were not _most worthy_ of blame.
But it may be asked, why are _they_ most culpable? I will tell you, my
friends. It is because sin is imputed to us just in proportion to the
spiritual light we receive. Thus the prophet Amos says, in the name of
Jehovah, "_You only_ have I known of all the families of the earth:
_therefore_ I will punish _you_ for all your iniquities." Hear too the
doctrine of our Lord on this important subject: "The servant who _knew_
his Lord's will and _prepared not_ himself, neither did according to his
will, shall be beaten with _many stripes_:" and why? "For unto
whomsoever _much_ is given, _of him_ shall _much_ be required; and to
whom men have committed _much_, of _him_ they will ask the _more_." Oh!
then that the _Christians_ of the south would ponder these things in
their hearts, and awake to the vast responsibilities which rest _upon
them_ at this important crisis.
I have thus, I think, clearly proved to you seven propositions, viz.:
First, that slavery is contrary to the declaration of our independence.
Second, that it is contrary to the first charter of human rights given
to Adam, and renewed to Noah. Third, that the fact of slavery having
been the subject of prophecy, furnishes _no_ excuse whatever to
slaveholders. Fourth, that no such system existed under the patriarchal
dispensation. Fifth, that _slavery never_ existed under the Jewish
dispensation; but so far otherwise, that every servant was placed under
the _protection of law_, and care taken not only to prevent all
_involuntary_ servitude, but all _voluntary perpetual_ bondage. Sixth,
that slavery in America reduces a _man_ to a _thing_, a "chattel
personal," _robs him_ of _all_ his rights as a _human being_, fetters
both his mind and body, and protects the _master_ in the most unnatural
and unreasonable power, whilst it _throws him out_ of the protection of
law. Seventh, that slavery is contrary to the example and precepts of
our holy and merciful Redeemer, and of his apostles.
But perhaps you will be ready to query, why appeal to _women_ on this
subject? _We_ do not make the laws which perpetuate slavery. _No_
legislative power is vested in _us; we_ can do nothing to overthrow the
system, even if we wished to do so. To this I reply, I know you do not
make the laws, but I also know that _you are the wives and mothers, the
sisters and daughters of those who do_; and if you really suppose _you_
can do nothing to overthrow slavery, you are greatly mistaken. You can
do much in every way: four things I will name. 1st. You can read on this
subject. 2d. You can pray over this subject. 3d. You can speak on this
subject. 4th. You can act on this subject. I have not placed reading
before praying because I regard it more important, but because, in order
to pray right, we must understand what we are praying for; it is only
then we can "pray with the understanding and the spirit also."
1. Read then on the subject of slavery. Search the Scriptures daily,
whether the things I have told you are true. Other books and papers
might be a great help to you in this investigation, but they are not
necessary, and it is hardly probable that your Committees of Vigilance
will allow you to have any other. The _Bible_ then is the book I want
you to read in the spirit of inquiry, and the spirit of prayer. Even the
enemies of Abolitionists, acknowledge that their doctrines are drawn
from it. In the great mob in Boston, last autumn, when the books and
papers of the Anti-Slavery Society, were thrown out of the windows of
their office, one individual laid hold of the Bible and was about
tossing it out to the crowd, when another reminded him that it was the
Bible he had in his hand. _"Oh! 'tis all one,"_ he replied, and out went
the sacred volume, along with the rest. We thank him for the
acknowledgment. _Yes, "it is all one,"_ for our books and papers are
mostly commentaries on the Bible, and the Declaration. Read the _Bible_
then; it contains the words of Jesus, and they are spirit and life.
Judge for yourselves whether _he sanctioned_ such a system of oppression
and crime.
2. Pray over this subject. When you have entered into your closets, and
shut to the doors, then pray to your father, who seeth in secret, that
he would open your eyes to see whether slavery is _sinful_, and if it
is, that he would enable you to bear a faithful, open and unshrinking
testimony against it, and to do whatsoever your hands find to do,
leaving the consequences entirely to him, who still says to us whenever
we try to reason away duty from the fear of consequences, _"What is that
to thee, follow thou me."_ Pray also for the poor slave, that he may be
kept patient and submissive under his hard lot, until God is pleased to
open the door of freedom to him without violence or bloodshed. Pray too
for the master that his heart may be softened, and he made willing to
acknowledge, as Joseph's brethren did, "Verily we are guilty concerning
our brother," before he will be compelled to add in consequence of
Divine judgment, "therefore is all this evil come upon us." Pray also
for all your brethren and sisters who are laboring in the righteous
cause of Emancipation in the Northern States, England and the world.
There is great encouragement for prayer in these words of our Lord.
"Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in any name, he will give it to
you"--Pray then without ceasing, in the closet and the social circle.
3. Speak on this subject. It is through the tongue, the pen, and the
press, that truth is principally propagated. Speak then to your
relatives, your friends, your acquaintances on the subject of slavery;
be not afraid if you are conscientiously convinced it is _sinful_, to
say so openly, but calmly, and to let your sentiments be known. If you
are served by the slaves of others, try to ameliorate their condition as
much as possible; never aggravate their faults, and thus add fuel to the
fire of anger already kindled, in a master and mistress's bosom;
remember their extreme ignorance, and consider them as your Heavenly
Father does the _less_ culpable on this account, even when they do wrong
things. Discountenance _all_ cruelty to them, all starvation, all
corporal chastisement; these may brutalize and _break_ their spirits,
but will never bend them to willing, cheerful obedience. If possible,
see that they are comfortably and _seasonably_ fed, whether in the house
or the field; it is unreasonable and cruel to expect slaves to wait for
their breakfast until eleven o'clock, when they rise at five or six. Do
all you can, to induce their owners to clothe them well, and to allow
them many little indulgences which would contribute to their comfort.
Above all, try to persuade your husband, father, brothers and sons, that
_slavery is a crime against God and man_, and that it is a great sin to
keep _human beings_ in such abject ignorance; to deny them the privilege
of learning to read and write. The Catholics are universally condemned,
for denying the Bible to the common people, but, _slaveholders must not_
blame them, for _they_ are doing the _very same thing_, and for the very
same reason, neither of these systems can bear the light which bursts
from the pages of that Holy Book. And lastly, endeavour to inculcate
submission on the part of the slaves, but whilst doing this be faithful
in pleading the cause of the oppressed.
"Will _you_ behold unheeding,
Life's holiest feelings crushed,
Where _woman's_ heart is bleeding,
Shall _woman's_ voice be hushed?"
4. Act on this subject. Some of you _own_ slaves yourselves. If you
believe slavery is _sinful_, set them at liberty, "undo the heavy
burdens and let the oppressed go free." If they wish to remain with you,
pay them wages, if not, let them leave you. Should they remain, teach
them, and have them taught the common branches of an English education;
they have minds, and those minds _ought to be improved_. So precious a
talent as intellect, never was given to be wrapt in a napkin and buried
in the earth. It is the _duty_ of all, as far as they can, to improve
their own mental faculties, because we are commanded to love God with
_all our minds_, as well as with all our hearts, and we commit a great
sin, if we _forbid or prevent_ that cultivation of the mind in others,
which would enable them to perform this duty. Teach your servants, then,
to read, &c., and encourage them to believe it is their _duty_ to learn,
if it were only that they might read the Bible.
But some of you will say, we can neither free our slaves nor teach them
to read, for the laws of our state forbid it. Be not surprised when I
say such wicked laws _ought to be no barrier_ in the way of your duty,
and I appeal to the Bible to prove this position. What was the conduct
of Shiprah and Puah, when the king of Egypt issued his cruel mandate,
with regard to the Hebrew children? "_They_ feared _God_, and did _not_
as the King of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive."
And be it remembered, that it was through _their_ faithfulness that
Moses was preserved. This great and immediate emancipator was indebted
to a _woman_ for his spared life, and he became a blessing to the whole
Jewish nation. Did these _women_ do right in disobeying that monarch?
"_Therefore_ (says the sacred text,) _God dealt well_ with them, and
made them houses" Ex. i. What was the conduct of Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, when Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden image in the plain of
Dura, and commanded all people, nations, and languages, to fall down and
worship it? "Be it known, unto thee, (said these faithful _Jews_) O
king, that _we will not_ serve thy gods, nor worship the image which
thou hast set up." Did these men _do right in disobeying the law_ of
their sovereign? Let their miraculous deliverance from the burning fiery
furnace, answer; Dan. iii. What was the conduct of Daniel, when Darius
made a firm decree that no one should ask a petition of any man or God
for thirty days? Did the prophet cease to pray? No! "When Daniel _knew
that the writing was signed_, he went into his house, and his windows
being _open_ towards Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a
day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime."
Did Daniel do right thus to _break_ the law of his king? Let his
wonderful deliverance out of the mouths of the lions answer; Dan. vii.
Look, too, at the Apostles Peter and John. When the rulers of the Jews,
"_commanded them not_ to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus,"
what did they say? "Whether it be right in the sight of God, to hearken
unto you more than unto God, judge ye." And what did they do? "They
spake the word of God with boldness, and with great power gave the
Apostles witness of the _resurrection_ of the Lord Jesus;" although
_this_ was the very doctrine, for the preaching of which, they had just
been cast into prison, and further threatened. Did these men do right? I
leave _you_ to answer, who now enjoy the benefits of their labors and
sufferings, in that Gospel they dared to preach when positively
commanded _not to teach any more_ in the name of Jesus; Acts iv.
But some of you may say, if we do free our slaves, they will be taken up
and sold, therefore there will be no use in doing it. Peter and John
might just as well have said, we will not preach the gospel, for if we
do, we shall be taken up and put in prison, therefore there will be no
use in our preaching. _Consequences_, my friends, belong no more to
_you_, than they did to these apostles. Duty is ours and events are
God's. If you think slavery is sinful, all _you_ have to do is to set
your slaves at liberty, do all you can to protect them, and in humble
faith and fervent prayer, commend them to your common Father. He can
take care of them; but if for wise purposes he sees fit to allow them to
be sold, this will afford you an opportunity of testifying openly,
wherever you go, against the crime of _manstealing_. Such an act will be
_clear robbery_, and if exposed, might, under the Divine direction, do
the cause of Emancipation more good, than any thing that could happen,
for, "He makes even the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder of
wrath he will restrain."
I know that this doctrine of obeying _God_, rather than man, will be
considered as dangerous, and heretical by many, but I am not afraid
openly to avow it, because it is the doctrine of the Bible; but I would
not be understood to advocate resistance to any law however oppressive,
if, in obeying it, I was not obliged to commit _sin_. If for instance,
there was a law, which imposed imprisonment or a fine upon me if I
manumitted a slave, I would on no account resist that law, I would set
the slave free, and then go to prison or suffer the penalty. If a law
commands me to _sin I will break it_; if it calls me to _suffer_, I will
let it take its course _unresistingly_. The doctrine of blind obedience
and unqualified submission to _any human_ power, whether civil or
ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place
among Republicans and Christians.
But you will perhaps say, such a course of conduct would inevitably
expose us to great suffering. Yes! my christian friends, I believe it
would, but this will _not_ excuse you or any one else for the neglect of
_duty_. If Prophets and Apostles, Martyrs, and Reformers had not been
willing to suffer for the truth's sake, where would the world have been
now? If they had said, we cannot speak the truth, we cannot do what we
believe is right, because the _laws of our country or public opinion are
against us_, where would our holy religion have been now? The Prophets
were stoned, imprisoned, and killed by the Jews. And why? Because they
exposed and openly rebuked public sins; they opposed public opinion; had
they held their peace, they all might have lived in ease and died in
favor with a wicked generation. Why were the Apostles persecuted from
city to city, stoned, incarcerated, beaten, and crucified? Because they
dared to _speak the truth_; to tell the Jews, boldly and fearlessly,
that _they_ were the _murderers_ of the Lord of Glory, and that, however
great a stumbling-block the Cross might be to them, there was no other
name given under heaven by which men could be saved, but the name of
Jesus. Because they declared, even at Athens, the seat of learning and
refinement, the self-evident truth, that "they be no gods that are made
with men's hands", and exposed to the Grecians the foolishness of
worldly wisdom, and the impossibility of salvation but through Christ,
whom they despised on account of the ignominious death he died. Because
at Rome, the proud mistress of the world, they thundered out the terrors
of the law upon that idolatrous, war-making, and slave-holding
community. Why were the martyrs stretched upon the rack, gibbetted and
burnt, the scorn and diversion of a Nero, whilst their tarred and
burning bodies sent up a light which illuminated the Roman capital? Why
were the Waldenses hunted like wild beasts upon the mountains of
Piedmont, and slain with the sword of the Duke of Savoy and the proud
monarch of France? Why were the Presbyterians chased like the partridge
over the highlands of Scotland--the Methodists pumped, and stoned, and
pelted with rotten eggs--the Quakers incarcerated in filthy prisons,
beaten, whipped at the cart's tail, banished and hung? Because they
dared to _speak_ the _truth_, to _break_ the unrighteous _laws_ of their
country, and chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God,
"not accepting deliverance," even under the gallows. Why were Luther and
Calvin persecuted and excommunicated, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer
burnt? Because they fearlessly proclaimed the truth, though that truth
was contrary to public opinion, and the authority of Ecclesiastical
councils and conventions. Now all this vast amount of human suffering
might have been saved. All these Prophets and Apostles, Martyrs, and
Reformers, might have lived and died in peace with all men, but
following the example of their great pattern, "they despised the shame,
endured the cross, and are now set down on the right hand of the throne
of God," having received the glorious welcome of "well _done_ good and
faithful servants, enter ye into the joy of your Lord."
But you may say we are _women_, how can _our_ hearts endure persecution?
And why not? Have not _women_ arisen in all the dignity and strength of
moral courage to be the leaders of the people, and to bear a faithful
testimony for the truth whenever the providence of God has called them
to do so? Are there no _women_ in that noble army of martyrs who are now
singing the song of Moses and the Lamb? Who led out the women of Israel
from the house of bondage, striking the timbrel, and singing the song of
deliverance on the banks of that sea whose waters stood up like walls of
crystal to open a passage for their escape? It was a _woman_; Miriam,
the prophetess, the sister of Moses and Aaron. Who went up with Barak to
Kadesh to fight against Jabin, King of Canaan, into whose hand Israel
had been sold because of their iniquities? It was a _woman_! Deborah the
wife of Lapidoth, the judge, as well as the prophetess of that
backsliding people; Judges iv, 9. Into whose hands was Sisera, the
captain of Jabin's host delivered? Into the hand of a _woman_. Jael the
wife of Heber! Judges vi, 21. Who dared to _speak the truth_ concerning
those judgments which were coming upon Judea, when Josiah, alarmed at
finding that his people "had not kept the word of the Lord to do after
all that was written in the book of the Law," sent to enquire of the
Lord concerning these things? It was a _woman_. Huldah the prophetess,
the wife of Shallum; 2, Chron. xxxiv, 22. Who was chosen to deliver the
whole Jewish nation from that murderous decree of Persia's King, which
wicked Haman had obtained by calumny and fraud? It was a _woman_; Esther
the Queen; yes, weak and trembling _woman_ was the instrument appointed
by God, to reverse the bloody mandate of the eastern monarch, and save
the _whole visible church_ from destruction. What human voice first
proclaimed to Mary that she should be the mother of our Lord? It was a
_woman_! Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias; Luke i, 42, 43. Who united
with the good old Simeon in giving thanks publicly in the temple, when
the child, Jesus, was presented there by his parents, "and spake of him
to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem?" It was a _woman_!
Anna the prophetess. Who first proclaimed Christ as the true Messiah in
the streets of Samaria, once the capital of the ten tribes? It was a
_woman_! Who ministered to the Son of God whilst on earth, a despised
and persecuted Reformer, in the humble garb of a carpenter? They were
_women_! Who followed the rejected King of Israel, as his fainting
footsteps trod the road to Calvary? "A great company of people and of
_women_;" and it is remarkable that to _them alone_, he turned and
addressed the pathetic language, "Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for
me, but weep for yourselves and your children." Ah! who sent unto the
Roman Governor when he was set down on the judgment seat, saying unto
him, "Have thou nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered
many things this day in a dream because of him?" It was a _woman_! the
wife of Pilate. Although "_he knew_ that for envy the Jews had delivered
Christ," yet _he_ consented to surrender the Son of God into the hands
of a brutal soldiery, after having himself scourged his naked body. Had
the _wife_ of Pilate sat upon that judgment seat, what would have been
the result of the trial of this "just person?"
And who last hung round the cross of Jesus on the mountain of Golgotha?
Who first visited the sepulchre early in the morning on the first day of
the week, carrying sweet spices to embalm his precious body, not knowing
that it was incorruptible and could not be holden by the bands of death?
These were _women_! To whom did he _first_ appear after his
resurrection? It was to a _woman_! Mary Magdalene; Mark xvi, 9. Who
gathered with the apostles to wait at Jerusalem, in prayer and
supplication, for "the promise of the Father;" the spiritual blessing of
the Great High Priest of his Church, who had entered, _not_ into the
splendid temple of Solomon, there to offer the blood of bulls, and of
goats, and the smoking censer upon the golden altar, but into Heaven
itself, there to present his intercessions, after having "given himself
for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor?"
_Women_ were among that holy company; Acts i, 14. And did _women_ wait
in vain? Did those who had ministered to his necessities, followed in
his train, and wept at his crucifixion, wait in vain? No! No! Did the
cloven tongues of fire descend upon the heads of _women_ as well as men?
Yes, my friends, "it sat upon _each one of them_;" Acts ii, 3. _Women_
as well as men were to be living stones in the temple of grace, and
therefore _their_ heads were consecrated by the descent of the Holy
Ghost as well as those of men. Were _women_ recognized as fellow
laborers in the gospel field? They were! Paul says in his epistle to the
Philippians, "help those _women_ who labored with me, in the gospel;"
Phil. iv, 3.
But this is not all. Roman _women_ were burnt at the stake, _their_
delicate limbs were torn joint from joint by the ferocious beasts of the
Ampitheatre, and tossed by the wild bull in his fury, for the diversion
of that idolatrous, warlike, and slaveholding people. Yes, _women_
suffered under the ten persecutions of heathen Rome, with the most
unshrinking constancy and fortitude; not all the entreaties of friends,
nor the claims of new born infancy, nor the cruel threats of enemies
could make _them_ sprinkle one grain of incense upon the altars of Roman
idols. Come now with me to the beautiful valleys of Piedmont. Whose
blood stains the green sward, and decks the wild flowers with colors not
their own, and smokes on the sword of persecuting France? It is
_woman's_, as well as man's? Yes, _women_ were accounted as sheep for
the slaughter, and were cut down as the tender saplings of the wood.
But time would fail me, to tell of all those hundreds and thousands of
_women_, who perished in the Low countries of Holland, when Alva's sword
of vengeance was unsheathed against the Protestants, when the Catholic
Inquisitions of Europe became the merciless executioners of vindictive
wrath, upon those who dared to worship God, instead of bowing down in
unholy adoration before "my Lord God the _Pope_," and when England, too,
burnt her Ann Ascoes at the stake of martyrdom. Suffice it to say, that
the Church, after having been driven from Judea to Rome, and from Rome
to Piedmont, and from Piedmont to England, and from England to Holland,
at last stretched her fainting wings over the dark bosom of the
Atlantic, and found on the shores of a great wilderness, a refuge from
tyranny and oppression--as she thought, but _even here_, (the warm blush
of shame mantles my cheek as I write it,) _even here, woman_ was beaten
and banished, imprisoned, and hung upon the gallows, a trophy to the
Cross. And what, I would ask in conclusion, have _women_ done for the
great and glorious cause of Emancipation? Who wrote that pamphlet which
moved the heart of Wilberforce to pray over the wrongs, and his tongue
to plead the cause of the oppressed African? It was a _woman_, Elizabeth
Heyrick. Who labored assiduously to keep the sufferings of the slave
continually before the British public? They were _women_. And how did
they do it? By their needles, paint brushes and pens, by speaking the
truth, and petitioning Parliament for the abolition of slavery. And what
was the effect of their labors? Read it in the Emancipation bill of
Great Britain. Read it, in the present state of her West India Colonies.
Read it, in the impulse which has been given to the cause of freedom, in
the United States of America. Have English women then done so much for
the negro, and shall American women do nothing? Oh no! Already are there
sixty female Anti-Slavery Societies in operation. These are doing just
what the English women did, telling the story of the colored man's
wrongs, praying for his deliverance, and presenting his kneeling image
constantly before the public eye on bags and needle-books, card-racks,
pen-wipers, pin-cushions, &c. Even the children of the north are
inscribing on their handy work, "May the points of our needles prick the
slaveholder's conscience." Some of the reports of these Societies
exhibit not only considerable talent, but a deep sense of religious
duty, and a determination to persevere through evil as well as good
report, until every scourge, and every shackle, is buried under the feet
of the manumitted slave.
The Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society of Boston was called last fall, to a
severe trial of their faith and constancy. They were mobbed by "the
gentlemen of property and standing," in that city at their anniversary
meeting, and their lives were jeoparded by an infuriated crowd; but
their conduct on that occasion did credit to our sex, and affords a full
assurance that they will _never_ abandon the cause of the slave. The
pamphlet, Right and Wrong in Boston, issued by them in which a
particular account is given of that "mob of broad cloth in broad day,"
does equal credit to the head and the heart of her who wrote it. I wish
my Southern sisters could read it; they would then understand that the
women of the North have engaged in this work from a sense of _religious
duty_, and that nothing will ever induce them to take their hands from
it until it is fully accomplished. They feel no hostility to you, no
bitterness or wrath; they rather sympathize in your trials and
difficulties; but they well know that the first thing to be done to help
you, is to pour in the light of truth on your minds, to urge you to
reflect on, and pray over the subject. This is all _they_ can do for
you, _you_ must work out your own deliverance with fear and trembling,
and with the direction and blessing of God, _you can do it_. Northern
women may labor to produce a correct public opinion at the North, but if
Southern women sit down in listless indifference and criminal idleness,
public opinion cannot be rectified and purified at the South. It is
manifest to every reflecting mind, that slavery must be abolished; the
era in which we live, and the light which is overspreading the whole
world on this subject, clearly show that the time cannot be distant when
it will be done. Now there are only two ways in which it can be
effected, by moral power or physical force, and it is for _you_ to
choose which of these you prefer. Slavery always has, and always will
produce insurrections wherever it exists, because it is a violation of
the natural order of things, and no human power can much longer
perpetuate it. The opposers of abolitionists fully believe this; one of
them remarked to me not long since, there is no doubt there will be a
most terrible overturning at the South in a few years, such cruelty and
wrong, must be visited with Divine vengeance soon. Abolitionists
believe, too, that this must inevitably be the case if you do not
repent, and they are not willing to leave you to perish without
entreating you, to save yourselves from destruction; well may they say
with the apostle, "am I then your enemy because I tell you the truth,"
and warn you to flee from impending judgments.
But why, my dear friends, have I thus been endeavoring to lead you
through the history of more than three thousand years, and to point you
to that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before, "from works to
rewards?" Have I been seeking to magnify the sufferings, and exalt the
character of woman, that she "might have praise of men?" No! no! my
object has been to arouse _you_, as the wives and mothers, the daughters
and sisters, of the South, to a sense of your duty as _women_, and as
Christian women, on that great subject, which has already shaken our
country, from the St. Lawrence and the lakes, to the Gulf of Mexico, and
from the Mississippi to the shores of the Atlantic; _and will continue
mightily to shake it_, until the polluted temple of slavery fall and
crumble into ruin. I would say unto each one of you, "what meanest thou,
O sleeper! arise and call upon thy God, if so be that God will think
upon us that we perish not." Perceive you not that dark cloud of
vengeance which hangs over our boasting Republic? Saw you not the
lightnings of Heaven's wrath, in the flame which leaped from the
Indian's torch to the roof of yonder dwelling, and lighted with its
horrid glare the darkness of midnight? Heard you not the thunders of
Divine anger, as the distant roar of the cannon came rolling onward,
from the Texian country, where Protestant American Rebels are fighting
with Mexican Republicans--for what? For the re-establishment of
_slavery_; yes! of American slavery in the bosom of a Catholic Republic,
where that system of robbery, violence, and wrong, had been legally
abolished for twelve years. Yes! citizens of the United States, after
plundering Mexico of her land, are now engaged in deadly conflict, for
the privilege of fastening chains, and collars, and manacles--upon whom?
upon the subjects of some foreign prince? No! upon native born American
Republican citizens, although the fathers of these very men declared to
the whole world, while struggling to free themselves from the three
penny taxes of an English king, that they believed it to be a
_self-evident_ truth that _all men_ were created equal, and had an
_unalienable right to liberty_.
Well may the poet exclaim in bitter sarcasm,
"The fustian flag that proudly waves
In solemn mockery o'er _a land of slaves_."
Can you not, my friends, understand the signs of the times; do you not
see the sword of retributive justice hanging over the South, or are you
still slumbering at your posts?--Are there no Shiphrahs, no Puahs among
you, who will dare in Christian firmness and Christian meekness, to
refuse to obey the _wicked laws_ which require _woman to enslave, to
degrade and to brutalize woman_? Are there no Miriams, who would rejoice
to lead out the captive daughters of the Southern States to liberty and
light? Are there no Huldahs there who will dare to _speak the truth_
concerning the sins of the people and those judgments, which it requires
no prophet's eye to see, must follow if repentance is not speedily
sought? Is there no Esther among you who will plead for the poor devoted
slave? Read the history of this Persian queen, it is full of
instruction; she at first refused to plead for the Jews; but, hear the
words of Mordecai, "Think not within thyself, that _thou_ shalt escape
in the king's house more than all the Jews, for _if thou altogether
holdest thy peace at this time_, then shall there enlargement and
deliverance arise to the Jews from another place: but _thou and thy
father's house shall be destroyed_." Listen, too, to her magnanimous
reply to this powerful appeal; "_I will_ go in unto the king, which is
_not_ according to law, and if I perish, I perish." Yes! if there were
but _one_ Esther at the South, she _might_ save her country from ruin;
but let the Christian women there arise, as the Christian women of Great
Britain did, in the majesty of moral power, and that salvation is
certain. Let them embody themselves in societies, and send petitions up
to their different legislatures, entreating their husbands, fathers,
brothers and sons, to abolish the institution of slavery; no longer to
subject _woman_ to the scourge and the chain, to mental darkness and
moral degradation; no longer to tear husbands from their wives, and
children from their parents; no longer to make men, women, and children,
work _without wages_; no longer to make their lives bitter in hard
bondage; no longer to reduce _American citizens_ to the abject condition
of _slaves_, of "chattels personal;" no longer to barter the _image of
God_ in human shambles for corruptible things such as silver and gold.
The _women of the South can overthrow_ this horrible system of
oppression and cruelty, licentiousness and wrong. Such appeals to your
legislatures would be irresistible, for there is something in the heart
of man which _will bend under moral suasion_. There is a swift witness
for truth in his bosom, which _will respond to truth_ when it is uttered
with calmness and dignity. If you could obtain but six signatures to
such a petition in only one state, I would say, send up that petition,
and be not in the least discouraged by the scoffs and jeers of the
heartless, or the resolution of the house to lay it on the table. It
will be a great thing if the subject can be introduced into your
legislatures in any way, even by _women_, and _they_ will be the most
likely to introduce it there in the best possible manner, as a matter of
_morals_ and _religion_, not of expediency or politics. You may
petition, too, the different ecclesiastical bodies of the slave states.
Slavery must be attacked with the whole power of truth and the sword of
the spirit. You must take it up on _Christian_ ground, and fight against
it with Christian weapons, whilst your feet are shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace. And _you are now_ loudly called upon
by the cries of the widow and the orphan, to arise and gird yourselves
for this great moral conflict "with the whole armour of righteousness on
the right hand and on the left."
There is every encouragement for you to labor and pray, my friends,
because the abolition of slavery as well as its existence, has been the
theme of prophecy. "Ethiopia (says the Psalmist) shall stretch forth her
hands unto God." And is she not now doing so? Are not the Christian
negroes of the south lifting their hands in prayer for deliverance, just
as the Israelites did when their redemption was drawing nigh? Are they
not sighing and crying by reason of the hard bondage? And think you,
that He, of whom it was said, "and God heard their groaning, and their
cry came up unto him by reason of the hard bondage," think you that his
ear is heavy that he cannot _now_ hear the cries of his suffering
children? Or that He who raised up a Moses, an Aaron, and a Miriam, to
bring them up out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, cannot
now, with a high hand and a stretched out arm, rid the poor negroes out
of the hands of their masters? Surely you believe that his arm is _not_
shortened that he cannot save. And would not such a work of mercy
redound to his glory? But another string of the harp of prophecy
vibrates to the song of deliverance: "But they shall sit every man under
his vine, and under his fig-tree, and _none shall make them afraid_; for
the mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it." The _slave_ never can do
this as long as he is a _slave_; whilst he is a "chattel personal" he
can own _no_ property; but the time _is to come_ when _every_ man is to
sit under _his own_ vine and _his own_ fig-tree, and no domineering
driver, or irresponsible master, or irascible mistress, shall make him
afraid of the chain or the whip. Hear, too, the sweet tones of another
string: "Many shall run to and fro, and _knowledge_ shall be increased."
Slavery is an insurmountable barrier to the increase of knowledge in
every community where it exists; _slavery, then, must be abolished
before_ this prediction can be fulfilled. The last chord I shall touch,
will be this, "They shall _not_ hurt nor destroy in all my holy
mountain."
_Slavery, then, must be overthrown before_ the prophecies can be
accomplished, but how are they to be fulfilled? Will the wheels of the
millennial car be rolled onward by miraculous power? No! God designs to
confer this holy privilege upon _woman_; it is through _their_
instrumentality that the great and glorious work of reforming the world
is to be done. And see you not how the mighty engine of _moral power_ is
dragging in its rear the Bible and peace societies, anti-slavery and
temperance, sabbath schools, moral reform, and missions? or to adopt
another figure, do not these seven philanthropic associations compose
the beautiful tints in that bow of promise which spans the arch of our
moral heaven? Who does not believe, that if these societies were broken
up, their constitutions burnt, and the vast machinery with which they
are laboring to regenerate mankind was stopped, that the black clouds of
vengeance would soon, burst over our world, and every city would witness
the fate of the devoted cities of the plain? Each one of these societies
is walking abroad through the earth scattering the seeds of truth over
the wide field of our world, not with the hundred hands of a Briareus,
but with a hundred thousand.
Another encouragement for you to labor, my friends, is, that you will
have the prayers and co-operation of English and Northern
philanthropists. You will never bend your knees in supplication at the
throne of grace for the overthrow of slavery, without meeting there the
spirits of other Christians, who will mingle their voices with yours, as
the morning or evening sacrifice ascends to God. Yes, the spirit of
prayer and of supplication has been poured out upon many, many hearts;
there are wrestling Jacobs who will not let go of the prophetic promises
of deliverance for the captive, and the opening, of prison doors to them
that are bound. There are Pauls who are saying, in reference to this
subject, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" There are Marys sitting
in the house now, who are ready to arise and go forth in this work as
soon as the message is brought, "the master is come and calleth for
thee." And there are Marthas, too, who have already gone out to meet
Jesus, as he bends his footsteps to their brother's grave, and weeps,
_not_ over the lifeless body of Lazarus bound hand and foot in
grave-clothes, but over the politically and intellectually lifeless
slave, bound hand and foot in the iron chains of oppression and
ignorance. Some may be ready to say, as Martha did, who seemed to expect
nothing but sympathy from Jesus, "Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he
hath been dead four days." She thought it useless to remove the stone
and expose the loathsome body of her brother; she could not believe that
so great a miracle could be wrought, as to raise _that putrified body_
into life; but "Jesus said, take _ye_ away the stone;" and when _they_
had taken away the stone where the dead was laid, and uncovered the body
of Lazarus, then it was that "Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father,
I thank thee that thou hast heard me," &c. "And when he had thus spoken,
he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth." Yes, some may be ready
to say of the colored race, how can _they_ ever be raised politically
and intellectually, they have been dead four hundred years? But _we_
have _nothing_ to do with _how_ this is to be done; _our business_ is to
take away the stone which has covered up the dead body of our brother,
to expose the putrid carcass, to show _how_ that body has been bound
with the grave-clothes of heathen ignorance, and his face with the
napkin of prejudice, and having done all it was our duty to do, to stand
by the negro's grave, in humble faith and holy hope, waiting to hear the
life-giving command of "Lazarus, come forth." This is just what
Anti-Slavery Societies are doing; they are taking away the stone from
the mouth of the tomb of slavery, where lies the putrid carcass of our
brother. They want the pure light of heaven to shine into that dark and
gloomy cave; they want all men to see _how_ that dead body has been
bound, _how_ that face has been wrapped in the _napkin of prejudice_;
and shall they wait beside that grave in vain? Is not Jesus still the
resurrection and the life? Did He come to proclaim liberty to the
captive, and the opening of prison doors to them that are bound, in
vain? Did He promise to give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness unto
them that mourn in Zion, and will He refuse to beautify the mind, anoint
the head, and throw around the captive negro the mantle of praise for
that spirit of heaviness which has so long bowed him down to the ground?
Or shall we not rather say with the prophet, "the zeal of the Lord of
Hosts _will_ perform this?" Yes, his promises are sure, and amen in
Christ Jesus, that he will assemble her that halteth, and gather her
that is driven out, and her that is afflicted.
But I will now say a few words on the subject of Abolitionism. Doubtless
you have all heard Anti-Slavery Societies denounced as insurrectionary
and mischievous, fanatical and dangerous. It has been said they publish
the most abominable untruths, and that they are endeavoring to excite
rebellions at the South. Have you believed these reports, my friends?
have _you_ also been deceived by these false assertions? Listen to me,
then, whilst I endeavor to wipe from the fair character of Abolitionism
such unfounded accusations. You know that _I_ am a Southerner: your know
that my dearest relatives are now in a slave State. Can you for a moment
believe I would prove so recreant to the feelings of a daughter and a
sister, as to join a society which seeking to overthrow slavery by
falsehood, bloodshed and murder? I appeal to you who have known and
loved me in days that are passed, can _you_ believe it? No! my friends.
As a Carolinian, I was peculiarly jealous of any movements on this
subject; and before I would join an Anti-Slavery Society, I took the
precaution of becoming acquainted with some of the leading
Abolitionists, of reading their publications and attending their
meetings, at which I heard addresses both from colored and white men;
and it was not until I was fully convinced that their principles were
_entirely pacific,_ and their efforts _only moral,_ that I gave my name
as a member to the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Philadelphia. Since
that time, I have regularly taken the Liberator, and read many
Anti-Slavery pamphlets and papers and books, and can assure you I
_never_ have seen a single insurrectionary paragraph, and never read any
account of cruelty which I could not believe. Southerners may deny the
truth of these accounts, but why do they not _prove_ them to be false.
Their violent expressions of horror at such accounts being believed,
_may_ deceive some, but they cannot deceive _me,_ for I lived too long
in the midst of slavery, not to know what slavery is. Such declarations
remind me of an assertion made by a Catholic priest, who said that his
Church had never persecuted Protestants for their religion, when it is
well known that the pages of history are black with the crimes of the
Inquisition. Oh! if the slaves of the South could only write a book, it
would vie, I have no doubt, with the horrible details of Catholic
cruelty. When _I_ speak of this system, "I speak that I do know," and I
am not afraid to assert, that Anti-Slavery publications have _not_
overdrawn the monstrous features of slavery at all. And many a
Southerner _knows_ this as well as I do. A lady in North Carolina
remarked to a friend of mine, about eighteen months since, "Northerners
know nothing at all about slavery; they think it is perpetual bondage
only; but of the _depth of degradation_ that word involves, they have no
conception; if they had, _they would never cease_ their efforts until so
_horrible_ a system was overthrown." She did not, know how faithfully
some Northern men and Northern women had studied this subject; how
diligently they had searched out the cause of "him who had none to help
him," and how fearlessly they had told the story of the negro's wrongs.
Yes, Northerners know _every_ thing about slavery now. This monster of
iniquity has been unveiled to the world, his frightful features
unmasked, and soon, very soon, will he be regarded with no more
complacency by the American republic than is the idol of Juggernaut,
rolling its bloody wheels over the crushed bodies of its prostrate
victims.
But you will probably ask, if Anti-Slavery societies are not
insurrectionary, why do Northerners tell us they are! Why, I would ask
you in return, did Northern senators and Northern representatives give
their votes, at the last sitting of congress, to the admission of
Arkansas Territory as a slave state? Take those men, one by one, and ask
them in their parlours, do you _approve of slavery?_ ask them on
_Northern_ ground, where they will speak the truth, and I doubt not
_every man_ of them will tell you, _no_! Why then, I ask, did _they_
give their votes to enlarge the mouth of that grave which has already
destroyed its tens of thousands! All our enemies tell _us_ they are as
much anti slavery as we are. Yes, my friends, thousands who are helping
you to bind the fetters of slavery on the negro, despise you in their
hearts for doing it; they rejoice that such an institution has not been
entailed upon them. Why then, I would ask, do _they_ lend you their
help? I will tell you, "they love _the praise of men more_ than the
praise of God." The Abolition cause has not yet become so popular as to
induce them to believe, that by advocating it in congress, they shall
sit still more securely in their seats there, and like the _chief
rulers_ in the days of our Saviour, though _many_ believed on him, yet
they did _not_ confess him, lest they should _be put out of the
synagogue_; John xii, 42, 43. Or perhaps like Pilate, thinking they
could prevail nothing, and fearing a tumult, they determined to release
Barabbas and surrender the just man, the poor innocent slave to be
stripped of his rights and scourged. In vain will such men try to wash
their hands, and say, with the Roman governor, "I am innocent of the
blood of this just person." Northern American statesmen are no more
innocent of the crime of slavery, than Pilate was of the murder of
Jesus, or Saul of that of Stephen. These are high charges, but I appeal
to _their hearts_; I appeal to public opinion ten years from now.
Slavery then is a national sin.
But you will say, a great many other Northerners tell us so, who can
have no political motives. The interests of the North, you must know, my
friends, are very closely combined with those of the South. The Northern
merchants and manufacturers are making _their_ fortunes out of the
_produce of slave labor_; the grocer is selling your rice and sugar; how
then can these men bear a testimony against slavery without condemning
themselves? But there is another reason, the North is most dreadfully
afraid of Amalgamation. She is alarmed at the very idea of a thing so
monstrous, as she thinks. And lest this consequence _might_ flow from
emancipation, she is determined to resist all efforts at emancipation
without expatriation. It is not because she _approves of slavery_, or
believes it to be "the corner stone of our republic," for she is as much
_anti-slavery_ as we are; but amalgamation is too horrible to think of.
Now I would ask _you_, is it right, is it generous, to refuse the
colored people in this country the advantages of education and the
privilege, or rather the _right_, to follow honest trades and callings
merely because they are colored? The same prejudice exists here against
our colored brethren that existed against the Gentiles in Judea. Great
numbers cannot bear the idea of equality, and fearing lest, if they had
the same advantages we enjoy, they would become as intelligent, as
moral, as religious, and as respectable and wealthy, they are determined
to keep them as low as they possibly can. Is this doing as they would be
done by? Is this loving their neighbor as _themselves_? Oh! that _such_
opposers of Abolitionism would put their souls in the stead of the free
colored man's and obey the apostolic injunction, to "remember them that
are in bonds _as bound with them_." I will leave you to judge whether
the fear of amalgamation ought to induce men to oppose anti-slavery
efforts, when _they_ believe _slavery_ to be _sinful_. Prejudice against
color, is the most powerful enemy we have to fight with at the North.
You need not be surprised, then, at all, at what is said _against_
Abolitionists by the North, for they are wielding a two-edged sword,
which even here, cuts through the _cords of caste_, on the one side, and
the _bonds of interest_ on the other. They are only sharing the fate of
other reformers, abused and reviled whilst they are in the minority; but
they are neither angry nor discouraged by the invective which has been
heaped upon them by slaveholders at the South and their apologists at
the North. They know that when George Fox and William Edmundson were
laboring in behalf of the negroes in the West Indies in 1671 that the
very _same_ slanders were propogated against them, which are _now_
circulated against Abolitionists. Although it was well known that Fox
was the founder of a religious sect which repudiated _all_ war, and
_all_ violence, yet _even he_ was accused of "endeavoring to excite the
slaves to insurrection and of teaching the negroes to cut their master's
throats." And these two men who had their feet shod with the preparation
of the Gospel of Peace, were actually compelled to draw up a formal
declaration that _they were not_ trying to raise a rebellion in
Barbadoes. It is also worthy of remark that these Reformers did not at
this time see the necessity of emancipation under seven years, and their
principal efforts were exerted to persuade the planters of the necessity
of instructing their slaves; but the slaveholder saw then, just what the
slaveholder sees now, that an _enlightened_ population _never_ can be a
_slave_ population, and therefore they passed a law that negroes should
not even attend the meetings of Friends. Abolitionists know that the
life of Clarkson was sought by slavetraders, and that even Wilberforce
was denounced on the floor of Parliament as a fanatic and a hypocrite by
the present King of England, the very man who, in 1834 set his seal to
that instrument which burst the fetters of eight hundred thousand slaves
in his West India colonies. They know that the first Quaker who bore a
_faithful_ testimony against the sin of slavery was cut off from
religious fellowship with that society. That Quaker was a _woman_. On
her deathbed she sent for the committee who dealt with her--she told
them, the near approach of death had not altered her sentiments on the
subject of slavery and waving her hand towards a very fertile and
beautiful portion of country which lay stretched before her window, she
said with great solemnity, "Friends, the time will come when there will
not be friends enough in all this district to hold one meeting for
worship, and this garden will be turned into a wilderness."
The aged friend, who with tears in his eyes, related this interesting
circumstance to me, remarked, that at that time there were seven
meetings of friends in that part of Virginia, but that when he was there
ten years ago, not a single meeting was held, and the country was
literally a desolation. Soon after her decease, John Woolman began his
labors in our society, and instead of disowning a member for testifying
_against_ slavery, they have for sixty-two years positively forbidden
their members to hold slaves.
Abolitionists understand the slaveholding spirit too well to be
surprised at any thing that has yet happened at the South or the North;
they know that the greater the sin is, which is exposed, the more
violent will be the efforts to blacken the character and impugn the
motives of those who are engaged in bringing to light the hidden things
of darkness. They understand the work of Reform too well to be driven
back by the furious waves of opposition, which are only foaming out
their own shame. They have stood "the world's dread laugh," when only
twelve men formed the first Anti-Slavery Society in Boston in 1831. They
have faced and refuted the calumnies of their enemies, and proved
themselves to be emphatically _peace men_ by _never resisting_ the
violence of mobs, even when driven by them from the temple of God, and
dragged by an infuriated crowd through the streets of the emporium of
New-England, or subjected by _slaveholders_ to the pain of corporal
punishment. "None of these things move them;" and, by the grace of God,
they are determined to persevere in this work of faith and labor of
love: they mean to pray, and preach, and write, and print, until slavery
is completely overthrown, until Babylon is taken up and cast into the
sea, to "be found no more at all." They mean to petition Congress year
after year, until the seat of our government is cleansed from the sinful
traffic of "slaves and the souls of men." Although that august assembly
may be like the unjust judge who "feared not God neither regarded man,"
yet it _must_ yield just as he did, from the power of importunity. Like
the unjust judge, Congress _must_ redress the wrongs of the widow, lest
by the continual coming up of petitions, it be wearied. This will be
striking the dagger into the very heart of the monster, and once this
done, he must soon expire.
Abolitionists have been accused of abusing their Southern brethren. Did
the prophet Isaiah _abuse_ the Jews when he addressed to them the
cutting reproof contained in the first chapter of his prophecies, and
ended by telling them, they would be _ashamed_ of the oaks they had
desired, and _confounded_ for the garden they had chosen? Did John the
Baptist _abuse_ the Jews when he called them "_a generation of vipers_,"
and warned them "to bring forth fruits meet for repentance!" Did Peter
abuse the Jews when he told them they were the murderers of the Lord of
Glory? Did Paul abuse the Roman Governor when he reasoned before him of
righteousness, temperance, and judgment, so as to send conviction home
to his guilty heart, and cause him to tremble in view of the crimes he
was living in? Surely not. No man will _now_ accuse the prophets and
apostles of _abuse_, but what have Abolitionists done more than they? No
doubt the Jews thought the prophets and apostles in their day, just as
harsh and uncharitable as slaveholders now, think Abolitionists; if they
did not, why did they beat, and stone, and kill them?
Great fault has been found with the prints which have been employed to
expose slavery at the North, but my friends, how could this be done so
effectively in any other way? Until the pictures of the slave's
sufferings were drawn and held up to public gaze, no Northerner had any
idea of the cruelty of the system, it never entered their minds that
such abominations could exist in Christian, Republican America; they
never suspected that many of the _gentlemen_ and _ladies_ who came from
the South to spend the summer months in traveling among them, were petty
tyrants at home. And those who had lived at the South, and came to
reside at the North, were too _ashamed of slavery_ even to speak of it;
the language of their hearts was, "tell it _not_ in Gath, publish it
_not_ in the streets of Askelon;" they saw no use in uncovering the
loathsome body to popular sight, and in hopeless despair, wept in secret
places over the sins of oppression. To such hidden mourners the
formation of Anti-Slavery Societies was as life from the dead, the first
beams of hope which gleamed through the dark clouds of despondency and
grief. Prints were made use of to effect the abolition of the
Inquisition in Spain, and Clarkson employed them when he was laboring to
break up the Slave trade, and English Abolitionists used them just as we
are now doing. They are powerful appeals and have invariably done the
work they were designed to do, and we cannot consent to abandon the use
of these until the _realities_ no longer exist.
With regard to those white men, who, it was said, did try to raise an
insurrection in Mississippi a year ago, and who were stated to be
Abolitionists, none of them were proved to be members of Anti-Slavery
Societies, and it must remain a matter of great doubt whether, even they
were guilty of the crimes alledged against them, because when any
community is thrown into such a panic as to inflict Lynch law upon
accused persons, they cannot be supposed to be capable of judging with
calmness and impartiality. _We know_ that the papers of which the
Charleston mail was robbed, were _not_ insurrectionary, and that they
were _not_ sent to the colored people as was reported. _We know_ that
Amos Dresser was _no insurrectionist_ though he was accused of being so,
and on this false accusation was publicly whipped in Nashville in the
midst of a crowd of infuriated _slaveholders_. Was that young man
disgraced by this infliction of corporal punishment? No more than was
the great apostle of the Gentile; who five times received forty stripes,
save one. Like him, he might have said, "henceforth I bear in my body
the marks of the Lord Jesus," for it was for the _truth's sake, he
suffered_, as much as did the Apostle Paul. Are Nelson, and Garrett, and
Williams, and other Abolitionists who have recently been banished from
Missouri, insurrectionists? _We know_ they are _not_, whatever
slaveholders may choose to call them. The spirit which now asperses the
character of the Abolitionists, is the _very same_ which dressed up the
Christians of Spain in the skins of wild beasts and pictures of devils
when they were led to execution as heretics. Before we condemn
individuals, it is necessary, even in a wicked community, to accuse them
of some crime; hence, when Jezebel wished to compass the death of
Naboth, men of Belial were suborned to bear false witness against him,
and so it was with Stephen, and so it ever has been, and ever will be,
as long as there is any virtue to suffer on the rack, or the gallows.
_False_ witnesses must appear against Abolitionists before they can be
condemned.
I will now say a few words on George Thompson's mission to this country.
This Philanthropist was accused of being a foreign emissary. Were
Lafayette, and Steuben, and De Kalb, and Pulawski, foreign emissaries
when they came over to America to fight against the tories, who
preferred submitting to what was termed, "the yoke of servitude," rather
than bursting the fetters which bound them to the mother country? _They_
came with _carnal weapons_ to engage in _bloody_ conflict against
American citizens, and yet, where do their names stand on the page of
History. Among the honorable, or the base? Thompson came here to war
against the giant sin of slavery, _not_ with the sword and the pistol,
but with the smooth stones of oratory taken from the pure waters of the
river of Truth. His splendid talents and commanding eloquence rendered
him a powerful coadjutor in the Anti-Slavery cause, and in order to
neutralize the effects of these upon his auditors, and rob the poor
slave of the benefits of his labors, his character was defamed, his life
was sought, and he at last driven from our Republic, as a fugitive. But
was _Thompson_ disgraced by all this mean and contemptible and wicked
chicanery and malice? No more than was Paul, when in consequence of a
vision he had seen at Treas, he went over the Macedonia to help the
Christians there, and was beaten and imprisoned, because he cast out a
spirit of divination from a young damsel which had brought much gain to
her masters. Paul was as much a _foreign emissary_ in the Roman colony
of Philippi, as George Thompson was in America, and it was because he
was a _Jew_, and taught customs it was not lawful for them to receive or
observe being Romans, that the Apostle was thus treated.
It was said, Thompson was a felon, who had fled to this country to
escape transportation to New Holland. Look at him now pouring the
thundering strains of his eloquence, upon crowded audiences in Great
Britain, and see in this a triumphant vindication of his character. And
have the slaveholder, and his obsequious apologist, gained anything by
all their violence and falsehood? No! for the stone which struck Goliath
of Gath, had already been thrown from the sling. The giant of slavery
who had so proudly defied the armies of the living God, had received his
death-blow before he left our shores. But what is George Thompson doing
there? Is he not now laboring there, as effectually to abolish American
slavery as though he trod our own soil, and lectured to New York or
Boston assemblies? What is he doing there, but constructing a stupendous
dam, which will turn the overwhelming tide of public opinion over the
wheels of that machinery which Abolitionists are working here. He is now
lecturing to _Britons_ on _American Slavery_, to the _subjects_ of a
_King_, on the abject condition of the _slaves of a Republic_. He is
telling them of that mighty Confederacy of petty tyrants which extends
over thirteen States of our Union. He is telling them of the munificent
rewards offered by slaveholders, for the heads of the most distinguished
advocates for freedom in this country. He is moving the British Churches
to send out to the churches of America the most solemn appeals,
reproving, rebuking, and exhorting, them with all long suffering and
patience to abandon the sin of slavery immediately. Where then I ask,
will the name of George Thompson stand on the page of History? Among the
honorable, or the base?
What can I say more, my friends, to induce you to set your hands, and
heads, and hearts, to the great work of justice and mercy. Perhaps you
have feared the consequences of immediate emancipation, and been
frightened by all those dreadful prophecies of rebellion, bloodshed and
murder, which have been uttered. "Let no man deceive you;" they are the
predictions of that same "lying spirit" which spoke through the four
hundred prophets of old, to Ahab king of Israel, urging him on to
destruction. _Slavery_ may produce these horrible scenes if it is
continued five years longer, but Emancipation _never will_.
I can prove the _safety_ of immediate Emancipation by history. In St.
Domingo in 1793 six hundred thousand slaves were set free in a white
population of forty-two thousand. That Island "marched as by enchantment
towards its ancient splendor", cultivation prospered, every day produced
perceptible proofs of its progress, and the negroes all continued
quietly to work on the different plantations, until in 1802, France
determined to reduce these liberated slaves again to bondage. It was at
_this time_ that all those dreadful scenes of cruelty occurred, which we
so often _unjustly_ hear spoken of, as the effects of Abolition. They
were occasioned _not_ by Emancipation, but by the base attempt to fasten
the chains of slavery on the limbs of liberated slaves.
In Guadaloupe eighty-five thousand slaves were freed in a white
population of thirteen thousand. The same prosperous effects followed
manumission here, that had attended it in Hayti, every thing was quiet
until Buonaparte sent out a fleet to reduce these negroes again to
slavery, and in 1802 this institution was re-established in that Island.
In 1834, when Great Britain determined to liberate the slaves in her
West India colonies, and proposed the apprenticeship system; the
planters of Bermuda and Antigua, after having joined the other planters
in their representations of the bloody consequences of Emancipation, in
order if possible to hold back the hand which was offering the boon of
freedom to the poor negro; as soon as they found such falsehoods were
utterly disregarded, and Abolition must take place, came forward
voluntarily, and asked for the compensation which was due to them,
saying, _they preferred immediate emancipation_, and were not afraid of
any insurrection. And how is it with these islands now? They are
decidedly more prosperous than any of those on which the apprenticeship
system was adopted, and England is now trying to abolish that system, so
fully convinced is she that immediate Emancipation is the _safest_ and
the best plan.
And why not try it in the Southern States, if it _never_ has occasioned
rebellion; if _not a drop of blood_ has ever been shed in consequence of
it, though it has been so often tried, why should we suppose it would
produce such disastrous consequences now? "Be not deceived then, God is
not mocked," by such false excuses for not doing justly and loving
mercy. There is nothing to fear from immediate Emancipation, but _every
thing_ from the continuance of slavery.
Sisters in Christ, I have done. As a Southerner, I have felt it was my
duty to address you. I have endeavoured to set before you the exceeding
sinfulness of slavery, and to point you to the example of those noble
women who have been raised up in the church to effect great revolutions,
and to suffer for the truth's sake. I have appealed to your sympathies
as women, to your sense of duty as _Christian women_. I have attempted
to vindicate the Abolitionists, to prove the entire safety of immediate
Emancipation, and to plead the cause of the poor and oppressed. I have
done--I have sowed the seeds of truth, but I well know, that even if an
Apollos were to follow in my steps to water them, "_God only_ can give
the increase." To Him then who is able to prosper the work of his
servant's hand, I commend this Appeal in fervent prayer, that as he
"hath _chosen the weak things of the world_, to confound the things
which are mighty," so He may guise His blessing, to descend and carry
conviction to the hearts of many Lydias through these speaking pages.
Farewell--Count me not your "enemy because I have told you the truth,"
but believe me in unfeigned affection,
Your sympathizing Friend,
ANGELINA E. GRIMKÉ.
Shrewsbury, N.J., 1836.
* * * * *
THIRD EDITION.
Price 6 1-4 cents single, 62 1-2 cents per dozen, $4 per hundred.
No. 3.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
* * * * *
LETTER OF GERRIT SMITH
TO
REV. JAMES SMYLIE,
OF THE
STATE OF MISSISSIPPI.
1837.
LETTER, ETC.
PETERBORO', October 28, 1836.
Rev. JAMES SMYLIE,
_Late Stated Clerk of the Presbytery of Mississippi:_
SIR,--Accept my thanks for your politeness in sending me a copy of your
book on slavery. This book proves, that the often repeated assertion,
that the whole South is opposed to the discussion of the question of
slavery, is not true:--and so far, I rejoice in its appearance. I
presume--I know, indeed, that you are not the only man in the South, who
is in favor of this discussion. There are, doubtless, many persons in
the South, who believe, that all attempts to suppress it, are vain, as
well as wicked. Besides, you virtually admit, that the South is
compelled to discuss the question of slavery; or, at least, to give her
own views of it, in order to prevent the conscience of Southern
Christians--that conscience, "which does make cowards of us all"--from
turning traitor to the cause of slavery. I rejoice, too, that you
accompanied the copy sent to me, with the request, that I should review
it, and make "candid remarks" upon it; and, that you have thus put it in
my power to send to the South some of my views on slavery, without
laying myself open to the charge of being discourteous and obtrusive.
You undertake to show that slavery existed, and, with the Divine
approbation, amongst the Old Testament Jews; and that it also existed,
whilst our Saviour and his Apostles were on the earth, and was approved
by them. You thence argue, that it is not only an innocent institution,
but one which it is a religious duty to maintain.
I admit, for the sake of argument, that there was a servitude in the
patriarchal families which was approved by God. But what does this avail
in your defence of slavery, unless you show, that that servitude and
slavery are essentially alike? The literal terms of the relation of
master and servant, under that servitude, are not made known to us; but
we can, nevertheless, confidently infer their spirit from facts, which
illustrate their practical character; and, if this character be found to
be opposite to that of slavery, then it is manifest, that what you say
of patriarchal servitude is impertinent, and tends to mislead, rather
than enlighten your readers. To a few of these facts and a few of the
considerations arising from them, I now call your attention.
1st. Read the first eight verses of the eighteenth chapter of Genesis,
and tell me, if you ever saw Gov. McDuffie or any other Southern
patriarch (for the governor desires to have all slaveholders looked upon
in the character of patriarchs) putting himself on a level with his
servants, and "working with his hands," after the manner of Abraham and
Sarah?
2d. There was such a community of interest--so much of mutual
confidence--between Abraham and his servants, that they fought his
battles. Indeed, the terms of this patriarchal servitude were such, that
in the event of the master's dying without issue, one of his servants
inherited his property (Gen. 15: 3). But, according to the code of
Southern slavery, the slave can no more own property, than he can own
himself. "All that a slave possesses belongs to his master"--"Slaves are
incapable of inheriting or transmitting property." These, and many
similar phrases, are found in that code. Severe as was the system of
Roman slavery, yet in this respect, it was far milder than yours; for
its subjects could acquire property (their peculium); and frequently did
they purchase their liberty with it. So far from Southern slaves being,
as Abraham's servants were, a dependence in war, it is historically
true, that they are accustomed to improve this occasion to effect their
escape, and strengthen the hands of the enemy. As a further proof that
Southern slavery begets none of that confidence between master and
slave, which characterized the mutual intercourse of Abraham and his
servants--the slave is prohibited, under severe penalties, from having
any weapons in his possession, even in time of peace; and the nightly
patrol, which the terror-stricken whites of Southern towns keep up, in
peace, as well as in war, argues any thing, rather than the existence of
such confidence. "For keeping or carrying a gun, or powder or shot, or a
club, or other weapon whatsoever, offensive or defensive, a slave
incurs, says Southern statute book, for each offence, thirty-nine
lashes."
3d. When I read your quotation from the twenty-fourth chapter of
Genesis, made for the purpose of showing that God allowed Abraham to
have slaves, I could not but wonder at your imprudence, in meddling with
this chapter, which is of itself, enough to convince any unbiased mind,
that Abraham's servants held a relation to their master and to society,
totally different from that held by Southern slaves. Have you ever known
a great man in your state send his slave into another to choose a wife
for his son?--And if so, did the lily white damsel he selected call the
sable servant "my lord?"--And did her family spare no pains to manifest
respect for their distinguished guest, and promote his comfort? But this
chapter, which you call to your aid, informs us, that Abraham's servant
was honored with such tokens of confidence and esteem. If a Southern
slave shall ever be employed in such a mission, he may count himself
highly favored, if he be not taken up by the way, imprisoned, and "sold
for his jail fees."
4th. Did you ever know Southern slaves contend for their rights with
their masters? When a Southern master reads the thirteenth verse of the
thirty-first chapter of Job, he must think that Job was in the habit of
letting down his dignity very low.
5th. Do Southern masters accord religious privileges and impart
religious instruction equally to their slaves and their children? Your
laws, which visit with stripes, imprisonment, and death, the attempt to
teach slaves to read the Bible, show but too certainly, that the
Southern master, who should undertake to place "his children and his
household" on the same level, in respect to their religious advantages,
as it is probable that Abraham did (Gen. 18:19), would soon find himself
in the midst of enemies, not to his reputation only, but to his life
also.
And now, sir, admitting that the phrase, on which you lay so much
stress--"bought with his money"--was used in connexion with a form of
servitude which God approved--I put it to your candor, whether this
phrase should be allowed to weigh at all against the facts I have
adduced and the reasonings I have employed to show the true nature of
that servitude, and how totally unlike it is to slavery? Are you not
bound by the principles of sound reasoning, to attach to it a meaning
far short of what, I grant, is its natural import in this age, and,
especially, amongst a people who, like ourselves, are accustomed to
associate such an expression with slavery? Can you deny, that you are
bound to adopt such a meaning of it, as shall harmonize with the facts,
which illustrate the nature of the servitude in question, and with the
laws and character of Him, whose sanction you claim for that servitude?
An opposite course would give a preference to words over things, which
common sense could not tolerate. Many instances might be cited to show
the absurdity of the assumption that whatever is spoken of in the
Scriptures as being "bought," is property. Boaz "purchased" his wife.
Hosea "bought her (his wife) for fifteen pieces of silver." Jacob, to
use a common expression, "took his wages" in wives. Joseph "bought" the
Egyptians, after they had said to him "buy us." But, so far from their
having become the property of Joseph or of his king, it was a part of
the bargain, that they were to have as much land as they wanted--seed to
sow it--and four-fifths of the crops. The possessors of such
independence and such means of wealth are not the property of their
fellow-men.
I need say no more, to prove that slavery is entirely unlike the
servitude in the patriarchal families. I pass on, now, to the period
between the promulgation of the Divine law by Moses, and the birth of
Christ.
You argue from the fifth and sixth verses of the twenty-first chapter of
Exodus, that God authorized the enslavement of the Jews: but, on the
same page, on which you do so, you also show the contrary. It may,
nevertheless, be well for me to request you to read and read again
Leviticus 25:39-42, until your remaining doubts, on this point, shall
all be put to flight. I am free to admit the probability, that under
some of the forms of servitude, in which Jews were held, the servant was
subjected to a control so extensive as to expose him to suffer great
cruelties. These forms corresponded with the spirit and usages of the
age, in which they existed; entirely unsuited, as they are, to a period
and portion of the world, blessed with the refining and softening
influences of civilization and the gospel. Numerous as were the
statutory regulations for the treatment of the servant, they could not
preclude the large discretion of the master. The apprentice, in our
country, is subjected to an authority, equaling a parent's authority,
but not always tempered in its exercise, with a parent's love. His
condition is, therefore, not unfrequently marked with severity and
suffering. Now, imagine what this condition would be, under the harsh
features of a more barbarous age, and you will have in it, as I
conjecture, no distant resemblance to that of some of the Jewish
servants. But how different is this condition from that of the slave!
I am reminded in this connexion, of the polished, but pernicious,
article on slavery in a late number of the Biblical Repertory. In that
article Professor Hodge says, that the claim of the slaveholder "is
found to be nothing more than a transferable claim of service either for
life, or for a term of years." Will he allow me to ask him, where he
discovered that the pretensions of the slaveholder are all resolvable
into this modest claim? He certainly did not discover it in any slave
code; nor in any practical slavery. Where then? No where, but in that
undisclosed system of servitude, which is the creation of his own fancy.
To this system I raise no objection whatever. On the contrary, I am
willing to admit its beauty and its worthiness of the mint in which it
was coined. But I protest against his right to bestow upon it the name
of another and totally different thing. He must not call it slavery.
Suppose a poor German to be so desirous of emigrating with his family to
America, as to agree to give his services for ten years, as a
compensation for the passage. Suppose further, that the services are to
be rendered to the captain of the ship in which they sail, or to any
other person, to whom he may assign his claim. Such a bargain is not
uncommon. Now, according to Professor Hodge, this German may as rightly
as any of your Southern servants, be called a slave. He may as rightly
be called _property_, as they may be, who, in the language of the South
Carolina laws, "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_."
We will glance at a few points of difference in their condition. 1st.
The German is capable of making a contract, and in the case supposed,
does make a contract; but your slave is incapable of making any
contract. 2d. The German receives wages; the price of carrying himself
and family being the stipulated price for his services, during the ten
years; but your slave receives no wages. 3d. The German, like any other
hireling, and, like any apprentice in our country, is under the
protection of law. But, there is no law to shield the slave from wrongs.
Being a mere chattel or thing, he has no rights; and, therefore, he can
have no wrongs to be redressed. Does Professor Hodge say, that there are
statutes limiting and regulating the power of the slaveholder? I grant
there are; though it must be remembered, that there is one way of even
murdering a slave, which some of the slave States do not only not
forbid, but impliedly and practically admit[A]. The Professor should
know, however, that all these statutes are, practically, a mere nullity.
Nevertheless, they show the absoluteness of the power which they
nominally qualify. This absoluteness is as distinctly implied by them,
as the like was by the law of the Emperor Claudius, which imposed
limitations upon the "jus vitae et necis" (the right of life and death)
which Roman slavery put into the hand of the master. But if the
Professor should be so imprudent as to cite us to the slave code for
evidence of its merciful provisions, he will, in so doing, authorize us
to cite him to that code for evidence of the _nature_ of slavery. This
authority, however, he would not like to give us; for he is unwilling to
have slavery judged of by its own code. He insists, that it shall be
judged of by that ideal system of slavery, which is lodged in his own
brain, and which he can bring forth by parcels, to suit present
occasions, as Mahomet produced the leaves of the Koran.
[Footnote A: The licensed murder referred to, is that where the slave
dies under "moderate correction." But is not the murder of a slave by a
white man, _in any way_, practically licensed in all the slave States?
Who ever heard of a white man's being put to death, under Southern laws,
for the murder of a slave? American slavery provides impunity for the
white murderer of the slave, by its allowing none but whites--none but
those who construct and uphold the system of abominations--to testify
against the murderer. But why particularize causes of this impunity? The
whole policy of the Southern slave system goes to provide it. How
unreasonable is it to suppose, that they, who have conspired against a
portion of their fellow-beings, and mutually pledged themselves to treat
them as _mere things_--how unreasonable, I say, is it to suppose, that
they would consent to put a _man_ to death, on account of his treatment,
in whatever way, of a _mere thing_? Not long ago, I was informed by a
highly respectable lawyer of the State of Georgia, that he had known a
number of attempts (attempts most probably but in form and name) to
effect the conviction of whites for their undoubted murder of slaves.
But in every instance, the jurors perjured themselves, rather than
consent that a _man_ should be put to death, for the liberty he had
taken in disposing of a _thing_. They had rather perjure themselves,
than by avenging the blood of a _slave_ with that of a _man_, make a
breach upon the policy of keeping the slave ignorant, that he has the
_nature_, and consequently the _rights_, of a man.]
Professor Hodge tells his readers, in substance, that the selling of
men, as they are sold under the system of slavery, is to be classed with
the cessions of territory, occasionally made by one sovereign to
another; and he would have the slave, who is sold from hand to hand, and
from State to State, at the expense to his bleeding heart, of the
disruption of its dearest ties, think his lot no harder than that of the
inhabitant of Louisiana, who was passed without his will, from the
jurisdiction of the French government to that of the United States.
When a good man lends himself to the advocacy of slavery, he must, at
least for a time, feel himself to be anywhere but at home, amongst his
new thoughts, doctrines, and modes of reasoning. This is very evident in
the case before us--especially, when now and then, old habits of thought
and feeling break out, in spite of every effort to repress them, and the
Professor is himself again, and discourses as manfully, as fearlessly,
and as eloquently, as he ever had done before the slaveholders got their
hands upon him. It is not a little amusing to notice, that, although the
burden of his article is to show that slavery is one of God's
institutions, (what an undertaking for a Professor of Theology in the
year 1836!) he so far forgets the interests of his new friends and their
expectations from him, as to admit on one page, that "the general
principles of the gospel have destroyed domestic slavery throughout the
greater part of Christendom;" and on another, that "the South has to
choose between emancipation, by the silent and holy influence of the
gospel, or to abide the issue of a long continued conflict against the
laws of God." Whoever heard, until these strange times on which we have
fallen, of any thing, which, to use the Professor's language about
slavery, "it is in vain, to contend is sin, and yet profess reverence
for the Scriptures," being at war with and destroyed by the principles
of the gospel. What sad confusion of thought the pro-slavery influences,
to which some great divines have yielded, have wrought in them!
I will proceed to argue, that the institution in the Southern States
called "slavery," is radically unlike any form of servitude under which
Jews were held, agreeably to the Divine will; and also radically unlike
any form of servitude approved of God in the patriarchal families.
1st. God does not contradict Himself. He is "without variableness or
shadow of turning." He loves his word and has "magnified it above all
his name." He commands his rational creatures to "search the
Scriptures." He cannot, therefore, approve of a system which forbids the
searching of them, and shuts out their light from the soul; and which,
by the confession of your own selves, turns men in this gospel land into
heathen. He has written his commandment against adultery, and He cannot,
therefore, approve of a system, which induces this crime, by forbidding
marriage. The following extract from an opinion of the Attorney General
of Maryland, shows some of the consequences of this "forbidding to
marry." "A slave has never maintained an action against the violator of
his bed. A slave is not admonished for incontinence, or punished for
fornication or adultery; never prosecuted for bigamy." Again, God has
written his commandment, that children should honor their parents. How,
then, can He approve of a system, which pours contempt on the relation
of parent and child? Which subjects them to be forcibly separated from
each other, and that too, beyond the hope of reunion?--under which
parents are exposed and sold in the market-place along with horses and
cattle?--under which they are stripped and lashed, and made to suffer
those innumerable, and some of them, nameless indignities, that tend to
generate in their children, who witness them, any feelings, rather than
those of respect and honor, for parents thus degraded? Some of these
nameless indignities are alluded to in a letter written to me from a
slave state, in March, 1833. "In this place," says the writer, "I find a
regular and a much frequented slave market, where thousands are yearly
sold like cattle to the highest bidder. It is the opinion of gentlemen
here, that not far from five hundred thousand dollars are yearly paid in
this place for negroes; and at this moment, I can look from the window
of my room and count six droves of from twenty to forty each, sitting in
the market place for sale. This morning I witnessed the sale of twelve
slaves, and I could but shudder at the language used and the liberties
taken with the females!"
2d. As a proof, that in the kinds of servitude referred to, God did not
invest Abraham, or any other person with that absolute ownership of his
fellow-men, which is claimed by Southern slaveholders--I would remark,
that He has made man accountable to Himself; but slavery makes him
accountable to, and a mere appendage to his fellow-man. Slavery
substitutes the will of a fallible fellow-man for that infallible rule
of action--the will of God. The slave, instead of being allowed to make
it the great end of his existence to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever,
is degraded from his exalted nature, which borders upon angelic dignity,
to be, to do, and to suffer what a mere man bids him be, do, and suffer.
The Southern slave would obey God in respect to marriage, and also to
the reading and studying of His word. But this, as we have seen, is
forbidden him. He may not marry; nor may he read the Bible. Again, he
would obey God in the duties of secret and social prayer. But he may not
attend the prayer-meeting--certainly not that of his choice; and
instances are known, where the master has intruded upon the slave's
secret audience with heaven, to teach him by the lash, or some other
instrument of torture, that he would allow "no other God before"
himself.
Said Joseph Mason, an intelligent colored man, who was born and bred
near Richmond, in Virginia, in reply to my question whether he and his
fellow-slaves cared about their souls--"We did not trouble ourselves
about our souls; we were our masters' property and not our own; under
their and not our own control; and we believed that our masters were
responsible for our souls." This unconcern for their spiritual interests
grew very naturally out of their relation to their masters; and were the
relation ordained of God, the unconcern would, surely, be both
philosophical and sinless.
God cannot approve of a system of servitude, in which the master is
guilty of assuming absolute power--of assuming God's place and relation
towards his fellow-men. Were the master, in every case, a wise and good
man--as wise and good as is consistent with this wicked and
heaven-daring assumption on his part--the condition of the slave would
it is true, be far more tolerable, than it now is. But even then, we
should protest as strongly as ever against slavery; for it would still
be guilty of its essential wickedness of robbing a man of his right to
himself, and of robbing God of His right to him, and of putting these
stolen rights into the hand of an erring mortal. Nay, if angels were
constituted slaveholders, our objection to the relation would remain
undiminished; since there would still be the same robbery of which we
now complain.
But you will say, that I have overlooked the servitude in which the Jews
held strangers and foreigners; and that it is on this, more than any
other, that you rely for your justification of slavery. I will say
nothing now of this servitude; but before I close this communication, I
will give my reasons for believing, that whatever was its nature, even
if it were compulsory, it cannot be fairly pleaded in justification of
slavery.
After you shall have allowed, as you will allow, that slavery, as it
exists, is at war with God, you will be likely to say, that the fault is
not in the theory of it; but in the practical departure from that
theory; that it is not the system, but the practice under it, which is
at war with God. Our concern, however, is with slavery as it is, and not
with any theory of it. But to indulge you, we will look at the system of
slavery, as it is presented to us, in the laws of the slave States; and
what do we find here? Why, that the system is as bad as the practice
under it. Here we find the most diabolical devices to keep millions of
human beings in a state of heathenism--in the deepest ignorance and most
loathsome pollution. But you will tell me, that I do not look far enough
to find the true theory of slavery; and that the cruelties and
abominations, which the laws of the slave States have ingrafted on this
theory, are not acknowledged by the good men in those States to be a
part of the theory. Well, you shall have the benefit of this plea; and I
admit, for the sake of argument, that this theory of slavery, which lies
far back, and out of sight of every thing visible and known about
slavery, is right. And what does this admission avail you? It is slavery
as it is--as it is seen and known, that the abolitionists are contending
against. But, say you, to induce our forbearance, "We good men at the
South are restoring slavery, as fast as we can, to what it should be;
and we will soon make its erring practice quadrate with its perfect and
sinless theory." Success to your endeavors! But let me ask these good
men, whether similar representations would avail to make them forbearing
towards any other class of offenders; and whether they would allow these
offenders to justify the wickedness of their hands, by pleading the
purity of their hearts. Suppose that I stand in court confessedly guilty
of the crime of passing counterfeit money; and that I ask for my
acquittal on the ground, that, notwithstanding I am practically wrong, I
am, nevertheless, theoretically right. "Believe me," I say, in tones of
deep and unfeigned pathos, and with a corresponding pressure of my hand
upon my heart, "that the principles within are those of the purest
morality; and that it is my faithful endeavor to bring my deportment,
which, as you this day witness, is occasionally devious, into perfect
conformity with my inward rectitude. My theory of honest and holy living
is all that you could wish it to be. Be but patient, and you shall
witness its beautiful exhibitions in my whole conduct." Now, you
certainly would not have this plea turn to my advantage;--why then
expect that your similar plea should be allowed?
We must continue to judge of slavery by what it is, and not by what you
tell us it will, or may be. Until its character be righteous, we shall
continue to condemn it; but when you shall have brought it back to your
sinless and beautiful theory of it, it will have nothing to fear from
the abolitionists. There are two prominent reasons, however, for
believing that you will never present Southern slavery to us in this
lovely character, the mere imagination of which is so dear to you. The
first is, that you are doing nothing to this end. It is an indisputable
fact that Southern slavery is continually getting wider and wider from
God, and from an innocent theory of servitude; and the "good men at the
South," of whom we have spoken, are not only doing nothing to arrest
this increasing divergency, but they are actually favoring it. The
writings of your Dews, and Baxters, and Plummers, and Postells, and
Andersons, and the proceedings of your ecclesiastical bodies, abundantly
show this. Never, and the assertion is borne out by your statute books,
as well as other evidences, has Southern slavery multiplied its
abominations so rapidly, as within the last ten years; and never before
had the Southern Church been so much engaged to defend and perpetuate
these abominations. The other of these reasons for believing that
Southern slavery will never be conformed to your _beau ideal_ of
slavery, in which it is presupposed there are none but principles of
righteousness, is, that on its first contact with these principles, it
would "vanish into thin air," leaving "not a wreck behind." In proof of
this, and I need not cite any other case, it would be immediate death to
Southern slavery to concede to its subjects, God's institution of
marriage; and hence it is, that its code forbids marriage. The rights of
the husband in the wife, and of the wife in the husband, and of parents
in their children, would stand directly in the way of that traffic in
human flesh, which is the very life-blood of slavery; and the
assumptions of the master would, at every turn and corner, be met and
nullified by these rights; since all his commands to the children of
those servants (for now they should no longer be called slaves) would be
in submission to the paramount authority of the parents[A]. And here,
sir, you and I might bring our discussion to a close, by my putting the
following questions to you, both of which your conscience would compel
you to answer in the affirmative.
[Footnote A: I am aware that Professor Hodge asserts, that "slavery may
exist without those laws which interfere with their (the slaves) marital
or parental right" Now, this is a point of immense importance in the
discussion of the question, whether slavery is sinful; and I, therefore,
respectfully ask him either to retract the assertion, or to prove its
correctness. Ten thousands of his fellow-citizens, to whom the assertion
is utterly incredible, unite with me in this request. If he can show,
that slavery does not "interfere with marital or parental rights," they
will cease to oppose it. Their confident belief is, that slavery and
marriage, whether considered in the light of a civil contract, or a
scriptural institution, are entirely incompatible with each other.]
1st. Is not Southern slavery guilty of a most heaven-daring crime, in
substituting concubinage for God's institution of marriage?
2d. Would not that slavery, and also every theory and modification of
slavery, for which you may contend, come speedily to nought, if their
subjects were allowed to marry? Slavery, being an abuse, is incapable of
reformation. It dies, not only when you aim a fatal blow at its life
principle--its foundation doctrine of man's right to property in
man[B]--but it dies as surely, when you prune it of its manifold
incidents of pollution and irreligion.
[Footnote B: I mean by this phrase, "right to property in man," a right
to hold man as property; and I do not see with what propriety certain
writers construe it to mean, a property in the mere services of a man.]
But it would be treating you indecorously to stop you at this stage of
the discussion, before we are a third of the way through your book, and
thus deny a hearing to the remainder of it. We will proceed to what you
say of the slavery which existed in the time of the New Testament
writers. Before we do so, however, let me call your attention to a few
of the specimens of very careless reasoning in that part of your book,
which we have now gone over. They may serve to inspire you with a modest
distrust of the soundness of other parts of your argument.
After concluding that Abraham was a slaveholder, you quote the following
language from the Bible; "Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my
commandments, my statutes, and my laws." You then inquire, "How could
this be true of Abraham, holding as he did, until he was an old man,
more slaves than any man in Mississippi or Louisiana?" To be consistent
with your design in quoting this passage, you must argue from it, that
Abraham was perfect. But this he was not; and, therefore, your quotation
is vain. Again, if the slaveholder would quiet his conscience with the
supposition, that "Abraham held more slaves than any man in Mississippi
or Louisiana," let him remember, that he had also more concubines (Gen.
25: 6), "than any man in Mississippi or Louisiana;" and, if Abraham's
authority be in the one case conclusive for slaveholding, equally so
must it be in the other, for concubinage.
Perhaps, in saying that "Abraham had more concubines than any man in
Mississippi or Louisiana," I have done injustice to the spirit of
propagation prevailing amongst the gentlemen of those States. It may be,
that some of your planters quite distance the old patriarch in obedience
to the command to "multiply and replenish the earth." I am correctly
informed, that a planter in Virginia, who counted, I know not how many
slaves upon his plantation, confessed on his death-bed, that his
licentiousness had extended to every adult female amongst them. This
planter was a near relative of the celebrated Patrick Henry. It may be,
that you have planters in Mississippi and Louisiana, who avail
themselves to the extent that he did, of the power which slaveholding
gives to pollute and destroy. The hundreds of thousands of mulattoes,
who constitute the Southern commentary on the charge, that the
abolitionists design amalgamation, bear witness that this planter was
not singular in his propensities. I do not know what you can do with
this species of your population. Besides, that it is a standing and deep
reproach on Southern chastity, it is not a little embarrassing and
puzzling to those who have received the doctrine, that the descendants
of Africa amongst us must be returned to the land of their ancestors.
How the poor mulatto shall be disposed of, under this doctrine, between
the call which Africa makes for him, on the one hand, and that which
some state of Europe sends out for him on the other, is a problem more
difficult of solution than that which the contending mothers brought
before the matchless wisdom of Solomon.
In the paragraph, which relates to the fourth and tenth commandments,
there is another specimen of your loose reasoning. You say, that the
language, "In it (the Sabbath) thou shalt do no work, thou, nor thy son,
nor thy daughter, nor thy man servant, nor thy maid servant,"
"recognises the authority of the master over the servant." I grant, that
it does: but does it at all show, that these servants were slaves? Does
it recognise any more authority than the master should exercise over his
voluntary servants? Should not the head of a family restrain all his
servants, as well the voluntary as the involuntary, from unnecessary
labor on the Sabbath? You also say, that the tenth commandment
"recognizes servants as the _property_ of their masters." But how does
it appear from the language of this commandment, that the man servant
and maid servant are property any more than the wife is? We will
proceed, however, to the third section of your book.
Your acquaintance with history has enabled you to show some of the
characteristics and fruits of Greek and Roman slavery. You state the
facts, that the subjects of this slavery were "absolutely the property
of their masters"--that they "were used like dogs"--that "they were
forbidden to learn any liberal art or perform any act worthy of their
masters"--that "once a day they received a certain number of stripes for
fear they should forget they were slaves"--that, at one time, "sixty
thousand of them in Sicily and Italy were chained and confined to work
in dungeons"--that "in Rome there was a continual market for slaves,"
and that "the slaves were commonly exposed for sale naked"--that, when
old, they were turned away," and that too by a master, highly esteemed
for his superior virtues, to starve to death"--that they were thrown
into ponds to be food for fish--that they were in the city of Athens
near twenty times as numerous as free persons--that there were in the
Roman Empire sixty millions of slaves to twenty millions of freemen mind
that many of the Romans had five thousand, some ten thousand, and others
twenty thousand.
And now, for what purpose is your recital of these facts?--not, for its
natural effect of awakening, in your readers, the utmost abhorrence of
slavery:--no--but for the strange purpose (the more strange for being in
the breast of a minister of the gospel) of showing your readers, that
even Greek and Roman slavery was innocent, and agreeable to God's will;
and that, horrid as are the fruits you describe, the tree, which bore
them, needed but to be dug about and pruned--not to be cut down. This
slavery is innocent, you insist, because the New Testament does not
show, that it was specifically condemned by the Apostles. By the same
logic, the races, the games, the dramatic entertainments, and the shows
of gladiators, which abounded in Greece and Rome, were, likewise,
innocent, because the New Testament does not show a specific
condemnation of them by the apostles[A]. But, although the New Testament
does not show such condemnation, does it necessarily follow, that they
were silent, in relation to these sins? Or, because the New Testament
does not specifically condemn Greek and Roman slavery, may we,
therefore, infer, that the Apostles did not specifically condemn it?
Look through the published writings of many of the eminent divines, who
have lived in modern times, and have written and published much for the
instruction of the churches, and you will not find a line in them
against gambling or theatres or the slave-trade;--in some of them, not a
line against the very common sin of drunkenness. Think you, therefore,
that they never spoke or wrote against these things? It would be
unreasonable to expect to find, in print, their sentiments against all,
even of the crying sins of their times. But how much more unreasonable
is it to expect to find in the few pages of the Apostles' published
letters, the whole of which can be read in a few hours, their sentiments
in relation to all the prominent sins of the age in which they lived!
And far greater still is the unreasonableness of setting them down, as
favorable to all practices which these letters do not specifically
condemn.
[Footnote A: Prof. Hodge says, if the apostles did abstain from
declaring slavery to be sinful, "it must have been, because they did not
consider it as, in itself, a crime. No other solution of their conduct
is consistent with their truth or fidelity." But he believes that they
did abstain from so doing; and he believes this, on the same evidence,
on which he believes, that they abstained from declaring the races,
games, &c., above enumerated, to be sinful. His own mode of reasoning,
therefore, brings him unavoidably to the conclusion, that these races,
games, &c., were not sinful.]
It may be, that the Saviour and the Apostles, in the course of their
teachings, both oral and written, did specify sins to a far greater
extent, than they are supposed to have done. It may be, that their
followers had much instruction, in respect to the great sin of slavery.
We must bear in mind, that but a very small part of that Divine
instruction, which, on the testimony of an Apostle, "the world itself
could not contain if written," has come down to us. Of the writings of
our Saviour we have nothing. Of those of his Apostles a very small part.
It is probable, that, during his protracted ministry, the learned
apostle to the Gentiles wrote many letters on religious subjects to
individuals and to churches. So also of the immense amount of
instruction, which fell from the lips of the Apostles, but very little
is preserved. It was Infinite Wisdom, however, which determined the size
of the New, as well as of the Old Testament, and of what kinds and
portions of the Saviour's and the Apostles' instructions it should
consist. For obvious considerations, it is made up, in a great measure,
of general truths and propositions. Its limited size, if no other
reason, accounts for this. But, these general truths and propositions
are as comprehensive as the necessity of the case requires; and, carried
out into all their suitable applications they leave no sin unforbidden.
Small as is the New Testament, it is as large as we need. It instructs
us in relation to all our duties. It is as full on the subject of
slavery, as is necessary; and, if we will but obey its directions, that
bear on this subject, and "love one another," and love our neighbors as
ourselves, and, as we would that men should do to us, do "also to them
likewise," and "remember them, that are in bonds as bound with them,"
and "give unto servants, that which is just and equal"--not a vestige of
this abomination will remain.
For the sake of the argument, I will admit, that the Apostles made no
specific attack on slavery[A]; and that they left it to be reached and
overthrown, provided it be sinful, by the general principles and
instructions which they had inculcated. But you will say, that it was
their practice, in addition to inculcating such principles and
instructions, to point out sins and reprove them:--and you will ask,
with great pertinence and force, why they did not also point out and
reprove slavery, which, in the judgment of abolitionists, is to be
classed with the most heinous sins. I admit, that there is no question
addressed to abolitionists, which, after the admission I have made for
them, it is less easy to answer; and I admit further, that they are
bound to answer it. I will proceed to assign what to me appear to be
some of the probable reasons, why the Apostles specified the sins of
lying, covetousness, stealing, &c., and, agreeably to the admission,
which lays me under great disadvantage, did not specify slavery.
[Footnote A: This is no small admission in the face of the passage, in
the first chapter of Timothy, which particularizes manstealing, as a
violation of the law of God. I believe all scholars will admit, that one
of the crimes referred to by the Apostle, is kidnapping. But is not
kidnapping an integral and most vital part of the system of slavery? And
is not the slaveholder guilty of this crime? Does he not, indeed, belong
to a class of kidnappers stamped with peculiar meanness? The pirate, on
the coast of Africa, has to cope with the strength and adroitness of
mature years. To get his victim into his clutches is a deed of daring
and of peril demanding no little praise, upon the principles of the
world's "code of honor." But the proud chivalry of the South is securely
employed in kidnapping newborn infants. The pirate, in the one case,
soothes his conscience with the thought, that the bloody savages merit
no better treatment, than they are receiving at his hands:--but the
pirate, in the other, can have no such plea--for they, whom he kidnaps,
are untainted with crime.
And what better does it make the case for you, if we adopt the
translation of "men stealers?" Far better, you will say, for, on the
authority of Othello himself,
"He that is robb'd------
Let him not know it, and he's not robbed at all."
But, your authority is not conclusive. The crime of the depredation is
none the less, because the subject is ignorant or unconscious of it. It
is true, the slave, who never possessed liberty--who was kidnapped at
his birth--may not grieve, under the absence of it, as he does, from
whose actual and conscious possession it had been violently taken: but
the robbery is alike plain, and is coupled with a meanness, in the one
case, which does not disgrace it in the other. ]
1st. The book of Acts sets forth the fundamental doctrines and
requirements of Christianity. It is to the letters of the Apostles we
are to look for extended specifications of right and wrong affections,
and right and wrong practices. Why do these letters omit to specify the
sin of slaveholding? Because they were addressed to professing
Christians exclusively; who, far more emphatically then than now, were
"the base things of the world," and were in circumstances to be slaves,
rather than slaveholders. Doubtless, there were many slaves amongst
them--but I cannot admit, that there were slaveholders. There is not the
least probability, that slaveholding was a prevalent sin amongst
primitive Christians[B]. Instructions to them on that sin might have
been almost as superfluous, as would be lectures on the sin of luxury,
addressed to the poor Greenland disciples, whose poverty compels them to
subsist on filthy oil. No one, acquainted with the history of their
lives, believes that the Apostles were slave-holders. They labored,
"working with (their) own hands." The supposition, that they were
slaveholders, is inconsistent with their practice, and with the tenor of
their instructions to others on the duty of manual labor. But if the
Apostles were not slaveholders, why may we suppose, that their disciples
were? At the South, it is, "like people, like priest," in this matter.
There, the minister of the gospel thinks, that he has as good right to
hold slaves, as has his parishioner: and your Methodists go so far, as
to say, that even a bishop has as good right, as any other person, to
have slaves
[Footnote B: How strongly does the following extract from the writings
of the great and good Augustine, who lived in the fourth century, argue,
that slaveholding was not a prevalent sin amongst primitive Christians!
"Non opurtet Christianum possidere servum quomodo equum aut argentum.
Quis dicere audeat ut vestimentum cum debere contemni? Hominem namque
homo tamquam seipsum diligere debet cui ab omnium Domino, ut inimicos
diligat, imperatur." _A Christian ought not to hold his servant as he
does his horse or his money. Who dares say that he should be thought as
lightly of as a garment? For man, whom the Lord of all has commanded to
love his enemies, should love his fellow-man as himself._]
"------to fan him while he sleeps,
And tremble when he wakes."
Indeed, they already threaten to separate from their Northern brethren,
unless this right be conceded. But have we not other and conclusive
evidence, that primitive Christians were not slaveholders? We will cite
a few passages from the Bible to show, that it was not the will of the
Apostles to have their disciples hold manual labor in disrepute, as it
is held, in all slaveholding communities. "Do your own business, and
work with your own hands, as we commanded you." "For this we commanded
you, that, if any would not work, neither should he eat." "Let him that
stole, steal no more; but rather let him labor, working with his hands
the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth."
In bringing the whole verse into this last quotation, I may have
displeased you. I am aware, that you slaveholders proudly and
indignantly reject the applicableness to yourselves of the first phrase
in this verse, and also of the maxim, that "the partaker of stolen goods
is as bad as the thief." I am aware, that you insist, that the
kidnapping of a man, or getting possession of him, after he has been
kidnapped, is not to be compared, if indeed it can be properly called
theft at all, with the crime of stealing a _thing_. It occurs to me,
that if a shrewd lawyer had you on trial for theft, he would say, that
you were _estopped_ from going into this distinction between a _man_ and
a _thing_, inasmuch as, by your own laws, the slave is expressly
declared to be a _chattel_--is expressly _elevated_ into a _thing_. He
would say, however competent it may be for others to justify themselves
on the ground, that it was but a _man_, and not a _thing_, they had
stolen; your own statutes, which, with magic celerity, convert stolen
men into things, make such a plea, on your part, utterly inadmissible.
He would have you as fast, as though the stolen goods, in your hands,
were a bushel of wheat, or some other important _thing_, instead of _a
mere man_.
But, if you are not yet convinced that primitive Christians were not
slaveholders, let me cite another passage to show you, how very
improbable it is, that they stood in this capacity:--"all, that
believed, had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods,
and parted them to all men, as every man had need." Now I do not say,
that all the primitive believers did so. But if a portion of them did,
and met with the Apostles' approbation in it, is it at all probable,
that a course, so diverse from it, as that of slaveholding in the
Church, met likewise with their approbation?
2d. I go on to account for the Apostles' omission to specify slavery.
Criminality is not always obvious, in proportion to its extent. The sin
of the traffic in intoxicating liquors, was, until the last few years,
almost universally unfelt and unperceived. But now, we meet with men,
who, though it was "in all good conscience," that they were once engaged
in it, would not resume it for worlds; and who see more criminality, in
taking money from a fellow man, in exchange for the liquor which
intoxicates him, than in simple theft. However it may be with others, in
this employment, they now see, that, for them to traffic in intoxicating
liquors, would be to stain themselves with the twofold crime of robbery
and murder. How is it, that good men ever get into this
employment?--and, under what influences and by what process of thought,
do they come to the determination to abandon it? The former is accounted
for, by the fact, that they grow up--have their education--their moral
and intellectual training--in the midst of a public opinion, and even of
laws also, which favor and sanction the employment. The latter is
accounted for, by the fact, that they are brought, in the merciful
providence of God, to observe and study and understand the consequences
of their employment--especially on those who drink their liquor--the
liquor which they sell or make, or, with no less criminality, furnish
the materials for making. These consequences they find to be "evil, only
evil, and that continually." They find, that this liquor imparts no
benefit to them who drink it, but tends to destroy, and, oftentimes,
does destroy, their healths and lives. To continue, therefore, in an
employment in which they receive their neighbor's money, without
returning him an equivalent, or any portion of an equivalent, and, in
which they expose both his body and soul to destruction, is to make
themselves, in their own judgments, virtually guilty of theft and
murder.
Thus it is in the case of a national war, waged for conquest. Christians
have taken part in it; and, because they were blinded by a wrong
education, and were acting in the name of their country and under the
impulses of patriotism, they never suspected that they were doing the
devil, instead of "God, service." But when, in the kind providence of
God, one of these butchers of their fellow beings is brought to pause
and consider his ways, and to resolve his enormous and compound sin into
its elements of wickedness,--into the lies, theft, covetousness,
adultery, murder, and what not of crime, which enter into it,--he is
amazed that he has been so "slow of heart to believe," and abandon the
iniquity of his deeds.
What I have said to show that Christians, even in enlightened and
gospelized lands, may be blind to the great wickedness of certain
customs and institutions, serves to introduce the remark; that there
were probably some customs and institutions, in the time of the
Apostles, on which it would have been even worse than lost labor for
them to make direct attacks. Take, for example, the kind of war of which
we have been speaking. If there are reasons why the modern Christian can
be insensible to the sin of it, there are far stronger reasons why the
primitive Christian could be. If the light and instruction which have
been accumulating for eighteen centuries, are scarcely sufficient to
convince Christians of its wickedness, is it reasonable to suppose that,
at the commencement of this long period, they could have been
successfully taught it? Consider, that at that time the literature and
sentiment of the world were wholly on the side of war; and especially,
consider how emphatically the authority of civil government and of human
law was in favor of its rightfulness. Now, to how great an extent such
authority covers over and sanctifies sin, may be inferred from the fact,
that there are many, who, notwithstanding they believe slavery to be a
most Heaven-daring sin, yet, because it is legalized and under the wing
of civil government, would not have it spoken against. Even Rev. Dr.
Miller, in certain resolutions which he submitted to the last General
Assembly, indicated his similar reverence for human laws; and the
lamented Dr. Rice distinctly recognises, in his letter to Mr. Maxwell,
the doctrine that the Church is bound to be quiet about every sin which
the civil government adopts and whitewashes. That the Christian
Spectator should indorse the Doctor's sentiments on this point is still
more worthy of remark than that he should utter them. Indeed, I judge
from what you say on the 68th and 69th pages of your book, that you are
yourself opposed to calling in question the morality of that which civil
government approves. But, to doubt the infallibility of civil
government,--to speak against Caesar,--was manifestly held to be quite
as presumptuous in the time of the Apostles as it is now.
Another reason why an Apostle would probably have deemed it hopeless to
attempt to persuade his disciples, immediately and directly, of the sin
of war, is to be found in the fact of their feeble and distorted
perception of truth and duty. We, whose advantage it is to have lived
all our days in the light of the gospel, and whose ancestors, from time
immemorial, had the like precious advantage, can hardly conceive how
very feeble and distorted was that perception. But, consider for a
moment who those disciples were. They had, most of them, but just been
taken out of the gross darkness and filth of heathenism. In reading
accounts which missionaries give of converted heathen--of such, even, as
have for ten, fifteen, or twenty years, been reputed to be pious--you
are, doubtless, often surprised to find how grossly erroneous are their
moral perceptions. Their false education still cleaves to them. They are
yet, to a great extent, in the mould of a corrupted public opinion; and,
as far from having a clear discernment of moral truth, as were the
partially unsealed eyes which saw "men, as trees, walking." The first
letter to the Church at Corinth, proves that the new principles
implanted in its members had not yet purged out the leaven of their old
wickedness; and that their conceptions of Christian purity and conduct
were sadly defective. As it was with the Corinthian Christians, so was
it to a great extent with the other Christians of that age. Now, if the
Apostles did not directly teach the primitive believers that wars, and
theatres, and games, and slavery, are sinful, it is because they thought
it more fit to exercise their ignorant pupils chiefly in the mere
alphabet and syllables of Christianity. (Acts xv, 28, 29.) The
construction of words and sentences would naturally follow. The
rudiments of the gospel, if once possessed by them, would be apt to lead
them on to greater attainments. Indeed, the love, peace, truth, and
other elements of holy living inculcated by the Apostles, would, if
turned to all proper account, be fatal to every, even the most gigantic,
system of wickedness. Having these elements in their minds and hearts,
they would not fail of condemning the great and compound sin of war
whenever they should be led to take it up, examine it, resolve it into
its constituent parts, and lay these parts for comparison, by the side
of those elements. But, such an advance was hardly to be expected from
many of these heathen converts during the brief period in which they
enjoyed Apostolic instruction; and it is but too probable, that most of
them died in great ignorance of the sin of national wars. Converts from
the heathen, in the present age, when conviction of the sinfulness of
war is spreading in different parts of Christendom, would be more likely
to imbibe correct views of it.
The Apostles "fed with milk" before they fed with meat, as did our
Saviour, who declared, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye
cannot bear them now." In every community, the foundation principles of
righteousness must be laid, before there can be fulcrums for the levers
to be employed in overthrowing the sins which prevail in it. You will
doubtless, then, agree with me, that it is not probable that the
Apostles taught their heathen converts, directly and specifically, the
sinfulness of war. But slaves, in that age, with the exception of the
comparative few who were reduced to slavery on account of the crimes of
which they had been judicially convicted, were the spoils of war. How
often in that age, as was most awfully the fact, on the final
destruction of Jerusalem, were the slave-markets of the world glutted by
the captives of war! Until, therefore, they should be brought to see the
sinfulness of war, how could they see the sinfulness of so direct and
legitimate a fruit of it as slavery?--and, if the Apostles thought their
heathen converts too weak to be instructed in the sinfulness of war, how
much more would they abstain from instructing them, directly and
specifically, in the sin of slavery!
3d. In proceeding with my reasons why the Apostles did not extend their
specification of sins to slavery, I remark, that it is apparent from the
views we have taken, and from others which might have been taken, that
nothing would have been gained by their making direct and specific
attacks on the institutions of the civil governments under which they
lived. Indeed, much might have been lost by their doing so. Weak
converts, with still many remains of heathenism about them, might in
this wise have been incurably prejudiced against truths, which, by other
modes of teaching,--by general and indirect instructions,--would
probably have been lodged in their minds. And there is another point of
view in which vastly more, even their lives, might have been lost, by
the Apostles making the direct and specific attacks referred to. I know
that you ridicule the idea of their consulting their personal safety.
But what right have you to do so? They did, on many occasions, consult
the security of their lives. They never perilled them needlessly, and
through a presumptuous reliance on God. It is the devil, who, in a
garbled quotation from the Scriptures, lays down, in unlimited terms,
the proposition, that God will keep his children. But, God promises them
protection only when they are in their own proper ways. The Saviour
himself consulted the safety of his life, until his "time" had "full
come;" and his command to his Apostles was, "when they persecute you in
this city, flee ye into another." If you suppose me to admit for a
moment, that regard for the safety of their lives ever kept them from
the way of their duty, you are entirely mistaken; and, if you continue
to assert, in the face of my reasoning to the contrary, that on the
supposition of the sinfulness of slavery, their omission to make direct
and specific attacks on it would have been a failure of their duty, then
I can only regret that this reasoning has had no more influence upon
you.
I observe that Professor Hodge agrees with you, that if slavery is sin,
it would have been specifically attacked by the Apostles at any hazard
to their lives. This is his conclusion, because they did not hesitate to
specify and rebuke idolatry. Here is another of the Professor's
sophisms. The fact, that the Apostles preached against idolatry, is no
reason at all why, if slavery is sin, they would have preached against
that also. On the one hand, it is not conceivable that the gospel can be
preached where there is idolatry, without attacking it: for, in setting
forth the true God to idolaters, the preacher must denounce their false
gods. On the other hand, gospel sermons can be preached without number,
and the true God presented, not only in a nation of idolaters, but
elsewhere, without one allusion being made to such crying sins as
slavery, lewdness, and intemperance.
In the same connexion, Professor Hodge makes the remark "We do not
expect them (our missionaries) to refrain from denouncing the
institutions of the heathen as sinful, because they are popular, or
intimately interwoven with society." If he means by this language, that
it is the duty of missionaries on going into a heathen nation, to array
themselves against the civil government, and to make direct and specific
attacks on its wicked nature and wicked administration, then is he at
issue, on this point, with the whole Christian public; and, if he does
not mean this, or what amounts to this, I do not see how his remark will
avail any thing, in his attempt to show that the Apostles made such
attacks on whatever sinful institutions came under their observation.
What I have said on a former page shows sufficiently how fit it is for
missionaries to the heathen, more especially in the first years of their
efforts among them, to labor to instruct their ignorant pupils in the
elementary principles of Christianity, rather than to call their
attention to the institutions of civil government, the sinfulness of
which they would not be able to perceive until they had been grounded in
those elementary principles; and the sinfulness of which, more than of
any thing else, their prejudices would forbid them to suspect. Another
reason why the missionary to the heathen should not directly, and
certainly not immediately, assail their civil governments, is that he
would thereby arouse their jealousies to a pitch fatal to his influence,
his usefulness, and most probably his life; and another reason is, that
this imprudence would effectually close the door, for a long time,
against all efforts, even the most judicious, to spread the gospel
amongst a people so needlessly and greatly prejudiced against it by an
unwise and abrupt application of its principles. For instance, what
folly and madness it would be for our missionaries to Burmah, to make a
direct assault on the political institutions of that country! How fatal
would it be to their lives, and how incalculably injurious to the cause
entrusted to their hands! And, if this can be said of them, after they
have spent ten, fifteen, and twenty years, in efforts to bring that
portion of the heathen world to a knowledge and love of the truth, how
much more emphatically could it be said if they had been in the field of
their labors but three or four years! And yet, even this short space of
time exceeds the average period of the Apostles' labor among those
different portions of the heathen world which they visited;--labor, too,
it must be remembered, not of the whole, nor even of half of "the
twelve."
That the Apostles could not have made direct attacks on the institutions
of the Roman government, but at the expense of their lives, is not to be
doubted. Our Saviour well knew how fatal was the jealousy of that
government to the man who was so unhappy as to have excited it; and he
accordingly avoided the excitement of it, as far as practicable and
consistent. His ingenious and beautiful disposition of the question, "Is
it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not," is among the instances, in
which He studied to shun the displeasure of the civil government. Pilate
gave striking evidence of his unwillingness to excite the jealousy of
his government, when, every other expedient to induce him to consent to
the Saviour's death having failed, the bare charge, utterly unproven and
groundless, that, the Divine prisoner had put forth pretensions,
interfering with Caesar's rights, availed to procure His death-warrant
from the hands of that truth-convicted, but man-fearing governor. Had it
not availed, Pilate would have been exposed to the suspicion of
disloyalty to his government; and so perilous was this suspicion, that
he was ready, at any expense to his conscience and sense of justice, to
avoid incurring it.
A direct attack on Roman slavery, as it would have called in question
the rightfulness of war--the leading policy of the Roman
government--would, of course, have been peculiarly perilous to its
presumptuous author. No person could have made this attack, and lived;
or, if possibly he might have escaped the vengeance of the government,
do we not know too much of the deadly wrath of slaveholders, to believe
that he could have also escaped the summary process of Lynch law? If it
be at the peril of his life that a Northern man travels in the Southern
States,--and that, too, whether he do or do not say a word about
slavery, or even whether he be or be not an abolitionist;--if your
leading men publicly declare, that it is your religious duty to put to
an immediate death, whenever they come within your power, those who
presume to say that slavery is sin (and such a declaration did a South
Carolina gentleman make on the floor of congress, respecting the
inconsiderable person who is addressing you);--and, if your professing
Christians, not excepting ministers of the gospel, thirst for the blood
of abolitionists[A], as I will abundantly show, if you require
proof;--if, in a gospel land, all this be so, then I put it to your
candor, whether it can reasonably be supposed that the Apostles would
have been allowed to attack slavery in the midst of heathen
slaveholders. Why it is that slaveholders will not allow a word to be
breathed against slavery, I cannot, perhaps, correctly judge.
Abolitionists think that this unwillingness denotes that man is unfit
for absolute power over his fellow men. They think as unfavorably of the
influence of this power on the slaveholder, as your own Jefferson did.
They think that it tends to make him impatient of contradiction,
self-willed, supercilious, cruel, murderous, devilish; and they think
that they can establish this opinion, not by the soundest philosophy
only, but by the pages of many of your own writers, and by those daily
scenes of horrid brutality which make the Southern States, in the sight
both of God and man, one of the most frightful and loathsome portions of
the world--of the whole world--barbarous as well as civilized.
[Footnote A: I will relate an incident, to show what a fiend even woman,
gentle, lovely woman, may become, after she has fallen under the sway of
the demon of slavery. Said a lady of Savannah, on a visit in the city of
New York, "I wish he (Rev. Dr. Samuel H. Cox) would come to Savannah. I
should love to see him tarred and feathered, and his head cut off and
carried on a pole around Savannah." This lady is a professing Christian.
Her language stirs me up to retaliate upon her, and to express the wish
that she would come to the town, and even to the dwelling, in which Dr.
Cox resides. She would find that man of God--that man of sanctified
genius--as glad to get his enemies into his hands, as she would be to
get him into the hands of his enemies:--not, however, for the purpose of
disgracing and decapitating them, but, that he might pour out upon them
the forgiveness and love of his generous and _abolitionized_ heart. In
the city of New York there are thousands of whole-souled abolitionists.
What a striking testimony is it, in behalf of their meekness and
forbearance, when a southern fury is perfectly secure, in belching out
such words of wrath in the midst of them! We abolitionists never love
our principles better, than when we see the slaveholder feeling safe
amongst us. No man has been more abusive of us than Governor McDuffie;
and yet, were he to travel in the Northern States, he would meet with no
unkindness at the hands of any abolitionist. On the other hand, let it
be known to the governor, that he has within his jurisdiction a
prominent abolitionist--one, whose heart of burning love has made him
specially anxious to persuade the unfortunate slaveholder to be just to
himself, to his fellow men, and to his God,--and the governor, true to
the horrid sentiments of his famous message, would advise that he be
"put to death without benefit of clergy." Let slaveholders say what they
will about our blood-thirstiness, there is not one of them who fears to
put himself in our power. The many of them, who have been beneath my
roof, and the roofs of other abolitionists, have manifested their
confidence in our kindness. Were a stranger to the institution of
slavery to learn, in answer to his inquiries, that "an abolitionist" is
"an outlaw amongst slaveholders," and that "a slaveholder" is "the
kindly entertained guest of abolitionists,"--here would be a puzzle
indeed. But the solution of it would not fail to be as honorable to the
persecuted man of peace, as it would be disgraceful to the bloody
advocate and executioner of Lynch law.]
I need not render any more reasons why the Apostles did not specifically
attack slavery; but I will reply to a question, which I am sure will be
upon your lips all the time you are reading those I have rendered. This
question is, "If the Apostles did not make such an attack on slavery,
why may the American abolitionists?" I answer, that the difference
between the course of the abolitionists and of the Apostles, in this
matter, is justified by the difference in their circumstances. Professor
Hodge properly says, that our course should be like theirs, "unless it
can be shown that their circumstances were so different from ours, as to
make the rule of duty different in the two cases." And he as properly
adds, "the obligation to point out and establish this difference rests
upon the abolitionists."
The reasons I have given, why the Apostles did not directly attack
slavery, do not apply to the abolitionists. The arm of civil power does
not restrain us from attacking it. To open our lips against the policy
and institutions of civil government is not certain death. A despotic
government restricted the efforts of the Apostles to do good. But we
live under governments which afford the widest scope for exertions to
bless our fellow men and honor God. Now, if we may not avail ourselves
of this advantage, simply because the Apostles did not have it to avail
themselves of, then whatever other interests may prosper under a
republican government, certain it is, that the cause of truth and
righteousness is not to be benefited by it. Far better never to have had
our boasted form of government, if, whilst it extends the freedom and
multiplies the facilities of the wicked, it relieves the righteous of
none of the restrictions of a despotic government. Again, there is a
religious conscience all over this land, and an enlightened and gospel
sense of right and wrong; on which we can and do (as in your
Introduction you concede is the fact) bring our arguments against
slavery to bear with mighty power. But, on the other hand, the creating
of such a conscience and such a sense, in the heathen and semi-heathen
amongst whom they lived and labored, was the first, and appropriate, and
principal work of the Apostles. To employ, therefore, no other methods
for the moral and religious improvement of the people of the United
States, than were employed by the Apostles for that of the people of the
Roman empire, is as absurd as it would be to put the highest and lowest
classes in a school to the same lessons; or a raw apprentice to those
higher branches of his trade which demand the skill of an experienced
workman.
I am here reminded of what Professor Hodge says were the means relied on
by the Saviour and Apostles for abolishing slavery. "It was," says he,
"by teaching the true nature, dignity, equality, and destiny of men; by
inculcating the principles of justice and love; and by leaving these
principles to produce their legitimate effects in ameliorating the
condition of all classes of society." I would not speak disparagingly of
such a course of instruction; so far from it, I am ready to admit that
it is indispensable for the removal of evils, in every age and among
every people. When general instructions of this character shall have
ceased to be given, then will all wholesome reforms have ceased also.
But, I cannot approve of the Professor's object in this remark. This
object is to induce his readers to believe, that these abstract and
general instructions are all that is needed to effect the termination of
slavery. Now, I maintain that one thing more is wanting; and that is,
the application of these instructions--of the principles contained in
them--to the evil in hand. As well may it be supposed, that the mechanic
can accomplish his work without the application, and by the mere
possession, of his tools, as that a given reformation can be effected by
unapplied general principles. Of these principles, American
philanthropists have been possessed from time immemorial; and yet all
the while American slavery has been flourishing and growing strong. Of
late, however, these principles have been brought to bear upon the
system, and it manifestly is already giving way. The groans of the
monster prove that those rays of truth, which did not disturb him whilst
they continued to move in the parallel lines of abstractions and
generalities, make it quite too hot for him since they are converged to
a burning focus upon his devoted head. Why is it, for example, that the
influence of the Boston Recorder and New-York Observer--why is it, that
the influence of most of our titled divines--is decidedly hostile to the
abolition of slavery? It is not because they are deficient in just
general sentiments and principles respecting man's duties to God and his
fellow man. It is simply because they stand opposed to the application
of these sentiments and principles to the evil in question; or, in other
words, stand opposed to the Anti-Slavery Society, which is the chosen
lens of Divine Providence for turning these sentiments and principles,
with all the burning, irresistible power of their concentration, against
a giant wickedness. What is the work of the Temperance Societies, but to
make a specific application of general truths and principles to the vice
of intemperance? And the fact, that from the time of Noah's
intoxication, until the organization of the American Temperance Society,
the desolating tide of intemperance had been continually swelling,
proves that this reliance on unapplied principles, however sound--this
"faith without works"--is utterly vain. Nathan found that nothing, short
of a specific application of the principles of righteousness, would
answer in the case of the sin of adultery. He had to abandon all
generalities and circuitousness, and come plump upon the royal sinner
with his "Thou art the man." Those divines, whose policy it is to handle
slaveholders "with gloves," if they must handle them at all, doubtless
regard Nathan as an exceedingly impolite preacher.
But, not only is it far less difficult to instruct the people of the
United States than it was the people of the Roman Empire, in the sin of
slavery; it is also--for the reason that the sin is ours, to a far
greater extent, than it was theirs--much more important for us than for
them to be instructed in it. They had no share in the government which
upheld it. They could not abolish it by law. But, on the other hand, the
people of the United States are themselves the government of their
country. They are the co-sovereigns of their nation. They uphold slavery
by law, and they can put it down by law. In this point of view,
therefore, slavery is an incomparably greater sin in us, than it was in
them.
Only one other reason will be given why it is more needful to overthrow
American, than it was to overthrow Roman slavery. The Church was then
but a handful of "strangers scattered throughout" the heathen world. It
was made up of those who had little influence, and who were esteemed
"the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things." It had,
probably, little, if any thing, to do with slavery, except to suffer its
rigors in the persons of many of its members. But here, the Church,
comprising no very small proportion of the whole population, and
exerting a mighty influence for good or ill on the residue, is tainted,
yes, rotten with slavery. In this contrast, we not only see another
reason why the destruction of American slavery is more important than
was that of Roman slavery; but we also see, that the Apostles could have
been little, if at all, actuated by that motive, which is more urgent
than any other in the breasts of the American abolitionists--the motive
of purging the Church of slavery.
To return to what you say of the abominations and horrors of Greek and
Roman slavery:--I should be doing you great injustice, were I to convey
the idea that you approve of them. It is admitted that you disapprove of
them; and, it is also admitted, that no responsibility for them rests on
the relation of slaveholder and slave, if that relation have, as you
labor to show, the stamp of Divine approbation. You say, that slavery,
like marriage, is an institution sanctioned by the New Testament; and
that, therefore, neither for the evils which attend it, nor for any
other cause, is it to be argued against. This is sound reasoning, on
your part; and, if your premises are correct, there is no resisting your
deduction. We are, in that case, not only not to complain of the
institution of slavery, but we are to be thankful for it. Considering,
however, that the whole fabric of your argument, in the principal or New
Testament division of your book, is based on the alleged fact that the
New Testament approves of slavery, it seems to me that you have
contented yourself, and sought to make your readers contented, with very
slender evidences of the truth of this proposition. These evidences are,
mainly--that the New Testament does not declare slavery to be a sin:
and, that the Apostles enjoin upon masters and servants their respective
duties; and this, too, in the same connexion in which they make similar
injunctions upon those who stand in the confessedly proper relations of
life--the husband and wife, the parent and child. Your other evidences,
that the New Testament approves of slavery, unimportant as they are,
will not be left unnoticed.
I have attempted to show, that the omission of the New Testament to
declare slavery to be a sin, is not proof that it is not a sin. I pass
on to show, that the Apostolic injunction of duties upon masters and
servants does not prove that slavery is sinless.
I have now reached another grand fallacy in your book. It is also found
in Professor Hodge's article. You, gentlemen, take the liberty to depart
from our standard English translation of the Bible, and to substitute
"slaveholder" for "master"--"slave" for "servant"--and, in substance,
"emperor" for "ruler"--and "subject of an imperial government" for
"subject of civil government generally." I know that this substitution
well suits your purposes: but, I know not by what right you make it.
Professor Hodge tells the abolitionists, certainly without much respect
for either their intelligence or piety, that "it will do no good (for
them) to attempt to tear the Bible to pieces." There is but too much
evidence, that he himself has not entirely refrained from the folly and
crime, which he is so ready to impute to others.
I will proceed to offer some reasons for the belief, that when the
Apostles enjoined on masters and servants their respective duties, they
had reference to servitude in general, and not to any modification of
it.
1st. You find passages in the New Testament, where you think _despotes_
refers to a person who is a slaveholder, and _doulos_ to a person who is
a slave. Admit that you are right: but this (which seems to be your only
ground for it) does not justify you in translating these words
"slaveholder" and "slave," whenever it may be advantageous to your side
of the question to have them thus translated. These words, have a great
variety of meanings. For instance, there are passages in the New
Testament where _despotes_ means "God"--Jesus Christ"--Head of a
family:" and where _doulos_ means "a minister or agent"--a subject of a
king"--a disciple or follower of Christ." _Despotes_ and _doulos_ are
the words used in the original of the expression: "Lord, now lettest
thou thy servant depart in peace:" _doulos_ in that of the expressions,
"servant of Christ," and "let him be servant of all." Profane writers
also use these words in various senses. My full belief is, that these
words were used in both a generic and special sense, as is the word
corn, which denotes bread-stuffs in general, and also a particular kind
of them; as is the word meat, the meaning of which is, sometimes,
confined to flesh that is eaten, and, at other times, as is frequently
the case in the Scriptures, extends to food in general; and, as is the
word servant, which is suitable, either in reference to a particular
form of servitude, or to servitude in general. There is a passage in the
second chapter of Acts, which is, of itself, perhaps, sufficient to
convince an unbiased mind, that the Apostles used the word _doulos_ in
a, generic, as well as in a special sense. _Doulos_ and _doule_ are the
words in the phrase: "And on my servants and on my handmaidens." A
reference to the prophecy as it stands; in Joel 2: 28, 29, makes it more
obvious, that persons in servitude are referred to under the words
_doulos_ and _doule_; and, that the predicted blessing was to be shed
upon persons of all ages, classes, and conditions--upon old men and
young men--upon sons and daughters--and upon man-servants and
maid-servants. But, under the interpretation of those, who, like
Professor Hodge and yourself, confine the meaning of _doulos_ and
_doule_ to a species of servants, the prophecy would have reference to
persons of all ages, classes, and conditions--_excepting certain
descriptions of servants_. Under this interpretation, we are brought to
the absurd conclusion, that the spirit is to be poured out upon the
master and his slaves--_but not upon his hired servants_.
I trust that enough has been said, under this my first head, to show
that the various senses in which the words _despotes_ and _doulos_ are
employed, justify me in taking the position, that whenever we meet with
them, we are to determine, from the nature of the case, and from the
connexion in which they are used, whether they refer to servitude in
general, or to a species of it.
2d. The confinement of the meaning of the words in question supposes,
what neither religion nor common sense allows us to suppose, that
slaveholders and slaves, despots and those in subjection to them, were
such especial favorites of the Apostles, as to obtain from them specific
instructions in respect to their relative duties, whilst all other
masters and servants, and all other rulers and subjects, throughout all
future time, were left unprovided with such instructions. According to
this supposition, when slavery and despotism shall, agreeably to
Professor Hodge's expectations, have entirely ceased, there will be not
one master nor servant, not one ruler nor subject in the whole earth, to
fall, as such, under the Apostolic injunctions.
3d. You admit that there were hirelings, in a community of primitive
believers; and I admit, for the moment, that there were slaves in it.
Now, under my interpretation of the Apostolic injunction, all husbands,
all wives, all parents, all children, and all servants, in this
community, are told their respective duties: but, under yours, these
duties are enjoined on all husbands, all wives, all parents, all
children, and a _part of the servants_. May we not reasonably complain
of your interpretation, that it violates analogy?
Imagine the scene, in which a father, in the Apostolic age, assembles
his family to listen to a letter from the glowing Peter, or "such an one
as Paul the aged." The letter contains instructions respecting the
relative duties of life. The venerable pair, who stand in the conjugal
and parental relations, receive, with calm thankfulness, what is
addressed to themselves;--the bright-eyed little ones are eager to know
what the Apostle says to children--a poor slave blesses God for his
portion of the Apostolic counsel;--and the scene would be one of
unmingled joy, if the writer had but addressed hired servants, as well
as slaves. One of the group goes away to weep, because the Apostle had
remembered the necessities of all other classes of men, and forgotten
those of the hireling. Sir, do you believe that the Apostle was guilty
of such an omission? I rejoice that my side of the question between us,
does not call for the belief of what is so improbable and
unnatural--and, withal, so dishonoring to the memory of the Apostle.
4th. Another reason for believing, that the Apostles intended no such
limitation as that which you impose upon their words, is, that their
injunctions are as applicable to the other classes of persons occupying
these relations, as they are to the particular class to which you
confine them. The hired servant, as well as the slave, needs to be
admonished of the sins of "eye service" and "purloining;" and the master
of voluntary, as well as involuntary servants, needs to be admonished to
"give that which is just and equal." The ruler in a republic, or, in a
limited monarchy, as well as the despot, requires to be reminded, that
he is to be "a minister of God for good." So the subject of one kind of
civil government, as well as that of another, needs to be told to be
"subject unto the higher powers."
I need not extend my remarks to prove, that _despotes_ and _doulos_ are,
in the case before us, to be taken in their comprehensive sense of
master and servant: and, clearly, therefore, the abolitionist is not
guilty of violating your rule, "not to interfere with a civil relation
(in another place, you say, 'any of the existing relations of life') for
which, and to regulate which, either Christ or his Apostles have
prescribed regulations." He believes, as fully as yourself, that the
relation of master and servant is approved of God. It is the slavery
modification of it--the slaveholder's abuse and perversion of the
relation, in reducing the servant to a chattel--which, he believes, is
not approved of God.
For the sake of the argument, I will admit, that the slave alone, of all
classes of servants, was favored with specific instructions from the
Apostles: and then, how should we account for the selection? In no other
way, can I conceive, than, on the ground, that his lot is so peculiarly
hard--so much harder than that of persons under other forms of
servitude--that he needs, whilst they do not, Apostolic counsel and
advice to keep him just, and patient, and submissive. Let me be spared
from the sin of reducing a brother man to such a lot. Your doctrine,
therefore, that the Apostles addressed slaves only, and not servants in
general, would not, were its correctness admitted, lift you out of all
the difficulties in your argument.
Again, does it necessarily follow from this admission, that the relation
of slaveholder and slave is sinless? Was the despotism of the Roman
government sinless? I do not ask whether the _abuses_ of civil
government, in that instance, were sinless. But, I ask, was a
government, despotic in its constitution, depriving all its subjects of
political power, and extending absolute control over their property and
persons--was such a government, independently of the consideration of
its _abuses_, (if indeed we may speak of the abuses of what is in itself
an _abuse_,) sinless? I am aware, that Prof. Hodge says, that it was so:
and, when he classes despotism and slavery with _adiaphora_, "things
indifferent;" and allows no more moral character to them than to a table
or a broomstick, I trust no good man envies his optics. May I not hope
that you, Mr. Smylie, perceive a difference between despotism and an
"indifferent thing." May I not hope, that you will, both as a Republican
and a Christian, take the ground, that despotism has a moral character,
and a bad one? When our fathers prayed, and toiled, and bled, to obtain
for themselves and their children the right of self-government, and to
effect their liberation from a power, which, in the extent and rigor of
its despotism, is no more to be compared to the Roman government, than
the "little finger" to the "loins," I doubt not, that they felt that
despotism had a moral, and a very bad moral character. And so would
Prof. Hodge have felt, had he stood by their side, instead of being one
of their ungrateful sons. I say ungrateful--for, who more so, than he
who publishes doctrines that disparage the holy cause in which they were
embarked, and exhibits them, as contending for straws, rather than for
principles? Tell me, how long will this Republic endure after our people
shall have imbibed the doctrine, that the _nature_ of civil government
is an indifferent thing: and that the poet was right when he said,
"For forms of government let _fools_ contest?"
This, however, is but one of many doctrines of ruinous tendency to the
cause of civil liberty, advanced by pro-slavery writers to sustain their
system of oppression.
It would surely be superfluous to go into proofs, that the Roman
government was vicious and wicked in its constitution and nature.
Nevertheless, the Apostle enjoined submission to it, and taught its
subjects how to demean themselves under it. Here, then, we have an
instance, in which we cannot argue the sinlessness of a relation, from
the fact of Apostolic injunctions on those standing in it. Take another
instance. The Chaldeans went to a foreign land, and enslaved its
people--as members of your guilty partnership have done for some of the
slaves you now own, and for the ancestors of others. And God destroyed
the Chaldeans expressly "for all their evil that they had done in Zion."
But, wicked as they were, for having instituted this relation between
themselves and the Jews, God, nevertheless, tells the Jews to submit to
it. He tells them, "Serve the King of Babylon." He even says, "seek the
peace of the city, whither I have caused you to be carried away
captives, and pray unto the Lord for it; for, in the peace thereof,
shall ye have peace." Here then, we have another instance, in addition
to that of the Roman despot and his subjects, in which the Holy Spirit
prescribed regulations for wicked relations. You will, at least, allow,
that the relation established by the Chaldeans between themselves and
the captive Jews, was wicked. But, you will perhaps say, that this is
not a relation coming within the contemplation of your rule. Your rule
speaks of a civil relation, and also of the existing relations of life.
But, the relation in question, being substantially that of slaveholder
and slave, is, according to your own showing, a civil relation. Perhaps
you will say, it is not an "existing relation of life." But what do you
mean by "an existing relation of life?" Do you mean, that it is a
relation approved of God? If you do, and insist that the relation of
slaveholder and slave is "an existing relation of life," then you are
guilty of begging the great question between us. Your rule, therefore,
can mean nothing more than this--that any relation is rightful, for
which the Bible prescribes regulations. But the relation referred to
between the Chaldeans and Jews, proves the falsity of the rule. Again,
when a man compels me to go with him, is not the compelled relation
between him and me a sinful one? And the relation of robber and robbed,
which a man institutes between himself and me, is not this also sinful?
But, the Bible has prescribed regulations for the relations in both
these cases. In the one, it requires me to "go with him twain;" and, in
the other, to endure patiently even farther spoliation and, "let him
have (my) cloak also." In these cases, also, do we see the falsity of
your rule--and none the less clearly, because the relations in question
are of brief duration.
Before concluding my remarks on this topic, let me say, that your
doctrine, that God has prescribed no rules for the behaviour of persons
in any other than the just relations of life, reflects no honor on His
compassion. Why, even we "cut-throat" abolitionists are not so
hard-hearted as to overlook the subjects of a relation, because it is
wicked. Pitying, as we do, our poor colored brethren, who are forced
into a wicked relation, which, by its very nature and terms, and not by
its _abuses_, as you would say, has robbed them of their all--even we
would, nevertheless, tell them to "resist not evil"--to be obedient unto
their own masters"--not purloining, but showing all good fidelity." We
would tell them, as God told the captive Jews, to "seek the peace of
those, whither they are carried away captives, and to pray unto the
Lord" for them: and our hope of their emancipation is not, as it is most
slanderously and wickedly reported to be, in their deluging the South
with blood: but, it is, to use again those sweet words of inspiration,
that "in the peace thereof they shall have peace." We do not communicate
with the slave; but, if we did, we would teach him, that our hope of his
liberation is grounded largely in his patience, and that, if he would
have us drop his cause from our hands, he has but to take it into his
own, and attempt to accomplish by violence, that which we seek to effect
through the power of truth and love on the understanding and heart of
his master.
Having disposed of your reasons in favor of the rightfulness of the
relation of slaveholder and slave, I will offer a few reasons for
believing that it is not rightful.
1st. My strongest reason is, that the great and comprehensive
principles, and the whole genius and spirit of Christianity, are opposed
to slavery.
2d. In the case of Pharoah and his Jewish slaves, God manifested his
abhorrence of the relation of slavery. The fact that the slavery in this
case was political, instead of domestic, and, therefore, of a milder
type than that of Southern slavery, does not forbid my reasoning from
the one form to the other. Indeed, if I may receive your declaration on
this point, for the truth, I need not admit that the type of the slavery
in question is milder than that of Southern slavery;--for you say, that
"their (the Jews) condition was that of the most abject bondage or
slavery." But the supposition that it is milder, being allowed to be
correct, would only prove, that God's abhorrence of Southern bondage as
much exceeds that which he expressed of Egyptian bondage, as the one
system is more full than the other of oppression and cruelty.
We learn from the Bible, that it was not because of the _abuses_ of the
Egyptian system of bondage, but, because of its sinful nature, that God
required its abolition. He did not command Pharaoh to cease from the
_abuses_ of the system, and to correct his administration of it, but to
cease from the system itself. "I have heard," says God, "the groaning of
the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage;"--not whom
the Egyptians, availing themselves of their absolute power, compel to
make brick without straw, and seek to waste and exterminate by the
murder of their infant children;--but simply "whom the Egyptians keep in
bondage." These hardships and outrages were but the leaves and branches.
The root of the abomination was the bondage itself, the assertion of
absolute and slaveholding power by "a new king over Egypt, which knew
not Joseph." In the next verse God says: "I will rid you"--not only from
the burdens and abuses, as you would say, of bondage,--but "out of their
(the Egyptians) bondage" itself--out of the relation in which the
Egyptians oppressively and wickedly hold you.
God sends many messages to Pharaoh. In no one of them does He reprove
him for the abuses of the relation into which he had forced the Jews. In
no one of them is he called on to correct the evils which had grown out
of that relation. But, in every one, does God go to the root of the
evil, and command Pharaoh, "let my people go"--"let my people go, that
they may serve me." The abolitionist is reproachfully called an
"ultraist" and "an immediatist." It seems that God was both, when
dealing with this royal slaveholder:--for He commanded Pharaoh, not to
mitigate the bondage of the Israelites, but to deliver them from it--and
that, too, immediately. The system of slavery is wicked in God's sight,
and, therefore, did He require of Pharaoh its immediate abandonment. The
phrase, "let my people go, that they may serve me," shows most
strikingly one feature of resemblance between Egyptian and American
slavery. Egyptian slavery did not allow its subjects to serve God,
neither does American. The Egyptian master stood between his slave and
their God: and how strikingly and awfully true is it, that the American
master occupies the like position! Not only is the theory of slavery,
the world over, in the face of God's declaration; "all souls are mine:"
but American slaveholders have brought its practical character to
respond so fully to its theory--they have succeeded, so well, in
excluding the light and knowledge of God from the minds of their
slaves--that they laugh at His claim to "all souls."
3d. Paul, in one of his letters to the Corinthian Church, tells
servants--say slaves, to suit your views--if they may be free, to prefer
freedom to bondage. But if it be the duty of slaves to prefer freedom to
bondage, how clearly is it the correlative duty of the master to grant
it to him! You interpret the Apostle's language, in this case, as I do;
and it is not a little surprising, that, with your interpretation of it,
you can still advocate slavery. You admit, that Paul says--I use your
own words--"a state of freedom, on the whole, is the best." Now, it
seems to me, that this admission leaves you without excuse, for
defending slavery. You have virtually yielded the ground. And this
admission is especially fatal to your strenuous endeavors to class the
relation of master and slave with the confessedly proper relations of
life, and to show that, like these, it is approved of God. Would Paul
say to the child, "a state of freedom" from parental government "on the
whole is the best?" Would he say to the wife, "a state of freedom from
your conjugal bonds" on the whole is the best? Would he say to the child
and wife, in respect to this freedom, "use it rather?" Would he be thus
guilty of attempting to annihilate the family relation?
Does any one wonder, that the Apostle did not use stronger language, in
advising to a choice and enjoyment of freedom? It is similar to that
which a pious, intelligent, and prudent abolitionist would now use under
the like circumstances. Paul was endeavoring to make the slave contented
with his hard lot, and to show him how unimportant is personal liberty,
compared with liberation from spiritual bondage: and this explains why
it is, that he spoke so briefly and moderately of the advantages of
liberty. His advice to the slave to accept the boon of freedom, was a
purely incidental remark: and we cannot infer from it, how great stress
he would have laid on the evils of slavery, and on the blessings of
liberty, in a discourse treating directly and mainly of those subjects.
What I have previously said, however, shows that it would, probably,
have been in vain, and worse than in vain, for him to have come out, on
any occasion whatever, with an exposition of the evils of slavery.
On the thirty-second page of your book, you say, "Masters cannot,
according to the command of Christ, render to their slaves that which is
just and equal, if you abolish the relation; for, then they will cease
to be masters." Abolish any of the relations for which regulations are
provided "in the New Testament, and, in effect, you abolish some of the
laws of Christ." But, we have just seen that Paul was in favor of
abolishing the relation of master and slave; which, as you insist, is a
relation for which regulations are provided in the New Testament. It is,
therefore, irresistibly deduced from your own premises, that he was in
favor of abolishing "the laws of Christ." It would require but little,
if any, extension of your doctrine, to make it wrong to remove all the
graven images out of a nation. For, in that event, the law of God
against bowing down to them would have nothing left to act upon. It
would thenceforth be inoperative.
4th. Another reason for believing, that the Apostles did not approve of
the slavery modification of servitude, is found in Paul's injunction;
"Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them." I admit, that it
is probable that others as well as slaves, are referred to in this
injunction: but it certainly is not probable, that others, to the
exclusion of slaves, are referred to. But, even on the supposition that
slaves are not referred to, but those only who are tenants of prisons,
let me ask you which you would rather be--a slave or a prisoner, as Paul
probably was when he wrote this injunction?--and whether your own
description of the wretched condition of the Roman slave, does not
prepare you to agree with me, that if the Apostle could ask sympathy for
the prisoner, who, with all his deprivations, has still the protection
of law, it is not much more due to the poor slave, who has no protection
whatever against lawless tyranny and caprice!
But to proceed, if slaves are the only, or even a part of the persons
referred to in the injunction, then you will observe, that the Apostle
does not call for the exercise of sympathy towards those who are said to
be suffering what you call the _abuses_ of slavery; but towards those
who are so unhappy as to be but the subjects of it--towards those who
are "in bonds." The bare relation of a slave is itself so grievous, as
to call for compassion towards those who bear it. Now, if this relation
were to be classed with the approved relations of life, why should the
Apostle have undertaken to awaken compassion for persons, simply because
they were the subject, of it? He never asked for sympathy for persons,
simply because they were parties to the relations of husband and wife,
parent and child. It may be worthy of notice, that the injunction under
consideration is found in Paul's letter to the Jewish Christians. This
attempt to awaken pity in behalf of the slave, and to produce abhorrence
of slavery, was made upon these, and not upon the Gentile Christians;
because, perhaps, that they, who had always possessed the Oracles of
God, could bear it; and they who had just come up out of the mire of
heathenism, could not. If this explanation be just, it enforces my
argument for ascribing to causes, other than the alleged sinfulness of
the institution, the Apostle's omission to utter specific rebukes of
slavery.
5th. Another reason for believing that the slavery modification of
servitude should not be classed with the confessedly proper relations
with which you class it, is the conclusive one, that it interferes with,
and tends to subvert, and does actually subvert, these relations. The
Apostles prescribe duties, which are necessary to sustain these
relations, and make them fruitful sources of happiness to the parties to
them. Among these duties are the following: "Wives, submit yourselves to
your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord"--"Children, obey your
parents"--"Husbands, dwell with them" (your wives). But slavery, where
it does not make obedience to these commands utterly impossible,
conditions it on the permission of usurpers, who have presumed to step
between the laws of God and those on whom they are intended to bear.
Slavery, not the law of God, practically determines whether husbands
shall dwell with their wives: and an amount of anguish, which God alone
can compute, testifies that slavery has thus determined, times without
number, that husbands shall not dwell with their wives. A distinguished
gentleman, who has been much at the South, is spending a little time in
my family. He told me but this day, that he had frequently known the air
filled with shrieks of anguish for a whole mile around the spot, where,
under the hammer of the auctioneer, the members of a family were
undergoing an endless separation from each other. It was but last week,
that a poor fugitive reached a family, in which God's commands, "Hide
the outcasts, betray not him that wandereth"--"Hide not thyself from thy
own flesh"--are not a dead letter. The heaviest burden of his heart is,
that he has not seen his wife for five years, and does not expect to see
her again: his master, in Virginia, having sold him to a Georgian, and
his wife to an inhabitant of the District of Columbia. Whilst the law of
God requires wives to "submit themselves to their husbands, as it is fit
in the Lord;" the law of slavery commands them, under the most terrific
penalties, to submit to every conceivable form of violence, and the most
loathsome pollution, "as it is fit" in the eyes of slaveholders--no
small proportion of whom are, as a most natural fruit of slavery,
abandoned to brutality and lust. The laws of South Carolina and Georgia
make it an offence punishable with death, "if any slave shall presume to
strike a white person." By the laws of Maryland and Kentucky, it is
enacted "if any negro, mulatto, or Indian, bond or free, shall, at any
time, lift his or her hand in opposition to any person, not being a
negro or Indian, he or she shall, in the first-mentioned State, suffer
the penalty of cropped ears; and, in the other, thirty-nine lashes on
his or her bare back, well laid on, by order of the justice." In
Louisiana there is a law--for the enactment of which, slavery is, of
course, responsible--in these words: "Free people of color ought never
to insult or strike white people, nor presume to conceive themselves
equal to the whites: but, on the contrary, they ought _to yield to them
on every occasion_, and never speak or answer them but with respect,
under the penalty of imprisonment, according to the nature of the
offence." The following extract of a letter, written to me from the
South, by a gentleman who still resides there, serves to show how true
it is, that "on every occasion," the colored person must yield to the
white, and, especially, if the white be clothed with the authority of an
ambassador of Christ. "A negro was executed in Autauga Co., not long
since, for the murder of his master. The latter, it seems, attempted to
violate the wife of his slave in his presence, when the negro enraged,
smote the wretch to the ground. And this master--this brute--this
fiend--was a preacher of the gospel, in regular standing!" In a former
part of this communication, I said enough to show, that slavery prevents
children from complying with the command to obey their parents. But, in
reply to what I have said of these outrages on the rights of husbands
and wives, parents and children, you maintain, that they are no part of
the system of slavery. Slaveholders, however, being themselves judges,
they are a part of it, or, at least, are necessary to uphold it; else
they would not by deliberate, solemn legislation, authorize them. But,
be this as it may, it is abundantly proven, that slavery is, essentially
and inevitably, at war with the sacred rights of the family state. Let
me say, then, in conclusion under this head, that in whatever other
company you put slavery, place it not in that of the just relations of
husband and wife, parent and child. They can no more company with each
other, than can fire with water. Their natures are not only totally
opposite to, but destructive of, each other.
6th. The laws, to which you refer on the sixty-eighth page of your book,
tend to prove, and, so far as your admission of the necessity of them
goes, do prove, that the relation of slaveholder and slave does not
deserve a place, in the class of innocent and proper relations. You
there say, that the writings of "such great and good men as Wesley,
Edwards, Porteus, Paley, Horsley, Scott, Clark, Wilberforce, Sharp,
Clarkson, Fox, Johnson, and a host of as good if not equally great, men
of later date," have made it necessary for the safety of the institution
of slavery, to pass laws, forbidding millions of our countrymen to read.
You should have, also, mentioned the horrid sanctions of these
laws--stripes, imprisonment, and death. Now, these laws disable the
persons on whom they bear, from fulfilling God's commandments, and,
especially, His commandment to "search the Scriptures." They are,
therefore, wicked. What then, in its moral character, must be a
relation, which, to sustain it, requires the aid of wicked laws?--and,
how entirely out of place must it be, when you class it with those just
relations of life, that, certainly, require none of the support, which,
you admit, is indispensable to the preservation of the relation of
slaveholder and slave! It is true, that you attempt to justify the
enactment of the laws in question, by the occasions which you say led to
it. But, every law forbidding what God requires, is a wicked law--under
whatever pretexts, or for whatever purposes, it may have been enacted.
Let the occasions which lead to a wicked measure be what they may, the
wickedness of the measure is still sufficient to condemn it.
In the case before us, we see how differently different persons are
affected by the same fact. Whilst the stand taken against slavery by
Wesley, Edwards, and the other choice spirits you enumerate, serves but
to inspire you with concern for its safety, it would, of itself, and
without knowing their reasons for it, be well nigh enough to destroy my
confidence in the institution. Let me ask you, Sir, whether it would not
be more reasonable for those, who are so industriously engaged in
insulating the system of American slavery, and shrouding it with
darkness, to find less fault with the bright and burning light which the
writings of the wisest and best men pour upon it, and more with the
system which "hateth the light, neither cometh to the light."
You would have your readers believe, that the blessings of education are
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.
But, was it a state of slavery to which Canaanites were doomed? I will
suppose, for a moment, that it was: and, then, how does it appear right
to enslave them? The curse in question is prophecy. Now prophecy does
not say what ought to come to pass: nor does it say, that they who have
an agency in the production of the foretold event, will be innocent in
that agency. If the prediction of an event justifies those who are
instrumental in producing it, then was Judas innocent in betraying our
Saviour. "It must needs be that offences come, but wo to that man by
whom the offence cometh." Prophecy simply tells what will come to pass.
The question, whether it was proper to enslave Canaanites, depends for
its solution not on the curse or prophecy in question. If the measure
were in conformity with the general morality of the Bible, then it was
proper. Was it in conformity with it? It was not. The justice, equity
and mercy which were, agreeable to the Divine command, to characterize
the dealings of the Jews with each other, are in such conformity, and
these are all violated by slavery. If those dealings were all based on
the general morality of the Bible, as they certainly were, then slavery,
which, in its moral character, is completely opposite to them, cannot
rest on that morality. If that morality did not permit the Jews to
enslave Canaanites, how came they to enslave them? You will say, that
they had special authority from God to do so, in the words, "Both thy
bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the
heathen that are around about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and
bondmaids." Well, I will admit that God did in one instance, and that He
may have done so in others, give special authority to the Jews to do
that, which, without such authority, would have been palpably and
grossly immoral. He required them to exterminate some of the tribes of
the Canaanites. He may have required them to bring other Heathens under
a form of servitude violative of the general morality of his word.--Of
course, no blame attaches to the execution of such commands. When He
specially deputes us to kill for Him, we are as innocent in the agency,
notwithstanding the general law, "thou shalt not kill," as is the
earthquake or thunderbolt, when commissioned to destroy. Samuel was as
innocent in hewing "Agag in pieces," as is the tree that falls upon the
traveler. It may be remarked, in this connexion, that the fact that God
gave a special statute to destroy some of the tribes of the Canaanites,
argues the contrariety of the thing required to the morality of the
Bible. It argues, that this morality would not have secured the
accomplishment of what was required by the statute. Indeed, it is
probable that it was, sometimes, under the influence of the tenderness
and mercy inculcated by this morality, that the Jews were guilty of
going counter to the special statute in question, and sparing the
devoted Canaanites, as in the instance when they "spared Agag." We might
reason, similarly to show that a special statute, if indeed there were
such a one, authorizing the Jews to compel the Heathen to serve them,
argues that compulsory service is contrary to fundamental morality. We
will suppose that God did; in the special statute referred to, clothe
the Jews with power to enslave Heathens, and now let me ask you, whether
it is by this same statute to enslave, that you justify your neighbors
and yourself for enslaving your fellow men? But this is a special
statute, conferring a power on the Jews only--a power too, not to
enslave whomsoever they could; but only a specified portion of the human
family, and this portion, as we have seen, of a stock, other than that
from which you have obtained your slaves. If the special statutes, by
which God clothed the Jews with peculiar powers, may be construed to
clothe you with similar powers, then, inasmuch as they were authorized
and required to kill Canaanites, you may hunt up for destruction the
straggling descendants of such of the devoted ones, as escaped the sword
of the Jews. Or, to make a different interpretation of your rights,
under this supposition; since the statute in question authorized and
required the Jews to kill the heathen, within the borders of what was
properly the Jews' country, then you are also authorized and required to
kill the heathens within the limits of your country:--and these are not
wanting, if the testimony of your ecclesiastical bodies, before referred
to, can be relied on; and, if it be as they say, that the millions of
the poor colored brethren in the midst of you are made heathens by the
operation of the system, to which, with unparalleled wickedness, they
are subjected.
If then, neither Noah's curse, nor the special statute in question,
authorize you to enslave your fellow men, there is, probably, but one
ground on which you will contend for authority to do so--and this is the
ground of the general morality of the Christian religion--of the general
principles of right and duty, in the word of God. Do you find your
authority on this ground? If you do, then, manifestly, you have a right
to enslave me, and I a right to enslave you, and every man has a right
to enslave whomsoever he can;--a right as perfect, as is the right to do
good to one another. Indeed, the enslavement of each other would, under
this construction of duty, _be_ the doing of good to one another. Think
you, sir, that the universal exercise of this right would promote the
fulfilment of the "new commandment that ye love one another?" Think you,
it would be the harbinger of millenial peace and blessedness? Or, think
you not, rather, that it would fully and frightfully realize the
prophet's declaration: "They all lie in wait for blood: they hunt every
man his neighbor with a net."
If any people have a right to enslave their fellow men, it must be the
Jews, if they once had it. But if they ever had it, it ceased, when all
their peculiar rights ceased. In respect to rights from the Most High,
they are now on the same footing with other races of men. When "the vail
of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom," then that
distinction from the Gentile, in which the Jew had gloried, ceased, and
the partition wall between them was prostrate for ever. The Jew, as well
as the Gentile, was never more to depart from the general morality of
the Bible. He was never again to be under any special statutes, whose
requirements should bring him into collision with that morality: He was
no more to confine his sympathies and friendships within the narrow
range of the twelve tribes: but every son and daughter of Adam were
thenceforth entitled to claim from him the heart and hand of a brother.
"Under the glorious dispensation of the gospel," says the immortal
Granville Sharp, "we are absolutely bound to consider ourselves as
citizens of the world; every man whatever, without any partial
distinction of nation, distance, or complexion, must necessarily be
esteemed our neighbor and our brother; and we are absolutely bound, in
Christian duty, to entertain a disposition towards all mankind, as
charitable and benevolent, at least, as that which was required of the
Jews under the law towards their brethren; and, consequently, it is
absolutely unlawful for those who call themselves Christians, to exact
of their brethren (I mean their brethren of the universe) a more
burthensome service, than that to which the Jews were limited with
respect to their brethren of the house of Israel; and the slavery or
involuntary bondage of a brother Israelite was absolutely forbid."
It occurs to me, that after all which has been said to satisfy you, that
compulsory servitude, if such there were among the Jews, cannot properly
be pleaded in justification of yours; a question may still be floating
in your mind whether, if God directed his chosen people to enslave the
Heathen, slavery should not be regarded as a good system of servitude?
Just as pertinently may you ask, whether that is not a good system of
servitude, which is found in some of our state prisons. Punishment
probably--certainly not labor--is the leading object in the one case as
well as the other: and the labor of the bondman in the one, as well as
of the convict in the other, constitutes but a subordinate
consideration. To suppose that God would, with every consideration out
of view, but that of having the best relation of employer and laborer,
make choice of slavery--to suppose that He believes that this state of
servitude operates most beneficially, both for the master and the
servant--is a high impeachment of the Divine wisdom and goodness. But
thus guilty are you, if you are unwilling to believe, that, if He chose
the severe servitude in question, He chose it for the punishment of his
enemies, or from some consideration, other than its suitableness for the
ordinary purposes of the relation of master and servant.
But it has been for the sake of argument only, that I have admitted that
God authorized the Jews to enslave the heathen. I now totally deny that
He did so. You will, of course, consent that if He did so, it was in a
special statute, as was the case when He authorized them to exterminate
other heathen: and you will as readily consent that He enacted the
statutes, in both instances, with the view of punishing his enemies.
Now, in killing the Canaanites, the Jew was constituted, not the owner
of his devoted fellow man, but simply the executioner of God's
vengeance: and evidently, such and no other was his character when he
was reducing the Canaanite to involuntary servitude--that he did so
reduce him, and was commissioned by God to do so, is the supposition we
make for the sake of argument. Had the Jews been authorized by God to
shut up in dungeons for life those of the heathen, whom they were
directed to have for bondmen and bondmaids, you would not claim, that
they, any more than sheriffs and jailers in our day, are to be
considered in the light of owners of the persons in their charge. Much
less then, can the Jews be considered as the owners of any person whom
they held in servitude: for, however severe the type of that servitude,
the liberty of its subject was not restricted, as was that of the
prisoners in question:--most certainly, the power asserted over him is
not to be compared in extent with that asserted by the Jew over the
Canaanite, whom he slew;--a case in which he was, indisputably, but the
executioner of the Divine wrath. The Canaanite, whether devoted to a
violent death or to an involuntary servitude, still remained the
property of God: and God no more gave him up to be the property of the
executioner of his wrath, than the people of the State of New York give
up the offender against public justice to be the property of the
ministers of that justice. God never suspends the accountability of his
rational creatures to himself: and his rights to them, He never
transfers to others. He could not do so consistently with his
attributes, and his indissoluble relations to man. But slavery claims,
that its subjects are the property of man. It claims to turn them into
mere chattels, and to make them as void of responsibility to God, as
other chattels. Slavery, in a word, claims to push from his throne the
Supreme Being, who declares, "all souls are mine." That it does not
succeed in getting its victim out of God's hand, and in unmanning and
_chattelizing_ him--that God's hold upon him remains unbroken, and that
those upward tendencies of the soul, which distinguish man from the
brute, are not yet entirely crushed in him--is no evidence in favor of
its nature:--it simply proves, that its power is not equal to its
purposes. We see, then, that the Jews--if it be true that they reduced
their fellow men to involuntary servitude, and did so as the
Heaven-appointed ministers of God's justice,--are not to be charged with
slaveholding for it. There may be involuntary servitude where there is
no slavery. The essential and distinguishing feature of slavery is its
reduction of man to property--to a thing. A tenant of one of our state
prisons is under a sentence of "hard labor for life." But he is not a
slave. That is, he is not the _thing_ which slavery would mark its
subject. He is still a man. Offended justice has placed him in his
present circumstances, because he is a man: and, it is because he is a
_man_ and not a _thing_--a responsible, and not an irresponsible being,
that he must continue in his present trials and sufferings.
God's commandments to the Jews, respecting servants and strangers, show
that He not only did not authorize them to set up the claim of property
in their fellow men, but that He most carefully guarded against such
exercises of power, as might lead to the assumption of a claim so
wrongful to Himself. Some of these commandments I will bring to your
notice. They show that whatever was the form of servitude under which
God allowed the Jews to hold the heathen, it was not slavery. Indeed, if
all of the Word of God which bears on this point were cited and duly
explained, it would, perhaps, appear that He allowed no involuntary
servitude whatever amongst the Jews. I give no opinion whether he
allowed it or not. There are strong arguments which go to show, that He
did not allow it; and with these arguments the public will soon be made
more extensively acquainted. It is understood, that the next number of
the Anti-Slavery Examiner will be filled with them.
1st. So galling are the bonds of Southern slavery, that it could not
live a year under the operation of a law forbidding the restoration of
fugitive servants to their masters. How few of the discontented subjects
of this oppressive servitude would agree with Hamlet, that it is better
to
--"bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of."
What a running there would be from the slave States to the free!--from
one slave State to another!--from one plantation to another! Now, such a
law--a solemn commandment of God--many writers on slavery are of the
opinion, perhaps too confident opinion, was in force in the Jewish
nation (Deut. xxiii, 15); and yet the system of servitude on which it
bore, and which you cite as the pattern and authority for your own,
lived in spite of it. How could it? Manifestly, because its genius was
wholly unlike that of Southern slavery; and because its rigors and
wrongs, if rigors and wrongs there were in it, bear no comparison to
those which characterize Southern slavery; and which would impel
nine-tenths of its adult subjects to fly from their homes, did they but
know that they would not be obliged to return to them. When Southern
slaveholders shall cease to scour the land for fugitive servants, and to
hunt them with guns and dogs, and to imprison, and scourge, and kill
them;--when, in a word, they shall subject to the bearing of such a law
as that referred to their system of servitude, then we shall begin to
think that they are sincere in likening it to the systems which existed
among the Jews. The law, enacted in Virginia in 1705, authorizing any
two justices of the peace "by proclamation to _outlaw_ runaways, who
might thereafter be killed and destroyed by any person whatsoever, by
such ways and means as he might think fit, without accusation or
impeachment of any crime for so doing," besides that it justifies what I
have just said about hunting fugitive servants, shows, 1st. That the
American Anti-Slavery Society is of too recent an origin to be the
occasion, as slaveholders and their apologists would have us believe, of
all the cruel laws enacted at the South. 2d. That Southern slaveholders
would be very unwilling to have their system come under the operation of
such a law as that which allowed the Jewish servant to change his
master. 3d. That they are monsters, indeed, into which men may be turned
by their possession of absolute power.
You, perhaps, suppose, (and I frankly admit to you, that there is some
room for the supposition,) that the servants referred to in the 15th and
16th verses of the 23d chapter of Deuteronomy, were such as had escaped
from foreign countries to the country of the Jews. But, would this view
of the matter help you? By taking it, would you not expose yourself to
be most pertinently and embarrassingly asked, for what purpose these
servants fled to a strange and most odious people?--and would not your
candid reply necessarily be, that it was to escape from the galling
chains of slavery, to a far-famed milder type of servitude?--from
Gentile oppression, to a land in which human rights were protected by
Divine laws? But, as I have previously intimated, I have not the
strongest confidence in the anti-slavery argument, so frequently drawn
from this passage of the Bible. I am not sure that a Jewish servant is
referred to: nor that on the supposition of his being a foreigner, the
servant came under any form of servitude when entering the land of the
Jews. Before leaving the topic, however, let me remark, that the
passage, under any construction of it, makes against Southern slavery.
Admit that the fugitive servant was a foreigner, and that he was not
reduced to servitude on coming among the Jews, let me ask you whether
the law in question, under this view of it, would be tolerated by the
spirit of Southern slavery?--and whether, before obedience would be
rendered to it, you would not need to have a different type of
servitude, in the place of slavery? You would--I know you would--for you
have been put to the trial. When, by a happy providence, a vessel was
driven, the last year, to a West India island, and the chains of the
poor slaves with which it was filled fell from around them, under
freedom's magic power, the exasperated South was ready to go to war with
Great Britain. _Then_, the law against delivering up foreign servants to
their masters was not relished by you. The given case comes most
strikingly within the supposed policy of this law. The Gentile was to be
permitted to remain in the land to which he had fled, and where he would
have advantages for becoming acquainted with the God of the Bible. Such
advantages are they enjoying who escaped from the confessed heathenism
of Southern slavery to the island in question. They are now taught to
read that "Book of life," which before, they were forbidden to read. But
again, suppose a slave were to escape from a West India island into the
Southern States--would you, with your "domestic institutions," of which
you are so jealous, render obedience to this Divine law? No; you would
subject him _for ever_ to a servitude more severe than that, from which
he had escaped. Indeed, if a _freeman_ come within a certain portion of
our Southern country, and be so unhappy as to bear a physical
resemblance to the slave, he will be punished for that resemblance, by
imprisonment, and even by a reduction to slavery.
2d. Southern slaveholders, who, by their laws, own men as absolutely as
they own cattle, would have it believed, that Jewish masters thus owned
their fellow-men. If they did, why was there so wide a difference
between the commandment respecting the stray man, and that respecting
the stray ox or ass? The man was not, but the beasts were, to be
returned; and that too, even though their owner was the enemy of him who
met them. (Ex. 23. 4.) I repeat the question;--why this difference? The
only answer is, because God made the brute to be the _property_ of man;
but He never gave us our noble nature for such degradation. Man's title
deed, in the eighth Psalm, extends his right of property to the
inanimate and brute creation only--not to the flesh and bones and spirit
of his fellow-man.
3d. The very different penalties annexed to the crime of stealing a man,
and to that of stealing a thing, shows the eternal and infinite
difference which God has established between a man and property. The
stealing of a man was _surely_ to be punished with death; whilst mere
property was allowed to atone for the offence of stealing property.
4th. Who, if not the slave, can be said to be vexed and oppressed! But
God's command to his people was, that they should neither "vex a
stranger, nor oppress him."
5th. Such is the nature of American slavery, that not even its warmest
friends would claim that it could recover itself after such a "year of
jubilee" as God appointed. One such general delivery of its victims
would be for ever fatal to it. I am aware that you deny that all the
servants of the Jews shared in the blessings of the "year of jubilee."
But let me ask you, whether if one third or one half of your servants
were discharged from servitude every fiftieth year--and still more,
whether if a considerable proportion of them were thus discharged every
sixth year--the remainder would not be fearfully discontented? Southern
masters believe, that their only safety consists in keeping down the
discontent of their servants. Hence their anxious care to withhold from
them the knowledge of human rights. Hence the abolitionist who is caught
in a slave state, must be whipped or put to death. If there were a class
of servants amongst the Jews, who could bear to see all their fellow
servants go free, whilst they themselves were retained in bondage, then
that bondage was of a kind very different from what you suppose it to
have been. Had its subjects worn the galling chains of American slavery,
they would have struggled with bloody desperation for the deliverance
which they saw accorded to others.
I scarcely need say, that the Hebrew words rendered "bondmen" and
"bondmaids," do not, in themselves considered, and independently of the
connexion in which they are used, any more than the Greek words _doulos_
and _doule_, denote a particular kind of servant. If the servant was a
slave, because he was called by the Hebrew word rendered "bondman," then
was Jacob a slave also:--and even still greater absurdities could be
deduced from the position.
I promised, in a former part of this communication, to give you my
reasons for denying that you are at liberty to plead in behalf of
slavery, the example of any compulsory servitude in which Jews may have
held foreigners. My promise is now fulfilled, and I trust that the
reasons are such as not to admit of an answer.
Driven, as you now are, from every other conceivable defence of
slaveholding it may be (though I must hope better things of you), that
you will fly to the ground taken by the wicked multitude--that there is
authority in the laws of man for being a slaveholder. But, not only is
the sin of your holding slaves undiminished by the consideration, that
they are held under human laws; but, your claiming to hold them under
such laws, makes you guilty of an additional sin, which, if measured by
its pernicious consequences to others, is by no means inconsiderable.
The truth of these two positions is apparent from the following
considerations.
1st. There is no valid excuse to be found, either in man's laws or any
where else, for transgressing God's laws. Whatever may be thought, or
said to the contrary, it still remains, and for ever will remain true,
that under all circumstances, "sin is the transgression of the (Divine)
law."
2d. In every instance in which a commandment of God is transgressed,
under the cover and plea of a human law, purporting to permit what that
commandment forbids, there is, in proportion to the authority and
influence of the transgressor, a fresh sanction imparted to that law;
and consequently, in the same proportion the public habit of setting up
a false standard of right and wrong is promoted. It is this habit--this
habit of graduating our morality by the laws of the land in which we
live--that makes the "mischief framed by a law" so much more pernicious
than that which has no law to countenance it, and to commend it to the
conscience. Who is unaware, that nothing tends so powerfully to keep the
traffic in strong drink from becoming universally odious, as the fact,
that this body and soul destroying business finds a sanction in human
laws? Who has not seen the man, authorized by these laws to distribute
the poison amongst his tippling neighbors, proof against all the shafts
of truth, under the self-pleasing and self-satisfying consideration,
that his is a lawful business.
This habit of setting up man's law, instead of God's law, as the
standard of conduct, is strikingly manifested in the fact, that on the
ground, that the Federal Constitution binds the citizens of the United
States to perpetuate slavery, or at least, not to meddle with it, we
are, both at the North and the South, called on to forbear from all
efforts to abolish it. The exertions made to discover in that
instrument, authority for slavery, and authority against endeavors to
abolish it, are as great, anxious, and unwearied, as if they who made
them, thought that the fortunate discovery would settle for ever the
great question which agitates our country--would nullify all the laws of
God against slavery--and make the oppression of our colored brethren, as
long as time shall last, justifiable and praiseworthy. But this
discovery will never be made; for the Constitution is not on the side of
the slaveholder. If it were, however, it would clothe him with no moral
right to act in opposition to the paramount law of God. It is not at all
necessary to the support of my views, in this communication, to show
that the Constitution was not designed to favor slavery; and yet, a few
words to this end may not be out of place.
A treaty between Great Britain and Turkey, by the terms of which the
latter should be prohibited from allowing slaves to be brought within
her dominions, after twenty years from its date, would, all will admit,
redound greatly to the credit of Great Britain. To be sure, she would
not have done as much for the cause of humanity, as if she had succeeded
in bringing the further indulgence of the sin within the limits of a
briefer period, and incomparably less than if she had succeeded in
reconciling the Sublime Porte to her glorious and emphatically English
doctrines of immediate emancipation. But still she would deserve some
praise--much more than if she had done nothing in this respect. Now, for
my present purpose, and many of our statesmen say, for nearly all
purposes, the Federal Constitution is to be regarded as a treaty between
sovereign States. But how much more does this treaty do for the
abolition of slavery, than that on which we were, a moment since,
bestowing our praise! It imposes a prohibition similar to that in the
supposed treaty between Great Britain and Turkey, so that no slaves have
been allowed to be introduced into the United States since the year
1808. It goes further, and makes ample provision for the abolition and
prevention of slavery in every part of the nation, save these States; so
that the District of Columbia and the national territories can be
cleared forever of slavery, whenever a majority of the parties, bound by
the treaty, shall desire it. And it goes still farther, and clothes this
majority with the power of regulating commerce between the States, and
consequently, of prohibiting their mutual traffic in "the bodies and
souls of men." Had this treaty gone but one step farther, and made an
exception, as it should have done, in behalf of slaves, in the clause
making necessary provision for the return of fugitives held to service
in the States from which they flee, none but those who think it is
fairly held responsible for the twenty years indulgence of the unholy
traffic, would have claimed any thing more from it in relation to
slavery. Now, this instrument, which contains nothing more, bearing on
the subject of slavery, than what I have referred to, and whose pages
are not once polluted with the words "slave" and "slavery," is
abundantly and triumphantly cited, as conclusive authority in favor of
slavery, and against endeavors to abolish it. Whilst we regret, that the
true-hearted sons of freedom in the Convention which formed it, could
obtain no more concessions from the advocates of slavery, let us honor
their sacred memory, and thank God for those they did obtain.
I have supposed it possible, that you might number yourself with those,
who defend slavery on the ground of its alleged conformity with human
laws. It occurs to me, that you may, also, take hope, that slavery is
defensible in the supposed fact, that a considerable share of the
professing Christians, in the free States, are in favor of it. "Let God
be true, but every man a liar." If all professing Christians were for
slavery, yet, if God is against it, that is reason enough why you also
should be against it. It is not true, however, that a considerable share
of our professing Christians are on the side of slavery. Indeed, until I
read Professor Hodge's article, I had not supposed that any of them
denied its sinfulness. It is true, that a large proportion of them
refuse to take a stand against it. Let them justify to their
consciences, and to their God, as they can, the equivocal silence and
still more equivocal action on this subject, by which they have left
their Southern brethren to infer, that Northern piety sanctions slavery.
It is the doctrine of expediency, so prevalent and corrupting in the
American Church, which has deceived you into the belief, that a large
share of the professing Christians in the free States, think slavery to
be sinless. This share, which you have in your eye, is, as well as the
remainder, convinced that slavery is sinful--_only they think it
inexpedient to say so_. In relation to other sins, they are satisfied
with God's way of immediate abandonment. But, in relation to slavery,
they flatter themselves that they have discovered "a more excellent
way"--that of leaving the sin untouched, and simply hoping for its
cessation, at some indefinite period in the distant future. I say
hoping, instead of praying, as prayer for an object is found to be
accompanied by corresponding efforts. But for this vile doctrine of
expediency, which gives to our ecclesiastical bodies, whenever the
subject of such a giant and popular sin as slavery is broached in them,
the complexion of a political caucus steeped in unprincipled policy,
rather than that of a company of the Saviour's disciples, inquiring "in
simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom," the way of the
Lord;--but for this doctrine, I say, you would, long ago, have heard the
testimony of Northern Christians against Southern slavery;--and not only
so, but you would long ago have seen this Dagon fall before the power of
that testimony. I trust, however, that this testimony will not long be
withheld; and that Northern Christians will soon perceive, that, in
relation to slavery, as well as every other sin, it is the safest and
wisest, as well as the holiest course, to drop all carnal policy--to
"trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own
understanding."
Not only are Northern Christians, with very rare exceptions, convinced
of the sin of slavery; but even your slaveholders were formerly
accustomed, with nearly as great unanimity, to admit, that they
themselves thought it to be sinful. It is only recently, and since they
have found that their system must be tested by the Bible, thoroughly and
in earnest--not merely for the purpose, as formerly, of determining
without any practical consequences of the determination, what is the
moral character of slavery--but, for the purpose of settling the point,
whether the institution shall stand or fall,--it is only, I say, since
the civilized world has been fast coming to claim that it shall be
decided by the Bible, and by no lower standard, whether slavery shall or
shall not exist--that your slaveholders have found it expedient to take
the ground, that slavery is not sin.
It probably has not occurred to you, how fairly and fully you might have
been stopped, upon the very threshold of your defence of slavery. The
only witness you have called to the stand to sustain your sinking cause,
is the Bible. But this is a witness, which slavery has itself impeached,
and of which, therefore, it is not entitled to avail itself. It is a
good rule in our civil courts, that a party is not permitted to impeach
his own witness; and it is but an inconsiderable variation of the letter
of this rule, and obviously no violation of its spirit and policy to
say, that no party is permitted to attempt to benefit his cause by a
witness whom he has himself impeached. Now, the slaveholder palpably
violates this rule, when he presumes to offer the Bible as a witness for
his cause:--for he has previously impeached it, by declaring, in his
slave system, that it is not to be believed--that its requirements are
not to be obeyed--that they are not even to be read (though the Bible
expressly directs that they shall be)--that concubinage shall be
substituted for the marriage it enjoins--and that its other provisions
for the happiness, and even the existence, of the social relations,
shall be trampled under foot. The scene, in which a lawyer should ask
the jury to believe what his witness is saying at one moment, and to
reject what he is saying at another, would be ludicrous enough. But what
more absurdity is there in it than that which the pro-slavery party are
guilty of, when they would have us deaf, whilst their witness is
testifying in favor of marriage and searching the Scriptures; and, all
ears, whilst that same witness is testifying, as they construe it, in
favor of slavery! No--before it will be competent for the American
slaveholder to appeal to the Bible for justification of his system, that
system must be so modified, as no longer to make open, shameless war
upon the Bible. I would recommend to slaveholders, that, rather than
make so unhallowed a use of the Bible as to attempt to bolster up their
hard beset cause with it, they should take the ground, which a very
distinguished slaveholding gentleman of the city of Washington took, in
a conversation with myself on the subject of slavery. Feeling himself
uncomfortably plied by quotations from the word of God, he said with
much emphasis, "Stop, Sir, with that, if you please--SLAVERY IS A
SUBJECT, WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BIBLE."
This practice of attempting to put the boldest and most flagrant sins
under the wing and sanction of the Bible, is chargeable on others as
well as on the advocates of slavery. Not to speak of other instances of
it--it is sought to justify by this blessed book the most despotic forms
of civil government, and the drinking of intoxicating liquors. There are
two evils so great, which arise from this perversion of the word of God,
that I cannot forbear to notice them. One is, that the consciences of
men are quieted, when they imagine that they have found a justification
in the Bible for the sins of which they are guilty. The other is, that
infidels are multiplied by this perversion. A respectable gentleman, who
edits a newspaper in this neighborhood, and who, unhappily, is not
established in the Christian faith, was asked, a few months since, to
attend a meeting of a Bible Society. "I am not willing," said he, in
reply, "to favor the circulation of a volume, which many of its friends
claim to be on the side of slavery." Rely on it, Sir, that wherever your
book produces the conviction that the Bible justifies slavery, it there
weakens whatever of respect for that blessed volume previously existed.
Whoever is brought to associate slavery with the Bible, may, it is true,
think better of slavery; but he will surely think worse of the Bible. I
hope, therefore, in mercy to yourself and the world, that the success of
your undertaking will be small.
But oftentimes the same providence has a bright, as well as a gloomy,
aspect. It is so in the case before us. The common attempt, in our day,
to intrench great sins in the authority of the Bible, is a consoling and
cheering evidence, that this volume is recognised as the public standard
of right and wrong; and that, whatever may be their private opinions of
it who are guilty of these sins, they cannot hope to justify themselves
before the world, unless their lives are, apparently, at least,
conformed, in some good degree, to this standard. We may add, too, that,
as surely as the Bible is against slavery, every pro-slavery writer, who
like yourself appeals to it as the infallible and only admissible
standard of right and wrong, will contribute to the overthrow of the
iniquitous system. His writings may not, uniformly, tend to this happy
result. In some instances, he may strengthen confidence in the system of
slavery by producing conviction, that the Bible sanctions it;--and then
his success will be, as before remarked, at the expense of the claims
and authority of the Bible:--but these instances of the pernicious
effects of his writings will be very rare, quite too rare we may hope,
to counterbalance the more generally useful tendency of writings on the
subject of slavery, which recognise the paramount authority of God's
law.
Having completed the examination of your book, I wish to hold up to you,
in a single view, the substance of what you have done. You have come
forth, the unblushing advocate of American slavery;--a system which,
whether we study its nature in the deliberate and horrid enactments of
its code, or in the heathenism and pollution and sweat and tears and
blood, which prove, but too well, the agreement of its practical
character with its theory--is, beyond all doubt, more oppressive and
wicked than any other, which the avaricious, sensual, cruel heart of man
ever devised. You have come forth, the unblushing advocate of a system
under which parents are daily selling their children; brothers and
sisters, their brothers and sisters; members of the Church of Christ,
their fellow-members--under which, in a word, immortal man, made "in the
image of God," is more unfeelingly and cruelly dealt with, than the
brute. I know that you intimate that this system would work well, were
it in the hands of none but good men. But with equal propriety might you
say, that the gaming-house or the brothel would work well in such hands.
You have attempted to sustain this system by the testimony of the Bible.
The system, a part only of the crimes of which, most of the nations of
Christendom have declared to be piracy;--against which, the common
sense, the philosophy, the humanity, the conscience of the world, are
arrayed;--this system, so execrable and infamous, you have had the
presumption to attempt to vindicate by that blessed book, whose Author
"is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and (who) cannot look upon
iniquity"--and who "has magnified his word above all his name."
And now, Sir, let me solemnly inquire of you, whether it is right to do
what you have done?--whether it is befitting a man, a Christian, and a
minister of the gospel?--and let me, further, ask you, whether you have
any cheering testimony in your heart that it is God's work you have been
doing? That you and I may, in every future work of our hands, have the
happiness to know, that the approbation of our employer comes from the
upper, and not from the under world, is the sincere desire of
Your friend,
GERRIT SMITH.
No. 4
THE
ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
THE
BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.
AN INQUIRY
INTO THE
PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS
ON THE SUBJECT OF HUMAN RIGHTS.
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
NO. 143 NASSAU STREET.
1837.
POSTAGE--This periodical contains five and a half sheets. Postage under
100 miles, 8-1/2 cts over 100 miles, 14 cents.
_Please read and circulate._
PIERCY & REED. PRINTERS,
7 Theatre Alley.
CONTENTS.
Definition of Slavery
Man-stealing--Examination of Ex. xxi. 16
Import of "Bought with money," etc.
Rights and privileges of servants
No involuntary servitude under the Mosaic system
Servants were paid wages
Masters, not owners
Servants distinguished from property
Social equality of servants with their masters
Condition of the Gibeonites, as subjects of the Hebrew
Commonwealth
Egyptian bondage analyzed
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
"Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be," etc. Gen.
ix. 25
"For he is his money," Examination of, Ex. xxi. 20, 21
"Bondmen and bondmaids" bought of the heathen. Lev. xxv. 44-46
"They shall be your bondmen forever." Lev. xxv. 46
"Ye shall take them as an inheritance," etc. Lev. xxv. 46
The Israelite to serve as a hired servant. Lev. xxv. 39, 40
Difference between bought and hired servants
Bought servants the most privileged class
Summary of the different classes of servants
Disabilities of the servants from the heathen
Examination of Exodus xxi. 2-6
The Canaanites not sentenced to unconditional extermination
INQUIRY, &c.
* * * * *
The spirit of slavery never takes refuge in the Bible _of its own
accord._ The horns of the altar are its last resort. It seizes them, if
at all, only in desperation--rushing from the terror of the avenger's
arm. Like other unclean spirits, it "hateth the light, neither cometh to
the light, lest its deeds should be reproved." Goaded to phrenzy in its
conflicts with conscience and common sense, denied all quarter, and
hunted from every covert, it breaks at last into the sacred enclosure,
and courses up and down the Bible, "seeking rest, and finding none." THE
LAW OF LOVE, streaming from every page, flashes around it an omnipresent
anguish and despair. It shrinks from the hated light, and howls under
the consuming touch, as demons recoiled from the Son of God, and
shrieked, "Torment us not." At last, it slinks away among the shadows of
the Mosaic system, and thinks to burrow out of sight among its types and
shadows. Vain hope! Its asylum is its sepulchre; its city of refuge, the
city of destruction. It rushes from light into the sun; from heat, into
devouring fire; and from the voice of God into the thickest of His
thunders.
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY.
If we would know whether the Bible is the charter of slavery, we must
first determine _just what slavery is_. The thing itself must be
separated from its appendages. A constituent element is one thing; a
relation another; an appendage another. Relations and appendages
presuppose _other_ things, of which there are relations and appendages.
To regard them as _the things_ to which they pertain, or as constituent
parts of them, leads to endless fallacies. A great variety of
conditions, relations, and tenures, indispensable to the social state,
are confounded with slavery; and thus slaveholding is deemed quite
harmless, if not virtuous. We will specify some of the things which are
often confounded with slavery.
1. _Privation of the right of suffrage_. Then _minors_ are slaves.
2. _Ineligibility to office_. Then _females_ are slaves.
3. _Taxation without representation_. Then three-fourths of the people
of Rhode Island are slaves, and _all_ in the District of Columbia.
4. _Privation of one's oath in law_. Then the _free_ colored people of
Ohio are slaves. So are disbelievers in a future retribution, generally.
5. _Privation of trial by jury_. Then all in France and Germany are
slaves.
6. _Being required to support a particular religion_. Then the people of
England are slaves. [To the preceding may be added all other
disabilities, merely political.]
7. _Cruelty and oppression_. Wives are often cruelly treated; hired
domestics are often oppressed; but these forms of oppression are not
slavery.
8. _Apprenticeship_. The rights and duties of master and apprentice are
correlative and reciprocal. The _claim_ of each upon the other results
from the _obligation_ of each to the other. Apprenticeship is based on
the principle of equivalent for value received. The rights of the
apprentice are secured, and his interests are promoted equally with
those of the master. Indeed, while the law of apprenticeship is _just_
to the master, it is _benevolent_ to the apprentice. Its main design is
rather to benefit the apprentice than the master. It _promotes_ the
interests of the former, while it guards from injury those of the latter
in doing it. It secures to the master a mere legal compensation, while
it secures to the apprentice both a legal compensation, and a virtual
gratuity in addition, the apprentice being of the two decidedly the
greatest gainer. The law not only recognizes the _right_ of the
apprentice to a reward for his labor, but appoints the wages, and
enforces the payment. The master's claim covers only the _services_ of
the apprentice. The apprentice's claim covers _equally_ the services of
the master. The master cannot hold the apprentice as property, nor the
apprentice the master; but each holds property in the services of the
other, and BOTH EQUALLY. Is this slavery?
9. _Filial subordination and parental claims_. Both are nature's
dictates, and indispensable to the existence of the social state; their
_design_ the promotion of mutual welfare; and the _means_, those natural
affections created by the relation of parent and child, and blending
them in one by irrepressible affinities; and thus, while exciting each
to discharge those offices incidental to the relation, they constitute a
shield for mutual protection. The parent's legal claim to the services
of his children, while minors, is a slight boon for the care and toil of
their rearing, to say nothing of outlays for support and education. This
provision for the good of the _whole_, is, with the greater part of
mankind, indispensable to the preservation of the family state. The
child, in helping his parents, helps himself--increases a common stock,
in which he has a share; while his most faithful services do but
acknowledge a debt that money cannot cancel.
10. _Bondage for crime, or governmental claims on criminals._ Must
innocence be punished because guilt suffers penalties? True, the
criminal works for the government without pay; and well he may. He owes
the government. A century's work would not pay its drafts on him. He is
a public defaulter, and will die so. Because laws make men pay their
debts, shall those be forced to pay who _owe nothing?_ Besides, the law
makes no criminal, PROPERTY. It restrains his liberty; it makes him pay
something, a mere penny in the pound, of his debt to the government; but
it does not make him a _chattel_. Test it. To own property is to own its
product. Are children born of convicts government property? Besides, can
_property_ be _guilty_? Are _chattels_ punished?
11. _Restrictions upon freedom._ Children are restrained by parents,
wards by guardians, pupils by teachers, patients by physicians and
nurses, corporations by charters, and legislators by constitutions.
Embargoes, tariffs, quarantine, and all other laws, keep men from doing
as they please. Restraints are the web of civilized society, warp and
woof. Are they slavery? then civilized society is a mammoth slave--a
government of LAW, _the climax of slavery_, and its executive a king
among slaveholders.
12. _Involuntary or compulsory service_. A juryman is empannelled
_against his will_, and sit he _must_. A sheriff orders his posse;
bystanders _must_ turn in. Men are _compelled_ to remove nuisances, pay
fines and taxes, support their families, and "turn to the right as the
law directs," however much _against their wills_. Are they therefore
slaves? To confound slavery with involuntary service is absurd. Slavery
is a _condition_. The slave's _feelings_ toward it, are one thing; the
condition itself, the object of these feelings, is _another_ thing; his
feelings cannot alter the nature of that condition. Whether he _desire_
or _detest_ it, the _condition_ remains the same. The slave's
_willingness_ to be a slave is no palliation of his master's guilt in
holding him. Suppose the slave verily thinks himself a chattel, and
consents that others may so regard him, does that _make_ him a chattel,
or make those guiltless who _hold_ him as such? I may be sick of life,
and I tell the assassin so that stabs me; is he any the less a murderer
because I _consent_ to be made a corpse? Does my partnership in his
guilt blot out his part of it? If the slave were willing to be a slave,
his _voluntariness_, so far from _lessening_ the guilt of the "owner,"
_aggravates_ it. If slavery has so palsied his mind and he looks upon
himself as a chattel, and consents to be one, actually _to hold him as
such_, falls in with his delusion, and confirms the impious falsehood.
_These very feelings and convictions of the slave_, (if such were
possible) increase a hundred fold the guilt of the master in holding him
as property, and call upon him in thunder, immediately to recognize him
as a MAN, and thus break the sorcery that binds his soul, cheating it of
its birth-right, and the consciousness of its worth and destiny.
Many of the foregoing conditions and relations are _appendages_ of
slavery, and some of them inseparable from it. But no one, nor all of
them together, constitute its _intrinsic unchanging element_.
We proceed to state affirmatively that,
ENSLAVING MEN IS REDUCING THEM TO ARTICLES OF PROPERTY, making free
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.
In further prosecuting this inquiry, the Patriarchal and Mosaic systems
will be considered together, as each reflects light upon the other, and
as many regulations of the latter are mere _legal_ forms of Divine
institutions previously existing. As a _system_, however, the latter
alone is of Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the
_patriarchs_, God has not made them our examplars[A].
[Footnote A: Those who insist that the patriarchs held slaves, and sit
with such delight under their shadow, hymning the praises of "those good
old patriarchs and slaveholders," might at small cost greatly augment
their numbers. A single stanza celebrating patriarchal _concubinage_,
winding off with a chorus in honor of patriarchal _drunkenness_, would
be a trumpet call, summoning from bush and brake, highway and hedge, and
sheltering fence, a brotherhood of kindred affinities, each claiming
Abraham or Noah as his patron saint, and shouting, "My name is legion."
What a myriad choir, and thunderous song!]
Before entering upon an analysis of the condition of servants under
these two states of society, let us settle the import of certain terms
which describe the mode of procuring them.
IMPORT OF THE WORD "BUY," AND THE PHRASE "BOUGHT WITH MONEY."
From the direction to the Israelites to "buy" their servants, and from
the phrase "bought with money," applied to Abraham's servants, it is
argued that they were articles of _property_. The sole ground for this
belief is the _terms_ "buy" and "bought with money," and such an import
to these terms when applied to servants is assumed, not only in the
absence of all proof, but in the face of evidence to the contrary. How
much might be saved, if in discussion, the thing to be proved was always
_assumed_. To _beg_ the question in debate, what economy of midnight
oil! what a forestaller of premature wrinkles, and grey hairs! Instead
of protracted investigation into Scripture usage, and painful collating
of passages, and cautiously tracing minute relations, to find the
meaning of Scripture terms, let every man boldly resolve to interpret
the language of the oldest book in the world, by the usages of his own
time and place, and the work is done. And then what a march of mind!
Instead of _one_ revelation, they might be multiplied as the drops of
the morning! Every man might take orders as an inspired interpreter,
with an infallible clue to the mind of the Spirit, if he only understood
the dialect of his own neighborhood! We repeat it, the only ground of
proof that these terms are to be interpreted to mean, when applied to
servants in the Bible, the same that they mean when applied to our
_slaves, is the terms themselves._
What a Babel-jargon it would make of the Bible to take it for granted
that the sense in which words are _now_ used is the _inspired_ sense.
David says, "I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried." What a
miracle-worker, to stop the earth in its revolution! Rather too fast.
Two hundred years ago, _prevent_ was used in the strict Latin sense to
_come before_, or _anticipate_. It is always used in this sense in the
Old and New Testaments. David's expression, in the English of the
nineteenth century, is, "Before the dawning of the morning I cried," or,
I began to cry before day-break. "So my prayer shall _prevent_ thee."
"Let us _prevent_ his face with thanksgiving." "Mine eyes _prevent_ the
night watches." "We shall not _prevent_ them that are asleep," &c. In
almost every chapter of the Bible, words are used in a sense now nearly
or quite obsolete, and sometimes in a sense totally _opposite_ to their
present meaning. A few examples follow: "Oftentimes I purposed to come
to you, but was _let_ (hindered) hitherto." "And the four _beasts_
(living ones) fell down and worshipped God,"--Whosoever shall _offend_
(cause to sin) one of these little ones,"--Go out into the high ways and
_compel_ (urge) them to come in,"--Only let your _conversation_
(habitual conduct or course of life) be as becometh the Gospel,"--They
that seek me _early_ (earnestly) shall find me,--Give me _by and by_
(now) in a charger, the head of John the Baptist,"--So when tribulation
or persecution ariseth _by-and-by_ (immediately) they are offended.
Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like bodies, are
continually throwing off particles and absorbing others. So long as they
are mere _representatives,_ elected by the whims of universal suffrage,
their meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up for the next
century is an employment sufficiently silly, (to speak within bounds,)
for a modern Bible dictionary maker. There never was a shallower conceit
than that of establishing the sense attached to a word centuries ago, by
showing what it means _now_. Pity that hyper-fashionable mantuamakers
and milliners were not a little quicker at taking hints from some of our
Doctors of Divinity. How easily they could save their pious customers
all qualms of conscience about the weekly shiftings of fashion, by
demonstrating that the last importation of Parisian indecency, just now
flaunting here on promenade, was the identical style of dress in which
the pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the angels, the modest Rebecca drew
water for the camels of Abraham's servants. Since such fashions are rife
in Chestnut-street and Broadway _now_, they _must_ have been in Canaan
and Pandanaram four thousand years ago!
II. 1. The inference that the word buy, used to describe the procuring
of servants, means procuring them as _chattels_, seems based upon the
fallacy--that whatever _costs_ money _is_ money; that whatever or
whoever you pay money _for_, is an article of property, and the fact of
your paying for it _proves_ that it is property. The children of Israel
were required to _purchase_ their first-born out from under the
obligations of the priesthood, Numb. xviii. 15, 16; Exod. xxxiv. 20.
This custom is kept up to this day among the Jews, and the word _buy_ is
still used to describe the transaction. Does this prove that their
first-born were, or are, held as property? They were _bought_ as really
as were _servants_. So the Israelites were required to _pay money_ for
their own souls. This is called sometimes a ransom, sometimes an
atonement. Were their _souls_ therefore marketable commodities?
2. Bible saints _bought_ their wives. Boaz _bought_ Ruth. "So Ruth the
Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I _purchased_ to be my wife." Ruth
iv. 10. Hosea bought his wife. "So I _bought_ her to me for fifteen
pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of
barley." Hosea iii. 2. Jacob _bought_ his wives Rachel and Leah, and not
having money, paid for them in labor--seven years a piece. Gen. xxix.
15-29. Moses probably bought his wife in the same way, and paid for her
by his labor, as the servant of her father. Exod. ii. 21. Shechem, when
negotiating with Jacob and his sons for Dinah, says, "What ye shall say
unto me, I will _give_. Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will
give according as ye shall say unto me." Gen. xxxiv. 11, 12. David
purchased Michal, Saul's daughter, and Othniel, Achsab, the daughter of
Caleb, by performing perilous services for the benefit of their
fathers-in-law. 1 Sam. xviii. 25-27; Judges i. 12, 13. That the purchase
of wives, either with money or by service was the general practice, is
plain from such passages as Exod. xxii. 17, and 1 Sam. xviii. 25. Among
the Jews of the present day this usage exists, though it is now a mere
form, there being no _real_ purchase. Yet among their marriage
ceremonies, is one called "marrying by the penny." The coincidences, not
only in the methods of procuring wives and servants, and in the terms
employed in describing the transactions, but in the prices paid for
each, are worthy of notice. The highest price of wives (virgins) and
servants was the same. Compare Deut. xxii. 28, 29, and Exod. xxii. 17,
with Lev. xxvii. 2-8. The _medium_ price of wives and servants was the
same. Compare Hosea iii. 2, with Exod. xxi. 2. Hosea appears to have
paid one half in money and the other in grain. Further, the Israelitish
female bought-servants were _wives_, their husbands and their masters
being the same persons. Exod. xxi. 8, and Judges xix. 3, 27. If _buying_
servants among the Jews shows that they were property, then buying
_wives_ shows that _they_ were property. The words in the original used
to describe the one, describe the other. Why not contend that the wives
of the ancient fathers of the faithful were their chattels, and used as
ready change at a pinch? And thence deduce the rights of modern
husbands. How far gone is the Church from primitive purity! How slow to
emulate illustrious examples! Alas! Patriarchs and prophets are followed
afar off! When will pious husbands live up to their Bible privileges,
and become partakers with Old Testament worthies in the blessedness of a
husband's rightful immunities! Surely professors of religion now, are
_bound_ to buy and hold their wives as property! Refusing so to do, is
to question the morality of those "good old" wife-trading "patriarchs,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," with the prophets, and a host of whom the
world was not worthy.
The use of the word buy, to describe the procuring of wives, is not
peculiar to the Hebrew. In the Syriac language, the common expression
for "the married," or "the espoused," is "the bought." Even so late as
the 16th century, the common record of _marriages_ in the old German
Chronicles was "A. BOUGHT B."
The Hebrew word translated _buy_, is, like other words, modified by the
nature of the subject to which it is applied. Eve says, "I have _gotten_
(bought) a man of the Lord." She named him Cain, that is, _bought_. "He
that heareth reproof, getteth (buyeth) understanding", Prov. xv. 32. So
in Isa. xi. 11. "The Lord shall set his hand again to recover (to _buy_)
the remnant of his people." So Ps. lxxviii. 54. He brought them to this
mountain which his right hand had _purchased_, i.e. gotten. Jer. xiii.
4. "Take the girdle that thou hast got" (bought.) Neh. v. 8. "We of our
ability have _redeemed_ (bought) our brethren that were sold to the
heathen." Here "_bought_" is not applied to persons who were made
slaves, but to those taken _out_ of slavery. Prov. 8. 22. "The Lord
possessed (bought) me in the beginning of his way before his works of
old." Prov. xix. 8. "He that _getteth_ (buyeth) wisdom loveth his own
soul." Prov. xvi. 16. "How much better is it to _get_ (buy) wisdom than
gold?" Finally, to _buy_ is a _secondary_ meaning of the Hebrew word
_Kana_.
4. Even at this day the word _buy_ is used to describe the procuring of
servants, where slavery is abolished. In the British West Indies, where
slaves became apprentices in 1834, they are still "bought." This is now
the current word in West India newspapers. So a few years since in
New-York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and even now in New-Jersey servants
are "_bought_" as really as in Virginia. And the different senses in
which the same word is used in the two states, puts no man in a
quandary, whose common sense amounts to a modicum.
So under the system of legal _indenture_ in Illinois, servants now are
"_bought_."[A] A short time since, hundreds of foreigners who came to
this country were "bought" annually. By voluntary contract they engaged
to work for their purchasers a given time to pay for their passage. This
class of persons called "redemptioners," consisted at one time of
thousands. Multitudes are _bought out_ of slavery by themselves or
others, and remove into free states. Under the same roof with the writer
is a "servant bought with money." A few weeks since, she was a slave. As
soon as "bought," she was a slave no longer. Alas! for our leading
politicians if "buying" men makes them "chattels." The Whigs say that
Benton and Rives were "bought" by the administration with the surplus
revenue; and the other party, that Clay and Webster were "bought" by the
Bank. The histories of the revolution tell us that Benedict Arnold was
"bought" by British gold. Did that make him an article of property? When
a northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country gossip hits
off the indecency with this current phrase, "The cotton bags _bought_
him." When Robert Walpole said, "Every man has his price, and whoever
will pay it can _buy_ him," and when John Randolph said, while the
Missouri question was pending, "The northern delegation is in the
market; give me money enough, and I can _buy_ them," they both meant
_just what they said_. When the temperance publications tell us that
candidates for office _buy_ men with whiskey; and the oracles of street
tattle, that the court, district attorney, and jury, in the late trial
of Robinson were _bought_, we have no floating visions of "chattels
personal," man auctions, or coffles.
[Footnote A: The following statute is now in force in the state of
Illinois--"No negro, mulatto, or Indian, shall at any time _purchase_
any servant other than of their own complexion: and if any of the
persons aforesaid shall presume to _purchase_ a white servant, such
servant shall immediately become free, and shall be so held, deemed, and
taken."]
The transaction between Joseph and the Egyptians gives a clue to the
meaning attached to "buy" and "bought with money." See Gen. xlvii.
18-26. The Egyptians proposed to Joseph to become servants, and that he
should _buy_ them. When the bargain was closed, Joseph said, "Behold I
have _bought you_ this day," and yet it is plain that neither of the
parties dreamed that the persons _bought_ were in any sense articles of
property, but merely that they became thereby obligated to labor for the
government on certain conditions, as a _compensation_ for the entire
support of themselves and families during the famine. And that the idea
attached to "buy us," and "behold I have bought you," was merely the
procuring of services voluntarily offered, and secured by contract, as a
return for _value received_, and not at all that the Egyptians were
bereft of their personal ownership, and made articles of property. And
this buying of _services_ (they were to give one-fifth part of their
crops to Pharaoh) is called in Scripture usage, _buying the persons_.
This case deserves special notice, as it is the only one where the whole
transaction of buying servants is detailed--the preliminaries, the
process, the mutual acquiescence, and the permanent relation resulting
therefrom. In all other instances, the _mere fact_ is stated without
entering into particulars. In this case, the whole process is laid open.
1. The persons "bought," _sold themselves_, and of their own accord.
2. Obtaining permanently the _services_ of persons, or even a portion of
them, is called "buying" those persons. The objector, at the outset,
assumes that servants were bought of _third_ persons; and thence infers
that they were articles of property. This is sheer _assumption_. Not a
single instance is recorded, of a servant being sold by any one but
himself; not a case, either under the patriarchal, or the Mosaic
systems, in which a _master sold his servant_. That the servants who
were "bought" _sold themselves_, is a fair inference from various
passages of Scripture.
In Leviticus xxv. 47, the case of the Israelite, who became the servant
of the stranger, the words are, "If he SELL HIMSELF unto the stranger."
The _same word_, and the same _form_ of the word, which, in the 47th
verse, is rendered _sell himself_, is in the 39th verse of the same
chapter, rendered _be sold_; in Deut. xxviii. 68, the same word is
rendered "_be sold_." Here it is the Hithpael conjugation, which is
reflexive in its force, and, like the middle voice in Greek, represents
what an individual does for himself; or in his own concerns; and should
manifestly have been rendered, ye shall _offer yourselves_ for sale. For
a clue to Scripture usage on this point, see 1 Kings xxi. 20, 25--"Thou
hast _sold thyself_ to work evil." "There was none like to Ahab that
_sold himself_ to work wickedness."--2 Kings xvii. 17. "They used
divination and enchantments, and _sold themselves_ to do evil."--Isa. l.
1. "For your iniquities have ye _sold yourselves_." Isa. lii. 3, "Ye
have _sold yourselves_ FOR NOUGHT, and ye shall be redeemed without
money." See also, Jeremiah xxxiv. 14--Romans vii. 14, and vi. 16--John
viii. 34, and the case of Joseph and the Egyptians, already quoted.
Again, if servants were _bought of third persons_, where are the
instances? In the purchase of wives, though spoken of rarely, it is
generally stated that they were bought of _third_ persons. Is it not a
fair inference, if servants were bought of third persons, that there
would _sometimes_ have been such an intimation?
II.-THE LEADING DESIGN OF THE MOSAIC LAWS RELATING TO MASTERS AND
SERVANTS, WITH AN ENUMERATION OF THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES SECURED TO
SERVANTS.
The general object of those statutes, which prescribed the relations of
master and servant, was the good of both parties--but more especially
the good of the _servants_. While the interests of the master were
specially guarded from injury, those of the servants were _promoted_.
These laws were a merciful provision for the poorer classes, both of the
Israelites and Strangers. Not laying on burdens, but lightening
them--they were a grant of _privileges_--a bestowment of _favors_.
1. _No servant from the Strangers, could remain a servant in the family
of an Israelite, without becoming a proselyte_. Compliance with this
condition was the _price of the privilege_.--Genesis xvii. 9-14, 23, 27.
2. _Excommunication from the family was a_ PUNISHMENT.--Genesis xxi.
14-Luke xvi. 2-4.
3. _The fact that every Hebrew servant could_ COMPEL _his master to keep
him after the six years contract had, expired_, shows that the system
was framed to advance the interests and gratify the wishes of the
servant _quite as much_ as those of the master. If the servant
_demanded_ it, the law _obliged_ the master to retain him in his
household, however little he might need his services, or great his
dislike to the individual. Deut. xv. 12-17, and Exodus xxi. 2-6.
4. _The rights and privileges guaranteed by law to all servants._ (1.)
_They were admitted into covenant with God._ Deut. xxix. 10-13.
(2.) _They were invited guests at all the national and family festivals
of the household in which they resided._ Exodus xii. 43-44; Deut. xii.
12, 18, and xvi. 10-16.
(3.) _They were statedly instructed in morality and religion._ Deut.
xxxi. 10-13; Joshua viii. 33-35; 2 Chronicles xvii. 8-9.
(4.) _They were released from their regular labor nearly_ ONE HALF OF
THE WHOLE TIME. During which, the law secured to them their entire
support; and the same public and family instruction that was provided
for the other members of the Hebrew community.
(a.) The Law secured to them the _whole of every seventh year_; Lev.
xxv. 3-6; thus giving to those servants that remained such during the
entire period between the jubilees, _eight whole years_ (including the
Jubilee year) of unbroken rest.
(b.) _Every seventh day_. This in forty-two years, (the eight being
subtracted from the fifty) would amount to just _six years_.
(c.) _The three great annual festivals_. The _Passover_, which commenced
on the 15th of the 1st month, and lasted seven days, Deut. xvi. 3, 8.
The Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, which began on the sixth day of the
third month, and lasted seven days. Lev. xxiii. 15-21. And the Feast of
Tabernacles, which commenced on the 15th of the seventh month, and
lasted eight days. Deut. xvi. 13, 15; Lev. xxiii. 34-39. As all met in
one place, much time would be spent on the journey. Their cumbered
caravans moved slowly. After their arrival at the place of sacrifice, a
day or two at least, would be requisite for divers preparations, before
entering upon the celebration of the festival, besides some time at the
close of it, in preparations for their return. If we assign three weeks
to each festival--including the time spent on the journey going and
returning, and the delays before and after the celebration, together
with the _festival week_; it will be a small allowance for the cessation
of their regular labor. As there were three festivals in the year, the
main body of the servants would be absent from their stated employments
at least _nine weeks annually_, which would amount in forty-two years,
subtracting the sabbaths, to six years and eighty-four days.
(e.) _The new moons_. The Jewish year had twelve; Josephus tells us that
the Jews always kept _two_ days for the new moon. See Calmet on the
Jewish Calender, and Horne's Introduction; also 1 Sam. xx, 18, 19, 27.
This would amount in forty-two years, to two years, two hundred and
eighty days, after the necessary subtractions.
(f.) _The feast of trumpets_. On the first day of the seventh month, and
of the civil year. Lev. xxiii. 24, 25.
(g.) _The day of atonement_. On the tenth of the seventh month. Lev.
xxiii. 27-32.
These two last feasts would consume not less than sixty-five days of
time not otherwise reckoned.
Thus it appears that those persons who continued servants during the
whole period between the jubilees, were by law released from their
labor, TWENTY-THREE YEARS AND SIXTY-FOUR DAYS, OUT OF FIFTY YEARS, and
those who remained a less time, in nearly the same proportion. In the
foregoing calculation, besides making a generous donation of all the
_fractions_ to the objector, we have left out of the account, those
numerous _local_ festivals to which frequent allusion is made, as in
Judges xxi. 19; 1 Sam. 9th chapter. And the various _family_ festivals,
such as at the weaning of children; at marriages; at sheep shearings; at
the making of covenants, &c., to which reference is often made, as in
1st Sam. xx. 28, 29. Neither have we included those memorable festivals
instituted at a later period of the Jewish history. The feast of Purim,
Esther, ix. 28, 29; and the feast of the Dedication, which lasted eight
days. John x. 22; 1 Mac. iv. 59.
Finally, the Mosaic system secured to servants, an amount of time,
which, if distributed, would on an average be almost ONE HALF OF THE
DAYS IN EACH YEAR. Meanwhile, they and their families were supported,
and furnished with opportunities of instruction. If this amount of time
were distributed over _every day_, the servants would have _to
themselves_, all but a _fraction of_ ONE HALF OF EACH DAY, and would
labor for their masters the remaining fraction and the other half of the
day.
THIS REGULATION IS A PART OF THAT MOSAIC SYSTEM WHICH IS CLAIMED BY
SLAVEHOLDERS AS THE GREAT PROTOTYPE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.
5. _The servant was protected by law equally with the other members of
the community_.
Proof--"_Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously
between every man and his neighbor, and_ THE STRANGER THAT IS WITH HIM."
"_Ye shall not_ RESPECT PERSONS _in judgment, but ye shall hear the_
SMALL _as well as the great_." Deut. i. 16, 17. Also in Lev. xxiv. 22.
"_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_." So Numbers xv. 29.
"_Ye shall have_ ONE LAW _for him that sinneth through ignorance, both
for him that is born among the children of Israel, and for the_ STRANGER
_that sojourneth among them_." Deut. xxvii. 19. "_Cursed be he that_
PERVERTETH THE JUDGMENT OF THE STRANGER, _the fatherless and the
widow_."
6. _The Mosaic system enjoined upon the Israelites the greatest
affection and kindness toward their servants, foreign as well as
Jewish_.
Lev. xix. 34. "_The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as
one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself_." Also Deut. x.
17, 19. "_For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a
great God, a mighty and a terrible, which_ REGARDETH NOT PERSONS, _nor
taketh reward. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow,
and_ LOVETH THE STRANGER, _in giving him food and raiment_, LOVE YE
THEREFORE THE STRANGER." So Exodus xxii. 21. "_Thou shalt neither vex a
stranger nor oppress him_." Exodus xxiii. 9. "_Thou shalt not oppress a
stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger_." Lev. xxv. 35, 36. "_If
thy brother be waxen poor thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a_
STRANGER _or a sojourner, that he may live with thee, take thou no usury
of him or increase, but fear thy God_." [What an absurdity to suppose
that _this same stranger_ could be taken by one that _feared his God_,
held as a _slave_, and robbed of time, earnings, and all his rights!]
7. _Servants were placed upon a level with their masters in all civil
and religious rights_. See Numbers xv. 15, 16, 29. Numb. ix. 14. Deut,
i. 16, 17. Lev. xxiv. 22.
III.--DID PERSONS BECOME SERVANTS VOLUNTARILY, OR WERE THEY MADE
SERVANTS AGAINST THEIR WILLS?
We argue that they became servants _of their own accord_,
1. Because to become a servant in the family of an Israelite, was to
abjure idolatry, to enter into covenant with God[A], to be circumcised
in token of it, to be bound to the observance of the Sabbath, of the
Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, and to receive
instruction in all the particulars of the moral and ceremonial law.
[Footnote A: Maimonides, who wrote in Egypt about seven hundred years
ago, a contemporary with Jarchi, and who stands with him at the head of
Jewish writers, gives the following testimony on this point: "Whether a
servant be born in the power of an Israelite, or whether he be purchased
from the heathen, the master is to bring them both into the covenant."
"But he that is in the _house_ is entered on the eighth day, and he that
is bought with money, on the day on which the master receives him,
unless the slave be _unwilling_. For if the master receive a grown
slave, and he be _unwilling_, his master is to bear with him, to seek to
win him over by instruction, and by love and kindness, for one year.
After which, should he _refuse_ so long, it is forbidden to keep him,
longer than a year. And the master must send him back to the strangers
from whence he came. For the God of Jacob will not accept any other than
the worship of a _willing_ heart."--Maimon, Hilcoth, Miloth, Chap. 1st,
Sec. 8th.
The ancient Jewish Doctors agree in the testimony, that the servant from
the strangers who at the close of his probationary year still refused to
adopt the religion of the Mosaic system, and was on that account cut off
from the family, and sent back to his own people, received a _full
compensation_ for his services, besides the payment of his expenses. But
that _postponement_ of the circumcision of the foreign servant for a
year (_or even at all_ after he had entered the family of an Israelite)
of which the Mishnic doctors speak, seems to have been _a mere usage_.
We find nothing of it in the regulations of the Mosaic system.
Circumcision was manifestly a rite strictly _initiatory_. Whether it was
a rite merely _national_ or _spiritual_, or _both_, comes not within the
scope of this inquiry. Nor does it at all affect the argument. ]
Were the servants _forced_ through all these processes? Was the
renunciation of idolatry _compulsory_? Were they _dragged_ into covenant
with God? Were they seized and circumcised by _main strength_? Were they
_compelled_ mechanically to chew, and swallow, the flesh of the Paschal
lamb, while they abhorred the institution, despised its ceremonies,
spurned the law which enjoined it, detested its author and executors,
and instead of rejoicing in the deliverance which it commemmorated,
bewailed it as a calamity, and cursed the day of its consummation? Were
they _driven_ from all parts of the land three times in the year up to
the annual festivals? Were they drugged with instruction which they
nauseated? Were they goaded through a round of ceremonies, to them
senseless and disgusting mummeries; and drilled into the tactics of a
creed rank with loathed abominations?
We repeat it, to become a _servant_, was to become a _proselyte_. And
how did God authorize his people to make proselytes? At the point of the
sword? By the terror of pains and penalties? By converting men into
_merchandise_? Were _proselyte_ and _chattel_ synonymes, in the Divine
vocabulary? Must a man be sunk to a _thing_ before taken into covenant
with God? Was this the stipulated condition of adoption, and the sole
passport to the communion of the saints?
2. We argue the voluntariness of servants from Deut. xxiii. 15, 16,
"_Thou shall not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped
from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in
that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh
him best; thou shalt not oppress him_."
As though God had said, "To deliver him up would be to recognize the
_right_ of the master to hold him. His _fleeing_ "shows his
_choice_--proclaims his wrongs, his master's oppressive acts, and his
own claim to legal protection." You shall not force him back, and thus
recognize the _right_ of the master to hold him in such a condition as
induces him to flee to others for protection." It may be objected, that
this command had no reference to servants among the _Israelites_, but
only to those of _heathen_ masters in the surrounding nations. We
answer, The regulation has no restriction. Its terms are unlimited. But
the objection, even if valid, merely shifts the pressure of the
difficulty to another point. Does God array his infinite authority to
protect the _free choice_ of a _single_ servant from the heathen, and
yet _authorize_ the same persons, to crush the free choice of
_thousands_ of servants from the heathen! Suppose a case. A _foreign_
servant flees from his master to the Israelites; God speaks, "He shall
dwell with thee, in that place which _he shall choose_, in one of thy
gates where it _liketh_ him best." They were strictly charged not to put
him in a condition which he did not _choose_. Now, suppose this same
servant, instead of coming into Israel of his own accord, had been
_dragged_ in by some kidnapper who _bought_ him of his master, and
_forced_ him into a condition against his will. Would He who forbade
such treatment of the stranger, who _voluntarily_ came into the land,
sanction the _same_ treatment of the _same person_, provided in
_addition_ to this last outrage, the _previous_ one had been committed
of _forcing him into the nation against his will_?
To commit violence on the free choice of a _foreign_ servant is a
horrible enormity, forsooth, PROVIDED you _begin_ the violence _after_
he has come among you. But if you commit the _first act_, on the _other
side of the line_; if you _begin_ the outrage by buying him from a third
person _against his will_, and then tear him from home, and drag him
across the line into the land of Israel, and hold him as a slave--ah!
that alters the case, and you may perpetrate the violence now with
impunity! Would _greater_ favor have been shown to this new comer from
the heathen than to the old residents--those who had been servants in
Jewish families perhaps for a generation? Were the Israelites commanded
to exercise toward _him_, uncircumcised and _out_ of the covenant, a
justice and kindness denied to the multitude, who _were_ circumcised,
and _within_ the covenant?
Again: the objector finds small gain to his argument on the supposition
that the covenant respected merely the fugitives from the surrounding
nations, while it left the servants of the Israelites in a condition
against their wills--the objector finds small gain to his argument. In
that case, the surrounding nations would of course adopt retaliatory
measures, and resolve themselves into so many asylums for fugitive
Israelitish servants. As these nations were on every side of them such a
proclamation would have been an effectual lure to men held in a
condition which was a constant _counteraction of will_. Further, the
objector's assumption destroys itself; for the same command which
protected the foreign servant from the power of his _master_, protected
him equally from the power of an _Israelite_. It was not merely, "Thou
shalt not deliver him to his _master_," but "he (the servant) shall
dwell with thee, in that place which _he shall choose_, in one of thy
gates where it liketh him best." Every Israelite was commanded to
respect his free choice, and to put him in no condition _against his
will_. What was this but a proclamation, that all who _chose_ to live in
the land and obey the laws, were left to their own free will, to dispose
of their services at such a rate, to such persons, and in such places as
they pleased?
Besides, grant that this command prohibited the sending back of
_foreign_ servants merely, was the any law requiring the return of
servants who had escaped from the _Israelites_? There was a statute
requiring the return of _property_ lost, and _cattle_ escaped, but none
requiring the return of escaped _servants_.
Finally, these verses contain, _first_, a command, "Thou shalt not
deliver," &c. _Secondly_, a declaration of the fugitive's right of _free
choice_, and of God's will that he should exercise it at his own
discretion; and _thirdly_, a command guarding this right, namely, "Thou
shalt not oppress him," as though God had said, If you forbid him to
exercise his _own choice_, as to the place and condition of his
residence, it is _oppression_, and I will not tolerate it.
3. _We argue the voluntariness of servants from their peculiar
opportunities and facilities for escape_. Three times every year, all
the males over twelve years of age, were required to attend the public
festivals. The main body were thus absent from their homes not less than
three weeks each time, making nine weeks annually. As these caravans
moved over the country, were there military scouts lining the way, to
intercept deserters?--a corporal's guard stationed at each pass of the
mountains, sentinels pacing the hill-tops, and light horse scouring the
defiles? What safe contrivance had the Israelites for taking their
_"slaves"_ three times in a year to Jerusalem and back? When a body of
slaves is moved any distance in our free and equal _republic_, they are
handcuffed to keep them from running away, or beating their drivers'
brains out. Was this the _Mosaic_ plan, or an improvement left for the
wisdom of Solomon? The usage, doubtless, claims a paternity not less
venerable and biblical! Perhaps they were lashed upon camels, and
transported in bundles, or caged up, and trundled on wheels to and fro,
and while at the Holy City, "lodged in jail for safe keeping," religions
services _extra_ being appointed, and special "ORAL instruction" for
their benefit. But meanwhile, what became of the sturdy _handmaids_ left
at home? What hindered them from marching off in a body? Perhaps the
Israelitish matrons stood sentry in rotation round the kitchens, while
the young ladies scoured the country, as mounted rangers, to pick up
stragglers by day, and patrolled the streets as city guards, keeping a
sharp look-out at night.
4. _Their continuance in Jewish families depended upon the performance
of various rites and ceremonies necessarily_ VOLUNTARY.
Suppose a servant from the heathen should, upon entering a Jewish
family, refuse circumcision; the question whether he shall remain a
servant, is in his own hands. If a _slave_, how simple the process of
emancipation! His _refusal_ did the job. Or, suppose that, at any time,
he should refuse to attend the tri-yearly feasts, or should eat leavened
bread during the Passover, or compound the ingredients of the anointing
oil, he is "cut off from the people;" _excommunicated_.
5. _We infer the voluntariness of the servants of the Patriarchs from
the impossibility of their being held against their wills._ The servants
of Abraham are an illustration. At one time he had three hundred and
eighteen _young men_ "born in his house," and probably many more _not_
born in his house. The whole number of his servants of all ages, was
probably MANY THOUSANDS. Doubtless, Abraham was a man of a million, and
Sarah too, a right notable housekeeper; still, it is not easy to
conceive how they contrived to hold so many thousand servants against
their wills, unless the patriarch and his wife _took turns_ in
performing the Hibernian exploit of surrounding them! The neighboring
tribes, instead of constituting a picket guard to hem in his servants,
would have been far more likely to sweep them and him into captivity, as
they did Lot and his household. Besides, Abraham had neither
"Constitution," nor "compact," nor statutes, nor judicial officers to
send back his fugitives, nor a truckling police to pounce upon
panic-stricken women, nor gentleman-kidnappers, suing for patronage,
volunteering to howl on the track, boasting their blood-hound scent, and
pledging their "honor" to hunt down and "deliver up," _provided_ they
had a description of the "flesh marks," and were stimulated in their
chivalry by _pieces of silver_. Abraham seems also to have been sadly
deficient in all the auxiliaries of family government, such as stocks,
hand cuffs, foot-chains, yokes, gags, and thumb-screws. His destitution
of these patriarchal indispensables is the more afflicting, when we
consider his faithful discharge of responsibilities to his household,
though so deplorably destitute of the needful aids.
6. _We infer that servants were voluntary, from the fact that there is
no instance of an Israelitish master ever_ SELLING _a servant_. Abraham
had thousands of servants, but appears never to have sold one. Isaac
"grew until he became very great," and had "great store of servants."
Jacob's youth was spent in the family of Laban, where he lived a servant
twenty-one years. Afterward he had a large number of servants.
When Joseph sent for Jacob to come into Egypt, the words are, "thou and
thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks and thy herds,
and ALL THAT THOU HAST." Jacob took his flocks and herds but _no
servants_. Gen xlv. 10; xlvii. 6; xlvii. 1. His servants doubtless,
served under their _own contracts_, and when Jacob went into Egypt, they
_chose_ to stay in their own country.
The government might sell _thieves_, if they had no property, until
their services had made good the injury, and paid the legal fine. Ex.
xxii. 3. But _masters_ seem to have had no power to sell their
_servants_--the reason is obvious. To give the master a _right_ to sell
his servant, would annihilate the servant's right of choice in his own
disposal; but says the objector, To give the master a right to _buy_ a
servant, equally annihilates the servant's _right of choice_. Answer. It
is one thing to have a right to buy a man, and a very different thing to
have a right to buy him of _another_ man.
Though there is no instance of a servant being bought of his, or her
master, yet there are instances of young females being bought of their
_fathers_. But their purchase as _servants_ was their betrothal as
WIVES. Exodus xxi. 7, 8. "_If a man sell his daughter to be a
maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please
not her master_ WHO HATH BETROTHED HER TO HIMSELF, _he shall let her be
redeemed_[A]."
[Footnote A: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows: "A
Hebrew handmaid might not be sold but to one who laid himself under
obligations, to espouse her to himself or to his son, when she was fit
to be betrothed."--_Maimonides--Hilcoth--Obedim_, Ch. IV. Sec. XI.
Jarchi, on the same passage, says, "He is bound to espouse her and take
her to be his wife for the _money of her purchase_ is the money of her
_espousals_." ]
7. _We infer that the Hebrew servant was voluntary in_ COMMENCING _his
service, because he was pre-eminently so_ IN CONTINUING _it_. If, at the
year of release, it was the servant's _choice_ to remain with his
master, so did the law guard his free will, that it required his ear to
be bored by the judges of the land, thus making it impossible for the
servant to be held in an involuntary condition. Yea, so far was his
_free choice_ protected, that his master was compelled to keep him,
however much he might wish to get rid of him.
8. _The method prescribed for procuring servants, recognized their
choice, and was an appeal to it_. The Israelites were commanded to offer
them a suitable _inducement_, and then leave them to decide. They might
neither seize by _force_, nor frighten them by _threats_, nor wheedle
them by false pretenses, nor _borrow_ them, nor _beg_ them; but they
were commanded to BUY them[A]; that is, they were to recognize the
_right_ of the individuals to their own services--their right to
_dispose_ of them, and their right to _refuse all offers_. They might,
if they pleased, refuse all applications, and thus oblige those who made
them, _to do their own work_. Suppose all, with one accord, _refused_ to
become servants, what provision did the Mosaic law make for such an
emergency? NONE.
[Footnote A: The case of thieves, whose services were sold until they
had earned enough to make restitution to the person wronged, and to pay
the legal penalty, _stands by itself_, and has no relation to the
condition of servants.]
9. _Various incidental expressions throughout the Bible, corroborate the
idea that servants became such by virtue of their own contract_. Job
xli. 4. is an illustration, "_Will he_ (Leviathan) _make a_ COVENANT
_with thee? wilt thou take him for a_ SERVANT _forever?_"
10. _The transaction which made the Egyptians the_ SERVANTS OF PHAROAH,
_shows entire voluntariness throughout_. It is detailed in Gen. xlvii.
18-26. Of their own accord, they came to Joseph and said, "We have not
aught left but our _bodies_ and our lands; _buy_ us;" then in the 25th
verse, _"Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my
Lord, and we will be servants to Pharaoh._"
11. _We argue that the condition of servants was an_ OPTIONAL _one from
the fact that_ RICH _strangers did not become servants._ Indeed, so far
were they from becoming servants themselves, that _they bought and held
Jewish servants._ Lev. xxv. 47.
12. _The sacrifices and offerings which_ ALL _were required to present,
were to be made_ VOLUNTARILY. Lev. i. 2, 3.
13. _Mention is often made of persons becoming servants where they were
manifestly and pre-eminently_ VOLUNTARY. The case of the Prophet Elisha
is one. 1 Kings xix. 21; 2 Kings iii. 11. Elijah was his _master_. The
original word, translated master, is the same that is so rendered in
almost every instance where masters are spoken of throughout the Mosaic
and patriarchal systems. It is translated _master_ eighty-five times in
our English version. Moses was the servant of Jethro. Exodus iii. 1.
Joshua was the servant of Moses. Numbers xi. 28. Jacob was the servant
of Laban. Genesis xxix, 18-27.
IV. WERE THE SERVANTS FORCED TO WORK WITHOUT PAY?
Having already shown that the servants became and continued such _of
their own accord_, it would be no small marvel if they _chose_ to work
without pay. Their becoming servants, pre-supposes _compensation_ as a
motive.
That they _were paid_ for their labor, we argue,
1. _Because, while Israel was under the Mosaic system, God rebuked in
thunder, the sin of using the labor of others without wages. "Wo unto
him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by
wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him
not for his work._" Jer. xxii. 13. Here God testifies that to use the
service of others without wages is "unrighteousness," and He commissions
his "wo" to burn upon the doer of the "wrong." This "wo" was a permanent
safeguard of the _Mosaic system_. The Hebrew word _Rea_, here translated
_neighbor_, does not mean one man, or class of men, in distinction from
others, but _any one with whom we have to do_--all descriptions of
persons, not merely servants and heathen, but even those who prosecute
us in lawsuits, and enemies while in the act of fighting us--"_As when a
man riseth against his_ NEIGHBOR _and slayeth him._" Deut. xxii. 26.
"_Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the
end thereof, when thy_ NEIGHBOR _hath put thee to shame._" Prov. xxv. 8.
"_Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy_ NEIGHBOR." Exod. xx.
16. "_If any man come presumptuously upon his NEIGHBOR to slay him with
guile_." Exod. xxi. 14. In these, and in scores of similar cases, _Rea_
is the original word.
2. _We have the testimony of God, that in our duty to our fellow men,_
ALL THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS _hang upon this command, "Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself._" Our Saviour, in giving this command, quoted
_verbatim_ one of the laws of the Mosaic system. Lev. xix. 18. In the
34th verse of the same chapter, Moses commands obedience to this law in
all the treatment of strangers, "_The stranger that dwelleth with you
shall be unto you as one born among you, and_ THOU SHALT LOVE HIM AS
THYSELF." If it be loving others _as_ ourselves, to make them work for
us without pay; to rob them of food and clothing, as well as wages,
would be a stranger illustration still of the law of love!
Super-disinterested benevolence! And if it be doing to others as we
would have them do to us, to make them work for _our own_ good alone,
Paul should be called to order for his hard sayings against human
nature, especially for that libellous matter in Ephes. v. 29, "_No man
ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it_."
3. _As persons became servants_ FROM POVERTY, _we argue that they were
compensated, since they frequently owned property, and sometimes a large
amount_. Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, gave David a princely
present, "An hundred loaves of bread, and an hundred bunches of raisins,
and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine." 2 Sam. xvi. 1.
The extent of his possessions can be inferred from the fact, that though
the father of fifteen sons, he still employed twenty servants, of whom
he was the master.
A case is stated in Leviticus xxv. 47-55, where a servant, reduced to
poverty, sells himself; and it is declared that afterward he may be
_redeemed_, either by his kindred, or by HIMSELF. As he was forced to
sell himself from sheer poverty he must not only have acquired property
_after_ he became a servant, but a considerable sum.
If it had not been common for servants to possess, and acquire property,
over which they had the exclusive control, Gehazi, the servant of
Elisha, would hardly have ventured to take a large sum of money, (nearly
$3000[A]) from Naaman, (2 Kings v. 22, 23.) As it was procured by
deceit, he was anxious to conceal the means used in getting it; but if
the Israelitish servants, like our slaves, could "own nothing, nor
acquire any thing," to embark in such an enterprise would have been
consummate stupidity. The fact of having in his possession two talents
of silver, would of itself convict him of theft[B]. But since the
possession and use of property by servants, was common under the Mosaic
system, he might have it, and invest or use it, without attracting
special attention. And that consideration alone would have been a strong
motive to the act. His master, while he rebukes him for using such means
to get the money, not only does not take it from him, but seems to
expect that he would invest it in real estate, and cattle, and would
procure servants with it. 2 Kings v. 26. In 1 Sam. ix. 8, we find the
servant of Saul having money, and relieving his master in an emergency.
Arza, the servant of Elah, was the _owner of a house_. That it was
spacious and somewhat magnificent, would be a natural inference from the
fact that it was a resort of the king. 1 Kings xvi. 9. The case of the
Gibeonites, who, after they became servants, still occupied their
cities, and remained, in many respects, a distinct people for centuries;
and that of the 150,000 Canaanites, the _servants_ of Solomon, who
worked out their tribute of bond-service in levies, periodically
relieving each other, while preparing the materials for the temple, are
additional illustrations of independence in the acquisition and
ownership of property.
[Footnote A: Though we have not sufficient data to decide with accuracy
upon the _relative_ value of that sum, _then_ and _now_, yet we have
enough to warrant us in saying that two talents of silver had far more
value _then_ than three thousand dollars have _now_.]
[Footnote B: Whoever heard of the slaves in our southern states stealing
a large amount of money? They "_know how to take care of themselves_"
quite too well for that. When they steal, they are careful to do it on
such a _small_ scale, or in the taking of _such things_ as will make
detection difficult. No doubt they steal now and then a little, and a
gaping marvel would it be if they did not. Why should they not follow in
the footsteps of their masters and mistresses? Dull scholars indeed! if,
after so many lessons from _proficients_ in the art, who drive the
business by _wholesale_, they should not occasionally copy their
betters, fall into the _fashion_, and try their hand in a small way, at
a practice which is the _only permanent and universal_ business carried
on around them! Ignoble truly! never to feel the stirrings of high
impulse, prompting them to imitate the eminent pattern set before them
in the daily vocation of "Honorables" and "Excellencies," and to emulate
the illustrious examples of Doctor of Divinity and _Right_ and _Very
Reverends_! Hear President Jefferson's testimony. In his notes of
Virginia, speaking of slaves, he says, "That disposition to theft with
which they (the slaves) have been branded, must be ascribed to their
_situation_, and not to any special depravity of the moral sense. It is
a problem which I give the master to solve, whether the religious
precepts against the violation of property were not framed for HIM as
well as for his slave--and whether the slave may not as justifiably take
a little from one who has taken ALL from him, as he may _slay_ one who
would slay him" See Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, pp. 207-8]
4. _Heirship_--Servants frequently inherited their master's property;
especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the family. This
seems to have been a general usage.
The cases of Eliezer, the servant of Abraham; Ziba, the servant of
Mephibosheth, Jarha an Egyptian, the servant of Sheshan, and the husband
of his daughter; 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35, and of the _husbandmen_ who said
of their master's son, "_this is the_ HEIR, let us kill him, _and_ the
INHERITANCE WILL BE OURS." Mark xii. 7, are illustrations. Also the
declaration in Prov. xvii. 2--"_A wise servant shall have rule over a
son that causeth shame, and_ SHALL HAVE PART OF THE INHERITANCE AMONG
THE BRETHREN." This passage seems to give _servants_ precedence as
heirs, even over the _wives_ and _daughters_ of their masters. Did
masters hold by force, and _plunder of earnings_, a class of persons,
from which, in frequent contingencies, they selected both heirs for
their property, and husbands for their daughters?
5. ALL _were required to present offerings and sacrifices_. Deut. xvi.
15, 17. 2 Chron. xv. 9-11. Numb. ix. 13.
Servants must have had permanently, the means of _acquiring_ property to
meet these expenditures.
6. _Those Hebrew servants who went out at the seventh year, were
provided by law with a large stock of provisions and cattle_. Deut. xv.
11-14. "_Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of
thy floor, and out of thy wine press, of that wherewith the Lord thy God
hath blessed thee, thou shalt give him_[A]." If it be objected, that no
mention is made of the servants from the strangers, receiving a like
bountiful supply, we answer, neither did the most honorable class of the
_Israelitish_ servants, the free-holders; and for the same reason, _they
did not go out in the seventh year_, but continued until the jubilee. If
the fact that no mention is made of the Gentile servants receiving such
a _gratuity_ proves that they were robbed of their _earnings_; it proves
that the most valued class of _Hebrew_ servants were robbed of theirs
also, a conclusion too stubborn for even pro-slavery masticators,
however unscrupulous.
[Footnote A: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as
follows--"'Thou shalt furnish him liberally,' &c. That is to say,
'_Loading ye shall load him._' likewise every one of his family, with as
much as he can take with him in abundant benefits. And if it be
avariciously asked, How much must I give him? I say unto _you, not less
than thirty shekels_, which is the valuation of a servant, as declared
in Exodus xxi. 32"--Maimonides, Hilcoth, Obedim, Chapter ii. Section 3.]
7. _The servants were_ BOUGHT. _In other words, they received
compensation for their services in advance_. Having shown, under a
previous head, that servants _sold themselves_, and of course received
the compensation for themselves, (except in cases where parents hired
out the time of their children until they became of age[B],) a mere
reference to the fact in this place is all that is required for the
purposes of this argument.
[Footnote B: Among the Israelites, girls became of age at twelve, and
boys at thirteen years.]
8. _We infer that servants were paid, because we find masters at one
time having a large number of servants, and afterwards none, without any
intimation that they were sold._ The wages of servants would enable them
to set up in business for themselves. Jacob, after being the servant of
Laban for twenty-one years, became thus an independent herdsman, and was
the master of many servants. Gen. xxx. 43, and xxxii. 15. But all these
servants had left him before he went down into Egypt, having doubtless
acquired enough to commence business for themselves. Gen. xlv. 10, 11,
and xlvi. 1-7, 32.
9. _God's testimony to the character of Abraham._ Genesis xviii. 19.
_"For I know him that he will command his children and his household
after him, and they shall keep_ THE WAY OF THE LORD TO DO JUSTICE AND
JUDGMENT." We have here God's testimony, that Abraham taught his
servants "the way of the Lord." What was the "way of the Lord"
respecting the payment of wages where service was rendered? "_Wo unto
him that useth his neighbor's service without wages_!" Jer. xxii. 13.
"_Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal_." Col.
iv. 1. _"Render unto all their_ DUES." ROM. xiii. 7. _"The laborer is
worthy of his hire."_ Luke x. 7. How did Abraham teach his servants to
_"do justice"_ to others? By doing _injustice to them?_ Did he exhort
them to "render to all their dues" by keeping back _their own_? Did he
teach them that "the laborer was worthy of his hire" by robbing them of
_theirs_? Did he beget in them a reverence for the eighth commandment by
pilfering all their time and labor? Did he teach them "not to defraud"
others "in any matter" by denying _them_ "what was just and equal?" If
each of Abraham's pupils under such a catechism did not become a very
_Aristides_ in justice, then an illustrious example, patriarchal
dignity, and _practical_ lessons, can make but slow headway against
human perverseness!
10. _Specific precepts of the Mosaic law enforcing general principles._
Out of many, we select the following:
(1.) _"Thou shall not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn,"_ or
literally, _while he thresheth._ Deut. xxv. 4. Here is a general
principle applied to a familiar case. The ox representing all domestic
animals. Isaiah xxx. 24. A _particular_ kind of service--_all_ kinds;
and a law requiring an abundant provision for the wants of an animal
ministering to man in a _certain_ way,--_a general principle of
treatment covering all times, modes, and instrumentalities of service._
The object of the law was, not merely to enjoin tenderness towards
brutes, but to inculcate the duty of _rewarding those who serve us_,
showing that they who labor for others, are entitled to what is just and
equal in return; and if such care is enjoined, by God, not merely for
the ample sustenance, but for the _present enjoyment of a brute_, what
would be a meet return for the services of _man_? MAN, with his varied
wants, exalted nature and immortal destiny! Paul tells us expressly,
that the principle which we have named, lies at the bottom of the
statute. See 1 Corinthians ix. 9, 10--_"For it is written in the law of
Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the
corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for OUR
sakes? that he that ploweth should plow in_ HOPE, _and that he that
thresheth in hope should be_ PARTAKER OF HIS HOPE."
(2.) "_If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then
thou shalt relieve him._ YEA, THOUGH HE BE A STRANGER OR a SOJOURNER,
_that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase, but
fear thy God. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him
thy victuals for increase._" Lev. xxv. 35-37. Or, in other words,
"relief at your hands is his right, and your duty--you shall not take
advantage of his necessities, but cheerfully supply them." Now, we ask,
by what process of pro-slavery legerdemain, this benevolent regulation
can be made to be in _keeping_ with the doctrine of WORK WITHOUT PAY?
Did God declare the poor stranger entitled to RELIEF, and in the same
breath, _authorize_ them to _"use his services without wages_;" force
him to work, and ROB HIM OF ALL HIS EARNINGS? Judge ye.
V.--WERE MASTERS THE PROPRIETORS OF SERVANTS AS THEIR LEGAL PROPERTY?
The discussion of this topic has been already somewhat anticipated under
the preceding heads; but a variety of considerations, not within the
range of our previous inquiries, remain to be noticed.
1. _Servants were not subjected to the uses, nor liable to the
contingencies of property._
(1.) _They were never taken in payment for their masters' debts_, though
children were sometimes taken (without legal authority) for the debts of
a father. 2 Kings iv. 1; Job xxiv. 9; Isaiah l. 1; Matt. xviii. 25.
Cases are recorded to which creditors took from debtors property of all
kinds, to satisfy their demands. In Job xxiv. 3, cattle are taken; in
Prov. xxii 27, household furniture; in Lev. xxv. 25-28, the productions
of the soil; in Lev. xxv. 27-30, houses; in Exodus xxii. 26-29, and
Deut. xxiv. 10-13, and Matt. v. 40, clothing; but _servants_ were taken
in _no instance_.
(2.) _Servants were never given as pledges_. _Property_ of all sorts was
given and held in pledge. We find in the Bible, household furniture,
clothing, cattle, money, signets, and personal ornaments, with divers
other articles of property, used as pledges for value received. But no
_servants_.
(3.) _All lost_ PROPERTY _was to be restored._ "Oxen, asses, sheep,
raiment, and whatsoever lost things," are specified--servant _not_.
Deut. xxii. 13. Besides, the Israelites were expressly forbidden to take
back the runaway servant to his master. Deut. xxiii. 15.
(4.) _The Israelites never gave away their servants as presents_. They
made princely presents of great variety. Lands, houses, all kinds of
animals, merchandize, family utensils, precious metals, and grain,
armor, &c. are among their recorded _gifts_. Giving presents to
superiors and persons of rank when visiting them, and at other times,
was a standing usage. 1 Sam. x. 27; 1 Sam. xvi. 20; 2 Chron. xvii. 5.
Abraham to Abimelech, Gen. xxi. 27; Jacob to the viceroy of Egypt. Gen.
xliii. 11; Joseph to his brethren and father, Gen. xlv. 22, 23; Benhadad
to Elisha, 2 Kings viii. 8, 9; Ahaz to Tiglath Pileser, 2 Kings xvi. 8;
Solomon to the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings, x. 13; Jeroboam to Ahijah, 1
Kings xiv. 3; Asa to Benhadad, 1 Kings xv. 18, 19. But no servants were
given as presents--though that was a prevailing fashion in the
surrounding nations. Gen. xii. 16; Gen. xx. 14.
OBJECTION 1. _Laban_ GAVE _handmaids to his daughters, Jacob's wives_.
Without enlarging on the nature of the polygamy then prevalent, it is
enough to say that the handmaids of wives, at that time, were themselves
regarded as wives, though of inferior dignity and authority. That Jacob
so regarded his handmaids, is proved by his curse upon Reuben, (Gen.
xlix. 4, and Chron. v. 1) also by the equality of their children with
those of Rachel and Leah. But had it been otherwise--had Laban given
them _as articles of property_, then, indeed, the example of this "good
old patriarch and slaveholder," Saint Laban, would have been a
fore-closer to all argument.
Ah! We remember his jealousy for _religion_--his holy indignation when
he found that his "GODS" were stolen! How he mustered his clan, and
plunged over the desert in hot pursuit, seven days, by forced marches;
how he ransacked a whole caravan, sifting the contents of every tent,
little heeding such small matters as domestic privacy, or female
seclusion, for lo! the zeal of his "IMAGES" had eaten him up!
No wonder that slavery, in its Bible-navigation, drifting dismantled
before the free gusts, should scud under the lee of such a pious worthy
to haul up and refit; invoking his protection, and the benediction of
his "GODS!"
OBJECTION 2. _Servants were enumerated in inventories of property_. If
that proves _servants_ property, it proves _wives_ property. "_Thou
shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor's_ WIFE, _nor his man servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his
ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's_" EXODUS xx. 17.
An examination of all the places in which servants are included among
beasts, chattels, &c., will show, that in inventories of _mere
property_, servants are not included, or if included, it is in such a
way, as to show that they are not regarded as _property_. Eccl. ii. 7,
8. But when the design is to show, not merely the wealth but the
_greatness_ of any personage, that he is a man of distinction, a ruler,
a prince, servants are spoken of, as well as property. In a word, if
_riches_ alone are spoken of, no mention is made of servants; if
_greatness_, servants and property. Gen. xiii. 2. _"And Abraham was very
rich in cattle, in silver and in gold."_ No mention of _servants_. So in
the fifth verse; Lot's riches are enumerated, "_And Lot also had flocks,
and herds, and tents_." In the seventh verse servants are mentioned,
"_And there was a strife between the_ HERDMEN _of Abraham's cattle and
the_ HERDMEN _of Lot's cattle_". See also Josh. xxii. 8; Gen. xxxiv. 23;
Job. xlii. 12; 2 Chron. xxi. 3; xxxii. 27-29; Job 1. 3-5; Deut. viii.
12-17; Gen. xxiv. 35, and xxvi. 13, and xxx. 43.
Divers facts dropped incidentally, show that when servants are mentioned
in connection with property, it is in such a way as to _distinguish_
them from it. When Jacob was about to leave Laban, his wives say, "All
the _riches_ which thou hast taken from our father, that is ours and our
children's." Then follows an inventory of property. "All his cattle,"
"all his goods," "the cattle of his getting," &c. He had a large number
of servants at the time, _but they are not included with his property_.
Compare Gen. xxx. 43, with Gen. xxxi. 16-18.
When he sent messengers to Esau, in order to secure his respect, and
impress him with an idea of his state and sway, he bade them tell him
not only of _his_ RICHES, but of his GREATNESS; that Jacob had "_oxen,
and asses, and flocks, and men servants, and maid servants_." Gen.
xxxii. 4, 5. Yet in the present which he sent, there were no servants;
though he seems to have aimed to give it as much variety as possible.
Gen. xxxii. 14, 15; see also Gen. xxxvi. 6, 7; Gen. xxxiv. 23. As flocks
and herds were the _staples_ of wealth, a large number of servants
_presupposed_ large possessions of cattle, which would require many
herdsmen. Further. When servants are spoken of in connection with _mere
property_, the terms used to express the latter do not include the
former.
The Hebrew word _Mickna_ is an illustration. It is a derivative of
_Kana_, to procure, to buy, and its meaning is, a _possession, wealth,
riches_. It occurs more than forty times in the Old Testament--and is
applied always to _mere property_--generally to domestic animals, but
_never_ to servants. In some instances, servants are mentioned in
_distinction_ from the _Mickna._ See Gen. xii. 5. _"And Abraham took
Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son. And all their_ SUBSTANCE
_that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran,
and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan_." _Substance
gathered_ and _souls gotten_! Many will have it, that these _souls_ were
a part of Abraham's _substance_ (notwithstanding the pains here taken to
separate them from it)--that they were _slaves_--probably captives in
war, and now, by right of conquest, taken with him in his migration as
part of his family effects. Who but slaveholders, either actually, or in
heart, would torture into the principle and practice of slavery, such a
harmless phrase as "_the souls that they had gotten_?" Until the slave
trade breathed its haze upon the vision of the church, and smote her
with palsy and decay, commentators saw no slavery in, "The souls that
they had gotten." In the Targum of Onkelos[A] it is thus rendered, "The
souls whom they had brought to obey the law in Haran." In the Targum of
Jonathan, thus: "The souls whom they had made proselytes in Haran." In
the Targum of Jerusalem, "The souls proselyted in Haran." Jarchi, placed
by Jewish Rabbis at the head of their commentators, thus renders it:
"The souls whom they had brought under the Divine wings." Jerome, one of
the most learned of the Christian fathers: "The persons whom they had
proselyted." The Persian version thus gives the whole verse, "And
Abraham took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their
wealth which they had accumulated, and the souls which they had _made_."
The Vulgate version thus translates it, "Universam substantiam quam
possederant et animas quas fecerant in Haran." "The entire wealth which
they possessed, and the souls which they had made." The Syriac thus,
"All their possessions which they possessed, and the souls which they
had made in Haran." The Arabic, "All their property which they had
acquired, and the souls whom they had made in Haran." The Samarian, "All
the wealth which they had gathered, and the souls which they had made in
Haran." Menochius, a commentator who wrote before our present
translation of the English Bible, renders it as follows:--"Quas de
idolotraria converterunt[B]." "Those whom they have converted from
idolatry."--Paulus Fagius[C]. "Quas instituerant in religione."--"Those
whom they had instructed in religion."--Luke Franke, a German
commentator who lived two centuries ago. "Quas legi
subjicerant."--"Those whom they had brought to obey the law."
[Footnote A: The Targums are Chaldee paraphrases of parts of the Old
Testament. The Targum of Onkelos is for the most part, a very accurate
and faithful translation of the original, and was probably made at about
the commencement of the Christian era. The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel
bears about the same date. The Targum of Jerusalem was probably about
five hundred years later. The Israelites, during their long captivity in
Babylon, lost as a body, their knowledge of their own language. These
translations of the Hebrew Scriptures into the Chaldee, the language
which they acquired in Babylon, were thus called for by the necessity of
the case. ]
[Footnote B: See his "Brevis explicatio sensus literalis totius
Scripture."]
[Footnote C: This eminent Hebrew scholar was invited to England by
Cranmer, then Archbishop of Canterbury, to superintend the translation
of the Bible into English, under the patronage of Henry the Eighth. He
had hardly commenced the work when he died. This was nearly a century
before the date of our present translation.]
2. _The condition of servants in their masters' families, the privileges
which they shared in common with the children, and their recognition as
equals by the highest officers of the government--make the doctrine that
they were mere_ COMMODITIES, _an absurdity._ The testimony of Paul, in
Gal. iv. 1, gives an insight into the condition of servants. _"Now I say
unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child,_ DIFFERETH NOTHING
FROM A SERVANT, _though he be lord of all."_
That Abraham's servants were voluntary,--that their interests were
identified with those of their master's family--that they were regarded
with great affection by the household, and that the utmost confidence
was reposed in them, is shown in the arming of 318 of them for the
recovery of Lot and his family from captivity. See Gen. xiv. 14, 15.
When Abraham's servant went to Padanaram, the young Princess Rebekah did
not disdain to say to him, "Drink, MY Lord," as "she hasted and let down
her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink," and "she hasted and
emptied her pitcher, and ran again unto the well, and drew for all his
camels." Laban, the brother of Rebekah, prepared the house for his
reception, "_ungirded his camels, and brought him water to wash his
feet, and the men's feet that were with him!"_
In the 9th chapter of 1 Samuel, we have an account of a high festival in
the city of Zuph, at which Samuel, the chief judge and ruler in Israel,
presided. None sat down at the feast but those that were bidden. And
only "about _thirty_ persons" were invited. Quite a select party!--the
elite of the city of Zuph! Saul and his servant arrived at Zuph just as
the party was assembling; and _both_ of them, at Samuel's solicitation,
accompany him as invited guests. _"And Samuel took Saul and his_
SERVANT, _and brought_ THEM _into the_ PARLOR(!) _and made_ THEM _sit in
the_ CHIEFEST SEATS _among those that were bidden."_ A _servant_ invited
by the chief judge, ruler, and prophet in Israel, to dine publicly with
a select party, in company with his master, who was _at the same time
anointed King of Israel_; and this servant introduced by Samuel into the
PARLOR, and assigned, with his master, to the _chiefest seat_ at the
table! This was "_one_ of the servants" of _Kish_, Saul's father; not
the _steward_ or the _chief_ of them--not at all a _picked_ man, but
"_one_ of the servants;" _any_ one that could be most easily spared, as
no endowments specially rare would be likely to find scope in looking
after asses.
Again: we learn from 1 Kings xvi. 8, 9, that Elah, the King of Israel,
was slain by Zimri, one of his chief officers, at a festive
entertainment, in the house of Arza, his steward, or head servant, with
whom he seems to have been on terms of familiarity. Without detailing
other cases, we refer the reader to the intercourse between Gideon and
his servant.--Judges vii. 10, 11.--Jonathan and his servant.--1 Samuel
xiv. 1-14.--Elisha and his servant.
3. _The condition of the Gibeonites, as subjects of the Hebrew
commonwealth, shows that they were neither articles of property, nor
even_ INVOLUNTARY _servants_. The condition of the inhabitants of
Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim, under the Israelites, is
quoted in triumph by the advocates of slavery; and truly they are right
welcome to all the crumbs that can be gleaned from it. Milton's devils
made desperate snatches at fruit that turned to ashes on their lips. The
spirit of slavery raves under tormenting gnawings, and casts about in
blind phrenzy for something to ease, or even to _mock_ them. But for
this, it would never have clutched at the Gibeonites, for even the
incantations of the demon cauldron, could not extract from their case
enough to tantalize starvation's self. But to the question. What was the
condition of the Gibeonites under the Israelites?
(1.) _It was voluntary_. It was their own proposition to Joshua to
become servants. Joshua ix. 8, 11. Their proposition was accepted, but
the kind of service which they should perform, was not specified until
their gross imposition came to light; they were then assigned to menial
offices in the tabernacle.
(2.) _They were not domestic servants in the families of the
Israelites_. They still continued to reside in their own cities,
cultivating their own fields, tending their flocks and herds, and
exercising the functions of a _distinct_, though not independent
community. They were _subject_ to the Jewish nation as _tributaries_. So
far from being distributed among the Israelites, their family relations
broken up, and their internal organization as a distinct people
abolished, they seem to have remained a separate, and, in some respects,
an independent community for many centuries. When they were attacked by
the Amorites, they applied to the Israelites as confederates for aid--it
was promptly rendered, their enemies routed, and themselves left
unmolested in the occupation of their cities, while all Israel returned
to Gilgal. Joshua x. 6-18. Long afterwards, Saul slew some of them, and
God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. David said to the
Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the
atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord?" At their
demand, he delivered up to them, seven of the royal family, five of them
the sons of Michal, his own former wife. 2 Samuel xxi. 1-9. The whole
transaction was a formal recognition of the Gibeonites as a separate
people. There is no intimation that they served families, or individuals
of the Israelites, but only the "house of God," or the Tabernacle. This
was established first at Gilgal, a day's journey from the cities of the
Gibeonites; and then at Shiloh, nearly two days' journey from them;
where it continued about 350 years. During all this period, the
Gibeonites inhabited their ancient cities and territory. Only a few,
comparatively, could have been absent from their cities at any one time
in attendance on the tabernacle.
(1.) Whenever allusion is made to them in the history, the main body are
spoken of as _at home_.
(2.) It is preposterous to suppose that their tabernacle services could
have furnished employment for all the inhabitants of these four cities.
One of them "was a great city, as one of the royal cities;" so large,
that a confederacy of five kings, apparently the most powerful in the
land, was deemed necessary for its destruction. It is probable that the
men were divided into classes, and thus ministered at the tabernacle in
rotation--each class a few days or weeks at a time. This service was
their _national tribute_ to the Israelites, rendered for the privilege
of residence and protection under their government. No service seems to
have been required of the _females_. As these Gibeonites were
Canaanites, and as they had greatly exasperated the Israelites by
impudent imposition, hypocrisy, and lying, we might assuredly expect
that they would reduce _them_ to the condition of chattels and property,
if there was _any_ case in which God permitted them to do so.
7. _Because, throughout the Mosaic system, God warns them against
holding their servants in such a condition as they were held in by the
Egyptians_. How often are the Israelites pointed back to the grindings
of their prison-house! What motives to the exercise of justice and
kindness towards their servants, are held out to their fears in
threatened judgements; to their hopes in promised good; and to all
within them that could feel, by those oft repeated words of tenderness
and terror! "For ye were bondmen in the land of Egypt"--waking anew the
memory of tears and anguish, and of the wrath that avenged them.
That the argument derived from the condition of the Israelites in Egypt,
and God's condemnation of it, may be appreciated, it is important that
the Egyptian bondage should be analyzed. We shall then be able to
ascertain, of what rights the Israelites were plundered, and what they
retained.
EGYPTIAN BONDAGE ANALYZED. (1.) _The Israelites were not dispersed among
the families of Egypt, the property of individual owners_[A]. They
formed a _separate_ community. See Gen. xlvi. 35. Ex. viii. 22, 24, and
ix. 26, and x. 23, and xi. 7, and ii. 9, and xvi. 22, and xvii. 5.
[Footnote A: The Egyptians evidently had _domestic_ servants living in
their families; these may have been slaves; allusion is made to them in
Exodus ix. 14, 20, 21. But none of the Israelites were included in this
class.]
(2.) _They had the exclusive possession of the land of Goshen_[B], _one
of the richest and most productive parts of Egypt_. Gen. xlv. 18, and
xlvii. 6, 11, 27. Ex. xii. 4, 19, 22, 23, 27.
[Footnote B: The land of Goshen was a large tract of country, east of
the Pelusian arm of the Nile, and between it and the head of the Red
Sea, and the lower border of Palestine. The probable centre of that
portion, occupied by the Israelites, could hardly, have been less than
60 miles from the city. From the best authorities it would seem that the
extreme western boundary of Goshen must have been many miles distant
from Egypt. See "Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt," an able article
by Professor Robinson, in the Biblical Repository for October, 1832.]
(3.) _They lived in permanent dwellings_. These were _houses_, not
_tents_. In Ex. xii. 6, the two side _posts_, and the upper door _posts_
of the houses are mentioned, and in the 22d, the two side posts and the
lintel. Each family seems to have occupied a house _by itself_--Acts
vii. 20, Ex. xii. 4--and from the regulation about the eating of the
Passover, they could hardly have been small ones--Ex. xii. 4--and
probably contained separate apartments, and places for seclusion. Ex.
ii. 2, 3; Acts vii. 20. They appear to have been well apparelled. Ex.
xii. 11. To have had their own burial grounds. Ex. xiii. 19, and xiv.
11.
(4.) _They owned "a mixed multitude of flocks and herds_," and "_very
much cattle_." Ex. xii. 32, 37, 38.
(5.) They had their own form of government, and preserved their tribe
and family divisions, and their internal organization throughout, though
still a province of Egypt, and _tributary_ to it. Ex. ii. 1, and xii.
19, 21, and vi. 14, 25, and v. 19, and iii. 16, 18.
(6.) _They seem to have had in a considerable measure, the disposal of
their own time_,--Ex. xxiii. 4, and iii. 16, 18, and xii. 6, and ii. 9,
and iv. 27, 29-31. Also to have practised the fine arts. Ex. xxxii. 4,
and xxxv. 32-35.
(7.) _They were all armed_. Ex. xxxii. 27.
(8.) _All the females seem to have known something of domestic
refinements; they were familiar with instruments of music, and skilled
in the working of fine fabrics_. Ex. xv. 20, and 35, 36.
(9.) _They held their possessions independently, and the Egyptians seem
to have regarded them as inviolable_. This we infer from the fact that
there is no intimation that the Egyptians dispossessed them of their
habitations, or took away their flocks, or herds, or crops, or
implements of agriculture, or any article of property.
(10.) _Service seems to have been exacted from none but adult males_.
Nothing is said from which the bond service of females could be
inferred; the hiding of Moses three months by his mother, and the
payment of wages to her by Pharaoh's daughter, go against such a
supposition. Ex. ii. 29.
(11.) So far from being fed upon a given allowance, their food was
abundant, and had great variety. "They sat by the flesh-pots," and "did
eat bread to the full." Ex. xvi. 3, and xxiv. 1, and xvii. 5, and iv.
29, and vi. 14. Also, "they did eat fish freely, and cucumbers, and
melons, and leeks, and onions, and garlic." Num. xi. 4, 5, and x. 18,
and xx. 5.
(12.) _That the great body of the people were not in the service of the
Egyptians, we infer_ (1) from the fact, that the extent and variety of
their own possessions, together with such a cultivation of their crops
as would provide them with bread, and such care of their immense flocks
and herds, as would secure their profitable increase, must have
furnished constant employment for the main body of the nation.
(2.) During the plague of darkness, God informs us that "ALL the
children of Israel had light in their dwellings." We infer that they
were _there_ to enjoy it.
(3.) It seems improbable that the making of brick, the only service
named during the latter part of their sojourn in Egypt, could have
furnished permanent employment for the bulk of the nation. See also Ex.
iv. 29-31.
Besides, when Eastern nations employed tributaries, it was, as now, in
the use of the levy, requiring them to furnish a given quota, drafted
off periodically, so that comparatively but a small portion of the
nation would be absent _at any one time_.
Probably there was the same requisition upon the Israelites for
one-fifth part of the proceeds of their labor, that was laid upon the
Egyptians. See Gen. xlvii. 24, 26. Instead of taking it out of their
_crops_, (Goshen being better for _pasturage_ than crops) they exacted
it of them in brick making; and it is quite probable that only the
_poorer_ Israelites were required to work for the Egyptians at all, the
wealthier being able to pay their tribute, in money. See Exod. iv.
27-31.
This was the bondage in Egypt. Contrast it with American slavery. Have
our slaves "very much cattle," and "a mixed multitude of flocks and
herds?" Do they live in commodious houses of their own? Do they "_sit by
the flesh-pots_," "_eat fish freely_," and "_eat bread to the full_?" Do
they live in a separate community, at a distance from their masters, in
their distinct tribes, under their own rulers and officers? Have they
the exclusive occupation of an extensive and fertile tract of country
for the culture of their own crops, and for rearing immense herds of
_their own_ cattle--and all these held independently of their masters,
and regarded by them as inviolable? Are our female slaves free from all
exactions of labor and liabilities of outrage?--and whenever employed,
are they paid wages, as was the Israelitish woman, when employed by the
king's daughter? Exod. ii. 9. Have the females entirely, and the males
to a considerable extent, the disposal of their own time? Have they the
means for cultivating social refinements, for practising the fine arts,
and for intellectual and moral improvement?
THE ISRAELITES, UNDER THE BONDAGE OF EGYPT, ENJOYED ALL THESE RIGHTS AND
PRIVILEGES. True, "_their lives were made bitter, and all the service
wherein they made them serve was with rigor_." But what was that, when
compared with the incessant toil of American slaves, the robbery of all
their time and earnings, and even the "power to own any thing, or
acquire any thing"--the "quart of corn a day," the legal allowance of
food[A]!--their _only_ clothing for one half the year, "_one_ shirt and
_one_ pair of pantaloons[B]!"--the _two hours and a half_ only for rest
and refreshment in the twenty-four[C]!--their dwellings, _hovels_, unfit
for human residence, commonly with but one apartment, where both sexes
and all ages herd promiscuously at night, like the beasts of the field.
Add to this, the mental ignorance, and moral degradation; the daily
separations of kindred, the revelries of lust, the lacerations and
baptisms of blood, sanctioned by the laws of the South, and patronized
by its pubic sentiment. What, we ask, was the bondage of Egypt when
compared with this? And yet for _her_ oppression of the poor, God smote
her with plagues, and trampled her as the mire, till she passed away in
his wrath, and the place that knew her in her pride, knew her no more.
Ah! "_I have seen the afflictions of my people, and I have heard their
groanings, and am come down to deliver them_." HE DID COME, and Egypt
sank, a ruinous heap, and her blood closed over her.
[Footnote A: The law of North Carolina. See Haywood's Manual, 524-5]
[Footnote B: The law of Louisiana. See Martin's Digest, 610.]
[Footnote C: The whole amount of time secured by the law of Louisiana.
See Act of July 7, 1806. Martin's Digest, 610-12]
If such was God's retribution for the oppression of heathen Egypt, of
how much sorer punishment shall a Christian people be thought worthy,
who cloak with religion, a system, in comparison with which the bondage
of Egypt dwindles to nothing?
Let those believe who can, that God gave his people permission to hold
human beings, robbed of _all_ their rights, while he threatened them
with wrath to the uttermost, if they practised the _far lighter_
oppression of Egypt--which robbed its victims of only the _least_ and
_cheapest_ of their rights, and left the _females_ unplundered even of
these. What! _Is God divided against himself_? When he had just turned
Egypt into a funeral pile; while his curse yet blazed upon her unburied
dead, and his bolts still hissed amidst her slaughter, and the smoke of
her torment went upwards because she had "ROBBED THE POOR," did He
license the VICTIMS of robbery to rob the poor of ALL? As _Lawgiver_,
did he _create_ a system tenfold more grinding than that, for which he
had just hurled Pharaoh headlong, and cloven down his princes, and
overwhelmed his hosts, and blasted them with His thunder, till "hell was
moved to meet them at their coming?"
Having touched upon the general topics which we design to include in
this inquiry, we proceed to examine various Scripture facts and
passages, which will doubtless be set in array against the foregoing
conclusions.
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
The advocates of slavery are always at their wits end when they try to
press the Bible into their service. Every movement shows that they are
hard-pushed. Their odd conceits and ever varying shifts, their forced
constructions, lacking even plausibility, their bold assumptions, and
blind guesswork, not only proclaim their _cause_ desperate, but
themselves. Some of the Bible defences thrown around slavery by
ministers of the Gospel, do so torture common sense, Scripture, and
historical fact, that it were hard to tell whether absurdity, fatuity,
ignorance, or blasphemy, predominates, in compound. Each strives so
lustily for the mastery, it may be set down a drawn battle.
How often has it been set up in type, that the color of the negro is the
_Cain-mark_, propagated downward. Doubtless Cain's posterity started an
opposition to the ark, and rode out the flood with flying streamers! Why
should not a miracle be wrought to point such an argument, and fill out
for slaveholders a Divine title-deed, vindicating the ways of God to
men?
OBJECTION 1. "_Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto
his brethren_." Gen. i. 25.
This prophecy of Noah is the _vade mecum_ of slaveholders, and they
never venture abroad without it. It is a pocket-piece for sudden
occasion--a keepsake to dote over--a charm to spell-bind opposition, and
a magnet to attract "whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie."
But closely as they cling to it, "cursed be Canaan" is a poor drug to
stupify a throbbing conscience--a mocking lullaby, vainly wooing slumber
to unquiet tossings, and crying "Peace, be still," where God wakes war,
and breaks his thunders.
Those who plead the curse on Canaan to justify negro slavery, _assume_
all the points in debate.
1. That the condition prophesied was _slavery_, rather than the mere
_rendering of service_ to others, and that it was the bondage of
_individuals_ rather than the condition of a _nation tributary_ to
another, and in _that_ sense its _servant_.
2. That the _prediction_ of crime _justifies_ it; that it grants
absolution to those whose crimes fulfil it, if it does not transform the
crimes into _virtues_. How piously the Pharaohs might have quoted God's
prophecy to Abraham, "_Thy seed shall be in bondage, and they shall
afflict them for four hundred years_." And then, what _saints_ were
those that crucified the Lord of glory!
3. That the Africans are descended from Canaan. Whereas Africa was
peopled from Egypt and Ethiopia, and Mizraim settled Egypt, and Cush,
Ethiopia. See Gen. x. 15-19, for the location and boundaries of Canaan's
posterity. So on the assumption that African slavery fulfils the
prophecy, a curse pronounced upon one people, is quoted to justify its
infliction upon another. Perhaps it may be argued that Canaan includes
all Ham's posterity. If so, the prophecy has not been fulfilled. The
other sons of Ham settled the Egyptian and Assyrian empires, and
conjointly with Shem the Persian, and afterward, to some extent, the
Grecian and Roman. The history of these nations gives no verification of
the prophecy. Whereas the history of Canaan's descendants, for more than
three thousand years, is a record of its fulfilment. First, they were
made tributaries by the Israelites. Then Canaan was the servant of Shem.
Afterward, by the Medes and Persians. Then Canaan was the servant of
Shem, and in part of the other sons of Ham. Afterward, by the
Macedonians, Grecians, and Romans, successively. Then Canaan was the
servant of Japhet, mainly, and secondarily of the other sons of Ham.
Finally, they were subjected by the Ottoman dynasty, where they yet
remain. Thus Canaan is _now_ the servant of Shem and Japhet and the
other sons of Ham.
But it may still be objected, that though Canaan is the only one _named_
in the curse, yet the 22d and 23d verses show that it was pronounced
upon the posterity of Ham in general. "_And Ham, the father of Canaan,
saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren
without_."--Verse 22. In verse 23, Shem and Japhet cover their father
with a garment. Verse 24, "_And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what
his YOUNGER son had done unto him, and said_," &c.
It is argued that this younger son cannot be _Canaan_, as he was not the
_son_, but the _grandson_ of Noah, and therefore it must be _Ham_. We
answer, whoever that "_younger son_" was, or whatever he did, _Canaan_
alone was named in the curse. Besides, the Hebrew word _Ben_, signifies
son, grandson, great-grandson, or _any one_ of the posterity of an
individual. Gen. xxix. 5, "_And he said unto them, Know ye Laban, the_
SON _of Nahor_?" Yet Laban was the _grandson_ of Nahor. Gen. xxiv. 15,
29. In 2 Sam. xix. 24, it is said, "_Mephibosheth, the_ SON _of Saul,
came down to meet the king_." But Mephibosheth was the son of Jonathan,
and the _grandson_ of Saul. 2 Sam. ix. 6. So Ruth iv. 17. "_There is a_
SON _born to Naomi_." This was the son of Ruth, the daughter-in-law of
Naomi. Ruth iv. 13, 15. So 2 Sam. xxi. 6. "_Let seven men of his
(Saul's)_ SONS _be delivered unto us_," &c. Seven of Saul's _grandsons_
were delivered up. 2 Sam. xxi. 8, 9. So Gen. xxi. 28, "_And hast not
suffered me to kiss my_ SONS _and my daughters_;" and in the 55th verse,
"_And early in the morning Laban rose up and kissed his_ SONS," &c.
These were his _grandsons_. So 2 Kings ix. 20, "_The driving of Jehu,
the_ SON _of Nimshi_." So 1 Kings xix. 16. But Jehu was the _grandson_
of Nimshi. 2 Kings ix. 2, 14. Who will forbid the inspired writer to use
the _same_ word when speaking of _Noah's_ grandson?
Further, if Ham were meant what propriety in calling him the _younger_
son? The order in which Noah's sons are always mentioned, makes Ham the
_second_, and not the _younger_ son. If it be said that Bible usage is
variable, and that the order of birth is not always preserved in
enumerations; the reply is, that, enumeration in the order of birth, is
the _rule_, in any other order the _exception_. Besides, if the younger
member of a family, takes precedence of older ones in the family record,
it is a mark of pre-eminence, either in original endowments, or
providential instrumentality. Abraham, though sixty years younger than
his eldest brother, and probably the youngest of Terah's sons, stands
first in the family genealogy. Nothing in Ham's history warrants the
idea of his pre-eminence; besides, the Hebrew word _Hakkaton_, rendered
_younger_, means the _little, small_. The same word is used in Isaiah
xl. 22. "A LITTLE ONE _shall become a thousand_." Also in Isaiah xxii.
24. "_All vessels of_ SMALL _quantity_." So Psalms cxv. 13. "_He will
bless them that fear the Lord, both_ SMALL _and great_." Also Exodus
xviii. 22. "_But every_ SMALL _matter they shall judge_." It would be a
perfectly literal rendering of Gen. ix. 24, if it were translated thus,
"when Noah knew what his little son[A], or grandson (_Beno hakkaton_)
had done unto him, he said, cursed be Canaan," &c.
[Footnote A: The French language in this respect follows the same
analogy. Our word _grandson_ being in French, _petit fils_, (little
son.)]
Even if the Africans were the descendants of Canaan, the assumption that
their enslavement is a fulfilment of this prophecy, lacks even
plausibility, for, only a mere _fraction_ of the inhabitants of Africa
have at any one time been the slaves of other nations. If the objector
say in reply, that a large majority of the Africans have always been
slaves at _home_, we answer, 1st. _It is false in point of fact_, though
zealously bruited often to serve a turn. 2d. _If it were true_, how does
it help the argument? The prophecy was, "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of
servants shall he be unto his brethren" not unto _himself_!
OBJECTION II.--"_If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and
he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if
he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his
money_." Exodus xxi. 20, 21.
Arguments drawn from the Mosaic system in support of slavery, originate
in a misconception both of its genius, _as a whole_, and of the design
and scope of its most simple provisions. The verses quoted above, afford
an illustration in point.
What was the design of this regulation? Was it to grant masters an
indulgence to beat servants with impunity? and an assurance, that if
they beat them to death, the offence would not be _capital_? This is
substantially what some modern Doctors tell us. What Deity do such men
worship? Some blood-gorged Moloch, enthroned on human hecatombs, and
snuffing carnage for incense? Did He who thundered out from Sinai's
flames, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL," offer a bounty on _murder_? Whoever
analyzes the Mosaic system--the condition of the people for whom it was
made--their inexperience in government--ignorance of judicial
proceedings--laws of evidence, &c., will find a moot court in session,
trying law points--setting definitions, or laying down rules of
evidence, in almost every chapter. Numbers xxxv. 10-22; Deuteronomy xi.
11, and xix. 4-6; Leviticus xxiv. 19-22; Exodus, xxi. 18, 19, are a few,
out of many cases stated, with tests furnished by which to detect _the
intent_, in actions brought before them. The detail gone into, in the
verses quoted, is manifestly to enable the judges to get at the _motive_
of the action, and find out whether the master _designed_ to kill.
1. "If a man smite his servant with a _rod_."--The instrument used,
gives a clue to the _intent_. See Numbers xxxv. 16, 18. It was a _rod_,
not an axe, nor a sword, nor a bludgeon, nor any other
death-weapon--hence, from the _kind_ of instrument, no design to _kill_
would be inferred; for _intent_ to kill would hardly have taken a _rod_
for its weapon. But if the servant dies _under his hand_, then the
unfitness of the instrument, instead of being evidence in his favor, is
point blank against him; for, to strike him with a _rod_ until he
_dies_, argues a _great many_ blows laid on with _great_ violence, and
this kept up to the death-gasp, establishes the point of _intent to
kill_. Hence the sentence, "He shall _surely_ be punished." The case is
plain and strong. But if he continued _a day or two_, the _length of
time that he lived_, together with the _kind_ of instrument used, and
the fact that the master had a pecuniary interest in his _life_, ("he is
his _money_,") all, made out a strong case of circumstantial evidence,
showing that the master did not _design_ to kill; and required a
corresponding decision and sentence. A single remark on the word
"punished:" in Exodus xxi. 20, 21, the Hebrew word here rendered
_punished_, (_Nakum_,) is _not so rendered in another instance_. Yet it
occurs thirty-five times in the Old Testament--in almost every instance,
it is translated _avenge_--in a few, "_to take vengeance_," or "_to
revenge_," and in this instance ALONE, "_punish_." As it stands in our
translation, the pronoun preceding it, refers to the _master_--the
_master_ in the 21st verse, is to be _punished_, and in the 22d _not_ to
be punished; whereas the preceding pronoun refers neither to the
_master_ nor to the _servant_, but to the _crime_, and the word rendered
_punished_, should have been rendered _avenged_. The meaning is this: If
a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his
hand, IT (the death) shall surely be avenged, or literally, _by avenging
it shall be avenged_; that is, the _death_ of the servant shall be
_avenged_ by the _death_ of the master. So in the next verse--"If he
continues a day or two," his death shall not be avenged by the _death_
of the _master_, for in that case the crime was to be adjudged
_manslaughter_, and not _murder_, as in the first instance. In the
following verse, another case of personal injury is stated, not
intentional, nor extending to life or limb, a mere accidental hurt, for
which the injurer is to pay _a sum of money_; and yet our translators
employ the same phraseology in both places. One, an instance of
deliberate, wanton, _killing by piecemeal_. The other and _accidental_,
and comparatively slight injury--of the inflicter, in both cases, they
say the same thing! "_He shall surely be punished_." Now, just the
difference which common sense would expect to find in such cases, where
GOD legislates, is strongly marked in the original. In the case of the
servant wilfully murdered, God says, "It (the death) shall surely be
_avenged_," (_Nakum_,) that is, _the life of the wrong doer shall
expiate the crime_. The same word is used in the Old Testament, when the
greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the perpetrators, whether
individuals or communities, to _destruction_. In the case of the
_unintentional_ injury, in the following verse, God says, "He shall
surely be" _fined_, (_Aunash_.) "He shall _pay_ as the judges
determine." The simple meaning of the word _Aunash_, is to lay a fine.
It is used in Deut. xxii. 19. They shall _amerce_ him in one hundred
shekels," and in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 3--"He condemned (_mulcted_) the land
in a hundred talents of gold.--This is the general use of the word, and
its primary signification. That _avenging_ the death of the servant, was
neither imprisonment, nor stripes, nor amercing the master in damages,
but that it was _taking the master's life_ we infer.
1. From the _Bible usage_ of the word Nakam. See Genesis iv. 24; Joshua
x. 13; Judges xv. 7-xvi. 28; 1 Samuel xiv. 24-xviii. 25-xxv. 31; 2
Samuel iv. 8; Judges v. 2; 1 Samuel xxv. 26-33, &c. &c.
2. From the express statute in such case provided. Leviticus xxiv. 17.
"_He that killeth_ ANY _man_ shall surely be put to death." Also Numbers
xxxv. 30, 31. "_Whoso killeth_ ANY _person_, the murderer shall be put
to death. _Moreover ye shall take_ NO SATISFACTION _for the life of a
murderer which is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to
death_."
3. The Targum of Jonathan gives the verse thus, "Death by the sword
shall assuredly be adjudged." The Targum of Jerusalem thus, "Vengeance
shall be taken for him to the _uttermost_." Jarchi gives the same
rendering. The Samaritan version thus, "He shall die the death."
Again, the last clause in the 21st verse ("for he is his money") is
often quoted to prove that the servant is his master's _property_, and
_therefore_, if he died, the master was not _to be punished_. _Because_,
1st. A man may dispose of his _property_ as he pleases. 2d. If the
servant died of the injury, the master's _loss_ was a sufficient
punishment. A word about the premises, before we notice the inferences.
The assumption is, that the phrase, "HE IS HIS MONEY," proves not only
that the servant is _worth money_ to the master, but that he is an
_article of property_. If the advocates of slavery will take this
principle of interpretation into the Bible, and turn it loose, let them
either give bonds for its behavior, or else stand and draw in
self-defence, "lest it turn again and rend" them. If they endorse for it
at one point, they must stand sponsors all around the circle. It will be
too late to cry for quarter when they find its stroke clearing the whole
table, and tilting them among the sweepings beneath. The Bible abounds
with such expressions as the following: "This (bread) _is_ my body;"
"this (wine) _is_ my blood;" "all they (the Israelites) _are_ brass, and
tin, and iron, and lead;" "this _is_ life eternal, that they might know
thee;" "this (the water of the well of Bethlehem) _is_ the blood of the
men who went in jeopardy of their lives;" "I _am_ the lily of the
valleys;" "a garden enclosed _is_ my sister;" "my tears _have been_ my
meat;" "the Lord God _is_ a sun and a shield;" "God _is_ love;" "the
Lord _is_ my rock;" "the seven good ears _are_ seven years, and the
seven good kine _are_ seven years;" "the seven thin and ill-favored kine
_are_ seven years, and the seven empty ears blasted by the east wind
_shall be_ seven years of famine;" "he _shall be_ head, and thou _shall_
be tail;" "the Lord _will_ be a wall of fire;" "they _shall_ be one
flesh;" "the tree of the field _is_ man's life;" "God _is_ a consuming
fire;" "he _is_ his money," &c. A passion for the exact _literalities_
of Bible language is so amiable, it were hard not to gratify it in this
case. The words in the original are (_Kaspo-hu_,) "his _silver_ is he."
The objector's principle of interpretation is, a philosopher's stone!
Its miracle touch transmutes five feet eight inches of flesh and bones
into _solid silver_! Quite a _permanent_ servant, if not so nimble with
all--reasoning against "_forever_," is forestalled henceforth, and,
Deut. xxiii. 15, utterly outwitted.
Who in his senses believes that in the expression, "_He is his money_,"
the object was to inculcate the doctrine that the servant was a
_chattel_? The obvious meaning is, he is _worth money_ to his master,
and since, if the master killed him, it would take money out of his
pocket, the _pecuniary loss_, the _kind of instrument used_, and _the
fact of his living some time after the injury_, (as, if the master
_meant_ to kill, he would be likely to _do_ it while about it,) all
together make out a strong case of presumptive evidence clearing the
master of _intent to kill_. But let us look at the objector's
inferences. One is, that as the master might dispose of his _property_
as he pleased, he was not to be punished, if he destroyed it. Answer.
Whether the servant died under the master's hand, or continued a day or
two, he was _equally_ his master's property, and the objector admits
that in the _first_ case the master is to be "surely punished" for
destroying _his own property_! The other inference is, that since the
continuance of a day or two, cleared the master of _intent to kill_, the
loss of the slave would be a sufficient punishment for inflicting the
injury which caused his death. This inference makes the Mosaic law false
to its own principles. A _pecuniary loss_, constituted no part of the
claims of the law, where a person took the _life_ of another. In such
case, the law utterly spurned money, however large the sum. God would
not so cheapen human life, as to balance it with such a weight. "_Ye
shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, but he shall
surely be put to death_." See Numb. xxxv. 31. Even in excusable
homicide, a case of death purely accidental, as where an axe slipped
from the helve and killed a man, no sum of money availed to release from
confinement in the city of refuge, until the death of the High Priest.
Numbers xxxv. 32. The doctrine that the loss of the servant would be a
penalty _adequate_ to the desert of the master, admits the master's
_guilt_--his desert of _some_ punishment, and it prescribes a _kind_ of
punishment, rejected by the law, in all cases where man took the life of
man, whether with or without _intent_ to kill. In short, the objector
annuls an integral part of the system--resolves himself into a
legislature, with power in the premises, makes a _new_ law, and coolly
metes out such penalty as he thinks fit, both in kind and quantity.
Mosaic statutes amended, and Divine legislation revised and improved!
The master who struck out the tooth of a servant, whether intentionally
or not, was required to set him free for his tooth's sake. The
_pecuniary loss_ to the master was the same as though the servant had
_died_. Look at the two cases. A master beats his servant so severely,
that after a day or two he dies of his wounds; another master
accidentally strikes out his servant's tooth, and his servant is
free--_the pecuniary loss of both masters is the same._ The objector
contends that the loss of the slave's services in the first case is
punishment sufficient for the crime of killing him; yet God commands the
_same_ punishment for even the _accidental_ knocking out of a _tooth_!
Indeed, unless the injury was done _inadvertently_, the loss of the
servant's services is only a _part_ of the punishment--mere reparation
to the _individual_ for injury done; the _main_ punishment, that
strictly _judicial_, was, reparation to the _community_ for injury to
one of its members. To set the servant _free_, and thus proclaim his
injury, his right to redress, and the measure of it--answered not the
ends of public justice. The law made an example of the offender, "those
that remain might hear and fear." _"If a man cause a blemish in his
neighbour, as he hath done, so shall it be done unto him. Breach for
breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he hath caused a blemish in a
man, so shall it be done to him again. You have one manner of law as
well for the_ STRANGER _as for one of your own country_." Lev. xxiv. 19,
20, 22. Finally, if a master smote out the tooth of a servant, the law
smote out _his_ tooth--thus redressing the _public_ wrong; and it
cancelled the servant's obligation to the master, thus giving some
compensation for the injury done, and exempting him from perilous
liabilities in future.
OBJECTION III. _Both the bondmen and 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 the strangers that do
sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are
with you, which they begat 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_. Lev. xxv. 44-46.
The _points_ in these verses, urged as proof, that the Mosaic system
sanctioned slavery, are 1. The word "BONDMEN." 2. "BUY." 3. "INHERITANCE
AND POSSESSION." 4. "FOREVER."
The _second_ point, the _buying_ of servants, has been already
discussed, see page 15. And a part of the _third_ (holding servants as a
"possession." See p. 36.) We will now ascertain what sanction to slavery
is derivable from the terms "bondmen," "inheritance," and "forever."
I. BONDMEN. The fact that servants, from the heathen are called
"_bondmen_," while others are called "servants," is quoted as proof that
the former were slaves. As the _caprices_ of King James' translators
were not divinely inspired, we need stand in no special awe of them. The
word rendered _bondmen_, in this passage, is the same word uniformly
rendered _servants_ elsewhere. To infer from this that the Gentile
servants were slaves, is absurd. Look at the use of the Hebrew word
"_Ebed_," the plural of which is here translated "_bondmen_." In Isaiah
xlii. 1, the _same word_ is applied to Christ. "Behold my _servant_
(bondman, slave?) whom I have chosen, mine elect in whom my soul
delighteth." So Isaiah lii. 13. "Behold my _servant_ (Christ) shall deal
prudently." In 1 Kings xii. 6, 7, it is applied to _King Rehoboam_. "And
they (the old men) spake unto him, saying if thou wilt be a _servant_
(_Ebed_) unto this people this day, and will serve them and answer them,
and wilt speak good words to them, then they will be thy _servants_
forever." In 2 Chron. xii. 7, 8, 9, 13, it is applied to the king and
all the nation. In fine, the word is applied to _all_ persons doing
service to others--to magistrates, to all governmental officers, to
tributaries, to all the subjects of governments, to younger
sons--defining their relation to the first born, who is called _Lord_
and _ruler_--to prophets, to kings, to the Messiah, and in respectful
addresses not less than _fifty_ times in the Old Testament.
If the Israelites not only held slaves, but multitudes of them, why had
their language _no word_ that _meant slave_? If Abraham had thousands,
and if they _abounded_ under the Mosaic system, why had they no such
_word_ as slave or slavery? That language must be wofully poverty
stricken, which has _no signs_ to represent the most _common_ and
_familiar_ objects and conditions. To represent by the same word, and
without figure, _property_, and the _owner_ of that property, is a
solecism. Ziba was an "_Ebed_," yet he _"owned_" (!) twenty _Ebeds_. In
_English_, we have both the words _servant_ and _slave_. Why? Because we
have both the _things_, and need _signs_ for them. If the tongue had a
sheath, as swords have scabbards, we should have some _name_ for it: but
our dictionaries give us none. Why? because there is no such _thing_.
But the objector asks, "Would not the Israelites use their word _Ebed_
if they spoke of the slave of a heathen?" Answer. The servants of
individuals among the heathen are scarcely ever alluded to. _National_
servants or _tributaries_, are spoken of frequently, but so rarely are
their _domestic_ servants alluded to, no necessity existed, even if they
were slaves, for coining a new word. Besides, the fact of their being
domestics, under _heathen laws and usages_, proclaimed their
_liabilities_; their locality told their condition; so that in applying
to them the word _Ebed_, there would be no danger of being
misunderstood. But if the Israelites had not only _servants_, but
besides these, a multitude of _slaves_, a _word meaning slave_, would
have been indispensable for purposes of every day convenience. Further,
the laws of the Mosaic system were so many sentinels on every side, to
warn off foreign practices. The border ground of Canaan, was quarantine
ground, enforcing the strictest non-intercourse between the _without_
and the _within_, not of _persons_, but of _usages_. The fact that the
Hebrew language had no words corresponding to _slave_ and _slavery_,
though not a conclusive argument, is no slight corroborative.
II. "FOREVER."--"They shall be your bondmen _forever_." This is quoted
to prove that servants were to serve during their life time, and their
posterity, from generation to generation.
No such idea is contained in the passage. The word _forever_, instead of
defining the length of _individual_ service, proclaims the _permanence_
of the regulation laid down in the two verses preceding, namely, that
their _permanent domestics_ should be of the _Strangers_, and not of the
Israelites; and it declares the duration of that general provision. As
if God had said, "You shall _always_ get your _permanent_ laborers from
the nations round about you--your _servants_ shall always be of _that_
class of persons." As it stands in the original, it is plain--"_Forever
of them shall ye serve yourselves_." This is the literal rendering of
the Hebrew words, which, in our version, are translated, "_They shall be
your bondmen forever_."
This construction is in keeping with the whole of the passage. "Both thy
bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the
_heathen_ (the nations) that are round about you. OF THEM shall ye buy
bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do
sojourn among you, OF THEM shall ye buy," &c. The design of this passage
is manifest from its structure. It was to point out the _class_ of
persons from which they were to get their supply of servants, and the
_way_ in which they were to get them. That "_forever_" refers to the
permanent relations of a _community_, rather than to the services of
_individuals_, is a fair inference from the form of the expression,
"THEY shall be your possession. Ye shall take _them_ as an inheritance
for your children to inherit them for a possession." To say nothing of
the uncertainty of _these individuals_ surviving those _after_ whom they
are to live, the language used, applies more naturally to a _body_ of
people, than to _individual_ servants.
But suppose it otherwise; still _perpetual_ service could not be argued
from the term _forever_. The ninth and tenth verses of the same chapter,
limit it absolutely by the jubilee. "_Then shall thou cause the trumpet
of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month: in the
day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout_ ALL _your
land." "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty
throughout all the land unto_ ALL _the inhabitants thereof_."
It may be objected that "inhabitants" here means _Israelitish_
inhabitants alone. The command is, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the
land unto ALL _the inhabitants thereof_." Besides, in the sixth verse,
there is an enumeration of the different classes of the inhabitants, in
which servants and strangers are included. "_And the Sabbath of the land
shall be meet for_ YOU--[For whom? For you _Israelites_ only?]--_for
thee, and for thy_ SERVANT, _and for thy maid, and for thy hired
servant, and for thy_ STRANGER _that sojourneth with thee_."
Further, in all the regulations of the jubilee, and the sabbatical year,
the strangers are included in the precepts, prohibitions, and promised
blessings. Again: the year of jubilee was ushered in, by the day of
atonement. What was the design of these institutions? The day of
atonement prefigured the atonement of Christ, and the year of jubilee,
the gospel jubilee. And did they prefigure an atonement and a jubilee to
_Jews_ only? Were they the types of sins remitted, and of salvation,
proclaimed to the nation of _Israel_ alone? Is there no redemption for
us Gentiles in these ends of the earth, and is our hope presumption and
impiety? Did that old partition wall survive the shock, that made earth
quake, and hid the sun, burst graves and rocks, and rent the temple
vail? And did the Gospel only rear it higher to thunder direr perdition
from its frowning battlements on all without? No! The God of OUR
salvation lives. "Good tidings of great joy shall be to ALL people."
_One_ shout shall swell from _all_ the ransomed, "Thou hast redeemed us
unto God by thy blood out of EVERY kindred, and tongue, and people, and
nation." To deny that the blessings of the jubilee extended to the
servants from the _Gentiles_, makes Christianity _Judaism_. It not only
eclipses the glory of the Gospel, but strikes out the sun. The refusal
to release servants at the sound of the jubilee trumpet, falsified and
disannulled a grand leading type of the atonement, and thus libelled the
doctrine of Christ's redemption.
Finally, even if _forever_ did refer to the length of _individual_
service, we have ample precedents for limiting the term by the jubilee.
The same word is used to define the length of time for which those
_Jewish_ servants were held, who refused to go out in the _seventh_
year. And all admit that their term of service did not go beyond the
jubilee. Ex. xxi. 2-6; Deut. xv. 12-17.
The 23d verse of the same chapter is quoted to prove that "_forever_" in
the 46th verse, extends beyond the jubilee. "_The land shall not be
sold_ FOREVER, _for the land is mine_"--as it would hardly be used in
different senses in the same general connection. In reply, we repeat
that _forever_ respects the duration of the _general arrangement_, and
not that of _individual service_. Consequently, it is not affected by
the jubilee; so the objection does not touch the argument. But it may
not be amiss to show that it is equally harmless against any other
argument drawn from the use of forever in the 46th verse,--for the word
there used, is _Olam_, meaning _throughout the period_, whatever that
may be. Whereas in the 23d verse, it is _Tsemithuth_, meaning _cutting
off_, or _to be cut off_.
III. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION."--"_Ye shall take them as an_
INHERITANCE _for your children after you to inherit them for a
possession_." This refers to the _nations_, and not to the _individual_
servants, procured from these nations. We have already shown, that
servants could not be held as a _property_-possession, and inheritance;
that they became servants of their _own accord_, and were paid wages;
that they were released by law from their regular labor nearly _half the
days in each year_, and thoroughly _instructed_; that the servants were
_protected_ in all their personal, social, and religious rights, equally
with their masters, &c. Now, truly, all remaining, after these ample
reservations, would be small temptation, either to the lust of power or
of lucre. What a profitable "possession" and "inheritance!" What if our
American slaves were all placed in _just such a condition_! Alas, for
that soft, melodious circumlocution, "Our PECULIAR species of property!"
Truly, emphasis is cadence, and euphony and irony have met together!
What eager snatches at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective of
connection, principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations of
meaning by other passages--and all to eke out such a sense as accords
with existing usages and sanctifies them, thus making God pander for
their lusts. Little matter whether the meaning of the word be primary or
secondary, literal or figurative, _provided_ it sustains their
practices.
But let us inquire whether the words rendered "inherit" and
"inheritance," when used in the Old Testament, necessarily point out the
things inherited and possessed as _articles of property_. _Nahal_ and
_Nahala_--_inherit_ and _inheritance_. See 2 Chronicles x. 16. "The
people answered the king and said, What portion have we in David, and we
have none _inheritance_ in the son of Jesse." Did they mean gravely to
disclaim the holding of their king as an article of _property?_ Psalms
cxxvii. 3--"Lo, children are an _heritage_ (inheritance) of the Lord."
Exodus xxxiv. 9--"Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine
_inheritance_." When God pardons his enemies, and adopts them as his
children, does he make them _articles of property?_ Are forgiveness, and
chattel-making, synonymes? Psalms cxix. 111--"Thy testimonies have I
taken as a _heritage_ (inheritance) forever." Ezekiel xliv. 27, 28--"And
in the day that he goeth into the sanctuary, unto the inner court to
minister in the sanctuary, he shall offer his sin-offering, saith the
Lord God. And it shall be unto them for an _inheritance_; _I_ am their
_inheritance_." Psalms ii. 8--"Ask of me, and I will give thee the
heathen for thine _inheritance_." Psalms xciv. 14--"For the Lord will
not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his _inheritance_." See
also Deuteronomy iv. 20; Joshua xiii. 33; Chronicles x. 16; Psalms
lxxxii. 8, and lxxviii. 62, 71; Proverbs xiv. 8.
The question whether the servants were a PROPERTY--"_possession_," has
been already discussed--(See p. 36)--we need add in this place but a
word. _Ahusa_ rendered "_possession_." Genesis xlii. 11--"And Joseph
placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a _possession_ in the
land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as
Pharaoh had commanded."
In what sense was the land of Goshen the _possession_ of the Israelites?
Answer, In the sense of, _having it to live in_. In what sense were the
Israelites to _possess_ these nations, and _take them_ as an
_inheritance for their children?_ We answer, They possessed them as _a
permanent source of supply for domestic or household servants. And this
relation to these nations was to go down to posterity as a standing
regulation--a national usage respecting them, having the certainty and
regularity of a descent by inheritance_. The sense of the whole
regulation may be given thus: "Thy permanent domestics, both male and
female, which thou shalt have, shall be of the nations that are round
about you, of _them_ shall ye get male and female domestics." "Moreover
of the children of the foreigners that do sojourn among you, of _them_
shall ye get, and of their families that are with you, which they begat
in your land, and _they_ shall be your permanent resource," (for
household servants.) "And ye shall take them as a _perpetual_ provision
for your children after you, to hold as a _constant source of supply_.
ALWAYS _of them_ shall ye serve yourselves."
OBJECTION IV. "_If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and
be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a_
BOND-SERVANT, _but as an_ HIRED-SERVANT, _and as a sojourner shall he be
with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee_." Lev. xxv.
39, 40.
From the fact that only _one_ class of the servants is called _hired_,
it is sagely inferred that servants of the _other_ class were _not paid_
for their labor. That is, that while God thundered anathemas against
those who "used their neighbor's service _without wages_," he granted a
special indulgence to his chosen people to seize persons, force them to
work, and rob them of earnings, provided always, in selecting their
victims, they spared "the gentlemen of property and standing," and
pounced only upon the _strangers_ and the _common_ people. The inference
that "_hired_" is synonimous with _paid_, and that those servants not
_called_ "hired" were _not paid_ for their labor, is a _mere
assumption_.
The meaning of the English verb _to hire_, is, as every one knows, to
procure for a temporary use at a curtain price--to engage a person to
_temporary_ service for wages. That is also the meaning of the Hebrew
word "_Saukar_." _Temporary_ service, and generally for a _specific_
object, is inseparable from its meaning. It is never used when the
procurement of _permanent_ service, for a long period, is spoken of.
Now, we ask, would _permanent_ servants, those who constituted an
integral and stationary part of the family, have been designated by the
same term that marks _temporary_ servants? The every-day distinctions
made on this subject, are as familiar as table-talk. In many families,
the domestics perform only such labor, as every day brings along with
it--the _regular_ work. Whatever is _occasional_ merely, as the washing
of a family, is done by persons _hired expressly for the purpose_. In
such families, the familiar distinction between the two classes, is
"servants," or "domestics," and "hired help," (not _paid_ help.) _Both_
classes are _paid_. One is permanent, the other occasional and
temporary, and therefore in this case called "_hired_." To suppose a
servant robbed of his earnings, because when spoken of, he is not called
a _hired_ servant, is profound induction! If I employ a man at twelve
dollars a month to work my farm, he is my _"hired"_ man, but if, instead
of giving him so much a month, I _give him such a portion of the crop_,
or in other words, if he works my farm _"on shares,"_ he is no longer my
_hired_ man. Every farmer knows that _that_ designation is not applied
to him. Yet he works the same farm, in the same way, at the same times,
and with the same teams and tools; and does the same amount of work in
the year, and perhaps clears twenty dollars a month, instead of the
twelve, paid him while he was my _hired_ laborer. Now, as the technic
_"hired"_ is no longer used to designate him, and as he still labors on
my farm, suppose my neighbors gather in conclave, and from such ample
premises sagely infer, that since he is no longer my _"hired"_ laborer,
I _rob_ him of his earnings, and with all the gravity of owls, they
record their decision, and adjourn to hoot it abroad. My neighbors are
deep divers!--like some theological professors, they not only go to the
bottom, but come up covered with the tokens.
A variety of particulars are recorded in the Bible, distinguishing
_hired_ from _bought_ servants. (1.) Hired servants were paid daily at
the close of their work. Lev. xix 13; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; Job. vii. 2;
Matt. xx. 8. _"Bought"_ servants were paid in advance, (a reason for
their being called, _bought_,) and those that went out at the seventh
year received a _gratuity_ at the close of their period of service.
Deut. xv. 12-13. (2.) The hired servant was paid _in money_, the bought
servant received his _gratuity_, at least, in grain, cattle, and the
product of the vintage. Deut. xiv. 17. (3.) The _hired_ servant _lived
by himself_, in his own family. The _bought_ servant was a part of his
master's family. (4.) The _hired_ servant supported his family out of
his wages; the _bought_ servant and his family, were supported by the
master _besides_ his wages.
A careful investigation of the condition of "_hired_" and of "_bought_"
servants, shows that the latter were, _as a class, superior to the
former_--were more trust-worthy, had greater privileges, and occupied in
every respect (_other_ things being equal) a higher station in society.
(1.) _They were intimately incorporated with the family of the master_.
They were guests at family festivals, and social solemnities, from which
hired servants were excluded. Lev. xxii. 10; Exod. xii. 43, 45. (2)
_Their interests were far more identified with the general interests of
their masters' family._ Bought servants were often actually, or
prospectively, heirs of their master's estate. Witness the case of
Eliezer, of Ziba, of the sons of Bilhah, and Zilpah, and others. When
there were no sons to inherit the estate, or when, by unworthiness, they
had forfeited their title, bought servants were made heirs. Proverbs
xvii. 2. We find traces of this usage in the New Testament. "But when
the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, this is
the _heir_, come let us kill him, _that the inheritance may be ours_."
Luke xx. 14; also Mark xii. 7. In no instance on Bible record, does a
_hired_ servant inherit his master's estate. (3.) _Marriages took place
between servants and their master's daughters_. "Now Sheshan had no
sons, but daughters: and Sheshan had a _servant_, an Egyptian, whose
name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to
wife." 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35. There is no instance of a _hired_ servant
forming such an alliance.
(4.) _Bought servants and their descendants seem to have been regarded
with the same affection and respect as the other members of the
family[A]._ The treatment of Eliezer, and the other servants in the
family of Abraham, Gen. chap. 25--the intercourse between Gideon and his
servant Phurah, Judges vii. 10, 11. and Saul and his servant, in their
interview with Samuel, 1 Sam. ix. 5, 22; and Jonathan and his servant, 1
Sam. xiv. 1-14, and Elisha and his servant Gehazi, are illustrations. No
such tie seems to have existed between _hired_ servants and their
masters. Their untrustworthiness seems to have been proverbial. See John
ix. 12, 13.
None but the _lowest class_ seem to have engaged as hired servants. No
instance occurs in which they are assigned to business demanding much
knowledge or skill. Various passages show the low repute and trifling
character of the class from which they were hired. Judges ix. 4; 1 Sam.
ii. 5.
The superior condition and privileges of bought servants, are manifested
in the high trusts confided to them, and in the dignity and authority
with which they were clothed in their master's household. But in no
instance is a _hired_ servant thus distinguished. In some cases, the
_bought_ servant is manifestly the master's representative in the
family--with plenipotentiary powers over adult children, even
negotiating marriage for them. Abraham besought Eliezer his servant, to
take a solemn oath, that HE would not take a wife for Isaac of the
daughters of the Canaanites, but from Abraham's kindred. The servant
went accordingly, and _himself_ selected the individual. Servants also
exercised discretionary power in the management of their master's
estate, "And the servant took ten camels, of the camels of his master,
_for all the goods of his master were under his hand_." Gen. xxiv. 10.
The reason assigned for taking them, is not that such was Abraham's
direction, but that the servant had discretionary control. Servants had
also discretionary power in the _disposal of property_. See Gen. xxiv.
22, 23, 53. The condition of Ziba in the house of Mephiboseth, is a case
in point. So is Prov. xvii. 2. Distinct traces of this estimation are to
be found in the New Testament, Math. xxiv. 45; Luke xii. 42, 44. So in
the parable of the talents; the master seems to have set up each of his
servants in trade with considerable capital. One of them could not have
had less than eight thousand dollars. The parable of the unjust steward
is another illustration. Luke xvi. 4, 8. He evidently was entrusted with
large _discretionary_ power, was "accused of wasting his master's
goods." and manifestly regulated with his master's debtors, the _terms_
of settlement. Such trusts were never reposed in _hired_ servants.
The inferior condition of _hired_ servants, is illustrated in the
parable of the prodigal son. When the prodigal, perishing with hunger
among the swine and husks, came to himself, his proud heart broke; "I
will arise," he cried, "and go to my father." And then to assure his
father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add imploringly, "Make
me as one of thy _hired_ servants." It need not be remarked, that if
_hired_ servants were the _superior_ class; to apply for the situation,
and press the suit, savored little of that sense of unworthiness that
seeks the dust with hidden face, and cries "unclean." Unhumbled nature
_climbs_; or if it falls, clings fast, where first it may. Humility
sinks of its own weight, and in the lowest deep, digs lower. The design
of the parable was to illustrate on the one hand, the joy of God, as he
beholds afar off, the returning sinner "seeking an injured father's
face" who runs to clasp and bless him with an unchiding welcome; and on
the other, the contrition of the penitent, turning homeward with tears,
from his wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with its ill-desert,
he sobs aloud, "The lowest place, _the lowest place_, I can abide no
other." Or in those inimitable words, "_Father, I have sinned against
Heaven, and in thy sight, and no more worthy to be called thy son; make
me as one of thy_ HIRED _servants_." The supposition that _hired_
servants were the _highest_ class, takes from the parable an element of
winning beauty and pathos. It is manifest to every careful student of
the Bible, that _one_ class of servants, was on terms of equality with
the children and other members of the family. (Hence the force of Paul's
declaration, Gal. iv. 1, _"Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as
he is a child,_ DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, _though he be lord of
all."_) If this were the _hired_ class, the prodigal was a sorry
specimen of humility. Would our Lord have put such language, into the
lips of one held up by himself, as a model of gospel humility, to
illustrate its lowliness, its conscious destitution of all merit, and
deep sense of all ill desert? If this is _humility_, put it on stilts,
and set it a strutting, while pride takes lessons, and blunders in
apeing it.
Here let it be observed, that both Israelites and Strangers, belonged
indiscriminately to _each_ class of the servants, the _bought_ and the
_hired_. That those in the former class, whether Jews or Strangers, were
in higher estimation, and rose to honors and authority in the family
circle, which were not conferred on _hired_ servants, has been already
shown. It should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of privileges,
merely _political_ and _national_, the hired servants from the
_Israelites_, were more favored than either the hired, or the bought
servants from the _Strangers_. No one from the Strangers, however
wealthy or highly endowed, was eligible to the highest office, nor could
he own the soil. This last disability seems to have been one reason for
the different periods of service required of the two classes of bought
servants--the Israelites and the Strangers. The Israelite was to serve
six years--the Stranger until the jubilee[A].
[Footnote A: Both classes may with propriety be called _permanent_
servants; even the bought Israelite, when his six-years' service is
contrasted with the brief term of the hired servant.]
As the Strangers could not own the soil, nor even houses, except within
walled towns, most of them would choose to attach themselves permanently
to Israelitish families. Those Strangers who were wealthy, or skilled in
manufactures, instead of becoming servants themselves, would need
servants for their own use, and as inducements for the Strangers to
become servants to the Israelites, were greater than persons of their
own nation could hold out to them, these wealthy Strangers would
naturally procure the poorer Israelites for servants. See Levit. xxv.
47. In a word, such was the political condition of the Strangers, the
Jewish polity furnished a strong motive to them, to become servants,
thus incorporating themselves with the nation, and procuring those
social and religious privileges already enumerated, and for their
children in the second generation, a permanent inheritance. (This last
was a regulation of later date. Ezekiel xlvii. 21-23.) Indeed, the
structure of the whole Mosaic polity, was a virtual bounty offered to
those who would become permanent servants, and merge in the Jewish
system their distinct nationality. None but the monied aristocracy among
them, would be likely to decline such offers.
For various reasons, this class, (the servants bought from the
Strangers,) would prefer a _long_ service. They would thus more
effectually become absorbed into the national circulation, and identify
their interests with those in whose gift were all things desirable for
themselves, and brighter prospects for their children. On the other
hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land
being a sort of sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance, was,
with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and
personal character. 1 Kings xxi. 3. Hence, to forego the _possession_ of
one's inheritance, _after_ the division of the paternal domain, or to be
restrained from its _control_, after having acceded to it, was a burden
grievous to be borne. To mitigate, as much as possible, such a calamity,
the law, instead of requiring the Israelite to continue a servant until
the jubilee, released him at the end six years[A], as, during that
time--if, of the first class--the partition of the patrimonial land
might have taken place; or, if of the second, enough money might have
been earned to disencumber his estate, and thus he might assume his
station as a lord of the soil. If these contingencies had not occurred,
then, at the end of another six years, the opportunity was again
offered, and in the same manner until the jubilee. So while strong
motives urged the Israelite, to discontinue his service as soon as the
exigency had passed, which induced him to become a servant, every
consideration impelled the _Stranger_ to _prolong_ his term of service;
and the same kindness which dictated the law of six years' service for
the Israelite, assigned as the general rule, a much longer period to the
Gentile servant, who, instead of being tempted to a brief service, had
every inducement to protract the term.
[Footnote A: Another reason for protracting the service until the
seventh year, seems to have been, its coincidence with other
arrangements, and provisions, inseparable from the Jewish economy. That
period was a favorite one in the Mosaic system. Its pecuniary
responsibilities, social relations and general internal structure, if
not _graduated_ upon a septennial scale, were variously modified by the
lapse of the period. Another reason doubtless was, that as those
Israelites who became servants through poverty, would not sell
themselves, except as a last resort when other expedients to recruit
their finances had failed--(See Lev. xxv. 35)--their _becoming servants_
proclaimed such a state of their affairs, as demanded the labor of _a
course of years_ fully to reinstate them.]
It is important to a clear understanding of the whole subject, to keep
in mind that adult Jews ordinarily became servants, only as a temporary
expedient to relieve themselves from embarrassment, and ceased to be
such when that object was effected. The poverty that forced them to it
was a calamity, and their service was either a means of relief, or a
measure of prevention. It was not pursued as a _permanent business_, but
resorted to on emergencies--a sort of episode in the main scope of their
lives. Whereas with the Strangers, it was a _permanent employment_,
pursued not merely as a _means_ of bettering their own condition, and
prospectively that of their posterity, but also, as an _end_ for its own
sake, conferring on them privileges, and a social estimation not
otherwise attainable.
We see from the foregoing, why servants purchased from the heathen, are
called by way of distinction, _the_ servants, (not _bondmen_, as our
translators have it.) (1.) They followed it as a _permanent business_.
(2.) Their term of service was _much longer_ than that of the other
class. (3.) As a class, they doubtless greatly outnumbered the
Israelitish servants. (4.) All the Strangers that dwelt in the land,
were _tributaries_ to the Israelites--required to pay an annual tribute
to the government, either in money, or in public service, which was
called a "_tribute of bond-service_;" in other words, all the Strangers
were _national servants_, to the Israelites, and the same Hebrew word
which is used to designate _individual_ servants, equally designates
_national_ servants or tributaries. 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, 14. 2 Chron.
viii. 7-9. Deut. xx. 11. 2 Sam. x. 19. 1 Kings ix. 21, 22. 1 Kings iv.
21. Gen. xxvii. 29. The same word is applied to the Israelites, when
they paid tribute to other nations. See 2 Kings xvii. 3. Judges iii. 8,
14. Gen. xlix. 15. Another distinction between the Jewish and Gentile
bought servants, claims notice. It was in the _kinds_ of service
assigned to each class. The servants from the Strangers, were properly
the _domestics_, or household servants, employed in all family work, in
offices of personal attendance, and in such mechanical labor, as was
constantly required in every family, by increasing wants, and needed
repairs. On the other hand, the Jewish bought servants seem to have been
almost exclusively _agricultural_. Besides being better fitted for this
by previous habits--agriculture, and the tending of cattle, were
regarded by the Israelites as the most honorable of all occupations;
kings engaged in them. After Saul was elected king, and escorted to
Gibeah, the next report of him is, "_And behold Saul came after the herd
out of the field_."--1 Sam. xi. 7.
Elisha "was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen" when Elijah threw his
mantle upon him. 1 Kings xix. 19. King Uzziah "loved husbandry." 2
Chron. xxvi. 10. Gideon, the deliverer of Israel, _was "threshing wheat_
by the wine press" when called to lead the host against the Midianites.
Judges vi. 11. The superior honorableness of agriculture, is shown by
the fact, that it was _protected and supported by the fundamental law_
of the theocracy--God thus indicating it as the chief prop of the
government, and putting upon it peculiar honor. An inheritance of land
seems to have filled out an Israelite's idea of worldly furnishment.
They were like permanent fixtures on their soil, so did they cling to
it. To be agriculturalists on their own inheritances, was, in their
notions, the basis of family consequence, and the grand claim to
honorable estimation. Agriculture being pre-eminently a _Jewish_
employment, to assign a native Israelite to _other_ employments as a
_business_, was to break up his habits, do violence to cherished
predilections, and put him to a kind of labor in which he had no skill,
and which he deemed degrading. In short, it was, in the earlier ages of
the Mosaic system, practically to _unjew_ him, a hardship and rigor
grievous to be borne, as it annihilated a visible distinction between
the descendants of Abraham and the Strangers--a distinction vital to the
system, and gloried in by every Jew.
_To guard this and another fundamental distinction_, God instituted the
regulation contained in Leviticus xxv. 39, which stands at the head of
this branch of our inquiry, "_If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be
waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as
a bond-servant._" In other words, thou shalt not put him to _servants'
work_--to the _business_, and into the _condition_ of _domestics_.
In the Persian version it is translated thus, "Thou shalt not assign to
him the work of _servitude_," (or _menial_ labor.) In the Septuagint
thus, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a _domestic or
household servant_." In the Syriac thus, "Thou shalt not employ him
after the manner of servants." In the Samaritan thus, "Thou shalt not
require him to serve in the service of a servant." In the Targum of
Onkelos thus, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a household
servant." In the Targum of Jonathan thus, "Thou shalt not cause him to
serve according to the usages of the servitude of servants[A]." In fine,
"thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant," means, _thou
shalt not assign him to the same grade, nor put him to the same
services, with permanent domestics._
[Footnote A: Jarchi's comment on "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as
a bond-servant" is, "the Hebrew servant is not to be required to do any
thing which is accounted degrading--such as all offices of personal
attendance, as loosing his master's shoe latchet, bringing him water to
wash his feet and hands, waiting on him at table, dressing him, carrying
things to and from the bath. The Hebrew servant is to work with his
master as a son or brother, in the business of his farm, or other labor,
until his legal release."]
We pass to the remainder of the regulation in the 40th verse:--
"_But as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he be with thee_."
Hired servants were not incorporated into the families of their masters;
they still retained their own family organization, without the surrender
of any domestic privilege, honor, or authority; and this, even though
they resided under the same roof with their master. While
bought-servants were associated with their master's families at meals,
at the Passover, and at other family festivals, hired servants and
sojourners were not. Exodus xii. 44, 45; Lev. xxii. 10, 11. Not being
merged in the family of his master, the hired servant was not subject to
his authority, (except in directions about his labor) in any such sense
as the master's wife, children, and bought servants. Hence the only form
of oppressing hired servants spoken of in the Scriptures as practicable
to masters, is that of _keeping back their wages_.
To have taken away these privileges in the case stated in the passage
under consideration, would have been preeminent _rigor_; for the case
described, is not that of a servant born in the house of a master, nor
that of a minor, whose unexpired minority had been sold by the father,
neither was it the case of an Israelite, who though of age, had not yet
acceded to his inheritance; nor, finally, was it that of one who had
received the _assignment_ of his inheritance, but was, as a servant,
working off from it an incumbrance, before entering upon its possession
and control[A]. But it was that of _the head of a family_, who had lived
independently on his own inheritance, and long known better days, now
reduced to poverty, forced to relinquish the loved inheritance of his
fathers, with the competence and respectful consideration its possession
secured to him, and to be indebted to a neighbor for shelter,
sustenance, and employment, both for himself and his family. Surely so
sad a reverse, might well claim sympathy; but there remaineth to him one
consolation, and it cheers him in the house of his pilgrimage. He is an
_Israelite--Abraham is his father_, and now in his calamity he clings
closer than ever, to the distinction conferred by the immunities of his
birthright. To rob him of this, were "the unkindest cut of all." To have
assigned him to a _grade_ of service filled only by those whose
permanent business was _serving_, would have been to _rule over him with
peculiar rigor_.
[Footnote A: These two latter classes are evidently referred to in Exod.
xxi. 1-6, and Deut. xv. 12]
Finally, the former part of the regulation, "Thou shalt not compel him
to serve as a bond-servant," or more literally, _thou shall not serve
thyself with him, with the service of a servant_, guaranties his
political privileges, and secures to him a kind and grade of service,
comporting with his character and relations as a son of Israel. And the
remainder of the verse, "But as a _hired_ servant, and as a sojourner
shall he be with thee," continues and secures to him his separate family
organization, the respect and authority due to his head, and the general
consideration in society resulting from such a station. Though this
individual was a Jewish _bought_ servant, the case is peculiar, and
forms an exception to the general class of Jewish bought servants. Being
already in possession of his inheritance, and the head of a household,
the law so arranged his relations, as a servant, as to _alleviate_ as
much as possible the calamity which had reduced him from independence
and authority, to penury and subjection.
Having gone so much into detail on this point, comment on the command
which concludes this topic in the forty-third verse, would be
superfluous. "_Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor, but shalt fear
thy God_." As if it had been said, "In your administration you shall not
disregard those differences in previous habits, station, authority, and
national and political privileges, upon which this regulation is based;
for to exercise authority over this class of servants, _irrespective_ of
these distinctions, and annihilating them, is _to__rule with rigor_."
The same command is repeated in the forty-sixth verse, and applied to
the distinction between the servants of Jewish, and those of Gentile
extraction, and forbids the overlooking of distinctive Jewish
peculiarities, so vital to an Israelite as to make the violation of
them, _rigorous_ in the extreme; while to the servants from the
Strangers, whose previous habits and associations differed so widely
from those of the Israelite, these same things would be deemed slight
disabilities.
It may be remarked here, that the political and other disabilities of
the Strangers, which were the distinctions growing out of a different
national descent, and important to the preservation of national
characteristics, and to the purity of national worship, do not seem to
have effected at all the _social_ estimation, in which this class of
servants was held. They were regarded according to their character and
worth as _persons_, irrespective of their foreign origin, employments,
and political condition.
The common construction put upon the expression, "_rule with rigor_,"
and an inference drawn from it, have an air so oracular, as quite to
overcharge risibles of ordinary calibre, if such an effect were not
forestalled by its impiety. It is interpreted to mean, "you shall not
make him an article of property, you shall not force him to work, and
rob him of his earnings, you shall not make him a chattel, and strip him
of legal protection." So much for the interpretation. The inference is
like unto it, viz. Since the command forbade such outrages upon the
_Israelites, it permitted and commissioned_ the infliction of them upon
the _Strangers_. Such impious and shallow smattering, captivates two
classes of minds, the one by its flippancy, the other by its blasphemy,
and both, by the strong scent of its unbridled license. What boots it to
reason against such rampant affinities!
In Exodus, chap. i. 13, 14, it is said that the Egyptians "made the
children of Israel to _serve_ with rigor," "and all their _service_
wherein they made them _serve_, was with rigor." The rigor here spoken
of, is affirmed of the _amount of labor_ extorted from them, and the
_mode_ of the exaction. This form of expression, "_serve with rigor_,"
is never applied to the service of servants either under the
Patriarchal, or the Mosaic systems. Nor is any other form of expression
ever used, either equivalent to it, or at all similar. The phrase, "thou
shalt not RULE over him with rigor," used in Leviticus xxv. 43, 46, does
not prohibit unreasonable exactions of labor, nor inflictions of
personal cruelty. _Such were provided against otherwise_. But it
forbids, confounding the distinctions between a Jew and a Stranger, by
assigning the former to the same grade of service, for the same term of
time, and under the same national and political disabilities as the
latter.
We are now prepared to survey at a glance, the general condition of the
different classes of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each
class. I. In the possession of _all fundamental rights, all classes of
servants were on an absolute equality_, all were _equally protected_ by
law in their persons, character, property and social relations. All were
_voluntary_, all were _compensated_ for their labor. All were released
from their regular labor nearly _one half of the days in each year_, all
were furnished with stated _instruction_; none in either class were in
any sense articles of _property_, all were regarded as _men_, with the
rights, interests, hopes, and destinies of _men_. In these respects the
circumstances of _all_ classes of servants among the Israelites, were
not only similar but _identical_, and so far forth, they formed but ONE
CLASS.
II. DIFFERENT CLASSES OF SERVANTS.
1. _Hired Servants_.--This class consisted both of Israelites and
Strangers. Their employments were different. The _Israelite_, was an
agricultural servant. The Stranger was a _domestic_ and _personal_
servant, and in some instances _mechanical_; both were _occasional_,
procured _temporally_ to serve an emergency. Both lived in their own
families, their wages were _money_, and they were paid when their work
was done. As a _class of servants_, the hired were less loved, trusted,
honored and promoted than any other.
2. _Bought Servants, (including those "born in the house.")_--This class
also, was composed both of Israelites and Strangers, the same general
difference obtaining in their kinds of employment as was noticed before.
Both were paid in advance[A], and neither was temporary.
[Footnote A: The payment _in advance_, doubtless lessened considerably
the price of the purchase; the servant thus having the use of the money
from the beginning, and the master assuming all the risks of life, and
health for labor; at the expiration of the six years' contract, the
master having experienced no loss from the risk incurred at the making
of it, was obliged by law to release the servant with a liberal
gratuity. The reason assigned for this is, "he hath been worth a double
hired servant unto thee in serving thee six years," as if it had been
said, he has now served out his time, and as you have experienced no
loss from the risks of life, and ability to labor which you incurred in
the purchase, and which lessened the price, and as, by being your
permanent servant for six years, he has saved you all the time and
trouble of looking up and hiring laborers on emergencies, therefore,
"thou shalt furnish him liberally," &c.]
The Israelitish servant, in most instances, was released after six
years. (The _freeholder_ continued until the jubilee.) The Stranger, was
a _permanent_ servant, continuing until the jubilee. Besides these
distinctions between Jewish and Gentile bought servants, a marked
distinction obtained between different classes of Jewish bought
servants. Ordinarily, during their term of service, they were merged in
their master's family, and, like the wife and children of the master,
subject to his authority; (and of course, like them, protected by law
from its abuse.) But _one_ class of the Jewish bought servants was a
marked exception. The _freeholder_, obliged by poverty to leave his
possession, and sell himself as a servant, did not thereby affect his
family relations, or authority, nor subject himself as an inferior to
the control of his master, though dependent upon him for employment. In
this respect, his condition differed from that of the main body of
Jewish bought servants, which seems to have consisted of those, who had
not yet come into possession of their inheritance, or of those who were
dislodging from it an incumbrance.
Having dwelt so much at length on this part of the subject, the reader's
patience may well be spared further details. We close it with a
suggestion or two, which may serve as a solvent of some minor
difficulties, if such remain.
I. It should be kept in mind, that _both_ classes of servants, the
Israelite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed _equal natural and
religious rights_, but _all the civil and political privileges_ enjoyed
by those of their own people, who were _not_ servants. If Israelites,
all rights belonging to Israelites were theirs. If from the Strangers,
the same political privileges enjoyed by those wealthy Strangers, who
bought and held _Israelitish_ servants, _were theirs_. They also shared
_in common with them_, the political disabilities which appertained to
_all_ Strangers, whether the servants of Jewish masters, or the masters
of Jewish servants.
II. The disabilities of the servants from the Strangers, were
exclusively _political_ and _national_.
1. They, in common with all Strangers, _could not own the soil_.
2. They were _ineligible to civil offices_.
3. They were assigned to _employments_ less honorable than those in
which Israelitish servants engaged; agriculture being regarded as
fundamental to the prosperity and even to the existence of the state,
other employments were in far less repute, and deemed _unjewish_.
Finally, the condition of the Strangers, whether servants or masters,
was, as it respected political privileges, much like that of
unnaturalized foreigners in the United States; no matter how great their
wealth or intelligence, or moral principle, or love for our
institutions, they can neither go to the ballot-box, nor own the soil,
nor be eligible to office. Let a native American, who has always enjoyed
these privileges, be suddenly bereft of them, and loaded with the
disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would be a light
matter, to _him_, would be the severity of _rigor_.
The recent condition of the Jews and Catholics in England, is a still
better illustration of the political condition of the Strangers in
Israel. Rothschild, the late English banker, though the richest private
citizen in the world, and perhaps master of scores of English servants,
who sued for the smallest crumbs of his favor, was, as a subject of the
government, inferior to the veriest scavenger among them. Suppose an
Englishman, of the Established Church, were by law deprived of power to
own the soil, made ineligible to office, and deprived unconditionally of
the electoral franchise, would Englishmen think it a misapplication of
language, if it were said, "The government rules over that man with
rigor?" And yet his life, limbs, property, reputation, conscience, all
his social relations, the disposal of his time, the right of locomotion
at pleasure, and of natural liberty in all respects, are just as much
protected by law as the Lord Chancellor's. The same was true of all "the
strangers within the gates" among the Israelites: Whether these
Strangers were the servants of Israelitish masters, or the masters of
Israelitish servants, whether sojourners, or bought servants, or born in
the house, or hired, or neither--_all were protected equally with the
descendants of Abraham._
Finally--As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, made up of
innumerable fractional ones, each rife with meaning in doctrine and
duty; the practical power of the whole, depended upon the exact
observance of those distinctions and relations which constituted its
significancy. Hence, the care everywhere shown to preserve inviolate the
distinction between a _descendant of Abraham_ and a _Stranger_, even
when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the initiatory
ordinances, entered the congregation, and become incorporated with the
Israelites by family alliance. The regulation laid down in Exodus xxi.
2-6, is an illustration, _"If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years
shall he serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If
he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married,
then, his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a
wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters; the wife and her
children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if
the servant should plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my
children, I will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto
the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post;
and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall
serve him forever."_ In this case, the Israelitish servant, whose term
expired in six years, married one of his master's _permanent female
domestics_; but the fact of her marriage, did not release her master
from _his_ part of the contract for her whole term of service, nor
absolve him from his legal obligation to support and educate her
children. Nor could it do away that distinction, which marked her
national descent by a specific _grade_ and _term_ of service. Her
marriage did not impair her obligation to fulfil _her_ part of the
contract. Her relations as a permanent domestic grew out of a
distinction guarded with great care throughout the Mosaic system. To
permit this to be rendered void, would have been to divide the system
against itself. This God would not tolerate. Nor, on the other hand,
would he permit the master, to throw off the responsibility of
instructing her children, nor the care and expense of their helpless
infancy and rearing. He was bound to support and educate them, and all
her children born afterwards during her term of service. The whole
arrangement beautifully illustrates that wise and tender regard for the
interests of all the parties concerned, which arrays the Mosaic system
in robes of glory, and causes it to shine as the sun in the kingdom of
our Father. By this law, the children had secured to them a mother's
tender care. If the husband loved his wife and children, he could compel
his master to keep him, whether he had any occasion for his services or
not, and with such remuneration as was provided by the statute. If he
did not love them, to be rid of him was a blessing; and in that case,
the regulation would prove an act for the relief of an afflicted family.
It is not by any means to be inferred, that the release of the servant
from his service in the seventh year, either absolved him from the
obligations of marriage, or shut him out from the society of his family.
He could doubtless procure a service at no great distance from them, and
might often do it, to get higher wages, or a kind of employment better
suited to his taste and skill, or because his master might not have
sufficient work to occupy him. Whether he lived near his family, or at a
considerable distance, the great number of days on which the law
released servants from regular labor, would enable him to spend much
more time with them than can be spent by most of the agents of our
benevolent societies with _their_ families, or by many merchants,
editors, artists, &c., whose daily business is in New York, while their
families reside from ten to one hundred miles in the country.
We conclude this Inquiry by touching briefly upon an objection, which,
though not formally stated, has been already set aside by the whole
tenor of the foregoing argument. It is this,--
_"The slavery of the Canaanites by the Israelites, was appointed by God
as a commutation of the punishment of death denounced against them for
their sins."_--If the absurdity of a sentence consigning persons to
_death_, and at the same time to perpetual _slavery_, did not
sufficiently laugh in its own face, it would be small self-denial, in a
case so tempting, to make up the deficiency by a general contribution.
For, _be it remembered_, the Mosaic law was given, while Israel was _in
the wilderness_, and only _one_ statute was ever given respecting _the
disposition to be made of the inhabitants of the land._ If the sentence
of death was first pronounced against them, and afterwards _commuted_,
when? where? by whom? and in what terms was the commutation? And where
is it recorded? Grant, for argument's sake, that all the Canaanites were
sentenced to unconditional extermination; as there was no reversal of
the sentence, how can a right to _enslave_ them, be drawn from such
premises? The punishment of death is one of the highest recognitions of
man's moral nature possible. It proclaims him _man_--intelligent
accountable, guilty _man,_ deserving death for having done his utmost to
cheapen human life, and make it worthless, when the proof of its
priceless value, lives in his own nature. But to make him a _slave,_
cheapens to nothing _universal human nature,_ and instead of healing a
wound, gives a death stab. What! repair an injury done to rational being
in the robbery of _one_ of its rights, not merely by robbing it of
_all,_ but by annihilating the very _foundation_ of them--that
everlasting distinction between men and things? To make a man a chattel,
is not the _punishment,_ but the _annihilation_ of a _human_ being, and,
so far as it goes, of _all_ human beings. This commutation of the
punishment of death, into perpetual slavery, what a fortunate discovery!
Alas! for the honor of Deity, if commentators had not manned the forlorn
hope, and rushed to the rescue of the Divine character at the very
crisis of its fate, and, by a timely movement, covered its retreat from
the perilous position in which inspiration had carelessly left it! Here
a question arises of sufficient importance for a separate dissertation;
but must for the present be disposed of in a few paragraphs. WERE THE
CANAANITES SENTENCED BY GOD TO INDIVIDUAL AND UNCONDITIONAL
EXTERMINATION? That the views generally prevalent on this subject, are
wrong, we have no doubt; but as the limits of this Inquiry forbid our
going into the merits of the question, so as to give all the grounds of
dissent from the commonly received opinions, the suggestions made, will
be thrown out merely as QUERIES, and not as a formal laying down of
_doctrines_.
The leading directions as to the disposal of the Canaanites, are mainly
in the following passages, Exod. xxiii. 23-33, and 33-51, and 34,
11--Deut. vii. 16-25, and ix. 3, and xxxi. 3, 1, 2. In these verses, the
Israelites are commanded to "destroy the Canaanites"--to "drive
out,"--"consume,"--"utterly overthrow,"--"put out,"--"dispossess them,"
&c. Quest. Did these commands enjoin the unconditional and universal
destruction of the _individuals,_ or merely of the _body politic?_ Ans.
The Hebrew word _Haram,_ to destroy, signifies _national,_ as well as
individual destruction; _political_ existence, equally with _personal;_
the destruction of governmental organization, equally with the lives of
the subjects. Besides, if we interpret the words destroy, consume,
overthrow, &c., to mean _personal_ destruction, what meaning shall we
give to the expressions, "drive out before thee;" "cast out before
thee;" "expel," "put out," "dispossess," &c., which are used in the same
passages?
For a clue to the sense in which the word _"destroy"_ is used, see
Exodus xxiii. 27. "I will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt
come, and I will make all thine enemies _turn their backs unto thee_."
Here "_all their enemies_" were to _turn their backs_, and "_all the
people_" to be "_destroyed_". Does this mean that God would let all
their _enemies_ escape, but kill all their _friends_, or that he would
_first_ kill "all the people" and THEN make them turn their backs in
flight, an army of runaway corpses?
The word rendered _backs_, is in the original, _necks_, and the passage
_may_ mean, I will make all your enemies turn their necks unto you; that
is, be _subject to you as tributaries_, become _denationalized_, their
civil polity, state organization, political existence,
_destroyed_--their idolatrous temples, altars, images, groves, and all
heathen rites _destroyed_; in a word, their whole system, national,
political, civil, and religious, subverted, and the whole people _put
under tribute_. Again; if these commands required the unconditional
destruction of all the _individuals_ of the Canaanites, the Mosaic law
was at war with itself, for the directions relative to the treatment of
native residents and sojourners, form a large part of it. "The stranger
that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou
shalt love him as thyself." "If thy brother be waxen poor, thou shalt
relieve him, yea, though he be a _stranger or a sojourner_, that he may
live with thee." "Thou shalt not oppress a _stranger_." "Thou shalt not
vex a _stranger_." "Judge righteously between every, man and his
brother, and the _stranger_ that is with him." "Ye shall not respect
persons in judgement." "Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the
_stranger_, as for him of your own country." We find, also, that
provision was made for them in the cities of refuge. Num. xxxv. 15--the
gleanings of the harvest and vintage were assigned to them, Lev. xix. 9,
10, and xxiii. 22, and 25, 6;--the blessings of the Sabbath, theirs, Ex.
xx. 10;--the privilege of offering sacrifices secured, Lev. 22. 18; and
stated religious instruction provided for them. Deut. xxxi. 9, 12. Now,
does this _same law_ authorize and appoint the _individual
extermination_ of those very persons, whose lives and general interests
it so solicitously protects? These laws were given to the Israelites,
long _before_ they entered Canaan; and they must of necessity have
inferred from them, that a multitude of the inhabitants of the land
would _continue in it_, under their government.
3. _We argue that these commands did not require the_ INDIVIDUAL
_destruction of the Canaanites unconditionally, from the fact that the
most pious Israelites never seem to have so regarded them._ Joshua was
selected as the leader of Israel to execute God's threatenings upon
Canaan. He had no _discretionary_ power. God's commands were his
_official instructions._ Going _beyond_ them would have been usurpation;
refusing _to carry them out,_ rebellion and treason. For not obeying, in
_every particular,_ and in a _single_ instance, God's command respecting
the Amalekites, Saul was rejected from being king.
Now, if God commanded the individual destruction of all the Canaanitish
nations, Joshua _disobeyed him in every instance._ For at his death, the
Israelites still _"dwelt among them,"_ and each nation is mentioned by
name. See Judges i. 5, and yet we are told that "Joshua was full of the
spirit of the Lord and of WISDOM," Deut. xxxiv. 9. (of course, he could
not have been ignorant of the meaning of those commands,)--that "the
Lord was with him," Josh. vi. 27; and that he "left nothing undone of
all that the Lord commanded Moses;" and further, that he "took all that
land." Joshua xi, 15-23. Also, that "the Lord gave unto Israel all the
land which he swore to give unto their fathers, and they possessed it
and dwelt therein, and there _stood not a man_ of _all_ their enemies
before them." "The Lord delivered _all their_ enemies into their hand,"
&c.
How can this testimony be reconciled with itself, if we suppose that the
command to _destroy_ enjoined _individual_ extermination, and the
command to _drive out_, enjoined the unconditional expulsion of
individuals from the country, rather than their expulsion from the
_possession_ or _ownership_ of it, as the lords of the soil? It is true,
multitudes of the Canaanites were slain, but in every case it was in
consequence of their refusing to surrender their land to the possession
of the Israelites. Not a solitary case can be found in which a Canaanite
was either killed or driven out of the country, who acquiesced in the
transfer of the territory of Canaan, and its sovereignty, from the
inhabitants of the land to the Israelites. Witness the case of Rahab and
all her kindred, and the inhabitants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and
Kirjathjearim[A]. The Canaanites knew of the miracles in Egypt, at the
Red Sea, in the wilderness, and at the passage of Jordan. They knew that
their land had been transferred to the Israelites, as a judgment upon
them for their sins.--See Joshua ii. 9-11, and ix. 9, 10, 24. Many of
them were awed by these wonders, and made no resistance to the
confiscation of their territory. Others fiercely resisted, defied the
God of the armies of Israel, and came out to battle. These occupied the
_fortified cities_, were the most _inveterate_ heathen--the
_aristocracy_ of idolatry, the _kings_, the _nobility_ and _gentry_, the
_priests_, with their crowds of satellites, and retainers that aided in
the performance of idolatrous rites, the _military forces_, with the
chief profligates and lust-panders of both sexes. Every Bible student
will recall many facts corroborating this supposition. Such as the
multitudes of _tributaries_ in the midst of Israel, and that too, when
the Israelites had "waxed strong," and the uttermost nations quaked at
the terror of their name. The large numbers of the Canaanites, as well
as the Philistines and others, who became proselytes, and joined
themselves to the Hebrews--as the Nethenims, Uriah the Hittite, one of
David's memorable "thirty seven"--Rahab, who married one of the princes
of Judah--Ittai--The six hundred Gitites--David's bodyguard, "faithful
among the faithless."--2 Sam. xv. 18, 21. Obededom the Gittite, who was
adopted into the tribe of Levi.--Compare 2 Sam. vi. 10, 11, with 1
Chron. xv. 18, and 1 Chron xxvi. 45. The cases of Jaziz, and Obil,--1
Chron. xxvi. 30, 31, 33. Jephunneh, the father of Caleb--the Kenite,
registered in the genealogies of the tribe of Judah, and the one hundred
and fifty thousand Canaanites, employed by Solomon in the building of
the Temple[B]. Add to these, the fact that the most memorable miracle on
record, was wrought for the salvation of a portion of those very
Canaanites, and for the destruction of those who would exterminate
them.--Joshua x. 12-14. Further--the terms used in the directions of God
to the Israelites, regulating their disposal of the Canaanites, such as,
"drive out," "put out," "cast out," "expel," "dispossess," &c. seem used
interchangeably with "consume," "destroy," "overthrow," &c., and thus
indicate the sense in which the latter words are used. As an
illustration of the meaning generally attached to these and similar
terms, when applied to the Canaanites in Scripture, we refer the reader
to the history of the Amalekites. In Ex. xxvii. 14, God says, "I will
utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven,"--In Deut.
xxv. 19, "Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under
heaven; thou shalt not forget it."--In 1 Sam. xv. 2, 3. "Smite Amalek
and _utterly destroy_ all that they have, and spare them not, but slay
both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep." In the seventh
and eighth verses of the same chapter, we are told, "Saul smote the
Amalekites, and took Agag the king of the Amalekites, alive, and UTTERLY
DESTROYED ALL THE PEOPLE with the edge of the sword." In verse 20, Saul
says, "I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have brought Agag, the
king of Amalek, and have _utterly destroyed_ the Amalekites."
[Footnote A: Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the
Gibeonites, and of Rahab and her kindred, was a violation of the command
of God. We answer, if it had been, we might expect some such intimation.
If God had straitly commanded them to _exterminate all the Canaanites,_
their pledge to save them alive, was neither a repeal of the statute,
nor absolution for the breach of it. If _unconditional destruction_ was
the import of the command, would God have permitted such an act to pass
without severe rebuke? Would he have established such a precedent when
Israel had hardly passed the threshhold of Canaan, and was then striking
the first blow of a half century war? What if they _had_ passed their
word to Rahab and the Gibeonites? Was that more binding upon them than
God's command? So Saul seems to have passed _his_ word to Agag; yet
Samuel hewed him in pieces, because in saving his life, Saul had
violated God's command. This same Saul appears to have put the same
construction on the command to destroy the inhabitants of Canaan, that
is generally put upon it now. We are told that he sought to slay the
Gibeonites "in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah." God sent
upon Israel a three years' famine for it. In assigning the reason, he
says, "It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he slew the
Gibeonites." When David inquired of them what atonement he should make,
they say, "The man that consumed us, and that devised against us, that
we should the destroyed from _remaining in any of the coasts of Israel_
let seven of his sons be delivered," &c. 2 Samuel xxii. 1-6.]
[Footnote B: If the Canaanites were devoted by God to individual and
unconditional extermination, to have employed them in the erection of
the temple,--what was it but the climax of impiety? As well might they
pollute its altars with swine's flesh, or make their sons pass through
the fire to Moloch.]
In 1 Sam. 30th chapter, we find the Amalekites at war again, marching an
army into Israel, and sweeping every thing before them--and all this in
hardly more than twenty years after they had _all been_ UTTERLY
DESTROYED!
Deut. xx. 16, 17, will probably be quoted against the preceding view.
"_But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give
thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
but thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the
Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perrizites, the Hivites, and the
Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee_." We argue that this
command to exterminate, did not include all the individuals of the
Canaanitish nations, but only the inhabitants of the _cities_, (and even
those conditionally,) for the following reasons.
I. Only the inhabitants of _cities_ are specified,--"of the _cities_ of
these people thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." The reasons
for this wise discrimination were, no doubt, (1.) Cities then, as now,
were pest-houses of vice--they reeked with abominations little practiced
in the country. On this account, their influence would be far more
perilous to the Israelites than that of the country. (2.) These cities
were the centres of idolatry--the residences of the priests, with their
retinues of the baser sort. There were their temples and altars, and
idols, without number. Even their buildings, streets, and public walks
were so many visibilities of idolatry. The reason assigned in the 18th
verse for exterminating them, strengthens the idea,--"_that they teach
you not to do after all the abominations which they have done unto their
gods_." This would be a reason for exterminating _all_ the nations and
individuals _around_ them, as all were idolaters; but God permitted, and
even commanded them, in certain cases, to spare the inhabitants. Contact
with _any_ of them would be perilous--with the inhabitants of the
_cities_ peculiarly, and of the _Canaanitish_ cities preeminently so.
It will be seen from the 10th and 11th verses, that those cities which
accepted the offer of peace were to be spared. "_When thou comest nigh
unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it
shall be, if it make thee answer of peace and open unto thee, then it
shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be_
TRIBUTARIES _unto thee, and they shall_ SERVE thee."--Deuteronomy xx.
10, 11. These verses contain the general rule prescribing the method in
which cities were to be summoned to surrender.
1. The offer of peace--if it was accepted, the inhabitants became
_tributaries_--if it was rejected, and they came out against Israel in
battle, the _men_ were to be killed, and the women and little ones saved
alive. See Deuteronomy xx. 12, 13, 14. The 15th verse restricts their
lenient treatment in saving the wives and little ones of those who
fought them, to the inhabitants of the cities _afar off_. The 16th verse
gives directions for the disposal of the inhabitants of Canaanitish
cities, after they had taken them. Instead of sparing the women and
children, they were to save alive nothing that breathed. The common
mistake has been, in taking it for granted, that the command in the 15th
verse, "Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities," &c. refers to the
_whole system of directions preceding_, commencing with the 10th verse,
whereas it manifestly refers only to the _inflictions_ specified in the
verses immediately preceding, viz. the 12th, 13th, and 14th, and thus
make a distinction between those _Canaanitish_ cities that _fought_, and
the cities _afar off_ that fought--in one case destroying the males and
females, and in the other, the _males_ only. The offer of peace, and the
_conditional preservation_, were as really guarantied to _Canaanitish_
cities as to others. Their inhabitants were not to be exterminated
_unless they came out against Israel in battle_. But let us settle this
question by the "_law and the testimony_." Joshua xix. 19, 20.--"_There
was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel save, the
Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all others they took in battle. For
it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should_ COME OUT
AGAINST ISRAEL IN BATTLE, _that he might destroy them utterly, and that
they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord
commanded Moses_." That is, if they had _not_ come out against Israel in
battle, they would have had "favor" shown them, and would not have been
"_destroyed utterly_"
The great design of God seems to have been to _transfer the territory_
of the Canaanites to the Israelites, and along with it, _absolute
sovereignty in every respect_; to annihilate their political
organizations, civil polity, jurisprudence, and their system of
religion, with all its rights and appendages; and to substitute
therefor, a pure theocracy, administered by Jehovah, with the Israelites
as His representatives and agents. Those who resisted the execution of
Jehovah's purpose were to be killed, while those who quietly submitted
to it were to be spared. All had the choice of these alternatives,
either free egress out of the land[A]; or acquiescence in the decree,
with life and residence as tributaries, under the protection of the
government; or resistance to the execution of the decree, with death.
"_And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of
my people, to swear by my name, the Lord liveth, as they taught my
people to swear by Baal;_ THEN SHALL THEY BE BUILT IN THE MIDST OF MY
PEOPLE."
[Footnote A: Suppose all the Canaanitish nations had abandoned their
territory at the tidings of Israel's approach, did God's command require
the Israelites to chase them to the ends of the earth, and hunt them
down, until every Canaanite was destroyed? It is too preposterous for
belief, and yet it follows legitimately from that construction, which
interprets the terms "consume," "destroy," "destroy utterly," &c. to
mean unconditional individual extermination.]
* * * * *
[The preceding Inquiry is merely an _outline_. Whoever _reads_ it, needs
no such information. Its original design embraced a much wider range of
general topics, and subordinate heads, besides an Inquiry into the
teachings of the New Testament on the same subject. To have filled up
the outline, in conformity with the plan upon which it was sketched,
would have swelled it to a volume. Much of the foregoing has therefore
been thrown into the form of a mere skeleton of heads, or rather a
series of _indices_, to trains of thought and classes of proof, which,
however limited or imperfect, may perhaps, afford some facilities to
those who have little leisure for minute and protracted investigation.]
No. 4.
THE
ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
THE
BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE
PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS
ON THE SUBJECT OF
HUMAN RIGHTS.
Third Edition--Revised.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, NO. 143 NASSAU STREET.
1838.
This periodical contains 5 sheets.--Postage under 100 miles, 7 1-2 cts;
over 100 miles, 12 1-2 cts.
_Please read and circulate._
CONTENTS
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY,
Negative,
Affirmative,
Legal,
THE MORAL LAW AGAINST SLAVERY
"Thou shalt not steal,"
"Thou shalt not covet,"
MAN-STEALING--EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 16,
Separation of man from brutes and things,
IMPORT OF "BUY" AND "BOUGHT WITH MONEY,"
Servants sold themselves,
RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES SECURED BY LAW TO SERVANTS,
SERVANTS WERE VOLUNTARY,
Runaway Servants not to be delivered to their Masters,
SERVANTS WERE PAID WAGES,
MASTERS NOT "OWNERS,"
Servants not subjected to the uses of property,
Servants expressly distinguished from property,
Examination of Gen. xii. 5.--"The souls that they had
gotten," &c.
Social equality of Servants and Masters,
Condition of the Gibeonites as subjects of the Hebrew
Commonwealth,
Egyptian Bondage analyzed,
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
"CURSED BE CANAAN," &c.--EXAMINATION OF GEN. ix. 25,
"FOR HE IS HIS MONEY," &c.--EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 20, 21,
EXAMINATION OF LEV. xxv. 44-46,
"Both thy BONDMEN, &c., shall be of the heathen,"
"They shall be your bondmen FOREVER,"
"Ye shall take them as an INHERITANCE," &c.
EXAMINATION OF LEV. XXV. 39, 40.--THE FREEHOLDER NOT TO "SERVE
AS A BOND SERVANT,"
Difference between Hired and Bought Servants,
Bought Servants the most favored and honored class,
Israelites and Strangers belonged to both classes,
Israelites servants to the Strangers,
Reasons for the release of the Israelitish Servants in
the seventh year,
Reasons for assigning the Strangers to a longer service,
Reasons for calling them _the_ Servants,
Different kinds of service assigned to the Israelites
and Strangers,
REVIEW OF ALL THE CLASSES OF SERVANTS WITH THE MODIFICATIONS OF
EACH,
Political disabilities of the Strangers,
EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 2-6.--"IF THOU BUY AN HEBREW SERVANT,"
THE CANAANITES NOT SENTENCED TO UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION,
THE BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.
The spirit of slavery never seeks shelter in the Bible, of its own
accord. It grasps the horns of the altar only in desperation--rushing
from the terror of the avenger's arm. Like other unclean spirits, it
"hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds should be
reproved." Goaded to phrenzy in its conflicts with conscience and common
sense, denied all quarter, and hunted from every covert, it vaults over
the sacred inclosure and courses up and down the Bible, "seeking rest,
and finding none." THE LAW OF LOVE, glowing on every page, flashes
around it an omnipresent anguish and despair. It shrinks from the hated
light, and howls under the consuming touch, as demons quailed before the
Son of God, and shrieked, "Torment us not." At last, it slinks away
under the types of the Mosaic system, and seeks to burrow out of sight
among their shadows. Vain hope! Its asylum is its sepulchre; its city of
refuge, the city of destruction. It flies from light into the sun; from
heat, into devouring fire; and from the voice of God into the thickest
of His thunders.
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY.
If we would know whether the Bible sanctions slavery, we must determine
_what slavery is_. A constituent element, is one thing; a relation,
another; an appendage, another. Relations and appendages presuppose
_other_ things to which they belong. To regard them as _the things
themselves_, or as constituent parts of them, leads to endless
fallacies. A great variety of conditions, relations, and tenures,
indispensable to the social state, are confounded with slavery; and thus
slaveholding becomes quite harmless, if not virtuous. We will specify
some of these.
1. _Privation of suffrage._ Then minors are slaves.
2. _Ineligibility to office._ Then females are slaves.
3. _Taxation without representation._ Then slaveholders in the District
of Columbia are slaves.
4. _Privation of one's oath in law._ Then disbelievers in a future
retribution are slaves.
5. _Privation of trial by jury._ Then all in France and Germany are
slaves.
6. _Being required to support a particular religion._ Then the people of
England are slaves. [To the preceding may be added all other
disabilities, merely _political_.]
7. _Cruelty and oppression._ Wives, children, and hired domestics are
often oppressed; but these forms of cruelty are not slavery.
8. _Apprenticeship._ The rights and duties of master and apprentice are
correlative and reciprocal. The claim of each upon the other results
from his _obligation_ to the other. Apprenticeship is based on the
principle of equivalent for value received. The rights of the apprentice
are secured, equally with those of the master. Indeed, while the law is
_just_ to the master, it is _benevolent_ to the apprentice. Its main
design is rather to benefit the apprentice than the master. It promotes
the interests of the former, while in doing it, it guards from injury
those of the latter. To the master it secures a mere legal
compensation--to the apprentice, both a legal compensation and a virtual
gratuity in addition, he being of the two the greatest gainer. The law
not only recognizes the _right_ of the apprentice to a reward for his
labor, but appoints the wages, and enforces the payment. The master's
claim covers only the services of the apprentice. The apprentice's claim
covers _equally_ the services of the master. Neither can hold the other
as property; but each holds property in the services of the other, and
BOTH EQUALLY. Is this slavery?
9. _Filial subordination and parental claims._ Both are nature's
dictates and intrinsic elements of the social state; the natural
affections which blend parent and child in one, excite each to discharge
those offices incidental to the relation, and constitute a shield for
mutual protection. The parent's legal claim to the child's services,
while a minor, is a slight return for the care and toil of his rearing,
to say nothing of outlays for support and education. This provision is,
with the mass of mankind, indispensable to the preservation of the
family state. The child, in helping his parents, helps
himself--increases a common stock, in which he has a share; while his
most faithful services do but acknowledge a debt that money cannot
cancel.
10. _Bondage for crime._ Must innocence be punished because guilt
suffers penalties? True, the criminal works for the government without
pay; and well he may. He owes the government. A century's work would not
pay its drafts on him. He is a public defaulter, and will die so.
Because laws make men pay their debts, shall those be forced to pay who
owe nothing? The law makes no criminal, PROPERTY. It restrains his
liberty, and makes him pay something, a mere penny in the pound, of his
debt to the government; but it does not make him a chattel. Test it. To
own property, is to own its product. Are children born of convicts,
government property? Besides, can _property_ be guilty? Are chattels
punished?
11. _Restraints upon freedom._ Children are restrained by
parents--pupils, by teachers--patients, by physicians--corporations, by
charters--and legislatures, by constitutions. Embargoes, tariffs,
quarantine, and all other laws, keep men from doing as they please.
Restraints are the web of society, warp and woof. Are they slavery? then
civilized society is a giant slave--a government of LAW, _the climax of
slavery,_ and its executive, a king among slaveholders.
12. _Compulsory service._ A juryman is empannelled against his will, and
sit he must. A sheriff orders his posse; bystanders _must_ turn in. Men
are _compelled_ to remove nuisances, pay fines and taxes, support their
families, and "turn to the right as the law directs," however much
against their wills. Are they therefore slaves? To confound slavery with
involuntary service is absurd. Slavery is a _condition_. The slave's
_feelings_ toward it, are one thing; the condition itself, is another
thing; his feelings cannot alter the nature of that condition. Whether
he desires or detests it, the condition remains the same. The slave's
willingness to be a slave is no palliation of the slaveholder's guilt.
Suppose the slave should think himself a chattel, and consent to be so
regarded by others, does that _make_ him a chattel, or make those
guiltless who _hold_ him as such? I may be sick of life, and I tell the
assassin so that stabs me; is he any the less a murderer? Does my
_consent_ to his crime, atone for it? my partnership in his guilt, blot
out his part of it? The slave's willingness to be a slave, so far from
lessening the guilt of the "owner," aggravates it. If slavery has so
palsied his mind that he looks upon himself as a chattel, and consents
to be one, actually to hold him as such, falls in with his delusion, and
confirms the impious falsehood. These very feelings and convictions of
the slave, (if such were possible) increase a hundred fold the guilt of
the master, and call upon him in thunder, immediately to recognize him
as a man and thus break the sorcery that cheats him out of his
birthright--the consciousness of his worth and destiny.
Many of the foregoing conditions are _appendages_ of slavery. But no
one, nor all of them together, constitute its intrinsic unchanging
element.
We proceed to state affirmatively that, ENSLAVING MEN IS REDUCING THEM
TO ARTICLES OF PROPERTY--making free agents, chattels--converting
_persons_ into _things_--sinking immortality, into _merchandize_. A
_slave_ is one held in this condition. In law, "he owns nothing, and can
acquire nothing." His right to himself is abrogated. 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 made 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, 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 a
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 human comforts, but abrogating 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 men from an END to a mere _means_,
just so far makes him a _slave_. Hence West India apprenticeship retains
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 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_--obtains as undoubted law in
all of these [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."--Civ. 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--alike the source, the test, and the measure of their value--the
rational, immortal principle, consecrated by God 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 shield, and 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] "To the _law_ and the _testimony_?"
First, the moral law. 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. "THOU SHALT NOT
STEAL," or, "thou shalt not take from another what belongs to him." All
man's powers are God's gift to _him_. That they are _his own_, 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 this, is
derived from it, and held only by virtue of it. SELF-RIGHT is the
_foundation right_--the _post is the middle_, to which all other rights
are fastened. Slaveholders, when talking about their RIGHT to their
slaves, always assume their own right to themselves. What slaveholder
ever undertook to prove his 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. In making out his own title, he makes
out the title of every human being. 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 a man 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 disfranchise the humanity of _one_ individual, but of
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
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
prohibits the taking of _any_ thing from him, sanction the taking of
_every_ thing? Does it thunder wrath against him who robs his neighbor
of a _cent_, yet bid God speed to him who robs his neighbor of
_himself_? Slaveholding is the highest possible violation of the eighth
commandment. To take from a man his earnings, is theft. But to take the
_earner_, is a compound, life-long theft--supreme robbery, that vaults
up 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, without _coveting_ them? Why take
from them their time, labor, liberty, 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, 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 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." Ex. 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 swarming
upon every living thing--the streets, the palaces, the temples, and
every house heaped up with the carcases of things abhorred--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 on 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 surely be put to death."_ Ex. xxi. 16.
Deut. xxiv. 7[A]. God's cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance
to the Mosaic system!
[Footnote A: Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish Commentators, who
wrote seven hundred years ago, in his commentary 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 word _Ganabh_ here rendered _stealeth_, means the taking what
_belongs_ to another, whether 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 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 is stated in a three-fold form--man _stealing_, _selling_, and
_holding_. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one penalty--DEATH.
This _somebody_ deprived of the ownership of a man, is the _man
himself_, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said, "Indeed I was
_stolen_ away out of the land of the Hebrews." Gen. xl. 15. How
_stolen?_ His brethren sold him as an article of merchandize. Contrast
this penalty for _man_-stealing with that for _property_-stealing, Ex.
xxii. If a man had stolen an _ox_ and killed or sold it, he was to
restore five oxen; if he had neither sold nor killed it, two oxen. But
in the case of stealing a _man_, the _first_ act drew down the utmost
power of punishment; however often repeated, or 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 theft, the payment of
double wiped out the score. It might have a greater _money_ value than a
thousand men, yet death was not the penalty, nor maiming, nor branding,
nor even _stripes_, but double of _the same kind._ Why was not the rule
uniform? When a _man_ was stolen why was not the thief required 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 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 intolerable aggravations.
Compute the value of a MAN in _money!_ Throw dust into the scale against
immortality! The law recoiled from such supreme insult and impiety. 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 the utmost possibility of
reparation. It wrung from the guilty wretch 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, "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 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 much 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
from a starving man, is both theft and murder. If I steal my neighbor's
property, the crime consists not in altering the _nature_ of the article
but in shifting its 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
nothing. The sin in stealing a man, is not the transfer from its owner
to another of that which is _already property,_ but the turning of
_personality_ into _property_. True, the attributes of man remain, but
the rights and immunities which grow out of them are attributed. It is
the first law both of reason and revelation to regard things and beings
as they are; and the sum of religion, to feel and act towards them
according to their value. Knowingly to treat them otherwise is sin; and
the degree of violence done to their nature, religions, 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 to
its "scarlet dye." The sin specified in the passage, is that of doing
violence to the _nature_ of a man--to his intrinsic value 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 that smiteth his father or his
mother shall surely be put to death." V. 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 the blow was given
to a _parent,_ it struck the smiter dead. The parental relation is the
_centre_ of human society. God guards it with peculiar care. 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.
Why such a difference in penalties, for the same act? Answer. (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 focal point of the social system, and required powerful
safeguards. "_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 state is God's favorite illustration of his own
relations to the whole human family. In this case death was to be
inflicted not for smiting a _man_, but a _parent_--a _distinction_
cherished by God, and around which, 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 to be punished with
death was not the taking of property from its owner, but the doing
violence to an _immortal nature,_ blotting out a sacred _distinction_,
making MEN "chattels." The incessant pains taken in the Old Testament to
separate human beings from brutes and things, shows God's regard for his
own distinction.
"In the beginning" it was uttered in heaven, and proclaimed to the
universe as it rose into being. Creation was arrayed at the instant of
its birth, to do it homage. It paused in adoration while God 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." Then while every living thing, with land, and sea,
and firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to 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 shout, "Amen, alleluia"--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." Ps. viii. 5, 6. The
repetition of this distinction is frequent and solemn. In Gen. i. 26-28,
it is repeated in various forms. In Gen. v. 1, we find it again, "IN THE
LIKENESS OF GOD MADE HE MAN." In Gen. ix. 6, 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 it had been said, "All these
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 Lev. xxiv. 17, 18, 21, "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 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 the
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." Who, but an impious scorner, dares thus strive
with his Maker, and mutilate HIS IMAGE, and blaspheme the Holy One, who
saith, "_Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it
unto_ ME."
In further presenting this inquiry, the Patriarchal and Mosaic systems
will be considered together, as each reflects light upon the other, and
as many regulations of the latter are mere _legal_ forms of Divine
institutions previously existing. As a _system_, the latter alone is of
Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the patriarchs, God has
not made them our exemplars[A].
[Footnote A: Those who insist that the patriarchs held slaves, and sit
with such delight under their shadow, hymning the praises of "those good
old patriarchs and slaveholders," might at small cost greatly augment
their numbers. A single stanza celebrating patriarchal _concubinage_,
winding off with a chorus in honor of patriarchal _drunkenness_, would
be a trumpet call, summoning from bush and brake, highway and hedge, and
sheltering fence, a brotherhood of kindred affinities, each claiming
Abraham or Noah as his patron saint, and shouting, "My name is legion."
What a myriad choir and thunderous song.]
Before entering upon an analysis of the condition of servants under
these two states of society, we will consider the import of certain
terms which describe the mode of procuring them.
IMPORT OF "BUY," AND "BOUGHT WITH MONEY."
As the Israelites were commanded to "buy" their servants, and as Abraham
had servants "bought with money," it is argued that servants were
articles of _property_. The sole ground for this belief is the terms
themselves. How much might be saved, if in discussion, the thing to be
proved were always _assumed_. To beg the question in debate, would be
vast economy of midnight oil! and a great forestaller of wrinkles and
grey hairs! Instead of protracted investigation into Scripture usage,
with painful collating of passages, to find the meaning of terms, let
every man interpret the oldest book in the world by the usages of his
own time and place, and the work is done. And then instead of one
revelation, they might be multiplied as the drops of the morning, and
every man have an infallible clue to the mind of the Spirit, if he only
understood the dialect of his own neighborhood! What a Babel-jargon it
would make of the Bible to take it for granted that the sense in which
words are _now_ used is the _inspired_ sense, David says, "I prevented
the dawning of the morning, and cried." What, stop the earth in its
revolution! Two hundred years ago, _prevent_ was used in its strict
Latin sense to _come before_, or _anticipate_. It is always used in this
sense in the Old and New Testaments. David's expression, in the English
of the nineteenth century, would be "Before the dawning of the morning I
cried." In almost every chapter of the Bible, words are used in a sense
now nearly or quite obsolete, and sometimes in a sense totally
_opposite_ to their present meaning. A few examples follow: "I purposed
to come to you, but was _let_ (hindered) hitherto." "And the four
_beasts_ (living ones) fell down and worshipped God,"--"Whosoever shall
_offend_ (cause to sin) one of these little ones,"--"Go out into the
highways and _compel_ (urge) them to come in,"--"Only let your
_conversation_ (habitual conduct) be as becometh the Gospel,"--"They
that seek me _early_ (earnestly) shall find me,"--"So when tribulation
or persecution ariseth _by-and-by_ (immediately) they are offended."
Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like bodies, are always
throwing off some particles and absorbing others. So long as they are
mere _representatives_, elected by the whims of universal suffrage,
their meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up for the next
century is an employment sufficiently silly (to speak within bounds) for
a modern Bible Dictionary maker. There never was a shallower conceit
than that of establishing the sense attached to a word centuries ago, by
showing what it means _now_. Pity that fashionable mantuamakers were not
a little quicker at taking hints from some Doctors of Divinity. How
easily they might save their pious customers all qualms of conscience
about the weekly shiftings of fashion, by proving that the last
importation of Parisian indecency now flaunting on promenade, was the
very style of dress in which the pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the
angels, and the modest Rebecca drew water for the camels of Abraham's
servants. Since such fashions are rife in Broadway _now_, they _must_
have been in Canaan and Padanaram four thousand years ago!
The inference that the word buy, used to describe the procuring of
servants, means procuring them as _chattels_, seems based upon the
fallacy, that whatever _costs_ money _is_ money; that whatever or
whoever you pay money _for_, is an article of property, and the fact of
your paying for it _proves_ it property. The children of Israel were
required to purchase their first-born from under the obligations of the
priesthood, Num. xviii. 15, 16; Ex. xiii. 13; xxxiv. 20. This custom
still exists among the Jews, and the word _buy_ is still used to
describe the transaction. Does this prove that their first-born were, or
are, held as property? They were _bought_ as really as were _servants_.
(2.) The Israelites were required to pay money for their own souls. This
is called sometimes a ransom, sometimes an atonement. Were their souls
therefore marketable commodities? (3.) Bible saints _bought_ their
wives. Boaz bought Ruth. "So Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon,
have I _purchased_ to be my wife." Ruth iv. 10. Hosea bought his wife.
"So I _bought_ her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer
of barley, and an half homer of barley." Hosea iii. 2. Jacob bought his
wives Rachael and Leah, and not having money, paid for them in
labor--seven years a piece. Gen. xxix. 15-29. Moses probably bought his
wife in the same way, and paid for her by his labor, as the servant of
her father. Exod. ii. 21. Shechem, when negotiating with Jacob and his
sons for Dinah, says, "Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will
give according as ye shall say unto me." Gen. xxxiv. 11, 12. David
purchased Michal, and Othniel, Achsah, by performing perilous services
for their fathers. 1 Sam. xviii. 25-27; Judg. i. 12, 13. That the
purchase of wives, either with money or by service, was the general
practice, is plain from such passages as Ex. xxii. 17, and 1 Sam. xviii.
25. Among the modern Jews this usage exists, though now a mere form,
there being no _real_ purchase. Yet among their marriage ceremonies, is
one called "marrying by the penny." The coincidences in the methods of
procuring wives and servants, in the terms employed in describing the
transactions, and in the prices paid for each, are worthy of notice. The
highest price of wives (virgins) and servants was the same. Comp. Deut.
xxii. 28, 29, and Ex. xxii. 17, with Lev. xxvii. 2-8. The _medium_ price
of wives and servants was the same. Comp. Hos. iii. 2, with Ex. xxi. 32.
Hosea seems to have paid one half in money and the other half in grain.
Further, the Israelitish female bought servants were _wives_, their
husbands and masters being the same persons. Ex. xxi. 8, Judg. xix. 3,
27. If _buying_ servants proves them property, buying wives proves them
property. Why not contend that the _wives_ of the ancient fathers of the
faithful were their "chattels," and used as ready change at a pinch; and
thence deduce the rights of modern husbands? Alas! Patriarchs and
prophets are followed afar off! When will pious husbands live up to
their Bible privileges, and become partakers with Old Testament worthies
in the blessedness of a husband's rightful immunities! Refusing so to
do, is questioning the morality of those "good old patriarchs and
slaveholders, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
This use of the word buy, is not peculiar to the Hebrew. In the Syriac,
the common expression for "the espoused," is "the bought." Even so late
as the 16th century, the common record of _marriages_ in the old German
Chronicles was, "A BOUGHT B."
The word translated _buy_, is, like other words, modified by the nature
of the subject to which it is applied. Eve said, "I have _gotten_
(bought) a man of the Lord." She named him Cain, that is _bought_. "He
that heareth reproof, getteth (buyeth) understanding," Prov. xv. 32. So
in Isa. xi. 11. "The Lord shall set his hand again to recover (to _buy_)
the remnant of his people." So Ps. lxxviii. 54. "He brought them to this
mountain which his right hand had _purchased_," (gotten.) Jer. xiii. 4.
"Take the girdle that thou hast got" (bought.) Neh. v. 8. "We of our
ability have _redeemed_ (bought) our brethren that were sold to the
heathen." Here "_bought_" is not applied to persons reduced to
servitude, but to those taken _out_ of it. Prov. 8. 22. "The Lord
possessed (bought) me in the beginning of his way." Prov. xix. 8. "He
that _getteth_ (buyeth) wisdom loveth his own soul." Finally, to _buy_
is a _secondary_ meaning of the Hebrew word _Kana_.
Even at this day the word _buy_ is used to describe the procuring of
servants, where slavery is abolished. In the British West Indies, where
slaves became apprentices in 1834, they are still "bought." This is the
current word in West India newspapers. Ten years since servants were
"_bought_" in New-York, as really as in Virginia, yet the different
senses in which the word was used in the two states, put no man in a
quandary. Under the system of legal _indenture_ in Illinois, servants
now are "_bought._"[A] Until recently immigrants to this country were
"bought" in great numbers. By voluntary contract they engaged to work a
given time to pay for their passage. This class of persons called
"redemptioners," consisted at one time of thousands. Multitudes are
"bought" _out_ of slavery by themselves or others. Under the same roof
with the writer is a "servant bought with money." A few weeks since, she
was a slave; when "bought" she was a slave no longer. Alas! for our
leading politicians if "buying" men makes them "chattels." The Whigs say
that Benton and Rives are "bought" by the administration; and the other
party, that Clay and Webster are "bought" by the Bank. The histories of
the revolution tell us that Benedict Arnold was "bought" by British
gold. When a northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country
gossip thus hits off the indecency, "The cotton bags _bought_ him." Sir
Robert Walpole said, "Every man has his price, and whoever will pay it,
can _buy_ him," and John Randolph said, "The northern delegation is in
the market, give me money enough, and I can _buy_ them;" both meant just
what they said. The temperance publications tell us that candidates for
office _buy_ men with whiskey; and the oracles of street tattle that the
court, district attorney, and jury, in the late trial of Robinson were
_bought_, yet we have no floating visions of "chattels personal," man
auctions, or coffles.
[Footnote A: The following statute is now in force in the free state of
Illinois--No negro, mulatto, or Indian shall at any time _purchase_ any
servant other than of their own complexion: and if any of the persons
aforesaid shall presume to _purchase_ a white servant, such servant
shall immediately become free, and shall be so held, deemed and taken.]
The transaction between Joseph and the Egyptians gives a clue to the use
of "buy" and "bought with money." Gen, xlvii. 18-26. The Egyptians
proposed to Joseph to become servants. When the bargain was closed,
Joseph said, "Behold I have _bought you_ this day," and yet it is plain
that neither party regarded the persons _bought_ as articles of
property, but merely as bound to labor on certain conditions, to pay for
their support during the famine. The idea attached by both parties to
"buy us," and "behold I have bought you," was merely that of service
voluntarily offered, and secured by contract, in return for _value
received_, and not at all that the Egyptians were bereft of their
personal ownership, and made articles of property. And this buying of
_services_ (in this case it was but one-fifth part) is called in
Scripture usage, _buying the persons_. This case claims special notice,
as it is the only one where the whole transaction of buying servants is
detailed--the preliminaries, the process, the mutual acquiescence, and
the permanent relation resulting therefrom. In all other instances, the
_mere fact_ is stated without particulars. In this case, the whole
process is laid open. (1.) The persons "bought," _sold themselves_, and
of their own accord. (2.) Obtaining permanently the _services_ of
persons, or even a portion of them, is called "buying" those persons.
The objector, at the outset, takes it for granted, that servants were
bought of _third_ persons; and thence infers that they were articles of
property. Both the alleged fact and the inference are sheer
_assumptions_. No instance is recorded, under the Mosaic system, in
which a _master sold his servant_. That servants who were "bought" _sold
themselves_ is a fair inference from various passages of Scripture.
In Leviticus xxv. 47, the case of the Israelite, who became the servant
of the stranger, the words are, "If he SELL HIMSELF unto the stranger."
The _same word_, and the same _form_ of the word, which, in verse 47, is
rendered _sell himself_, is in verse 39 of the same chapter, rendered
_be sold_; in Deut. xxviii. 68, the same word is rendered "be sold."
"And there ye shall BE SOLD unto your enemies for bond-men and
bond-women and NO MAN SHALL BUY YOU." How could they "_be sold_" without
_being bought_? Our translation makes it nonsense. The word _Makar_
rendered "be sold" is used here in the Hithpael conjugation, which is
generally reflexive in its force, and, like the middle voice in Greek,
represents what an individual does for himself, and should manifestly
have been rendered, "ye shall _offer yourselves_ for sale, and there
shall be no purchaser." For a clue to Scripture usage on this point, see
1 Kings xxi. 20, 25--"Thou hast _sold thyself_ to work evil." "There was
none like to Ahab that _sold himself_ to work wickedness."--2 Kings
xvii. 17. "They used divination and enchantments, and _sold themselves_
to do evil."--Isa. l. 1. "For your iniquities have ye _sold
yourselves_." Isa. lii. 3, "Ye have _sold yourselves_ FOR NOUGHT, and ye
shall be redeemed without money." See also, Jer. xxxiv. 14--Romans vii.
14, vi. 16--John viii. 34, and the case of Joseph and the Egyptians,
already quoted. In the purchase of wives, though spoken of rarely, it is
generally stated that they were bought of _third_ persons. If _servants_
were bought of third persons, it is strange that no _instance_ of it is
on record.
II.--THE LEADING DESIGN OF THE LAWS RELATING TO SERVANTS, WITH THE
RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES SECURED TO THEM.
The general object of the laws defining the relations of master and
servant, was the good of both parties--more especially the good of the
_servants_. While the master's interests were guarded from injury, those
of the servants were _promoted_. These laws made a merciful provision
for the poorer classes, both of the Israelites and Strangers, not laying
on burdens, but lightening them--they were a grant of _privileges_ and
_favors_.
I. No servant from the Strangers, could remain in the family of an
Israelite without becoming a proselyte. Compliance with this condition
was the _price of the privilege_.--Gen. xvii. 9-14, 23, 27.
II. Excommunication from the family was a PUNISHMENT.--Gen. xxi. 14.
Luke xvi. 2-4.
III. Every Hebrew servant could COMPEL his master to keep him after the
six years contract had expired. This shows that the system was framed to
advance the interests and gratify the wishes of the servant quite as
much as those of the master. If the servant _demanded_ it, the law
_obliged_ the master to retain him, however little he might need his
services. Deut. xv. 12-17. Ex. xxi. 2-6.
IV. The rights and privileges guarantied by law to all servants.
1. _They were admitted into covenant with God._ Deut. xxix. 10-13.
2. _They were invited guests at all the national and family festivals._
Ex. xii. 43-44; Deut. xii. 12, 18, xvi. 10-16.
3. _They were statedly instructed in morality and religion._ Deut. xxxi.
10-13; Josh. viii. 33-35; 2 Chron. xvii. 8-9.
4. _They were released from their regular labor nearly_ ONE HALF OF THE
WHOLE TIME. During which they had their entire support, and the same
instruction that was provided for the other members of the Hebrew
community.
(a.) The Law secured to them the _whole of every seventh year;_ Lev.
xxv. 3-6; thus giving to those who were servants during the entire
period between the jubilees, _eight whole years,_ including the jubilee
year, of unbroken rest.
(b.) _Every seventh day._ This in forty-two years, the eight being
subtracted from the fifty, would amount to just _six years._
(c.) _The three annual festivals._ The _Passover_, which commenced on
the 15th of the 1st month, and lasted seven days, Deut. xvi. 3, 8. The
Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, which began on the 6th day of the 3d
month, and lasted seven days. Lev. xvi. 10, 11. The Feast of
Tabernacles, which commenced on the 15th of the 7th month, and lasted
eight days. Deut. xvi. 13, 15; Lev. xxiii. 34-39. As all met in one
place, much time would be spent on the journey. Cumbered caravans move
slowly. After their arrival, a day or two would be requisite for divers
preparations before the celebration, besides some time at the close of
it, in preparations for return. If we assign three weeks to each
festival--including the time spent on the journeys, and the delays
before and after the celebration, together with the _festival week_, it
will be a small allowance for the cessation of their regular labor. As
there were three festivals in the year, the main body of the servants
would be absent from their stated employments at least _nine weeks
annually_, which would amount in forty-two years, subtracting the
Sabbaths, to six years and eighty-four days.
(d.) _The new moons._ The Jewish year had twelve; Josephus says that the
Jews always kept _two_ days for the new moon. See Calmet on the Jewish
Calendar, and Horne's Introduction; also 1 Sam. xx. 18, 19, 27. This in
forty-two years, would be two years 280 days.
(e.) _The feast of trumpets_. On the first day of the seventh month, and
of the civil year. Lev. xxiii. 24, 25.
(f.) _The atonement day_. On the tenth of the seventh month. Lev. xxiii.
27.
These two feasts would consume not less than sixty-five days not
reckoned above.
Thus it appears that those who continued servants during the period
between the jubilees, were by law released from their labor,
TWENTY-THREE YEARS AND SIXTY-FOUR DAYS, OUT OF FIFTY YEARS, and those
who remained a less time, in nearly the same proportion. In this
calculation, besides making a donation of all the _fractions_ to the
objector, we have left out those numerous _local_ festivals to which
frequent allusion is made, Judg. xxi. 19; I Sam. ix. etc., and the
various _family_ festivals, such as at the weaning of children; at
marriages; at sheep shearings; at circumcisions; at the making of
covenants, &c., to which reference is often made, as in 1 Sam. xx. 28,
29. Neither have we included the festivals instituted at a later period
of the Jewish history. The feast of Purim, Esth. ix. 28, 29; and of the
Dedication, which lasted eight days. John x. 22; 1 Mac. iv. 59.
Finally, the Mosaic system secured to servants, an amount of time which,
if distributed, would be almost ONE HALF OF THE DAYS IN EACH YEAR.
Meanwhile, they were supported, and furnished with opportunities of
instruction. If this time were distributed over _every day_, the
servants would have to themselves nearly _one half of each day_.
THIS IS A REGULATION OF THAT MOSAIC SYSTEM WHICH IS CLAIMED BY
SLAVEHOLDERS AS THE PROTOTYPE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.
V. The servant was protected by law equally with the other members of
the community.
Proof.--"Judge righteously between every man and his neighbor, and THE
STRANGER THAT IS WITH HIM." "Ye shall not RESPECT PERSONS in judgement,
but ye shall hear the SMALL as well as the great." Deut. i. 16, 17. Also
Lev. xxiv. 22. "Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the
STRANGER, as for one of your own country." So Numb. xv. 29. "Ye shall
have ONE LAW for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him that
is born among the children of Israel and for the STRANGER that
sojourneth among them." Deut. xxvii. 19. "Cursed be he that PERVERTETH
THE JUDGMENT OF THE STRANGER."
VI. The Mosaic system enjoined the greatest affection and kindness
toward servants, foreign as well as Jewish.
Lev. xix. 34. "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as
one born among you, and thou shall love him as thyself." Also Deut. x.
17, 19. "For the Lord your God * * REGARDETH NOT PERSONS. He doth
execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and LOVETH THE
STRANGER, in giving him food and raiment, LOVE YE THEREFORE THE
STRANGER." So Ex. xxii. 21. "Thou shalt neither vex a STRANGER nor
oppress him." Ex. xxiii. 9. "Thou shalt not oppress a STRANGER, for ye
know the heart of a stranger." Lev. xxv. 35, 36. "If thy brother be
waxen poor thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a STRANGER or a
sojourner, that he may live with thee, take thou no usury of him or
increase, but fear thy God." Could this same stranger be taken by one
that feared his God, and held as a slave, and robbed of time, earnings,
and all his rights?
VII. Servants were placed upon a level with their masters in all civil
and religious rights. Num. xv. 15, 16, 29; ix. 14. Deut. i. 16, 17. Lev.
xxiv. 22.
III.--DID PERSONS BECOME SERVANTS VOLUNTARILY, OR WERE THEY MADE
SERVANTS AGAINST THEIR WILLS?
We argue that they became servants _of their own accord_.
I. Because to become a servant in the family of an Israelite, was to
abjure idolatry, to enter into covenant with God[A], be circumcised in
token of it, bound to keep the Sabbath, the Passover, the Pentecost, and
the Feast of Tabernacles, and to receive instruction in the moral and
ceremonial law. Were the servants _forced_ through all these processes?
Was the renunciation of idolatry _compulsory_? Were they _dragged_ into
covenant with God? Were they seized and circumcised by _main strength_?
Were they _compelled_ mechanically to chew, and swallow the flesh of the
Paschal lamb, while they abhorred the institution, spurned the laws that
enjoined it, detested its author and its executors, and instead of
rejoicing in the deliverance which it commemorated, bewailed it as a
calamity, and cursed the day of its consummation? Were they _driven_
from all parts of the land three times in the year to the annual
festivals? Were they drugged with instruction which they nauseated?
Goaded through a round of ceremonies, to them senseless and disgusting
mummeries; and drilled into the tactics of a creed rank with loathed
abominations? We repeat it, to became a _servant_, was to become a
_proselyte_. And did God authorize his people to make proselytes, at the
point of the sword? by the terror of pains and penalties? by converting
men into _merchandise_? Were _proselyte and chattel_ synonymes, in the
Divine vocabulary? Must a man be sunk to a _thing_ before taken into
covenant with God? Was this the stipulated condition of adoption, and
the sole passport to the communion of the saints?
[Footnote A: Maimonides, who wrote in Egypt about seven hundred years
ago, a contemporary with Jarchi, and who stands with him at the head of
Jewish writers, gives the following testimony on this point: "Whether a
servant be born in the power of an Israelite, or whether he be purchased
from the heathen, the master is to bring them both into the covenant."
"But he that is in the _house_ is entered on the eighth day, and he that
is bought with money, on the day on which his master receives him,
unless the slave be _unwilling_. For if the master receive a grown
slave, and he be _unwilling_, his master is to bear with him, to seek to
win him over by instruction, and by love and kindness, for one year.
After which, should he _refuse_ so long, it is forbidden to keep him
longer than a year. And the master must send him back to the strangers
from whence he came. For the God of Jacob will not accept any other than
the worship of a willing heart"--Mamon, Hilcoth Mileth, Chap. 1st, Sec.
8th.
The ancient Jewish Doctors assert that the servant from the Strangers
who at the close of his probationary year, refused to adopt the Jewish
religion and was on that account sent back to his own people, received a
_full compensation_ for his services, besides the payment of his
expenses. But that _postponement_ of the circumcision of the foreign
servant for a year (_or even at all_ after he had entered the family of
an Israelite), of which the Mishnic doctors speak, seems to have been _a
mere usage_. We find nothing of it in the regulations of the Mosaic
system. Circumcision was manifestly a rite strictly _initiatory_.
Whether it was a rite merely _national_ or _spiritual_, or _both_, comes
not within the scope of this inquiry. ]
II. We argue the voluntariness of servants from Deut. xxiii. 15, 16,
"Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped
from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in
that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh
him best; thou shalt not oppress him."
As though God had said, "To deliver him up would be to recognize the
_right_ of the master to hold him; his _fleeing_ shows his
_choice_--proclaims his wrongs and his title to protection; you shall
not force him back and thus recognize the _right_ of the master to hold
him in such a condition as induces him to flee to others for
protection." It may be said that this command referred only to the
servants of _heathen_ masters in the surrounding nations. We answer, the
terms of the command are unlimited. But the objection, if valid, would
merely shift the pressure of the difficulty to another point. Did God
require them to protect the _free choice_ of a _single_ servant from the
heathen, and yet _authorize_ the same persons, to crush the free choice
of _thousands_ of servants from the heathen? Suppose a case. A _foreign_
servant flees to the Israelites; God says, "He shall dwell with thee, in
that place which _he shall choose_, in one of thy gates where it _liketh
him_ best." Now, suppose this same servant, instead of coming into
Israel of his own accord, had been _dragged_ in by some kidnapper who
_bought_ him of his master, and _forced_ him into a condition against
his will; would He who forbade such treatment of the stranger, who
_voluntarily_ came into the land, sanction the _same_ treatment of the
_same person_, provided in _addition_ to this last outrage, the
_previous_ one had been committed of forcing him into the nation against
his will? To commit violence on the free choice of a _foreign_ servant
is forsooth a horrible enormity, PROVIDED you _begin_ the violence
_after_ he has come among you. But if you commit the _first act_ on the
_other side of the line_; if you begin the outrage by buying him from a
third person against his will, and then tear him from home, drag him
across the line into the land of Israel, and hold him as a slave--ah!
that alters the case, and you may perpetrate the violence now with
impunity! Would _greater_ favor have been shown to this new comer than
to the old residents--those who had been servants in Jewish families
perhaps for a generation? Were the Israelites commanded to exercise
toward _him_, uncircumcised and out of the covenant, a justice and
kindness denied to the multitudes who _were_ circumcised, and _within_
the covenant? But, the objector finds small gain to his argument on the
supposition that the covenant respected merely the fugitives from the
surrounding nations, while it left the servants of the Israelites in a
condition against their wills. In that case, the surrounding nations
would adopt retaliatory measures, and become so many asylums for Jewish
fugitives. As these nations were not only on every side of them, but in
their midst, such a proclamation would have been an effectual lure to
men whose condition was a constant counteraction of will. Besides the
same command which protected the servant from the power of his foreign
_master_, protected him equally from the power of an _Israelite_. It was
not, "Thou shalt not deliver him unto his _master_," but "he shall dwell
with thee, in that place which _he shall choose_ in one of thy gates
where it liketh _him_ best." Every Israelite was forbidden to put him in
any condition _against his will_. What was this but a proclamation, that
all who _chose_ to live in the land and obey the laws, were left to
their own free will, to dispose of their services at such a rate, to
such persons and in such places as they pleased? Besides, grant that
this command prohibited the sending back of _foreign_ servants merely,
there was no law requiring the return of servants who had escaped from
the _Israelites_. _Property_ lost, and _cattle_ escaped, they were
required to return, but not escaped servants. These verses contain 1st,
a command, "Thou shall not deliver," &c., 2d, a declaration of the
fugitive's right of _free choice_, and of God's will that he should
exercise it at his own discretion; and 3d, a command guarding this
right, namely, "Thou shalt not oppress him," as though God had said, "If
you restrain him from exercising his _own choice_, as to the place and
condition of his residence, it is _oppression_."
III. We argue the voluntariness of servants from their peculiar
opportunities and facilities for escape. Three times every year, all the
males over twelve years, were required to attend the national feasts.
They were thus absent from their homes not less than three weeks at each
time, making nine weeks annually. As these caravans moved over the
country, were there military scouts lining the way, to intercept
deserters?--a corporal's guard at each pass of the mountains, sentinels
pacing the hill-tops, and light horse scouring the defiles? The
Israelites must have had some safe contrivance for taking their
"_slaves_" three times in a year to Jerusalem and back. When a body of
slaves is moved any distance in our _republic_, they are hand-cuffed and
chained together, to keep them from running away, or beating their
drivers' brains out. Was this the _Mosaic_ plan, or an improvement
introduced by Samuel, or was it left for the wisdom of Solomon? The
usage, doubtless, claims a paternity not less venerable and biblical!
Perhaps they were lashed upon camels, and transported in bundles, or
caged up, and trundled on wheels to and fro, and while at the Holy City,
"lodged in jail for safe keeping," the Sanhedrim appointing special
religious services for their benefit, and their "drivers" officiating at
"ORAL instruction." Mean while, what became of the sturdy _handmaids_
left at home? What hindered them from marching off in a body? Perhaps
the Israelitish matrons stood sentry in rotation round the kitchens,
while the young ladies scoured the country, as mounted rangers, picking
up stragglers by day, and patrolled the streets, keeping a sharp
look-out at night.
IV. Their continuance in Jewish families depended upon the performance
of various rites necessarily VOLUNTARY.
Suppose the servants from the heathen had upon entering Jewish families,
refused circumcision; if _slaves_, how simple the process of
emancipation! Their _refusal_ did the job. Or, suppose they had refused
to attend the annual feasts, or had eaten unleavened bread during the
Passover, or compounded the ingredients of the anointing oil, they would
have been "cut off from the people;" _excommunicated_.
V. We infer the voluntariness of the servants of the Patriarchs from the
impossibility of their having been held against their wills. Abraham's
servants are an illustration. At one time he had three hundred and
eighteen _young men_ "born in his house," and many more _not_ born in
his house. His servants of all ages, were probably MANY THOUSANDS. How
Abraham and Sarah contrived to hold fast so many thousand servants
against their wills, we are left quite in the dark. The most natural
supposition is that the Patriarch and his wife _took turns_ in
surrounding them! The neighboring tribes, instead of constituting a
picket guard to hem in his servants, would have been far more likely to
sweep them and him into captivity, as they did Lot and his household.
Besides, there was neither "Constitution" nor "compact," to send back
Abraham's fugitives, nor a truckling police to pounce upon them, nor
gentleman-kidnappers, suing for his patronage, volunteering to howl on
their track, boasting their blood-hound scent, and pledging their
"honor" to hunt down and "deliver up," _provided_ they had a description
of the "flesh-marks," and were suitably stimulated by _pieces of
silver_. Abraham seems also to have been sadly deficient in all the
auxiliaries of family government, such as stocks, hand-cuffs,
foot-chains, yokes, gags, and thumb-screws. His destitution of these
patriarchal indispensables is the more afflicting, since he faithfully
trained "his household to do justice and judgment," though so deplorably
destitute of the needful aids.
VI. We infer that servants were voluntary, as there is no instance of an
Israelitish master SELLING a servant. Abraham had thousands of servants,
but seems never to have sold one. Isaac "grew until he became very
great," and had "great store of servants." Jacob's youth was spent in
the family of Laban, where he lived a servant twenty-one years.
Afterward he had a large number of servants. Joseph sent for Jacob to
come into Egypt, "thou and thy children, and thy children's children,
and thy flocks and thy herds, and ALL THAT THOU HAST." Jacob took his
flocks and herds but _no servants_. Gen xlv. 10; xlvii. 16. They
doubtless, served under their _own contracts_, and when Jacob went into
Egypt, they _chose_ to stay in their own country. The government might
sell _thieves_, if they had no property, until their services had made
good the injury, and paid the legal fine. Ex. xxii. 3. But _masters_
seem to have had no power to sell their _servants_. To give the master a
_right_ to sell his servant, would annihilate the servant's right of
choice in his own disposal; but says the objector, "to give the master a
right to _buy_ a servant, equally annihilates the servant's _right of
choice_." Answer. It is one thing to have a right to buy a man, and a
different thing to have a right to buy him of _another_ man[A].
[Footnote A: There is no evidence that masters had the power to dispose
even the _services_ of their servants, as men hire out their laborers
whom they employ by the year; but whether they had or not, affects not
the argument.]
Though servants were not bought of their masters, yet young females were
bought of their _fathers_. But their purchase as _servants_ was their
betrothal as wives. Ex. xxi. 7, 8. "If a man sell his daughter to be a
maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please
not her master WHO HATH BETROTHED HER TO HIMSELF, he shall let her be
redeemed."[B]
[Footnote B: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows: "A
Hebrew handmaid might not be sold but to one who laid himself under
obligations, to espouse her to himself or to his son, when she was fit
to be betrothed."--_Maimonides--Hilcoth--Obedim_, Ch. IV. Sec. XI.
Jarchi, on the same passage, says, "He is bound to espouse her and take
her to be his wife, for the _money of her purchase_ is the money of her
espousal."]
VII. We infer that the Hebrew servant was voluntary in COMMENCING his
service, because he was pre-eminently so IN CONTINUING it. If, at the
year of release, it was the servant's _choice_ to remain with his
master, law required his ear to be bored by the judges of the land, thus
making it impossible for him to be held against his will. Yea more, his
master was _compelled_ to keep him, however much he might wish to get
rid of him.
VIII. The method prescribed for procuring servants, was an appeal to
their choice. The Israelites were commanded to offer them a suitable
inducement, and then leave them to decide. They might neither seize them
by _force_, nor frighten them by _threats_, nor wheedle them by false
pretences, nor _borrow_ them, nor _beg_ them; but they were commanded to
buy them[A]; that is, they were to recognize the _right_ of the
individuals to _dispose_ of their own services, and their right to
_refuse all offers_, and thus oblige those who made them, _to do their
own work_. Suppose all, with one accord, had _refused_ to become
servants, what provision did the Mosaic law make for such an emergency?
NONE.
[Footnote A: The case of thieves, whose services were sold until they
had earned enough to make restitution to the person wronged, and to pay
the legal penalty, _stands by itself,_ and has nothing to do with the
condition of servants.]
IX. Various incidental expressions corroborate the idea that servants
became such by their own contract. Job xli. 4, is an illustration, "Will
he (Leviathan) make a COVENANT with thee? wilt thou take him for a
SERVANT forever?"
X. The transaction which made the Egyptians the SERVANTS OF PHARAOH was
voluntary throughout. See Gen. xlvii. 18-26. Of their own accord they
came to Joseph and said, "We have not aught left but our _bodies_ and
our lands; _buy us_;" then in the 25th verse, "we will be servants to
Pharaoh."
XI. We infer the voluntariness of servants, from the fact that RICH
Strangers did not become servants. Indeed, so far were they from
becoming servants themselves, that they bought and held Jewish servants.
Lev. xxv. 47.
XII. The sacrifices and offerings which ALL were required to present,
were to be made VOLUNTARILY. Lev. i. 2, 3.
XIII. Mention is often made of persons becoming servants where they were
manifestly and pre-eminently VOLUNTARY. As the Prophet Elisha. 1 Kings
xix. 21; 2 Kings iii. 11. Elijah was his _master_. The word, translated
master, is the same that is so rendered in almost every instance where
masters are spoken of under the Mosaic and patriarchal systems. Moses
was the servant of Jethro. Ex. iii. 1. Joshua was the servant of Moses.
Num. xi. 28. Jacob was the servant of Laban. Gen. xxix. 18-27.
IV.--WERE THE SERVANTS FORCED TO WORK WITHOUT PAY?
As the servants became and continued such of _their own accord_, it
would be no small marvel if they _chose_ to work without pay. Their
becoming servants, pre-supposes _compensation_ as a motive. That they
_were paid_ for their labor, we argue,
I. Because God rebuked in thunder, the sin of using the labor of others
without wages. "Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness,
and his chambers by wrong; THAT USETH HIS NEIGHBOR'S SERVICE WITHOUT
WAGES, and giveth him not for his work." Jer. xxii. 13. God here
testifies that to use the service of others without wages is
"unrighteousness" and pronounces his "wo" against the doer of the
"wrong." The Hebrew word _Rea_, translated _neighbor_, does not mean one
man, or class of men, in distinction from others, but any one with whom
we have to do--all descriptions of persons, even those who prosecute us
in lawsuits and enemies while in the act of fighting us--"As when a man
riseth against his NEIGHBOR and slayeth him." Deut. xxii. 26. "Go not
forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end
thereof, when thy NEIGHBOR hath put thee to shame." Prov. xxv. 8. "Thou
shalt not bear false witness against thy NEIGHBOR." Ex. xx. 16. "If any
man come presumptuously upon his NEIGHBOR to slay him with guile." Ex.
xxi. 14, &c.
II. God testifies that in our duty to our fellow men, ALL THE LAW AND
THE PROPHETS hang upon this command, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself." Our Savior, in giving this command, quoted _verbatim_ one of
the laws of the Mosaic system. Lev. xix. 18. In the 34th verse of the
same chapter, Moses applies this law to the treatment of Strangers, "The
stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you,
and THOU SHALT LOVE HIM AS THYSELF." If it be loving others _as_
ourselves, to make them work for us without pay; to rob them of food and
clothing also, would be a stronger illustration still of the law of
love! _Super_-disinterested benevolence! And if it be doing unto others
as we would have them do to us, to make them work for _our own_ good
alone, Paul should be called to order for his hard saying against human
nature, especially for that libellous matter in Eph. v. 29, "No man ever
yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherisheth it."
III. As persons became servants FROM POVERTY, we argue that they were
compensated, since they frequently owned property, and sometimes a large
amount. Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, gave David a princely
present, "An hundred loaves of bread, and an hundred bunches of raisins,
and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine." 2 Sam. xvi. 1.
The extent of his possessions can be inferred from the fact, that though
the father of fifteen sons, he had twenty servants. In Lev. xxv. 57-59,
where a servant, reduced to poverty, sold himself, it is declared that
he may be _redeemed_, either by his kindred, or by HIMSELF. Having been
forced to sell himself from poverty, he must have acquired considerable
property _after_ he became a servant. If it had not been common for
servants to acquire property over which they had the control, the
servant of Elisha would hardly have ventured to take a large sum of
money, (nearly $3000[A]) from Naaman, 2 Kings v. 22, 23. As it was
procured by deceit, he wished to conceal the means used in getting it;
but if servants, could "own nothing, nor acquire any thing," to embark
in such an enterprise would have been consummate stupidity. The fact of
having in his possession two talents of silver, would of itself convict
him of theft[B]. But since it was common for servants to own property he
might have it, and invest or use it, without attracting special
attention, and that consideration alone would have been a strong motive
to the act. His master, while rebuking him for using such means to get
the money, not only does not take it from him; but seems to expect that
he would invest it in real estate, and cattle, and would procure
servants with it. 2 Kings v. 26. We find the servant of Saul having
money, and relieving his master in an emergency. 1 Sam. ix. 8. Arza, the
servant of Elah, was the _owner of a house_. That it was somewhat
magnificent, would be a natural inference from it's being a resort of
the king. 1 Kings xvi. 9. The case of the Gibeonites, who after becoming
servants, still occupied their cities, and remained in many respects, a
distinct people for centuries; and that of the 150,000 Canaanites, the
_servants_ of Solomon, who worked out their "tribute of bond-service" in
levies, periodically relieving each other, are additional illustrations
of independence in the acquisition and ownership of property.
[Footnote A: Though we have not sufficient data to decide upon the
_relative_ value of that sum, _then_ and _now_, yet we have enough to
warrant us in saying that two talents of silver, had far more value
_then_ than three thousand dollars have _now_.]
[Footnote B: Whoever heard of the slaves in our southern states stealing
a large amount of money? They "_know how to take care of themselves_"
quite too well for that. When they steal, they are careful to do it on
such a _small_ scale, or in the taking of _such things_ as will make
detection difficult. No doubt they steal now and then a little, and a
gaping marvel would it be if they did not. Why should they not follow in
the footsteps of their masters and mistresses? Dull scholars indeed! if,
after so many lessons from _proficients_ in the art, who drive the
business by _wholesale_, they should not occasionally copy their
betters, fall into the _fashion_, and try their hand in a small way, at
a practice which is the _only permanent and universal_ business carried
on around them! Ignoble truly! never to feel the stirrings of high
impulse, prompting to imitate the eminent pattern set before them in the
daily vocation of "Honorables" and "Excellences," and to emulate the
illustrious examples of Doctors of Divinity, and _Right_ and _Very
Reverends_! Hear President Jefferson's testimony. In his Notes on
Virginia, pp. 207-8, speaking of slaves, he says, "That disposition to
theft with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their
_situation_, and not to any special depravity of the moral sense. It is
a problem which I give the master to solve, whether the religious
precepts against the violation of property were not framed for HIM as
well as for his slave--and whether the slave may not as justifiably take
a _little_ from one who has taken ALL from him, as he may _slay_ one who
would slay him?"]
IV. Heirship.--Servants frequently inherited their master's property;
especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the family.
Eliezer, the servant of Abraham; Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth,
Jarha the servant of Sheshan, and the _husbandmen_ who said of their
master's son, "this is the HEIR, let us kill him, and the INHERITANCE
WILL BE OURS," are illustrations; also Prov. xvii. 2--"A wise servant
shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and SHALL HAVE PART OF
THE INHERITANCE AMONG THE BRETHREN." This passage gives servants
precedence as heirs, even over the wives and daughters of their masters.
Did masters hold by force, and plunder of earnings, a class of persons,
from which, in frequent contingencies, they selected both heirs for
their property, and husbands for their daughters?
V. ALL were required to present offerings and sacrifices. Deut. xvi. 15,
17, 2 Chron. xv. 9-11. Numb. ix. 13. Servants must have had permanently,
the means of _acquiring_ property to meet these expenditures.
VI. Those Hebrew servants who went out at the seventh year, were
provided by law with a large stock of provisions and cattle. Deut. xv.
11-14. "Thou shall furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of
thy flour, and out of thy wine press, of that wherewith the Lord thy God
hath blessed thee, thou shall give him[A]." If it be said that the
servants from the Strangers did not receive a like bountiful supply, we
answer, neither did the most honorable class of _Israelitish_ servants,
the free-holders; and for the same reason, _they did not go out in the
seventh year_, but continued until the jubilee. If the fact that the
Gentile servants did not receive such a _gratuity_ proves that they were
robbed of their _earnings_, it proves that the most valued class of
_Hebrew_ servants were robbed of theirs also; a conclusion too stubborn
for even pro-slavery masticators, however unscrupulous.
[Footnote A: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as
follows--"Thou shalt furnish him liberally," &c. "That is to say,
'_Loading, ye shall load him_,' likewise every one of his family, with
as much as he can take with him--abundant benefits. And if it be
avariciously asked, "How much must I give him?" I say unto _you, not
less than thirty shekels_, which is the valuation of a servant, as
declared in Ex. xxi. 32."--Maimonides, Hilcoth Obedim, Chap. ii. Sec. 3]
VII. The servants were BOUGHT. In other words, they received
compensation in advance. Having shown, under a previous head, that
servants _sold themselves_, and of course received the compensation for
themselves, except in cases where parents hired out the time of their
children till they became of age[B], a mere reference to the fact is all
that is required for the purposes of this argument.
[Footnote B: Among the Israelites, girls became of age at twelve, and
boys at thirteen years.]
VIII. We find masters at one time having a large number of servants, and
afterwards none, without any intimation that they were sold. The wages
of servants would enable them to set up in business for themselves.
Jacob, after being Laban's servant for twenty-one years, became thus an
independent herdsman, and was the master of many servants. Gen. xxx. 43,
xxxii. 15. But all these servants had left him before he went down into
Egypt, having doubtless acquired enough to commence business for
themselves. Gen. xlv. 10, 11; xlvi. 1-7, 32.
IX. God's testimony to the character of Abraham. Gen. xviii. 19. "For I
know him that he will command his children and his household after him,
and they shall keep, THE WAY OF THE LORD TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGEMENT."
God here testifies that Abraham taught his servants "the way of the
Lord." What was the "way of the Lord" respecting the payment of wages
where service was rendered? "Wo unto him that useth his neighbor's
service WITHOUT WAGES!" Jer. xxii. 13. "Masters, give unto your servants
that which is JUST AND EQUAL." Col. iv. 1. "Render unto all their DUES."
Rom. xiii. 7. "The laborer is WORTHY OF HIS HIRE." Luke x. 7. How did
Abraham teach his servants to "_do justice_" to others? By doing
injustice to them? Did he exhort them to "render to all their dues" by
keeping back _their own_? Did he teach them that "the laborer was worthy
of his hire" by robbing them of _theirs_? Did he beget in them a
reverence for honesty by pilfering all their time and labor? Did he
teach them "not to defraud" others "in any matter" by denying them "what
was just and equal?" If each of Abraham's pupils under such a catechism
did not become a very _Aristides_ in justice, then illustrious examples,
patriarchal dignity, and _practical_ lessons, can make but slow headway
against human perverseness!
X. _Specific precepts of the Mosaic law enforcing general principles_.
Out of many, we select the following: (1.) "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox
that treadeth out the corn," or literally, while he thresheth. Deut.
xxv. 4. Here is a general principle applied to a familiar case. The ox
representing all domestic animals. Isa. xxx. 24. A _particular_ kind of
service, _all_ kinds; and a law requiring an abundant provision for the
wants of an animal ministering to man in a _certain_ way,--a general
principle of treatment covering all times, modes, and instrumentalities
of service. The object of the law was; not merely to enjoin tenderness
towards brutes, but to inculcate the duty of rewarding those who serve
us; and if such care be enjoined, by God, both for the ample sustenance
and present enjoyment _of a brute_, what would be a meet return for the
services of _man_?--MAN with his varied wants, exalted nature and
immortal destiny! Paul says expressly, that this principle lies at the
bottom of the statute. 1 Cor. ix. 9, 10, "For it is written in the law
of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out
the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for OUR
SAKES? that he that ploweth should plow in HOPE, and that he that
thresheth in hope should be PARTAKER OF HIS HOPE," (2.) "If thy brother
be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve
him, YEA, THOUGH HE BE A STRANGER or a SOJOURNER that he may live with
thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase, but fear thy God. Thou
shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for
increase." Lev. xxv. 35-37. Now, we ask, by what process of pro-slavery
legerdemain, this regulation can be made to harmonize with the doctrine
of WORK WITHOUT PAY? Did God declare the poor stranger entitled to
RELIEF, and in the same breath, authorize them to "use his services
without wages;" force him to work and ROB HIM OF HIS EARNINGS?
V.--WERE MASTERS THE PROPRIETORS OF SERVANTS AS LEGAL PROPERTY?
The discussion of this topic has already been somewhat anticipated, but
a variety of additional considerations remain to be noticed.
1. Servants were not subjected to the uses nor liable to the
contingencies of property. (1.) They were never taken in payment for
their masters' debts, though children were sometimes taken (without
legal authority) for the debts of a father. 2 Kings iv. 1; Job xxiv. 9;
Isa. l., 1; Matt. xviii. 25. Creditors took from debtors property of all
kinds, to satisfy their demands. Job xxiv. 3, cattle are taken; Prov.
xxii. 27, household furniture; Lev. xxv. 25-28, the productions of the
soil; Lev. xxv. 27-30, houses; Ex. xxii. 26-29, Deut. xxiv. 10-13, Matt,
v. 40, clothing; but _servants_ were taken in _no instance_. (2.)
Servants were never given as pledges. Property of all sorts was given in
pledge. We find household furniture, clothing, cattle, money, signets,
and personal ornaments, with divers other articles of property, used as
pledges for value received; but no servants. (3.) All lost PROPERTY was
to be restored. Oxen, asses, sheep, raiment, and "whatsoever lost
things," are specified--servants _not_. Deut. xxii. 13. Besides, the
Israelites were forbidden to return the runaway servant. Deut. xxiii.
15. (4.) The Israelites never gave away their servants as presents. They
made costly presents, of great variety. Lands, houses, all kinds of
animals, merchandise, family utensils, precious metals, grain, armor,
&c. are among their recorded _gifts_. Giving presents to superiors and
persons of rank, was a standing usage. 1 Sam. x. 27; 1 Sam. xvi. 20; 2
Chron. xvii. 5. Abraham to Abimelech, Gen. xxi. 27; Jacob to the viceroy
of Egypt, Gen. xliii. 11; Joseph to his brethren and father, Gen. xlv.
22, 23; Benhadad to Elisha, 2 Kings viii. 8, 9; Ahaz to Tiglath Pilezer,
2 Kings vi. 8; Solomon to the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings x. 13; Jeroboam to
Ahijah, 1 Kings xiv. 3; Asa to Benhadad, 1 Kings xv. 18, 19. But no
servants were given as presents--though it was a prevailing fashion in
the surrounding nations. Gen. xii. 16; Gen. xx. 14. It may be objected
that Laban GAVE handmaids to his daughters, Jacob's wives. Without
enlarging on the nature of the polygamy then prevalent suffice it to say
that the handmaids of wives were regarded as wives, though of inferior
dignity and authority. That Jacob so regarded his handmaids, is proved
by his curse upon Reuben, Gen. xlix. 4, and Chron. v. 1; also by the
equality of their children with those of Rachel and Leah. But had it
been otherwise--had Laban given them as _articles of property_, then,
indeed, the example of this "good old patriarch and slaveholder," Saint
Laban, would have been a forecloser to all argument. Ah! we remember his
jealousy for _religion_--his holy indignation when he found that his
"GODS" were stolen! How he mustered his clan, and plunged over the
desert in hot pursuit, seven days, by forced marches; how he ransacked a
whole caravan, sifting the contents of every tent, little heeding such
small matters as domestic privacy, or female seclusion, for lo! the zeal
of his "IMAGES" had eaten him up! No wonder that slavery, in its
Bible-navigation, drifting dismantled before the free gusts, should scud
under the lee of such a pious worthy to haul up and refit: invoking his
protection, and the benediction of his "GODS!" "Again, it may be
objected that, servants were enumerated in inventories of property. If
that proves _servants_ property, it proves _wives_ property. "Thou shalt
not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's
WIFE, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his
ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's." Ex. xx. 17. In inventories
of _mere property_ if servants are included, it is in such a way, as to
show that they are not regarded as _property_. See Eccl. ii. 7, 8. But
when the design is to show not merely the wealth, but the _greatness_ of
any personage, servants are spoken of, as well as property. In a word,
if _riches_ alone are spoken of, no mention is made of servants; if
_greatness_, servants and property. Gen. xiii. 2. "And Abraham was very
rich in cattle, in silver and in gold." So in the fifth verse, "And Lot
also had flocks, and herds, and tents." In the seventh verse servants
are mentioned, "And there was a strife between the HERDMEN of Abraham's
cattle and the HERDMEN of Lot's cattle." See also Josh. xxii. 8; Gen.
xxxiv. 23; Job xlii. 12; 2 Chron. xxi. 3; xxxii. 27-29; Job i. 3-5;
Deut. viii. 12-17; Gen. xxiv. 35, xxvi. 13, xxx. 43. Jacobs's wives say
to him, "All the _riches_ which thou hast taken from our father that is
ours and our children's." Then follows an inventory of property. "All
his cattle," "all his goods," "the cattle of his getting." He had a
large number of servants at the time but they are not included with his
property. Comp. Gen. xxx. 43, with Gen. xxxi. 16-18. When he sent
messengers to Esau, wishing to impress him with an idea of his state and
sway, he bade them tell him not only of his RICHES, but of his
GREATNESS; that Jacob had "oxen, and asses, and flocks, and
men-servants, and maid-servants." Gen. xxxii. 4, 5. Yet in the present
which he sent, there were no servants; though he seems to have sought as
much variety as possible. Gen. xxxii. 14, 15; see also Gen. xxxvi. 6, 7;
Gen. xxxiv. 23. As flocks and herds were the staples of wealth, a large
number of servants presupposed large possessions of cattle, which would
require many herdsmen. When servants are spoken of in connection with
_mere property_, the terms used to express the latter do not include the
former. The Hebrew word _Mikne_, is an illustration. It is derived from
_Kana_, to procure, to buy, and its meaning is, _a possession, wealth,
riches_. It occurs more than forty times in the Old Testament, and is
applied always to _mere property_, generally to domestic animals, but
never to servants. In some instances, servants are mentioned in
distinction from the _Mikne_. And Abraham took Sarah his wife, and Lot
his brother's son, and all their SUBSTANCE that they had gathered; and
the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to go into
the land of Canaan."--Gen. xii. 5. Many will have it, that these _souls_
were a part of Abraham's _substance_ (notwithstanding the pains here
taken to separate them from it)--that they were slaves taken with him in
his migration as a part of his family effects. Who but slaveholders,
either actually or in heart, would torture into the principle and
practice of slavery, such a harmless phrase as "_the souls that they had
gotten_?" Until the slave trade breathed its haze upon the vision of the
church, and smote her with palsy and decay, commentators saw no slavery
in, "The souls that they had gotten." In the Targum of Onkelos[A] it is
rendered, "The souls whom they had brought to obey the law in Haran." In
the Targum of Jonathan, "The souls whom they had made proselytes in
Haran." In the Targum of Jerusalem, "The souls proselyted in Haran."
Jarchi, the prince of Jewish commentators, "The souls whom they had
brought under the Divine wings." Jerome, one of the most learned of the
Christian fathers, "The persons whom they had proselyted." The Persian
version, the Vulgate, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Samaritan all
render it, "All the wealth which they had gathered, and the souls which
they had made in Haran." Menochius, a commentator who wrote before our
present translation of the Bible, renders it, "Quas de idolatraria
converterant." "Those whom they had converted from idolatry."--Paulus
Fagius[B]. "Quas instituerant in religione." "Those whom they had
established in religion." Luke Francke, a German commentator who lived
two centuries ago. "Quas legi subjicerant"--"Those whom they had brought
to obey the law."
[Footnote A: The Targums are Chaldee paraphrases of parts of the Old
Testament. The Targum of Onkelas is, for the most part, a very accurate
and faithful translation of the original, and was probably made at about
the commencement of the Christian era. The Targum of Jonathan Ben
Uzziel, bears about the same date. The Targum of Jerusalem was probably
about five hundred years later. The Israelites, during their captivity
in Babylon, lost, as a body, their own language. These translations into
the Chaldee, the language which they acquired in Babylon, were thus
called for by the necessity of the case.]
[Footnote B: This eminent Hebrew scholar was invited to England to
superintend the translation of the Bible into English, under the
patronage of Henry the Eighth. He had hardly commenced the work when he
died. This was nearly a century before the date of our present
translation.]
II. The condition and treatment of servants make the doctrine that they
were mere COMMODITIES, an absurdity. St. Paul's testimony in Gal. iv. 1,
shows the condition of servants: "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so
long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be
lord of all." That Abraham's servants were voluntary, that their
interests were identified with those of their master's family, and that
the utmost confidence was reposed in them, is shown in their being
armed.--Gen. xiv. 14, 15. When Abraham's servant went to Padanaram, the
young Princess Rebecca did not disdain to say to him, "Drink, MY LORD,"
as "she hasted and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him
drink." Laban, the brother of Rebecca, "ungirded his camels, and brought
him water to wash his feet and the men's feet that were with him!" In 1
Sam. ix. is an account of a festival in the city of Zuph, at which
Samuel presided. None but those bidden, sat down at the feast, and only
"about thirty persons" were invited. Quite a select party!--the elite of
the city. Saul and his servant had just arrived at Zuph, and _both_ of
them, at Samuel's solicitation, accompany him as invited guests. "And
Samuel took Saul and his SERVANT, and brought THEM into the PARLOR(!)
and made THEM sit in the CHIEFEST SEATS among those that were bidden." A
_servant_ invited by the chief judge, ruler, and prophet in Israel, to
dine publicly with a select party, in company with his master, who was
at the same time anointed King of Israel! and this servant introduced by
Samuel into the PARLOR, and assigned, with his master, to the _chiefest
seat_ at the table! This was "_one_ of the servants" of Kish, Saul's
father; not the steward or the chief of them--not at all a _picked_ man,
but "_one_ of the servants;" _any_ one that could be most easily spared,
as no endowments specially rare would be likely to find scope in looking
after asses. Again: we find Elah, the King of Israel, at a festive
entertainment, in the house of Arza, his steward, or head servant, with
whom he seems to have been on terms of familiarity.--1 Kings xvi. 8, 9.
See also the intercourse between Gideon and his servant.--Judg. vii. 10,
11. Jonathan and his servant.--1 Sam. xiv. 1-14. Elisha and his
servant.--2 Kings iv. v. vi.
III. The case of the Gibeonites. The condition of the inhabitants of
Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim, under the Hebrew
commonwealth, is quoted in triumph by the advocates of slavery; and
truly they are right welcome to all the crumbs that can be gleaned from
it. Milton's devils made desperate snatches at fruit that turned to
ashes on their lips. The spirit of slavery raves under tormenting
gnawings, and casts about in blind phrenzy for something to ease, or
even to _mock_ them. But for this, it would never have clutched at the
Gibeonites, for even the incantations of the demon cauldron, could not
extract from their case enough to tantalize starvation's self. But to
the question. What was the condition of the Gibeonites under the
Israelites? (1.) _It was voluntary_. Their own proposition to Joshua was
to become servants. Josh. ix. 8, 11. It was accepted, but the kind of
service which they should perform, was not specified until their gross
imposition came to light; they were then assigned to menial offices in
the Tabernacle. (2.) _They were not domestic servants in the families of
the Israelites_. They still resided in their own cities, cultivated
their own fields, tended their flocks and herds, and exercised the
functions of a _distinct_, though not independent community. They were
subject to the Jewish nation as _tributaries_. So far from being
distributed among the Israelites, and their internal organization as a
distinct people abolished, they remained a separate, and, in some
respects, an independent community for many centuries. When attacked by
the Amorites, they applied to the Israelites as confederates for aid--it
was rendered, their enemies routed, and themselves left unmolested in
their cities. Josh. x. 6-18. Long afterwards, Saul slew some of them,
and God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. David inquired of
the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the
atonement?" At their demand, he delivered up to them, seven of Saul's
descendants. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-9. The whole transaction was a formal
recognition of the Gibeonites as a distinct people. There is no
intimation that they served families, or individuals of the Israelites,
but only the "house of God," or the Tabernacle. This was established
first at Gilgal, a day's journey from their cities; and then at Shiloh,
nearly two day's journey from them; where it continued about 350 years.
During this period, the Gibeonites inhabited their ancient cities and
territory. Only a few, comparatively, could have been absent at any one
time in attendance on the Tabernacle. Wherever allusion is made to them
in the history, the main body are spoken of as _at home_. It is
preposterous to suppose that all the inhabitants of these four cities
could find employment at the Tabernacle. One of them "was a great city,
as one of the royal cities;" so large, that a confederacy of five kings,
apparently the most powerful in the land, was deemed necessary for its
destruction. It is probable that the men were divided into classes,
ministering in rotation--each class a few days or weeks at a time. This
service was their _national tribute_ to the Israelites, for the
privilege of residence and protection under their government. No service
seems to have been required of the _females_. As these Gibeonites were
Canaanites, and as they had greatly exasperated the Israelites by
impudent imposition, and lying, we might assuredly expect that they
would reduce _them_ to the condition of chattels if there was _any_ case
in which God permitted them to do so.
IV. Throughout the Mosaic system, God warns the Israelites against
holding their servants in such a condition as they were held in by the
Egyptians. How often are they pointed back to the grindings of their
prison-house! What motives to the exercise of justice and kindness
towards their servants, are held out to their fears in threatened
judgments; to their hopes in promised good; and to all within them that
could feel; by those oft repeated words of tenderness and terror! "For
ye were bondmen in the land of Egypt"--waking anew the memory of tears
and anguish, and of the wrath that avenged them.
God's denunciations against the bondage of Egypt make it incumbent on us
to ascertain, of what rights the Israelites were plundered, and what
they retained.
EGYPTIAN BONDAGE ANALYZED. (1.) The Israelites were not dispersed among
the families of Egypt[A], but formed a separate community. Gen. xlvi.
35. Ex. viii. 22, 24; ix. 26; x. 23; xi. 7; ii. 9; xvi. 22; xvii. 5.
(2.) They had the exclusive possession of the land of Goshen[B]. Gen.
xlv. 18; xlvii. 6, 11, 27. Ex. xii. 4, 19, 22, 23, 27. (3.) They lived
in permanent dwellings. These were _houses_, not _tents_. In Ex. xii. 6,
22, the two side _posts_, and the upper door _posts_, and the lintel of
the houses are mentioned. Each family seems to have occupied a house _by
itself_,--Acts vii. 20. Ex. xii. 4--and judging from the regulation
about the eating of the Passover, they could hardly have been small
ones, Ex. xii. 4, probably contained separate apartments, and places for
concealment. Ex. ii. 2, 3; Acts vii. 20. They appear to have been well
apparelled. Ex. xii. 11. To have their own burial grounds. Ex. xiii. 19,
and xiv. 11. (4.) They owned "a mixed multitude of flocks and herds,"
and "very much cattle." Ex. xii. 32, 37, 38. (5.) They had their own
form of government, and preserved their tribe and family divisions, and
their internal organization throughout, though still a province of
Egypt, and _tributary_ to it. Ex. ii. 1; xii. 19, 21; vi. 14, 25; v. 19;
iii. 16, 18. (6.) They seem to have had in a considerable measure, the
disposal of their own time,--Ex. xxiii. 4; iii. 16, 18, xii. 6; ii. 9;
and iv. 27, 29-31. And to have practiced the fine arts. Ex. xxxii. 4;
xxxv. 22-35. (7.) They were all armed. Ex. xxxii. 27. (8.) They held
their possessions independently, and the Egyptians seem to have regarded
them as inviolable. No intimation is given that the Egyptians
dispossessed them of their habitations, or took away their flocks, or
herds, or crops, or implements of agriculture, or any article of
property. (9.) All the females seem to have known something of domestic
refinements; they were familiar with instruments of music, and skilled
in the working of fine fabrics. Ex. xv. 20; xxxv. 25, 26. (10.) Service
seems to have been exacted from none but adult males. Nothing is said
from which the bond service of females could he inferred; the hiding of
Moses three months by his mother, and the payment of wages to her by
Pharaoh's daughter, go against such a supposition. Ex. ii. 29. (11.) So
far from being fed upon a given allowance, their food was abundant, and
of great variety. "They sat by the flesh-pots," and "did eat bread to
the full." Ex. xvi. 3; xxiv. 1; xvii. 5; iv. 29; vi. 14; "they did eat
fish freely, and cucumbers, and melons, and leeks, and onions, and
garlic." Num. xi. 4, 5; x. 18; xx. 5. (12.) The great body of the people
were not in the service of the Egyptians. (a.) The extent and variety of
their own possessions, together with such a cultivation of their crops
as would provide them with bread, and such care of their immense flocks
and herds, as would secure their profitable increase, must have
furnished constant employment for the main body of the nation. (b.)
During the plague of darkness, God informs us that "ALL the children of
Israel had light in their dwellings." We infer that they were _there_ to
enjoy it. (c.) It seems improbable that the making of brick, the only
service named during the latter part of their sojourn in Egypt, could
have furnished permanent employment for the bulk of the nation. See also
Ex. iv. 29-31. Besides, when Eastern nations employed tributaries, it
was as now, in the use of the levy, requiring them to furnish a given
quota, drafted off periodically, so that comparatively but a small
portion of the nation would be absent _at any one time_. Probably
one-fifth part of the proceeds of their labor was required of the
Israelites in common with the Egyptians. Gen. xlvii. 24, 26. Instead of
taking it from their _crops_, (Goshen being better for _pasturage_) they
exacted it of them in brick making; and it is quite probable that labor
was exacted only from the _poorer_ Israelites, the wealthy being able to
pay their tribute in money. Ex. iv. 27-31. Contrast this bondage of
Egypt with American slavery. Have our slaves "very much cattle," and "a
mixed multitude of flocks and herds?" Do they live in commodious houses
of their own, "sit by the flesh-pots," "eat fish freely," and "eat bread
to the full?" Do they live in a separate community, in their distinct
tribes, under their own rulers, in the exclusive occupation of an
extensive tract of country for the culture of their crops, and for
rearing immense herds of their own cattle--and all these held inviolable
by their masters? Are our female slaves free from exactions of labor and
liabilities of outrage? or when employed, are they paid wages, as was
the Israelitish woman by the king's daughter? Have they the disposal of
their own time and the means for cultivating social refinements, for
practising the fine arts, and for personal improvement? THE ISRAELITES
UNDER THE BONDAGE OF EGYPT, ENJOYED ALL THESE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES.
True, "all the service wherein they made them serve was with rigor." But
what was this when compared with the incessant toil of American slaves,
the robbery of all their time and earnings, and even the power to "own
any thing, or acquire any thing?" a "quart of corn a-day," the legal
allowance of food[C]! their _only_ clothing for one half the year,
"_one_ shirt and _one_ pair of pantaloons[D]!" _two hours and a half
only_, for rest and refreshment in the twenty-four[E]!--their dwellings,
_hovels_, unfit for human residence, with but one apartment, where both
sexes and all ages herd promiscuously at night, like the beasts of the
field. Add to this, the ignorance, and degradation; the daily sundering
of kindred, the revelries of lust, the lacerations and baptisms of
blood, sanctioned by law, and patronized by public sentiment. What was
the bondage of Egypt when compared with this? And yet for her oppression
of the poor, God smote her with plagues, and trampled her as the mire,
till she passed away in his wrath, and the place that knew her in her
pride, knew her no more. Ah! "I have seen the afflictions of my people,
and I have heard their groanings, and am come down to deliver them." HE
DID COME, and Egypt sank a ruinous heap, and her blood closed over her.
If such was God's retribution for the oppression of heathen Egypt, of
how much sorer punishment shall a Christian people be thought worthy,
who cloak with religion a system, in comparison with which the bondage
of Egypt dwindles to nothing? Let those believe who can that God
commissioned his people to rob others of _all_ their rights, while he
denounced against them wrath to the uttermost, if they practised the
_far lighter_ oppression of Egypt--which robbed it's victims of only the
least and cheapest of their rights, and left the females unplundered
even of these. What! Is God divided against himself? When He had just
turned Egypt into a funeral pile; while his curse yet blazed upon her
unburied dead, and his bolts still hissed amidst her slaughter, and the
smoke of her torment went upwards because she had "ROBBED THE POOR," did
He license the victims of robbery to rob the poor of ALL? As _Lawgiver_
did he _create_ a system tenfold more grinding than that for which he
had just hurled Pharaoh headlong, and overwhelmed his princes, and his
hosts, till "hell was moved to meet them at their coming?"
[Footnote A: The Egyptians evidently had _domestic_ servants living in
their families; these may have been slaves; allusion is made to them in
Ex. ix. 14, 20, 21.]
[Footnote B: The land of Goshen was a large tract of country, east of
the Pelusian arm of the Nile, and between it and the head of the Red
Sea, and the lower border of Palestine. The probable centre of that
portion, occupied by the Israelites, could hardly have been less than
sixty miles from the city. The border of Goshen nearest to Egypt must
have been many miles distant. See "Exodus of the Israelites out of
Egypt," an able article by Professor Robinson, in the Biblical
Repository for October, 1832.]
[Footnote C: Law of N.C. Haywood's Manual 524-5.]
[Footnote D: Law of La. Martin's Digest, 610.]
[Footnote E: Law of La. Act of July 7, 1806. Martin's Digest, 610-12.]
We now proceed to examine various objections which will doubtless be set
in array against all the foregoing conclusions.
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
The advocates of slavery find themselves at their wits end in pressing
the Bible into their service. Every movement shows them hard-pushed.
Their ever-varying shifts, their forced constructions, and blind
guesswork, proclaim both their _cause_ desperate, and themselves. The
Bible defences thrown around slavery by professed ministers of the
Gospel, do so torture common sense, Scripture, and historical facts it
were hard to tell whether absurdity, fatuity, ignorance, or blasphemy,
predominates in the compound; each strives so lustily for the mastery it
may be set down a drawn battle. How often has it been bruited that the
color of the negro is the _Cain-mark_, propagated downward. Cain's
posterity started an opposition to the ark, forsooth, and rode out the
flood with flying streamers! Why should not a miracle be wrought to
point such an argument, and fill out for slaveholders a Divine
title-deed, vindicating the ways of God to man?
OBJECTION 1. "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto
his brethren." Gen. ix. 25.
This prophecy of Noah is the _vade mecum_ of slaveholders, and they
never venture abroad without it; it is a pocket-piece for sudden
occasion, a keepsake to dote over, a charm to spell-bind opposition, and
a magnet to draw around their standard "whatsoever worketh abomination
or maketh a lie." But "cursed be Canaan" is a poor drug to ease a
throbbing conscience--a mocking lullaby, to unquiet tossings, and vainly
crying "Peace be still," where God wakes war, and breaks his thunders.
Those who justify negro slavery by the curse of Canaan, _assume_ all the
points in debate. (1.) That _slavery_ was prophesied rather than mere
_service_ to others, and _individual_ bondage rather than _national_
subjection and tribute. (2.) That the _prediction_ of crime _justifies_
it; at least absolving those whose crimes fulfill it, if not
transforming the crimes into _virtues_. How piously the Pharoahs might
have quoted the prophecy _"Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that
is not theirs, and they shall afflict there four hundred years."_ And
then, what _saints_ were those that crucified the Lord of glory! (3.)
That the Africans are descended from Canaan. Whereas Africa was peopled
from Egypt and Ethiopia, and they were settled by Mizraim and Cush. For
the location and boundaries of Canaan's posterity, see Gen. x. 15-19. So
a prophecy of evil to one people, is quoted to justify its infliction
upon another. Perhaps it may be argued that Canaan includes all Ham's
posterity. If so, the prophecy is yet unfulfilled. The other sons of Ham
settled Egypt and Assyria, and, conjointly with Shem, Persia, and
afterward, to some extent, the Grecian and Roman empires. The history of
these nations gives no verification of the prophecy. Whereas, the
history of Canaan's descendants for more than three thousand years,
records its fulfilment. First, they were put to tribute by the
Israelites; then by the Medes and Persians; then by the Macedonians,
Grecians and Romans, successively; and finally, were subjected by the
Ottoman dynasty, where they yet remain. Thus Canaan has been for ages
the servant mainly of Shem and Japhet, and secondarily of the other sons
of Ham. It may still be objected, that though Canaan alone is _named_ in
the curse, yet the 23d and 24th verses show the posterity of Ham in
general to be meant. "And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness
of his father, and told his two brethren without." "And Noah awoke from
his wine, and knew what his YOUNGER son had done unto him, and said,"
&c. It is argued that this "_younger_ son" can not be _Canaan_, as he
was the _grandson_ of Noah, and therefore it must be _Ham._ We answer,
whoever that "_younger son_" was, _Canaan_ alone was named in the curse.
Besides, the Hebrew word _Ben_, signifies son, grandson, or _any_ of
_one_ the posterity of an individual. "_Know ye Laban the SON of
Nahor?_" Laban was the _grandson_ of Nahor. Gen. xxix. 5. "_Mephibosheth
the SON of Saul_." 2 Sam. xix. 24. Mephibosheth was the _grandson_ of
Saul. 2 Sam. ix. 6. "_There is a SON born to Naomi._" Ruth iv. 17. This
was the son of Ruth, the daughter-in-law of Naomi. "_Let seven men of
his (Saul's) SONS be delivered unto us._" 2 Sam. xxi. 6. Seven of Saul's
_grandsons_ were delivered up. "_Laban rose up and kissed his SONS._"
Gen. xxi. 55. These were his _grandsons_. "_The driving of Jehu the SON
of Nimshi._" 2 Kings ix. 20. Jehu was the _grandson_ of Nimshi. Shall we
forbid the inspired writer to use the _same_ word when speaking of
_Noah's_ grandson? Further; Ham was not the "_younger_" son. The order
of enumeration makes him the _second_ son. If it be said that Bible
usage varies, the order of birth not always being observed in
enumerations, the reply is, that, enumeration in that order is the
_rule_, in any other order the _exception_. Besides, if a younger member
of a family, takes precedence of older ones in the family record, it is
a mark of pre-eminence, either in endowments, or providential
instrumentality. Abraham, though sixty years younger than his eldest
brother, stands first in the family genealogy. Nothing in Ham's history
shows him pre-eminent; besides, the Hebrew word _Hakkatan_ rendered "the
_younger_," means the _little, small_. The same word is used in Isa. xl.
22. "_A LITTLE ONE shall become a thousand_." Isa. xxii. 24. "_All
vessels of SMALL quantity_." Ps. cxv. 13. "_He will bless them that fear
the Lord both SMALL and great_." Ex. xviii. 22. "_But every SMALL matter
they shall judge_." It would be a literal rendering of Gen. ix. 24, if
it were translated thus. "When Noah knew what his little son[A], or
grandson (_Beno Hakkatan_) had done unto him, he said cursed be Canaan,"
&c. Further, even if the Africans were the descendants of Canaan, the
assumption that their enslavement fulfils this prophecy, lacks even
plausibility, for, only a _fraction_ of the Africans have at any time
been the slaves of other nations. If the objector say in reply, that a
large majority of the Africans have always been slaves _at home_, we
answer: _It is false in point of fact_, though zealously bruited often
to serve a turn; and _if it were true_, how does it help the argument?
The prophecy was, "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be
_unto his_ BRETHREN," not unto _himself_!
[Footnote A: The French follows the same analogy; _grandson_ being
_petit fils_ (little son.)]
OBJECTION II.--"If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and
he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if
he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his
money." Ex. xxi. 20, 21. What was the design of this regulation? Was it
to grant masters an indulgence to beat servants with impunity, and an
assurance, that if they beat them to death, the offense shall not be
_capital_? This is substantially what commentators tell us. What Deity
do such men worship? Some blood-gorged Moloch, enthroned on human
hecatombs, and snuffing carnage for incense? Did He who thundered from
Sinai's flames, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL," offer a bounty on _murder_?
Whoever analyzes the Mosaic system, will find a moot court in session,
trying law points--settling definitions, or laying down rules of
evidence, in almost every chapter. Num. xxxv. 10-22; Deut. xi. 11, and
xix. 4-6; Lev. xxiv. 19-22; Ex. xxi. 18, 19, are a few, out of many
cases stated, with tests furnished the judges by which to detect _the
intent_, in actions brought before them. Their ignorance of judicial
proceedings, laws of evidence, &c., made such instructions necessary.
The detail gone into, in the verses quoted, is manifestly to enable them
to get at the _motive_ and find out whether the master _designed_ to
kill. (1.) "If a man smite his servant with a _rod_."--The instrument
used, gives a clue to the _intent_. See Num. xxxv. 16, 18. A _rod_, not
an axe, nor a sword, nor a bludgeon, nor any other death-weapon--hence,
from the _kind_ of instrument, no design to _kill_ would be inferred;
for _intent_ to kill would hardly have taken a _rod_ for its weapon. But
if the servant die _under his hand_, then the unfitness of the
instrument, is point blank against him; for, to strike him with a _rod_
until he _dies_, argues a great many blows and great violence, and this
kept up to the death-gasp, showed an _intent to kill_. Hence "He shall
_surely_ be punished." But if he continued _a day or two_, the _length
of time that he lived_, together with the _kind_ of instrument used, and
the master's pecuniary interest in his _life_, ("he is his _money_,")
all made a strong case of circumstantial evidence, showing that the
master did not design to kill. Further, the word _nakam_, here rendered
_punished_, is _not so rendered in another instance_. Yet it occurs
thirty-five times in the Old Testament, and in almost every place is
translated "_avenge_," in a few, "_to take vengeance_," or "_to
revenge_," and in this instance ALONE, "_punish_." As it stands in our
translation, the pronoun preceding it, refers to the _master_, whereas
it should refer to the _crime_, and the word rendered _punished_, should
have been rendered _avenged_. The meaning is this: If a man smite his
servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, IT (the
death) shall surely be avenged, or literally, _by avenging it shall be
avenged_; that is, the _death_ of the servant shall be _avenged_ by the
_death_ of the master. So in the next verse, "If he continue a day or
two," his death is not to be avenged by the _death_ of the _master_, as
in that case the crime was to be adjudged _manslaughter_, and not
_murder_. In the following verse, another case of personal injury is
stated, for which the injurer is to pay a _sum of money_; and yet our
translators employ the same phraseology in both places. One, an instance
of deliberate, wanton, killing by piecemeal. The other, an accidental,
and comparatively slight injury--of the inflicter, in both cases, they
say the same thing! "He shall surely be punished." Now, just the
discrimination to be looked for where God legislates, is marked in the
original. In the case of the servant wilfully murdered, He says, "It
(the death) shall surely be _avenged_," that is, the life of the wrong
doer shall expiate the crime. The same word is used in the Old
Testament, when the greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the
perpetrators to _destruction_. In the case of the unintentional injury,
in the following verse, God says, "He shall surely be _fined_,"
(_Aunash_.) "He shall _pay_ as the judges determine." The simple meaning
of the word _anash_, is to lay a fine. It is used in Deut. xxii. 19:
"They shall amerce him in one hundred shekels," and in 2 Chron. xxxvi.
3: "He condemned (_mulcted_) the land in a hundred talents of gold."
That _avenging_ the death of the servant, was neither imprisonment, nor
stripes, nor a fine, but that it was _taking the master's life_ we
infer, (1.) From the _use_ of the word _nakam_. See Gen. iv. 24; Josh.
x. 13; Judg. xiv. 7; xvi. 28; I Sam. xiv. 24; xviii. 25; xxv. 31; 2 Sam.
iv. 8; Judg. v. 2: I Sam. xxv. 26-33. (2.) From the express statute,
Lev. xxiv. 17; "He that killeth ANY man shall surely be put to death."
Also Num. xxxv. 30, 31: "Whoso killeth ANY person, the murderer shall be
put to death. Moreover, ye shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a
murderer which is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death."
(3.) The Targum of Jonathan gives the verse thus, "Death by the sword
shall surely be adjudged." The Targum of Jerusalem. "Vengeance shall be
taken for him to the _uttermost_." Jarchi, the same. The Samaritan
version: "He shall die the death," Again the clause "for he is his
money," is quoted to prove that the servant is his master's property,
and therefore, if he died, the master was not to be punished. The
assumption is, that the phrase, "HE IS HIS MONEY." proves not only that
the servant is _worth money_ to the master, but that he is an _article
of property_. If the advocates of slavery insist upon taking the
principle of interpretation into the Bible, and turning it loose, let
them stand and draw in self-defence. If they endorse for it at one
point, they must stand sponsors all around the circle. It will be too
late to cry for quarter when its stroke clears the table, and tilts them
among the sweepings beneath. The Bible abounds with such expressions as
the following: "This (bread) is my body;" "this (wine) _is_ my blood;"
"all they (the Israelites) _are_ brass and tin;" "this (water) _is_ the
blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives;" "the Lord God
_is_ a sun and a shield;" "God _is_ love;" "the seven good ears _are_
seven years, and the seven good kine _are_ seven years;" "the tree of
the field _is_ man's life;" "God _is_ a consuming fire;" "he _is_ his
money," &c. A passion for the exact _literalities_ of the Bible is so
amiable, it were hard not to gratify it in this case. The words in the
original are (_Kaspo-hu_,) "his _silver_ is he." The objector's
principle of interpretation is a philosopher's stone! Its miracle touch
transmutes five feet eight inches of flesh and bones into _solid
silver!_ Quite a _permanent_ servant, if not so nimble with
all--reasoning against "_forever_," is forestalled henceforth, and,
Deut. xxiii. 15, utterly outwitted. The obvious meaning of the phrase,
"_He is his money_," is, he is _worth money_ to his master, and since,
if the master had killed him, it would have taken money out of his
pocket, the _pecuniary loss_, the _kind of instrument used_, and _the
fact of his living some time after the injury_, (if the master _meant_
to kill, he would be likely to _do_ it while about it,) all together
make a strong case of presumptive evidence clearing the master of
_intent to kill_. But let us look at the objector's _inferences_. One
is, that as the master might dispose of his _property_ as he pleased, he
was not to be punished, if he destroyed it. Whether the servant died
under the master's hand, or after a day or two, he was _equally_ his
property, and the objector admits that in the _first_ case the master is
to be "surely punished" for destroying _his own property!_ The other
inference is, that since the continuance of a day or two, cleared the
master of _intent to kill_, the loss of the slave would be a sufficient
punishment for inflicting the injury which caused his death. This
inference makes the Mosaic law false to its own principles. A _pecuniary
loss_ was no part of the legal claim, where a person took the _life_ of
another. In such case, the law spurned money, whatever the sum. God
would not cheapen human life, by balancing it with such a weight. "Ye
shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a murderer, but he shall
surely be put to death." Num. xxxv. 31. Even in excusable homicide,
where an axe slipped from the helve and killed a man, no sum of money
availed to release from confinement in the city of refuge, until the
death of the High Priest. Numb. xxxv. 32. The doctrine that the loss of
the servant would be a penalty _adequate_ to the desert of the master,
admits his _guilt_ and his desert of _some_ punishment, and it
prescribes a kind of punishment, rejected by the law in all cases where
man took the life of man, whether with or without the intent to kill. In
short, the objector annuls an integral part of the system--makes a _new_
law, and coolly metes out such penalty as he thinks fit. Divine
legislation revised and improved! The master who struck out his
servant's tooth, whether intentionally or not, was required to set him
free. The _pecuniary loss_ to the master was the same as though he had
killed him. Look at the two cases. A master beats his servant so that he
dies of his wounds; another accidentally strikes out his servant's
tooth,--_the pecuniary loss of both cases is the same_. If the loss of
the slave's services is punishment sufficient for the crime of killing
him, would _God_ command the _same_ punishment for the _accidental_
knocking out of a _tooth?_ Indeed, unless the injury was done
_inadvertantly_, the loss of the servant's services was only a _part_ of
the punishment--mere reparation to the _individual_ for injury done; the
_main_ punishment, that strictly _judicial_, was reparation to the
_community_. To set the servant free, and thus proclaim his injury, his
right to redress, and the measure of it--answered not the ends of
_public_ justice. The law made an example of the offender. That "those
that remain might hear and fear." "If a man cause a blemish in his
neighbor, as he hath done, so shall it be done unto him. Breach for
breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Ye shall have one manner of law as
well for the STRANGER as for one of your own country." Lev xxiv. 19, 20,
22. Finally, if a master smote out his servant's tooth the law smote out
_his_ tooth--thus redressing the _public_ wrong; and it cancelled the
servant's obligation to the master, thus giving some compensation for
the injury done, and exempting him form perilous liabilities in future.
OBJECTION III. "Both thy bondmen and 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 the stranger that do
sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are
with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your
possessions. And ye shall take them as an inheritance of your children
from you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen
forever." Lev, xxv. 44-46.
The _points_ in these verses urged as proof, that the Mosaic system
sanctioned slavery, are 1. The word "BONDMEN." 2. "BUY." 3. "INHERITANCE
AND POSSESSION." and 4. "FOREVER."
The _buying_ of servants was discussed, pp. 17-22, and holding them as a
"possession." pp. 37-46. We will now ascertain what sanction to slavery
is derivable from the terms "bondmen," "inheritance," and "forever."
1. "BONDMEN." The fact that servants from the heathen are called
"_bondmen_," while others are called "_servants_," is quoted as proof
that the former were slaves. As the caprices of King James' translators
were not inspired, we need stand in no special awe of them. The word
here rendered bondmen is uniformly rendered servants elsewhere. The
Hebrew word "_ebedh_," the plural of which is here translated "bondmen,"
is in Isa. xlii. 1, applied to Christ. "Behold my _servant_ (bondman,
slave?) whom I have chosen." So Isa. lii. 13. "Behold my _servant_
(Christ) shall deal prudently." In 1 Kings xii. 6, 7, to _King
Rehoboam_. "And they spake unto him, saying if thou wilt be a _servant_
unto this people, then they will be thy _servants_ forever." In 2 Chron.
xii. 7, 8, 9, 13, to the king and all the nation. In fine, the word is
applied to _all_ persons doing service for others--to magistrates, to
all governmental officers, to tributaries, to all the subjects of
governments, to younger sons--defining their relation to the first born,
who is called _Lord_ and _ruler_--to prophets, to kings, to the Messiah,
and in respectful addresses not less than _fifty_ times in the Old
Testament.
If the Israelites not only held slaves, but multitudes of them, if
Abraham had thousands and if they _abounded_ under the Mosaic system,
why had their language _no word_ that _meant slave_? That language must
be wofully poverty-stricken, which has no signs to represent the most
common and familiar objects and conditions. To represent by the same
word, and without figure, property, and the owner of that property, is a
solecism. Ziba was an "_ebedh_," yet he "_owned_" (!) twenty _ebedhs_!
In our language, we have both _servant_ and _slave_. Why? Because we
have both the _things_ and need _signs_ for them. If the tongue had a
sheath, as swords have scabbards, we should have some _name_ for it: but
our dictionaries give us none. Why? Because there is no such _thing_.
But the objector asks, "Would not the Israelites use their word _ebedh_
if they spoke of the slave of a heathen?" Answer. Their _national_
servants or tributaries, are spoken of frequently, but domestic servants
so rarely that no necessity existed, even if they were slaves, for
coining a new word. Besides, the fact of their being domestics, under
_heathen laws and usages_ proclaimed their _liabilities_, their
_locality_ made a _specific_ term unnecessary. But if the Israelites had
not only _servants_, but a multitude of _slaves_, a _word meaning
slave_, would have been indispensable for every day convenience.
Further, the laws of the Mosaic system were so many sentinels on the
outposts to warn off foreign practices. The border ground of Canaan, was
quarantine ground, enforcing the strictest non-intercourse in usages
between the without and the within.
2. "FOREVER." This is quoted to prove that servants were to serve during
their life time, and their posterity from generation to generation. No
such idea is contained in the passage. The word "forever," instead of
defining the length of _individual_ service, proclaims the permanence of
the regulation laid down in the two verses preceding, namely, that their
_permanent domestics_ should be of the Strangers, and not of the
Israelites: it declares the duration of that general provision. As if
God had said, "You shall _always_ get your _permanent_ laborers from the
nations round about you--your servants shall always be of that class of
persons." As it stands in the original it is plain--"Forever of them
shall ye serve yourselves." This is the literal rendering.
That "_forever_" refers to the permanent relations of a _community_,
rather than to the services of _individuals_, is a fair inference from
the form of the expression, "Both thy bondmen, &c., shall be of the
_heathen_. Of THEM shall ye buy," &c. "THEY shall be your possession."
To say nothing of the uncertainty of _those individuals_ surviving those
_after_ whom they are to live, the language used, applies more naturally
to a _body_ of people, than to _individual_ servants. Besides
_perpetual_ service cannot be argued from the term _forever_. The ninth
and tenth verses of the same chapter, limit it absolutely by the
jubilee. "Then thou shalt cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound * *
throughout ALL your land." "And ye shall proclaim liberty throughout all
the land unto ALL the inhabitants thereof." It may be objected that
"inhabitants" here means _Israelitish_ inhabitants alone. The command
is, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto ALL _the inhabitants
thereof_." Besides, in the sixth verse, there is an enumeration of the
different classes of the inhabitants, in which servants and Strangers
are included; and in all the regulations of the jubilee, and the
sabbatical year, the Strangers are included in the precepts,
prohibitions, and promises. Again: the year of jubilee was ushered in,
by the day of atonement. What did these institutions show forth? The day
of atonement prefigured the atonement of Christ, and the year of
jubilee, the gospel jubilee. And did they prefigure an atonement and a
jubilee to Jews only? Were they types of sins remitted, and of salvation
proclaimed to the nation of Israel alone? Is there no redemption for us
Gentiles in these ends of the earth, and is our hope presumption and
impiety? Did that old partition wall survive the shock, that made earth
quake, and hid the sun, burst graves and rocks, and rent the temple
veil? and did the Gospel only rear it higher to thunder direr perdition
from its frowning battlements on all without? No! The God of our
salvation lives "Good tidings of great joy shall be to ALL people." One
shout shall swell from all the ransomed, "Thou hast redeemed us unto God
by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."
To deny that the blessings of the jubilee extended to the servants from
the _Gentiles_, makes Christianity _Judaism_. It not only eclipses the
glory of the Gospel, but strikes out the sun. The refusal to release
servants at the jubilee falsified and disannulled a grand leading type
of the atonement, and was a libel on the doctrine of Christ's
redemption. Finally, even if _forever_ did refer to _individual_
service, we have ample precedents for limiting the term by the jubilee.
The same word defines the length of time which _Jewish_ servants served
who did not go out in the _seventh_ year. And all admit that they went
out at the jubilee. Ex. xxi. 2-6; Deut. xv. 12-17. The 23d verse of the
same chapter is quoted to prove that "_forever_" in the 46th verse,
extends beyond the jubilee. "The land shall not be sold FOREVER, for the
land is mine"--since it would hardly be used in different senses in the
same general connection. As _forever_, in the 46th verse, respects the
_general arrangement_, and not _individual service_ the objection does
not touch the argument. Besides in the 46th verse, the word used, is
_Olam_, meaning _throughout the period_, whatever that may be. Whereas
in the 23d verse, it is _Tsemithuth_, meaning, a _cutting off_.
3. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION," "Ye shall take them as an INHERITANCE
for your children after you to inherit them for a possession." This
refers to the _nations_, and not to the _individual_ servants, procured
from these nations. We have already shown, that servants could not be
held as a _property_-possession, and inheritance; that they became
servants of their _own accord_, and were paid wages; that they were
released by law from their regular labor nearly _half the days in each
year_, and thoroughly _instructed_; that the servants were _protected_
in all their personal, social and religious rights, equally with their
masters &c. All remaining, after these ample reservations, would be
small temptation, either to the lust of power or of lucre; a profitable
"possession" and "inheritance," truly! What if our American slaves were
all placed in _just such a condition_ Alas, for that soft, melodious
circumlocution, "Our PECULIAR species of property!" Verily, emphasis
would be cadence, and euphony and irony meet together! What eager
snatches at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective of connection,
principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations of meaning by
other passages--and all to eke out such a sense as sanctifies existing
usages, thus making God pander for lust. The words _nahal_ and _nahala_,
inherit and inheritance by no means necessarily signify _articles of
property_. "The people answered the king and said, we have none
_inheritance_ in the son of Jesse." 2 Chron. x. 16. Did they moan
gravely to disclaim the holding of their kin; as an article of
_property_? "Children are an _heritage_ (inheritance) of the Lord." Ps.
cxxvii. 3. "Pardon our iniquity, and take us for thine _inheritance_."
Ex. xxxiv. 9. When God pardons his enemies, and adopts them as children,
does he make them _articles of property_? Are forgiveness, and
chattel-making, synonymes? "Thy testimonies have I taken as a
_heritage_" (inheritance.) Ps. cxix. 111. "_I_ am their _inheritance_."
Ezek. xliv. 28. "I will give thee the heathen for thine _inheritance_."
Ps. ii. 8. "For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he
forsake his _inheritance_." Ps. xciv 14. see also Deut. iv. 20; Josh.
xiii. 33; Ps. lxxxii. 8; lxxviii. 62, 71; Prov. xiv. 8. The question
whether the servants were a PROPERTY-"_possession_," has been already
discussed--pp. 37-46--we need add in this place but a word, _ahuzza_
rendered "_possession_." "And Joseph placed his father and his brethren,
and gave them a _possession_ in the land of Egypt." Gen. xlii. 11. In
what sense was Goshen the _possession_ of the Israelites? Answer, in the
sense of _having it to live in_. In what sense were the Israelites to
_possess_ these nations, and _take them_ as an _inheritance for their
children_? Answer, they possessed them as a permanent source of supply
for domestic or household servants. And this relation to these nations
was to go down to posterity as a standing regulation, having the
certainty and regularity of a descent by inheritance. The sense of the
whole regulation may be given thus: "Thy permanent domestics, which thou
shalt have, shall be of the nations that are round about you, of _them_
shall ye get male and female domestics." "Moreover of the children of
the foreigners that do sojourn among you, of _them_ shall ye get, and of
their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and
_they_ shall be your permanent resource." "And ye shall take them as a
_perpetual_ provision for your children after you, to hold as a
_constant source of supply_. Always _of them_ shall ye serve
yourselves." The design of the passage is manifest from its structure.
It was to point out the _class_ of persons from which they were to get
their supply of servants, and the _way_ in which they were to get them.
OBJECTION IV. "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and
be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a BOND-SERVANT,
but as an HIRED-SERVANT, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee, and
shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee." Lev. xxv. 39, 40.
As only _one_ class is called "_hired_," it is inferred that servants of
the _other_ class were _not paid_ for their labor. That God, with
thundering anathemas against those who "used their neighbor's service
without wages," granted a special indulgence to his chosen people to
force others to work, and rob them of earnings, provided always, in
selecting their victims, they spared "the gentlemen of property and
standing," and pounced only upon the strangers and the common people.
The inference that "_hired_" is synonymous with _paid_, and that those
servants not _called_ "hired" were not _paid_ for their labor, is a mere
assumption. The meaning of the English verb _to hire_, is to procure for
a _temporary_ use at a certain price--to engage a person to temporary
service for wages. That is also the meaning of the Hebrew word
"_saukar_." It is not used when the procurement of _permanent_ service
is spoken of. Now, we ask, would _permanent_ servants, those who
constituted a stationary part of the family, have been designated by the
same term that marks _temporary_ servants? The every-day distinction on
this subject, are familiar as table-talk. In many families the domestics
perform only the _regular_ work. Whatever is occasional merely, as the
washing of a family, is done by persons hired expressly for the purpose.
The familiar distinction between the two classes, is "servants," and
"hired help," (not _paid_ help.) _Both classes are paid_. One is
permanent, the other occasional and temporary, and therefore in this
case called "_hired_[A]."
[Footnote A: To suppose a servant robbed of his earnings because he is
not called a _hired_ servant is profound induction! If I employ a man at
twelve dollars a month to work my farm, he is my "_hired_" man, but if
_I give him such a portion of the crop_, or in other words, if he works
my farm "_on shares_," every farmer knows that he is no longer called my
"_hired_" man. Yet he works the same farm, in the same way, at the same
time, and with the same teams and tools; and does the same amount of
work in the year, and perhaps earns twenty dollars a month, instead of
twelve. Now as he is no longer called "_hired_," and as he still works
my farm, suppose my neighbours sagely infer, that since he is not my
"_hired_" laborer, I _rob_ him of his earnings and with all the gravity
of owls, pronounce the oracular decision, and hoot it abroad. My
neighbors are deep divers!--like some theological professors, they not
only go to the bottom but come up covered with the tokens.]
A variety of particulars are recorded distinguishing _hired_ from
_bought_ servants. (1.) Hired servants were paid daily at the close of
their work. Lev. xix 13; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; Job. vii. 2; Matt. xx. 8.
"_Bought_" servants were paid in advance, (a reason for their being
called _bought_,) and those that went out at the seventh year received a
_gratuity_. Deut. xv. 12, 13. (2.) The "hired" were paid _in money_, the
"bought" received their _gratuity_, at least, in grain, cattle, and the
product of the vintage. Deut. xiv. 17. (3.) The "hired" _lived_ in their
own families, the "bought" were part of their masters' families. (4.)
The "hired" supported their families out of their wages: the "bought"
and their families were supported by the master _besides_ their wages.
The "bought" servants were, _as a class, superior to the hired_--were
more trust-worthy, had greater privileges, and occupied a higher station
in society. (1.) They were intimately incorporated with the family of
the masters, were guests at family festivals, and social solemnities,
from which hired servants were excluded. Lev. xxii. 10; Ex. xii, 43, 45.
(2.) Their interests were far more identified with those of their
masters' family. They were often, actually or prospectively, heirs of
their masters' estates, as in the case of Eliezer, of Ziba, and the sons
of Bilhah and Zilpah. When there were no sons, or when they were
unworthy, bought servants were made heirs. Prov. xvii. 2. We find traces
of this usage in the New Testament. "But when the husbandmen saw him,
they reasoned among themselves, saying, this is the _heir_, come let us
kill him, _that the inheritance may be ours._" Luke xx. 14. In no
instance does a _hired_ servant inherit his master's estate. (3.)
Marriages took place between servants and their master's daughters.
Sheshan had a _servant_, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan
gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife. 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35.
There is no instance of a _hired_ servant forming such an alliance. (4.)
Bought servants and their descendants were treated with the same
affection and respect as the other members of the family.[A]. The
treatment of Abraham's servants, Gen. xxv.--the intercourse between
Gideon and his servant, Judg. vii. 10, 11; Saul and his servant, 1 Sam.
iv. 5, 22; Jonathan and his servant, 1 Sam. xiv. 1-14, and Elisha and
his servant, are illustrations. No such tie seems to have existed
between _hired_ servants and their masters. Their untrustworthiness was
proverbial. John ix. 12, 13. None but the _lowest class_ engaged as
hired servants, and the kinds of labor assigned to them required little
knowledge and skill. Various passages show the low repute and trifling
character of the class from which they were hired. Judg. ix. 4; 1 Sam.
ii. 5. The superior condition of bought servants is manifest in the high
trusts confided to them, and in their dignity and authority in the
household. In no instance is a _hired_ servant thus distinguished. The
_bought_ servant is manifestly the master's representative in the
family--with plenipotentiary powers over adult children, even
negotiating marriage for them. Abraham adjured his servant not to take a
wife for Isaac of the daughters of the Canaanites. The servant himself
selected the individual. Servants also exercised discretionary power in
the management of their masters' estates, "And the servant took ten
camels of the camels of his master, _for all the goods of his master
were under his hand_." Gen. xxiv. 10. The reason assigned for taking
them, is not that such was Abraham's direction, but that the servant had
discretionary control. Servants had also discretionary power in the
_disposal of property_. See Gen. xxiv. 22, 23, 53. The condition of Ziba
in the house of Mephibosheth, is a case in point. So in Prov. xvii. 2.
Distinct traces of this estimation are to be found in the New Testament,
Matt. xxiv. 45; Luke xii, 42, 44. So in the parable of the talents; the
master seems to have set up each of his servants in trade with a large
capital. The unjust steward had large _discretionary_ power, was
"accused of wasting his master's goods," and manifestly regulated with
his debtors, the _terms_ of settlement. Luke xvi. 4-8. Such trusts were
never reposed in _hired_ servants.
[Footnote A: "For the _purchased servant_ who is an Israelite, or
proselyte, shall fare as his master. The master shall not eat fine
bread, and his servant bread of bran. Nor yet drink old wine, and give
his servant new; nor sleep on soft pillows, and bedding, and his servant
on straw. I say unto you, that he that gets a _purchased_ servant does
well to make him as his friend, or he will prove to his employer as if
he got himself a master."--Maimonides, in Mishna Kiddushim. Chap. 1,
Sec. 2.]
The inferior condition of _hired_ servants, is illustrated in the
parable of the prodigal son. When the prodigal, perishing with hunger
among the swine and husks, came to himself, his proud heart broke; "I
will arise," he cried, "and go to my father." And then to assure his
father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add, "Make me as one of
thy _hired_ servants." If _hired_ servants were the _superior_ class--to
apply for the situation, savored little of that sense of unworthiness
that seeks the dust with hidden face, and cries "unclean." Unhumbled
nature _climbs_; or if it falls, clings fast, where first it may.
Humility sinks of its own weight, and in the lowest deep, digs lower.
The design of the parable was to illustrate on the one hand, the joy of
God, as he beholds afar off, the returning sinner "seeking an injured
father's face" who runs to clasp and bless him with unchiding welcome;
and on the other, the contrition of the penitent, turning homeward with
tears from his wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with its
ill-desert he sobs aloud. "The lowest place, _the lowest place_, I can
abide no other." Or in those inimitable words, "Father I have sinned
against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy
son; make me as one of thy HIRED servants." The supposition that _hired_
servants were the _highest_ class, takes from the parable an element of
winning beauty and pathos. It is manifest to every careful student of
the Bible, that _one_ class of servants, was on terms of equality with
the children and other members of the family. (Hence the force of Paul's
declaration, Gal. iv. 1, "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as
he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of
all.") If this were the _hired_ class, the prodigal was a sorry specimen
of humility. Would our Lord have put such language upon the lips of one
held up by himself, as a model of gospel humility, to illustrate its
deep sense of an ill-desert? If this is _humility_, put it on stilts,
and set it a strutting, while pride takes lessons, and blunders in
apeing it.
Israelites and Strangers, belonged indiscriminately to _each_ class of
the servants, the _bought_ and the _hired_. That those in the former
class, whether Jews or Strangers, rose to honors and authority in the
family circle, which were not conferred on _hired_ servants, has been
shown. It should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of privileges,
merely _political_, the hired servants from the _Israelites_, were more
favored than even the bought servants from the _Strangers_. No one from
the Strangers, however wealthy or highly endowed, was eligible to the
highest office, nor could he own the soil. This last disability seems to
have been one reason for the different periods of service required of
the two classes of bought servants--the Israelites and the Strangers.
The Israelite was to serve six years--the Stranger until the jubilee. As
the Strangers could not own the soil, nor even houses, except within
walled towns, most would attach themselves to Israelitish families.
Those who were wealthy, or skilled in manufactures, instead of becoming
servants would need servants for their own use, and as inducements for
the Stranger's to become servants to the Israelites, were greater than
persons of their own nation could hold out to them, these wealthy
Strangers would naturally procure the poorer Israelites for servants.
Lev. xxv. 47. In a word, such was the political condition of the
Strangers, that the Jewish polity offered a virtual bounty, to such as
would become permanent servants, and thus secure those privileges
already enumerated, and for their children in the second generation a
permanent inheritance. Ezek. xlvii. 21-23. None but the monied
aristocracy would be likely to decline such offers. On the other hand,
the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a
sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance was with every
Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and personal
character. 1 Kings xxi. 3. Hence, to forego the control of one's
inheritance, after the division of the paternal domain, or to be kept
out of it after having acceded to it, was a burden grievous to be borne.
To mitigate as much as possible such a calamity, the law released the
Israelitish servant at the end of six years[A]; as, during that time--if
of the first class--the partition of the patrimonial land might have
taken place; or, if of the second, enough money might have been earned
to disencumber his estate, and thus he might assume his station as a
lord of the soil. If neither contingency had occurred, then after
another six years the opportunity was again offered, and so on, until
the jubilee. So while strong motives urged the Israelite to discontinue
his service as soon as the exigency had passed which made him a servant,
every consideration impelled the _Stranger_ to _prolong_ his term of
service; and the same kindness which dictated the law of six years'
service for the Israelite, assigned as a general rule, a much longer
period to the Gentile servant, who had every inducement to protract the
term. It should be borne in mind, that adult Jews ordinarily became
servants, only as a temporary expedient to relieve themselves from
embarrassment, and ceased to be such when that object was effected. The
poverty that forced them to it was a calamity, and their service was
either a means of relief, or a measure of prevention; not pursued as a
permanent business, but resorted to on emergencies--a sort of episode in
the main scope of their lives. Whereas with the Strangers, it was a
_permanent employment_, pursued both as a _means_ of bettering their own
condition, and that of their posterity, and as an _end_ for its own
sake, conferring on them privileges, and a social estimation not
otherwise attainable.
[Footnote A: Another reason for protracting the service until the
seventh year, seems to have been the coincidence of that period with
other arrangements, in the Jewish economy. Its pecuniary
responsibilities, social relations, and general internal structure, were
_graduated_ upon a septennial scale. Besides as those Israelites who
became servants through poverty, would not sell themselves, till other
expedients to recruit their finances had failed--(Lev. xxv. 35)--their
_becoming servants_ proclaimed such a state of their affairs, as
demanded the labor of a _course of years_ fully to reinstate them.]
We see from the foregoing, why servants purchased from the heathen, are
called by way of distinction, _the_ servants, (not _bondmen_,) (1.) They
followed it as a _permanent business_. (2.) Their term of service was
_much longer_ than that of the other class. (3.) As a class they
doubtless greatly outnumbered the Israelitish servants. (4.) All the
Strangers that dwelt in the land were _tributaries_, required to pay an
annual tax to the government, either in money, or in public service,
(called a "_tribute of land-service_;") in other words, all the
Strangers were _national servants_ to the Israelites, and the same
Hebrew word used to designate _individual_ servants, equally designates
_national_ servants or tributaries. 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, 14. 2 Chron.
viii. 7-9. Deut xx. 11. 2 Sam. x. 19. 1 Kings ix. 21, 22. 1 Kings iv.
21. Gen. xxvii. 29. The same word is applied to the Israelites, when
they paid tribute to other nations. 2 Kings xvii. 3. Judg. iii. 8, 14.
Gen. xlix. 15. Another distinction between the Jewish and Gentile bought
servants, was in their _kinds_ of service. The servants from the
Strangers were properly the _domestics_, or household servants, employed
in all family work, in offices of personal attendance, and in such
mechanical labor, as was required by increasing wants, and needed
repairs. The Jewish bought servants seem almost exclusively
_agricultural_. Besides being better fitted for it by previous
habits--agriculture, and the tending of cattle, were regarded by the
Israelites as the most honorable of all occupations. After Saul was
elected king, and escorted to Gibeah, the next report of him is, "_And
behold Saul came after the herd out of the field_." 1 Sam. xi. 7. Elisha
"was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen." 1 Kings xix. 19. King Uzziah
"loved husbandry." 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. Gideon _was "threshing wheat_"
when called to lead the host against the Midianites. Judg. vi. 11. The
superior honorableness of agriculture, is shown, in that it was
protected and supported by the fundamental law of the theocracy--God
indicating it as the chief prop of the government. The Israelites were
like permanent fixtures on their soil, so did they cling to it. To be
agriculturalists on their own inheritances, was with them the grand
claim to honorable estimation. Agriculture being pre-eminently a
_Jewish_ employment, to assign a native Israelite to other employments
as a business, was to break up his habits, do violence to cherished
predilections, and put him to a kind of labor in which he had no skill,
and which he deemed degrading. In short, it was in the earlier ages of
the Mosaic system, practically to _unjew_ him, a hardship and rigor
grievous to be borne, as it annihilated a visible distinction between
the descendants of Abraham and the Strangers.--_To guard this and
another fundamental distinction_, God instituted the regulation which
stands at the head of this branch of our inquiry, "If thy brother that
dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not
compel him to serve as a bond-servant." In other words, thou shalt not
put him to servant's work--to the business, and into the condition of
domestics. In the Persian version it is translated thus, "Thou shalt not
assign to him the work of _servitude_." In the Septuagint, "He shall not
serve thee with the service of a _domestic_." In the Syriac, "Thou shalt
not employ him after the manner of servants." In the Samaritan, "Thou
shalt not require him to serve in the service of a servant." In the
Targum of Onkelos, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a
household servant." In the Targum of Jonathan, "Thou shalt not cause him
to serve according to the usages of the servitude of servants."[A] The
meaning of the passage is, _thou shalt not assign him to the same grade,
nor put him to the same service, with permanent domestics._ The
remainder of the regulation is,--"_But as an hired servant and as a
sojourner shall he be with thee._" Hired servants were not incorporated
into the families of their masters: they still retained their own family
organization, without the surrender of any domestic privilege, honor, or
authority; and this even though they resided under the same roof with
their master. While bought servants were associated with their master's
families at meals, at the Passover, and at other family festivals, hired
servants and sojourners were not. Ex. xii. 44, 45; Lev. xxii. 10, 11.
Hired servants were not subject to the authority of their masters in any
such sense as the master's wife, children, and bought servants. Hence
the only form of oppressing hired servants spoken of in the Scriptures
as practicable to masters, is that _of keeping back their wages_. To
have taken away such privileges in the case under consideration, would
have been pre-eminent "_rigor_," for it was not a servant born in the
house of a master, not a minor, whose minority had been sold by the
father, neither was it one who had not yet acceded to his inheritance:
nor finally, one who had received the _assignment_ of his inheritance,
but was working off from it an incumbrance, before entering upon its
possession and control. But it was that of _the head of a family_, who
had known better days, now reduced to poverty, forced to relinquish the
loved inheritance of his fathers, with the competence and respectful
consideration its possession secured to him, and to be indebted to a
neighbor for shelter, sustenance, and employment. So sad a reverse,
might well claim sympathy; but one consolation cheers him in the house
of his pilgrimage; he is an _Israelite--Abraham is his father_, and now
in his calamity he clings closer than ever, to the distinction conferred
by his birth-right. To rob him of this, were "the unkindest cut of all."
To have assigned him to a grade of service filled only by those whose
permanent business was serving, would have been to "rule over him with"
peculiar "rigor." "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a
bond-servant," or literally, _thou shalt not serve thyself with him,
with the service of a servant_, guaranties his political privileges, and
a kind and grade of service, comporting with his character and relations
as an Israelite. And "as a _hired_ servant, and as a sojourner shall he
be with thee," secures to him his family organization, the respect and
authority due to its head, and the general consideration resulting from
such a station. Being already in possession of his inheritance, and the
head of a household, the law so arranged the conditions of his service
as to _alleviate_ as much as possible the calamity, which had reduced
him from independence and authority, to penury and subjection. The
import of the command which concludes this topic in the forty-third
verse, ("Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor,") is manifestly this,
you shall not disregard those differences in previous associations,
station, authority, and political privileges, upon which this regulation
is based; for to hold this class of servants _irrespective_ of these
distinctions, and annihilating them, is to "rule with rigor." The same
command is repeated in the forty-sixth verse, and applied to the
distinction between servants of Jewish, and those of Gentile extraction,
and forbids the overlooking of distinctive Jewish peculiarities, the
disregard of which would be _rigorous_ in the extreme[B]. The
construction commonly put upon the phrase "rule with rigor," and the
inference drawn from it, have an air vastly oracular. It is interpreted
to mean, "you shall not make him a chattel, and strip him of legal
protection, nor force him to work without pay." The inference is like
unto it, viz., since the command forbade such outrages upon the
Israelites, it permitted and commissioned their infliction upon the
Strangers. Such impious and shallow smattering captivates scoffers and
libertines; its flippancy and blasphemy, and the strong scent of its
loose-reined license works like a charm upon them. What boots it to
reason against such rampant affinities! In Ex. i. 13, it is said that
the Egyptians "made the children of Israel to _serve_ with rigor." This
rigor is affirmed of the _amount of labor_ extorted and the _mode_ of
the exaction. The expression, "serve with rigor," is never applied to
the service of servants under the Mosaic system. The phrase, "thou shalt
not RULE over him with rigor," does not prohibit unreasonable exactions
of labor, nor inflictions of cruelty. Such were provided against
otherwise. But it forbids confounding the distinctions between a Jew and
a Stranger, by assigning the former to the same grade of service, for
the same term of time, and under the same political disabilities as the
latter.
[Footnote A: Jarchi's comment on "Thou shall not compel him to serve as
a bond-servant" is, "The Hebrew servant is not to be required to do any
thing which is accounted degrading--such as all offices of personal
attendance, as loosing his master's shoe-latchet, bringing him water to
wash his feet and hands, waiting on him at table, dressing him, carrying
things to and from the bath. The Hebrew servant is to work with his
master as a son or brother, in the business of his farm, or other labor,
until his legal release."]
[Footnote B: The disabilities of the Strangers, which were distinctions,
based on a different national descent, and important to the preservation
of national characteristics, and a national worship, did not at all
affect their _social_ estimation. They were regarded according to their
character, and worth as _persons_, irrespective of their foreign origin,
employments, and political condition.]
We are now prepared to review at a glance, the condition of the
different classes of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each
class. In the possession of all fundamental rights, all classes of
servants were on an absolute equality, all were equally protected by law
in their persons, character, property and social relations; all were
voluntary, all were compensated for their labor, and released from it
nearly half of the days in each year; all were furnished with stated
instruction: none in either class were in any sense articles of
property, all were regarded as _men_, with the rights, interests, hopes
and destinies of _men_. In all these respects, _all_ classes of servants
among the Israelites, formed but ONE CLASS. The _different_ classes and
the differences in _each_ class, were, (1.) _Hired Servants._ This class
consisted both of Israelites and Strangers. Their employments were
different. The _Israelite_ was an agricultural servant. The Stranger was
a _domestic_ and _personal_ servant, and in some instances _mechanical_;
both were occasional and temporary. Both lived in their own families,
their wages were _money_, and they were paid when their work was done.
(2.) _Bought Servants_, (including those "born in the house.") This
class also, consisted of Israelites and Strangers, the same difference
in their kinds of employments noticed before. Both were paid in
advance[A], and neither was temporary. The Israelitish servant, with the
exception of the _freeholders_ was released after six years. The
stranger was a permanent servant, continuing until the jubilee. A marked
distinction obtained also between different classes of _Jewish_ bought
servants. Ordinarily, they were merged in their master's family, and,
like his wife and children, subject to his authority; (and, like them,
protected by law from its abuse.) But the _freeholder_ was a marked
exception: his family relations, and authority remained unaffected, nor
was he subjected as an inferior to the control of his master, though
dependent upon him for employment.
[Footnote A: The payment _in advance_, doubtless lessened the price of
the purchase; the servant thus having the use of the money, and the
master assuming all the risks of life and health for labor: at the
expiration of the six year's contract, the master having suffered no
loss from the risk incurred at the making of it, was obliged by law to
release the servant with a liberal gratuity. The reason assigned for
this is, "he hath been worth a double hired servant unto thee in serving
thee six years," as if it had been said, as you have experienced no loss
from the risks of life, and ability to labor, incurred in the purchase,
and which lessened the price, and as, by being your servant for six
years, he has saved you the time and trouble of looking up and hiring
laborers on emergencies, therefore, "thou shalt furnish him liberally,"
&c.]
It should be kept in mind, that _both_ classes of servants, the
Israelite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed _equal natural and
religious rights_, but _all the civil and political privileges_ enjoyed
by those of their own people who were _not_ servants. They also shared
in common with them the political disabilities which appertained to all
Strangers, whether the servants of Jewish masters, or the masters of
Jewish servants. Further, the disabilities of the servants from the
Strangers were exclusively _political_ and _national._ (1.) They, in
common with all Strangers, could not own the soil. (2.) They were
ineligible to civil offices. (3.) They were assigned to employments less
honorable than those in which Israelitish servants engaged; agriculture
being regarded as fundamental to the existence of the state, other
employments were in less repute, and deemed _unjewish._
Finally, the Strangers, whether servants or masters, were all protected
equally with the descendants of Abraham. In respect to political
privileges, their condition was much like that of naturalized foreigners
in the United States; whatever their wealth or intelligence, or moral
principle, or love for our institutions, they can neither go to the
ballot-box, nor own the soil, nor be eligible to office. Let a native
American, be suddenly bereft of these privilege, and loaded with the
disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would be a light
matter, to _him_, would be the severity of _rigor_. The recent condition
of the Jews and Catholics in England, is another illustration.
Rothschild, the late banker, though the richest private citizen in the
world, and perhaps master of scores of English servants, who sued for
the smallest crumbs of his favor, was, as a subject of the government,
inferior to the lowest among them. Suppose an Englishman of the
Established Church, were by law deprived of power to own the soil, of
eligibility to office and of the electoral franchise, would Englishmen
think it a misapplication of language, if it were said, the government
"rules over him with rigor?" And yet his person, property, reputation,
conscience, all his social relations, the disposal of his time, the
right of locomotion at pleasure, and of natural liberty in all respects,
are just as much protected by law as the Lord Chancellor's.
FINALLY,--As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, rife with
meaning in doctrine and duty; the practical power of the whole, depended
upon the exact observance of those distinctions and relations which
constituted its significancy. Hence, the care to preserve serve
inviolate the distinction between a _descendant of Abraham_ and a
_Stranger_, even when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the
initiatory ordinances, entered the congregation, and become incorporated
with the Israelites by family alliance. The regulation laid down in Ex.
xxi. 2-6, is an illustration. In this case, the Israelitish servant,
whose term expired in six years, married one of his master's _permanent
female domestics_; but her marriage, did not release her master from
_his_ part of the contract for her whole term of service, nor from his
legal obligation to support and educate her children. Neither did it do
away that distinction, which marked her national descent by a specific
_grade_ and _term_ of service, nor impair her obligation to fulfill
_her_ part of the contract. Her relations as a permanent domestic grew
out of a distinction guarded with great care throughout the Mosaic
system. To render it void, would have been to divide the system against
itself. This God would not tolerate. Nor, on the other hand, would he
permit the master, to throw off the responsibility of instructing her
children, nor the care and expense of their helpless infancy and
rearing. He was bound to support and educate them, and all her children
born afterwards during her term of service. The whole arrangement
beautifully illustrates that wise and tender regard for the interests of
all the parties concerned, which arrays the Mosaic system in robes of
glory, and causes it to shine as the sun in the kingdom of our Father.
By this law, the children had secured to them a mother's tender care. If
the husband loved his wife and children, he could compel his master to
keep him, whether he had any occasion for his services or not. If he did
not love them, to be rid of him was a blessing; and in that case, the
regulation would prove an act for the relief of an afflicted family. It
is not by any means to be inferred, that the release of the servant in
the seventh year, either absolved him from the obligations of marriage,
or shut him out from the society of his family. He could doubtless
procure a service at no great distance from them, and might often do it,
to get higher wages, or a kind of employment better suited to his taste
and skill. The great number of days on which the law released servants
from regular labor, would enable him to spend much more time with his
family, than can be spent by most of the agents of our benevolent
societies with _their_ families, or by many merchants, editors, artists
&c., whose daily business is in New York, while their families reside
from ten to one hundred miles in the country.
We conclude this Inquiry by touching briefly upon an objection, which,
though not formally stated, has been already set aside by the whole
tenor of the foregoing argument. It is this,--"The slavery of the
Canaanites by the Israelites, was appointed by God as a commutation of
the punishment of death denounced against them for their sins." If the
absurdity of a sentence consigning persons to _death_, and at the same
time to perpetual _slavery_, did not sufficiently laugh at itself, it
would be small self-denial, in a case so tempting, to make up the
deficiency by a general contribution. For, _be it remembered_, only
_one_ statute was ever given respecting the disposition to be made of
the inhabitants of Canaan. If the sentence of death was pronounced
against them, and afterwards _commuted_, when? where? by whom? and in
what terms was the commutation, and where is it recorded? Grant, for
argument's sake, that all the Canaanites were sentenced to unconditional
extermination; as there was no reversal of the sentence, how can a right
to _enslave_ them, be drawn from such premises? The punishment of death
is one of the highest recognitions of man's moral nature possible. It
proclaims him _man_--rational, accountable, guilty, deserving death for
having done his utmost to cheapen human life, when the proof of its
priceless worth lived in his own nature. But to make him a _slave_,
cheapens to nothing _universal human nature_, and instead of healing a
wound, gives a death-stab. What! repair an injury to rational being in
the robbery of _one_ of its rights, by robbing it of _all_, and
annihilating their _foundation_--the everlasting distinction between
persons and things? To make a man a chattel, is not the _punishment_,
but the _annihilation_ of a _human_ being, and, so far as it goes, of
_all_ human beings. This commutation of the punishment of death, into
perpetual slavery, what a fortunate discovery! Alas! for the honor of
Deity, if commentators had not manned the forlorn hope, and by a timely
movement rescued the Divine character, at the very crisis of its fate,
from the perilous position in which inspiration had carelessly left it!
Here a question arises of sufficient importance for a separate
dissertation; but must for the present be disposed of in a few
paragraphs. WERE THE CANAANITES SENTENCED BY GOD TO INDIVIDUAL AND
UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION? As the limits of this inquiry forbid our
giving all the grounds of dissent from commonly received opinions, the
suggestions made, will be thrown out merely as QUERIES, rather than laid
down as _doctrines_. The directions as to the disposal of the
Canaanites, are mainly in the following passages: Ex. xxiii. 23-33;
xxxiv. 11; Deut. vii. 16-25; ix. 3; xxxi. 3-5. In these verses, the
Israelites are commanded to "destroy the Canaanites," "drive out,"
"consume," "utterly overthrow," "put out," "dispossess them," &c. Did
these commands enjoin the unconditional and universal destruction of the
_inhabitants_ or merely of the _body politic?_ The word _haram_, to
destroy, signifies _national_, as well as individual destruction, the
destruction of _political_ existence, equally with _personal_; of
governmental organization, equally with the lives of the subjects.
Besides, if we interpret the words destroy, consume, overthrow, &c., to
mean _personal_ destruction, what meaning shall we give to the
expressions, "throw out before thee;" "cast out before thee;" "expel,"
"put out," "dispossess," &c., which are used in the same passages? "I
will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all
thine enemies _turn their backs unto thee_" Ex. xxiii. 27. Here "_all
thine enemies_" were to _turn their backs_ and "_all the people_" to be
"_destroyed_." Does this mean that God would let all their _enemies_
escape, but kill all their _friends_, or that he would _first_ kill "all
the people" and THEN make them "turn their backs," an army of runaway
corpses? If these commands required the destruction of all the
inhabitants, the Mosaic law was at war with itself, for directions as to
the treatment of native residents form a large part of it. See Lev. xix.
34; xxv. 35, 36; xx. 22. Ex. xxiii. 9; xxii. 21; Deut. i. 16, 17; x. 17,
19, xxvii. 19. We find, also that provision was made for them in the
cities of refuge. Num. xxxv. 15;--the gleanings of the harvest and
vintage were theirs, Lev. xix. 9, 10; xxiii. 22;--the blessings of the
Sabbath, Ex. xx. 10;--the privilege of offering sacrifices secured, Lev.
xxii. 18; and stated religious instruction provided for them, Deut.
xxxi. 9, 12. Now does this same law require the _individual
extermination_ of those whose lives and interests it thus protects?
These laws were given to the Israelites, long _before_ they entered
Canaan; and they must have inferred from them that a multitude of the
inhabitants of the land were to _continue_ in it, under their
government. Again Joshua was selected as the leader of Israel to execute
God's threatenings upon Canaan. He had no _discretionary_ power. God's
commands were his _official instructions_. Going beyond them would have
been usurpation; refusing to carry them out rebellion and treason. Saul
was rejected from being king for disobeying god's commands in a _single_
instance. Now, if God commanded the individual destruction of all the
Canaanites. Joshua _disobeyed him in every instance_. For at his death,
the Israelites still "_dwelt among them_," and each nation is mentioned
by name. Judg. i. 5, and yet we are told that Joshua "left nothing
undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses;" and that he "took all that
land." Josh. xi. 15-22. Also, that "there _stood not a man_ of _all_
their enemies before them." How can this be, if the command to _destroy_
enjoined _individual_ extermination, and the command to _drive out_,
unconditional expulsion from the country, rather than their expulsion
from the _possession_ or _ownership_ of it, as the lords of the soil?
True, multitudes of the Canaanites were slain, but not a case can be
found in which one was either killed or expelled who _acquiesced_ in the
transfer of the territory, and its sovereignty, from the inhabitants of
the land to the Israelites. Witness the case of Rahab and her kindred,
and the Gibeonites[A]. The Canaanites knew of the miracles wrought for
the Israelites; and that their land had been transferred to them as a
judgment for their sins. Josh. ii. 9-11; ix. 9, 10, 24. Many of them
were awed by these wonders, and made no resistance. Others defied God
and came out to battle. These occupied the fortified cities, were the
most inveterate heathen--the aristocracy of idolatry, the kings, the
nobility and gentry, the priests, with their crowds of satellite, and
retainers that aided in idolatrous rites, and the military forces, with
the chief profligates of both sexes. Many facts corroborate the general
position. Such as the multitude of _tributaries_ in the midst of Israel,
and that too, after they had "waxed strong," and the uttermost nations
quaked at the terror of their name--the Canaanites, Philistines, and
others, who became proselytes--as the Nethenims, Uriah the
Hittite--Rahab, who married one of the princes of Judah--Ittai--the six
hundred Gitites--David's body guard. 2 Sam. xv. 18, 21. Obededom the
Gittite, adopted into the tribe of Levi. Comp. 2 Sam. vi. 10, 11, with 1
Chron. xv. 18, and 1 Chron. xxvi. 45--Jaziz, and Obil. 1 Chron. xxvi.
30, 31, 33. Jephunneh the father of Caleb, the Kenite, registered in the
genealogies of the tribe of Judah, and the one hundred and fifty
thousand Canaanites, employed by Solomon in the building of the
Temple[B]. Besides, the greatest miracle on record, was wrought to save
a portion of those very Canaanites, and for the destruction of those who
would exterminate them. Josh. x. 12-14. Further--the terms employed in
the directions regulating the disposal of the Canaanites, such as "drive
out," "put out," "cast out," "expel," "dispossess," &c. seem used
interchangeably with "consume," "destroy," "overthrow," &c., and thus
indicate the sense in which the latter words are used. As an
illustration of the meaning generally attached to these and similar
terms, we refer to the history of the Amelekites. "I will utterly put
out the remembrance of Amelek from under heaven." Ex. xxvii. 14. "Thou
shalt blot out the remembrance of Amelek from under heaven; thou shalt
not forget it." Deut. xxv. 19. "Smite Amelek and _utterly destroy_ all
that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant
and suckling, ox and sheep." 1 Sam. xv. 2, 3. "Saul smote the
Amelekites, and took Agag the king of the Amelekites, alive and UTTERLY
DESTROYED ALL THE PEOPLE with the edge of the sword." Verses 7, 8. In
verse 20, Saul says, "I have brought Agag, the king of Amelek, and have
_utterly destroyed_ the Amelekites." In 1 Sam. xxx. we find the
Amelekites marching an army into Israel, and sweeping everything before
them--and this in about eighteen years after they had _all been_
"UTTERLY DESTROYED!" Deut. xx. 16, 17, will probably be quoted against
the preceding view. We argue that the command in these verses, did not
include all the individuals of the Canaanitish nations, but only the
inhabitants of the _cities_, (and even those conditionally,) because,
only the inhabitants of the _cities_ are specified,--"of the _cities_ of
these people thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." Cities then,
as now, were pest-houses of vice--they reeked with abominations little
practiced in the country. On this account their influence would be far
more perilous to the Israelites than that of the country. Besides, they
were the centres of idolatry--there were the temples and altars, and
idols, and priests, without number. Even their buildings, streets, and
public walks were so many visibilities of idolatry. The reason assigned
in the 18th verse for exterminating them, strengthens the idea,--"that
they teach you not to do after all the abominations which they have done
unto their gods." This would be a reason for exterminating _all_ the
nations and individuals _around_ them, as all were idolaters; but God
commanded them, in certain cases, to spare the inhabitants. Contact with
_any_ of them would be perilous--with the inhabitants of the _cities_
peculiarly, and of the _Canaanitish_ cities pre-eminently so. The 10th
and 11th verses contain the general rule prescribing the method in which
cities were to be summoned to surrender. They were first to receive the
offer of peace--if it was accepted, the inhabitants became
_tributaries_--but if they came out against Israel in battle, the _men_
were to be killed, and the women and little ones saved alive. The 15th
verse restricts this lenient treatment to the inhabitants of the cities
_afar off_. The 16th directs as to the disposal of the inhabitants of
Canaanitish cities. They were to save alive "nothing that breathed." The
common mistake has been, in supposing that the command in the 15th verse
refers to the _whole system of directions preceding_, commencing with
the 10th, whereas it manifestly refers only to the _inflictions_
specified in the 12th, 13th, and 14th, making a distinction between
those _Canaanitish_ cities that _fought_, and the cities _afar off_ that
fought--in one case destroying the males and females, and in the other,
the _males_ only. The offer of peace, and the _conditional
preservation_, were as really guarantied to _Canaanitish_ cities as to
others. Their inhabitants were not to be exterminated unless they came
out against Israel in battle. But let us settle this question by the
"law and the testimony." "There was not a city that made peace with the
children of Israel save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all
others they took in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their
hearts, that they should COME OUT AGAINST ISRAEL IN BATTLE, that he
might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that
he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses." Josh. xix. 19, 20.
That is, if they had _not_ come out against Israel in battle, they would
have had "favor" shown them, and would not have been "_destroyed
utterly._" The great design was to _transfer the territory_ of the
Canaanites to the Israelites, and along with it, _absolute sovereignty
in every respect_; to annihilate their political organizations, civil
polity, and jurisprudence and their system of religion, with all its
rights and appendages; and to substitute therefor, a pure theocracy,
administered by Jehovah, with the Israelites as His representatives and
agents. In a word the people were to be _denationalized_, their
political existence annihilated, their idol temples, altars, images
groves and heathen rites destroyed, and themselves put under tribute.
Those who resisted the execution of Jehovah's purpose were to be killed,
while those who quietly submitted to it were to be spared. All had the
choice of these alternatives, either free egress out of the land[C]; or
acquiescence in the decree, with life and residence as tributaries,
under the protection of the government; or resistance to the execution
of the decree, with death. "_And it shall come to pass, if they will
diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, the Lord
liveth as they taught my people to swear by Baal_; THEN SHALL THEY BE
BUILT IN THE MIDST OF MY PEOPLE."
[Footnote A: Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the
Gibeonites, and of Rahab and her kindred, was a violation of the command
of God. We answer, if it had been, we might expect some such intimation.
If God had strictly commanded them to _exterminate all the Canaanites_,
their pledge to save themselves was neither a repeal of the statute, nor
absolution for the breach of it. If _unconditional destruction_ was the
import of the command, would God have permitted such an act to pass
without rebuke? Would he have established such a precedent when Israel
had hardly passed the threshold of Canaan, and was then striking the
first blow of a half century war? What if they _had_ passed their word
to Rahab and the Gibeonites? Was that more binding than God's command?
So Saul seems to have passed _his_ word to Agag; yet Samuel hewed him in
pieces, because in saving his life, Saul had violated God's command.
When Saul sought to slay the Gibeonites in "his zeal for the children of
Israel and Judah," God sent upon Israel three years famine for it. When
David inquired of them what atonement he should make, they say, "The man
that devised against us, that we should be destroyed from _remaining in
any of the coasts of Israel_, let seven of his sons be delivered," &c. 2
Sam. xxii. 1-6.]
[Footnote B: If the Canaanites were devoted by God to unconditional
extermination, to have employed them in the erection of the
temple,--what was it but the climax of impiety? As well might they
pollute its altars with swine's flesh, or make their sons pass through
the fire to Moloch.]
[Footnote C: Suppose all the Canaanitish nations had abandoned their
territory at the tidings of Israel's approach, did God's command require
the Israelites to chase them to the ends of the earth and hunt them out,
until every Canaanite was destroyed? It is too preposterous for belief
and yet it follows legitimately from that construction, which interprets
the terms "consume," "destroy," "destroy utterly," &c. to mean
unconditional, individual extermination.]
[The original design of the preceding Inquiry embraced a much wider
range of topics. It was soon found, however, that to fill up the outline
would be to make a volume. Much of the foregoing has therefore been
thrown into a mere series of _indices_, to trains of thought and classes
of proof which, however limited or imperfect, may perhaps, afford some
facilities to those who have little leisure for protracted
investigation.]
THE
ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER NO 4.
THE
BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE
PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS
ON THE SUBJECT OF
HUMAN RIGHTS.
Fourth Edition--Enlarged.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
NO. 143 NASSAU STREET.
1838.
This No. contains 7 sheets:--Postage, under 100 miles, 10 1/2 cents;
over 100 miles, 14 cents.
Please read and Circulate.
CONTENTS.
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY,
NEGATIVE,
AFFIRMATIVE,
LEGAL,
THE MORAL LAW AGAINST SLAVERY
"THOU SHALT NOT STEAL,"
"THOU SHALT NOT COVET,"
MAN-STEALING--EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 16,
SEPARATION OF MAN FROM BRUTES AND THINGS,
IMPORT OF "BUY" AND "BOUGHT WITH MONEY,"
SERVANTS SOLD THEMSELVES,
RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES SECURED BY LAW TO SERVANTS,
SERVANTS WERE VOLUNTARY,
RUNAWAY SERVANTS NOT TO BE DELIVERED TO THEIR MASTERS,
SERVANTS WERE PAID WAGES,
MASTERS NOT "OWNERS,"
SERVANTS NOT SUBJECTED TO THE USES OF PROPERTY,
SERVANTS EXPRESSLY DISTINGUISHED FROM PROPERTY,
EXAMINATION OF GEN. xii. 5.--"THE SOULS THAT THEY HAD
GOTTEN," &c.
SOCIAL EQUALITY OF SERVANTS AND MASTERS,
CONDITION OF THE GIBEONITES AS SUBJECTS OF THE HEBREW
COMMONWEALTH,
EGYPTIAN BONDAGE CONTRASTED WITH AMERICAN SLAVERY,
CONDITION OF AMERICAN SLAVES,
ILL FED,
ILL CLOTHED,
OVER-WORKED,
THEIR DWELLING UNFIT FOR HUMAN BEINGS,
MORAL CONDITION--"HEATHENS,"
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
"CURSED BE CANAAN," &c.--EXAMINATION OF GEN. ix. 25,
"FOR HE IS HIS MONEY," &c.--EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 20, 21,
EXAMINATION OF LEV. xxv. 44-46,
"BOTH THY BONDMEN, &c., SHALL BE OF THE HEATHEN,"
"OF THEM SHALL YE BUY,"
"THEY SHALL BE YOUR BONDMEN FOREVER,"
"YE SHALL TAKE THEM AS AN INHERITANCE," &c.
EXAMINATION OF LEV. xxv. 39, 40.--THE FREEHOLDER NOT TO "SERVE
AS A BOND SERVANT,"
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIRED AND BOUGHT SERVANTS,
BOUGHT SERVANTS THE MOST FAVORED AND HONORED CLASS,
ISRAELITES AND STRANGERS BELONGED TO BOTH CLASSES,
ISRAELITES SERVANTS TO THE STRANGERS,
REASONS FOR THE RELEASE OF THE ISRAELITISH SERVANTS IN
THE SEVENTH YEAR,
REASONS FOR ASSIGNING THE STRANGERS TO A LONGER SERVICE,
REASONS FOR CALLING THEM THE SERVANTS,
DIFFERENT KINDS OF SERVICE ASSIGNED TO THE ISRAELITES
AND STRANGERS,
REVIEW OF ALL THE CLASSES OF SERVANTS WITH THE MODIFICATIONS OF
EACH,
POLITICAL DISABILITIES OF THE STRANGERS,
EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 2-6.--"IF THOU BUY AN HEBREW SERVANT,"
THE CANAANITES NOT SENTENCED TO UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION,
THE BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.
The spirit of slavery never seeks refuge in the Bible of its own accord.
The horns of the altar are its last resort--seized only in desperation,
as it rushes from the terror of the avenger's arm. Like other unclean
spirits, it "hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its
deeds should be reproved." Goaded to phrenzy in its conflicts with
conscience and common sense, denied all quarter, and hunted from every
covert, it vaults over the sacred inclosure and courses up and down the
Bible, "seeking rest, and finding none." THE LAW OF LOVE, glowing on
every page, flashes around it an omnipresent anguish and despair. It
shrinks from the hated light, and howls under the consuming touch, as
demons quailed before the Son of God, and shrieked, "Torment us not." At
last, it slinks away under the types of the Mosaic system, and seeks to
burrow out of sight among their shadows. Vain hope! Its asylum is its
sepulchre; its city of refuge, the city of destruction. It flies from
light into the sun; from heat, into devouring fire; and from the voice
of God into the thickest of His thunders.
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY.
If we would know whether the Bible sanctions slavery, we must determine
_what slavery is_. An element, is one thing; a relation, another; an
appendage, another. Relations and appendages presuppose other things to
which they belong. To regard them as the things themselves, or as
constituent parts of them, leads to endless fallacies. Mere political
disabilities are often confounded with slavery; so are many relations,
and tenures, indispensible to the social state. We will specify some of
these.
1. PRIVATION OF SUFFRAGE. Then minors are slaves.
2. INELIGIBILITY TO OFFICE. Then females are slaves.
3. TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. Then slaveholders in the District of
Columbia are slaves.
4. PRIVATION OF ONE'S OATH IN LAW. Then atheists are slaves.
5. PRIVATION OF TRIAL BY JURY. Then all in France are slaves.
6. BEING REQUIRED TO SUPPORT A PARTICULAR RELIGION. Then the people of
England are slaves.
7. APPRENTICESHIP. The rights and duties of master and apprentice are
correlative. The _claim_ of each upon the other results from his
_obligation_ to the other. Apprenticeship is based on the principle of
equivalent for value received. The rights of the apprentice are secured,
equally with those of the master. Indeed while the law is _just_ to the
former it is _benevolent_ to the latter; its main design being rather to
benefit the apprentice than the master. To the master it secures a mere
compensation--to the apprentice, both a compensation and a virtual
gratuity in addition, he being of the two the greatest gainer. The law
not only recognizes the _right_ of the apprentice to a reward for his
labor, but appoints the wages, and enforces the payment. The master's
claim covers only the _services_ of the apprentice. The apprentice's
claim covers _equally_ the services of the master. Neither can hold the
other as property; but each holds property in the services of the other,
and BOTH EQUALLY. Is this slavery?
8. FILIAL SUBORDINATION AND PARENTAL CLAIMS. Both are nature's dictates,
and intrinsic elements of the social state; the natural affections which
blend parent and child in one, excite each to discharge those offices
incidental to the relation, and are a shield for mutual protection. The
parent's legal claim to the child's services, is a slight return for the
care and toil of his rearing, exclusively of outlays for support and
education. This provision is, with the mass of mankind, indispensable to
the preservation of the family state. The child, in helping his parents,
helps himself--increases a common stock, in which he has a share; while
his most faithful services do but acknowledge a debt that money cannot
cancel.
9. CLAIMS OF GOVERNMENT ON SUBJECTS. Governments owe their subjects
protection; subjects owe just governments allegiance and support. The
obligations of both are reciprocal, and the benefits received by both
are mutual, equal, and voluntarily rendered.
10. BONDAGE FOR CRIME. Must innocence be punished because guilt suffers
penalties? True, the criminal works for the government without pay; and
well he may. He owes the government. A century's work would not pay its
drafts on him. He will die a public defaulter. Because laws make men pay
their debts, shall those be forced to pay who owe nothing? The law makes
no criminal, PROPERTY. It restrains his liberty, and makes him pay
something, a mere penny in the pound, of his debt to the government; but
it does not make him a chattel. Test it. To own property, is to own its
product. Are children born of convicts, government property? Besides,
can _property_ be guilty? Can _chattels_ deserve punishment?
11. RESTRAINTS UPON FREEDOM. Children are restrained by parents, pupils,
by teachers, patients, by physicians, corporations, by charters, and
legislatures, by constitutions. Embargoes, tariffs, quarantine, and all
other laws, keep men from doing as they please. Restraints are the web
of civilized society, warp and woof. Are they slavery? then a government
of LAW, is the climax of slavery!
12. INVOLUNTARY OR COMPULSORY SERVICE. A juryman is empannelled against
his will, and sit he _must_. A sheriff orders his posse; bystanders
_must_ turn in. Men are _compelled_ to remove nuisances, pay fines and
taxes, support their families, and "turn to the right as the law
directs," however much against their wills. Are they therefore slaves?
To confound slavery with involuntary service is absurd. Slavery is a
_condition_. The slave's _feelings_ toward it cannot alter its nature.
Whether he desires or detests it, the condition remains the same. The
slave's willingness to be a slave is no palliation of the slaveholder's
guilt. Suppose he should really believe himself a chattel, and consent
to be so regarded by others, would that _make_ him a chattel, or make
those guiltless who _hold_ him as such? I may be sick of life, and I
tell the assassin so that stabs me; is he any the less a murderer? Does
my _consent_ to his crime, atone for it? my partnership in his guilt,
blot out his part of it? The slave's willingness to be a slave, so far
from lessening the guilt of his "owner," aggravates it. If slavery has
so palsied his mind that he looks upon himself as a chattel, and
consents to be one, actually to hold him as such, falls in with his
delusion, and confirms the impious falsehood. These very feelings and
convictions of the slave, (if such were possible) increase a hundred
fold the guilt of the master, and call upon him in thunder, immediately
to recognize him as a MAN, and thus break the sorcery that cheats him
out of his birthright--the consciousness of his worth and destiny.
Many of the foregoing conditions are _appendages_ of slavery, but no
one, nor all of them together, constitute its intrinsic unchanging
element.
ENSLAVING MEN IS REDUCING THEM TO ARTICLES OF PROPERTY--making free
agents, chattels--converting _persons_ into _things_--sinking
immortality into _merchandize_. A _slave_ is one held in this condition.
In law, "he owns nothing, and can acquire nothing." His right to himself
is abrogated. If he say _my_ hands, _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 made
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, bartered, leased, mortgaged,
bequeathed, invoiced, shipped in cargoes, stored as goods, taken on
executions, and knocked off at a 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 a plaything, as best suits the humour 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
him 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 man into an _implement_ of
labor; not abridging human comforts, but abrogating 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: To deprive human nature of _any_ of its rights is
_oppression_; to take away the _foundation_ of its rights is slavery. In
other words, whatever sinks man from an END to a mere _means_, just so
far makes him a slave. Hence West-India apprenticeship retained the
cardinal principle of slavery. The apprentice, during three-fourths of
his time, was forced to labor, and robbed of his earnings; just so far
forth he was a _mere means_, a slave. True in other respects slavery was
abolished in the British West Indies August, 1834. Its bloodiest
features were 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 demurred at the
outrage, was one of the provisions of the "Emancipation Act!" For the
glories of that luminary, abolitionists thanked God, while they mourned
that it rose behind clouds and shone through an eclipse. [West India
apprenticeship is now (August 1838) abolished. On the first of the
present month, every slave in every British island and colony stood up a
freeman!--Note to fourth edition.] ]
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_--obtains as undoubted law in
all of these [the slave] states." The law of South Carolina says,
"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." _Brev. Dig._, 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."--_Civ. Code_, Art. 35.
This is American slavery. The eternal distinction between a person and a
thing, trampled under foot--the crowning distinction of all
others--alike the source, the test, and the measure of their value--the
rational, immortal principle, consecrated by God 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 shield, and 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] "To the _law_ and the testimony?"
[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 MORAL LAW AGAINST SLAVERY.
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. "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL," or, "thou shalt not take from
another what _belongs_ to him." All man's powers are God's gift to HIM.
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 anything else is merely _relative_ to this, 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, when talking about their RIGHT to their
slaves, always assume their own right to themselves. What slave-holder
ever undertook to prove his 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. In making out his own title, he makes
out the title of every human being. 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 a man 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 disfranchise of humanity _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.
The eighth commandment forbids the taking of _any part_ of that which
belongs to another. Slavery takes the _whole_. Does the same Bible which
prohibits the taking of _any_ thing from him, sanction the taking of
_every_ thing! Does it thunder wrath against the man who robs his
neighbor of a _cent_, yet commission him to rob his neighbour of
_himself?_ Slaveholding is the highest possible violation of the eight
commandment. To take from a man his earnings, is theft. But to take the
_earner_, is a compound, life-long theft--supreme robbery that vaults up
the climax at a leap--the dread, terrific, giant robbery, that towers
among other robberies a solitary horror. The eight 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
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, without _coveting_ them? Why take from them their time, labor,
liberty, 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, 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.
MANSTEALING--EXAMINATION OF EX. XXI. 16.
The giving of the law at Sinai, immediately preceded the promulgation of
that body of laws 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[A]." Ex. xxi. 16.
[Footnote A: A writer in the American Quarterly Review, commenting on
this passage, thus blasphemes. "On this passage an impression has gone
abroad that slave-owners are necessarily menstealers; how hastily, any
one will perceive who consults the passage in its connection. Being
found in the chapter which authorizes this species of property among the
Hebrews, it must of course relate to _its full protection from the
danger of being enticed away from its rightful owner."_--Am. Quart.
Review for June, 1833. Article "Negro slavery."]
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.
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 swarming upon every living
thing; the streets, the palaces, the temples, and every house heaped up
with the carcases of things abhorred; 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 on 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
uprear on its foreground 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 surely be put to death."_ Ex. xxi. 16. Deut.
xxiv, 7[A]. God's cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance to
the Mosaic system!
[Footnote A: Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish Commentators, 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 word _Ganabh_ here rendered _stealeth,_ means, the taking of what
belongs to another, whether by violence or fraud; the same word is used
in the eight 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 is stated in a three-fold form--man _stealing_, _selling_, and
_holding_. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one
penalty--DEATH[A]. This _somebody_ deprived of the ownership of a man,
is the _man himself_, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said, "Indeed
I was _stolen_ away out of the land of the Hebrews." Gen. xl. 15. How
_stolen?_ His brethren sold him as an article of merchandize. Contrast
this penalty for _man_-stealing with that for _property_-stealing, Ex.
xxii. 14. If a man had stolen an _ox_ and killed or sold it, he was to
restore five oxen; if he had neither sold nor killed it, two oxen. But
in the case of stealing a _man_, the _first_ act drew down the utmost
power of punishment; however often repeated or 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 diseased or
totally past labor, consequently instead of being profitable to the
thief, he would be a tax upon him, yet death was still 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 theft,
the payment of double wiped out the score. It might have a greater money
value than a thousand men, yet death was not the penalty, nor maiming,
nor braiding, nor even stripes, but double _of the same kind_. Why was
not the rule uniform? When a _man_ was stolen why was not the thief
required 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 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 intolerable aggravations.
Compute the value of a MAN in _money!_ Throw dust into the scale against
immortality! The law recoiled from such supreme insult and impiety. 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 the utmost possibility of
reparation. It wrung from the guilty wretch as he gave up the ghost, the
testimony of blood, and death-groans, to the infinite dignity and worth
of man,--a proclamation to the universe, voiced in mortal agony, "MAN IS
INVIOLABLE."--a confession shrieked in phrenzy at the grave's mouth--"I
die accursed, and God is just."
[Footnote A: "Those are _men-stealers_ who abduct, _keep_, sell, or buy
slaves or freemen." GROTIUS.]
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 punish with death for stealing a very little
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 by his own act, God had annihilated the
difference between man and _property_, by putting him on a level with
it?
The guilt of a crime, depends much 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 altering the _nature_ of
the article, but in taking as _mine_ what is _his_. 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
nothing. The sin in stealing a man, is not the transfer from its owner
to another of that which is already property, but the turning of
_personality_ into _property_. True, the attributes of man remain, but
the rights and immunities which grow out of them are annihilated. It is
the first law both 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 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 to
its "scarlet dye." The sin specified in the passage, is that of doing
violence to the _nature_ of a _man_--to his intrinsic value as a
rational being. In the verse preceding the one under consideration, and
in that which follows, the same principle is laid down. Verse 15, "He
that 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 the blow was given to a _parent_, it struck the smiter
dead. The parental relation is the _centre_ of human society. God guards
it with peculiar care. To violate that, is to violate all. Whoever
tramples on that, shows that _no_ relation has any sacredness in his
eyes--that he is unfit to move among human relations who violates 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.
Why such a difference in penalties, for the same act? Answer. 1. The
relation violated was obvious--the distinction between parents and
others self-evident, dictated by a law of nature. 2. The act was
violence to nature--a suicide on constitutional susceptibilities. 3. The
parental relation then, as now, was the focal point 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 state is
God's favorite illustration of his own relations to the human family. In
this case, death was to be inflicted not for smiting a _man,_ but a
_parent_--_a distinction_ made sacred by God, and fortified by 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 to be
punished with death was not the taking of property from its owner, but
violence to an _immortal nature_, the blotting out of a sacred
_distinction_--making MEN "chattels."
The incessant pains taken in the Old Testament to separate human beings
from brutes and things, shows God's regard for this, his own
distinction. "In the beginning" he proclaimed it to the universe as it
rose into being. Creation stood up at the instant of its birth, to do it
homage. It paused in adoration while God 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." Then while every living thing, with land, and sea, and
firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to 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. This distinction is often repeated and always with great
solemnity. In Gen. i. 26-28, it is expressed in various forms. In Gen.
v. 1, we find it again, "IN THE LIKENESS OF GOD MADE HE HIM." In Gen.
ix. 6, 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 it had been said, "All these creatures are your property,
designed for your use--they have the likeness of earth, 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 Lev. xxiv. 17, 18,
21, "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 he shall be put to death." So in Ps. viii. 5, 6, we have 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_[A] OVER _the works of thy hands."_
Slavery breaks his sceptre, and cast 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." Who, but an impious scorner, dare
thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate HIS IMAGE, and blaspheme the
Holy One, who saith, _"Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of
these, ye did it unto ME._"
[Footnote A: "Thou madest him to have dominion." In Gen. i. 28, God says
to man, _"Have dominion_ over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth," thus
vesting in _every_ human being the right of ownership over the earth,
its products and animal life, and in _each_ human being the _same_
right. By so doing God prohibited the exercise of ownership by man over
_man_; for the grant to _all_ men of _equal_ ownership, for ever _shut_
out the possibility of their exercising ownership over _each other_, as
whoever is the owner of a _man_, is the owner of his _right of
property_--in other words, when one man becomes the property of another
his rights become such too, his _right of property_ is transferred to
his "owner," and thus as far as _himself_ is concerned, is annihilated.
Finally, by originally vesting _all_ men with dominion or ownership over
property, God proclaimed the _right of all_ to exercise it, and
pronounced every man who takes it away a robber of the highest grade.
Such is every slaveholder.]
In further prosecuting this inquiry, the Patriarchal and Mosaic systems
will be considered together, as each reflects light upon the other, and
as many regulations of the latter are mere _legal_ forms of Divine
institutions previously existing. As a _system_, the latter alone is of
Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the patriarchs God has not
made them our exemplars.[B] The question to be settled by us, is not
what were Jewish _customs_, but what were the rules that God gave for
the regulation of those customs.
[Footnote B: Those who insist that the patriarchs held slaves, and sit
with such delight under their shadow, hymning the praises of "those good
old slaveholders and patriarchs," might at small cost greatly augment
their numbers. A single stanza celebrating patriarchal _concubinage_,
winding off with a chorus in honor of patriarchal _drunkenness_, would
be a trumpet-call, summoning from brothels, bush and brake, highway and
hedge, and sheltering fence, a brotherhood of kindred affinities, each
claiming Abraham or Noah as his patron saint, and shouting, "My name is
legion." A myriad choir and thunderous song!]
Before entering upon an analysis of the condition of servants under
these two states of society, we will consider the import of certain
terms which describe the mode of procuring them.
IMPORT OF "BUY," AND "BOUGHT WITH MONEY."
As the Israelites were commanded to "buy" their servants, and as Abraham
had servants "bought with money," it is argued that servants were
articles of property! The sole ground for this belief is _the terms
themselves!_ How much might be saved, if in discussion, the thing to be
proved were always _assumed_! To beg the question in debate, is vast
economy of midnight oil, and a wholesale forestaller of wrinkles and
gray hairs. Instead of protracted investigation into Scripture usage,
painfully collating passages, to settle the meaning of terms, let every
man interpret the oldest book in the world by the usages of his own time
and place, and the work is done. And then instead of one revelation,
they might be multiplied as the drops of the morning, and every man have
an infallible clue to the mind of the Spirit, in the dialect of his own
neighborhood! What a Babel-jargon, to take it for granted that the sense
in which words are _now_ used, is the _inspired_ sense. David says, "I
prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried." What, stop the earth
in its revolution! Two hundred years ago, _prevent_ was used in its
strict Latin sense, to _come before_, or _anticipate_. It is always used
in this sense in the Old and New Testaments. David's expression, in the
English of the nineteenth century, would be "Before the dawning of the
morning I cried." In almost every chapter of the Bible, words are used
in a sense now nearly, or quite obsolete, and sometimes in a sense
totally _opposite_ to their present meaning. A few examples follow: "I
purposed to come to you, but was _let_ (hindered) hitherto." "And the
four _beasts_ (living ones) fell down and worshiped God,"--"Whosoever
shall _offend_ (cause to sin) one of these little ones,"--Go out into
the highways and _compel_ (urge) them to come in,"--Only let your
_conversation_ (habitual conduct) be as becometh the Gospel,"--"The Lord
Jesus Christ who shall judge the _quick_ (living) and the dead,"--They
that seek me _early_ (earnestly) shall find me," So when tribulation or
persecution ariseth _by-and-by_ (immediately) they are offended."
Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like bodies, are always
throwing off some particles and absorbing others. So long as they are
mere representatives, elected by the whims of universal suffrage, their
meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up for the next
century is an employment sufficiently silly (to speak within bounds) for
a modern Bible-Dictionary maker. There never was a shallower conceit
than that of establishing the sense attached to a word centuries ago, by
showing what it means _now_. Pity that fashionable mantuamakers were not
a little quicker at taking hints from some Doctors of Divinity. How
easily they might save their pious customers all qualms of conscience
about the weekly shiftings of fashion, by proving that the last
importation of Parisian indecency now "showing off" on promenade, was
the very style of dress in which the modest and pious Sarah kneaded
cakes for the angels. Since such a fashion flaunts along Broadway _now_,
it _must_ have trailed over Canaan four thousand years ago!
The inference that the word buy, used to describe the procuring of
servants, means procuring them as _chattels_, seems based upon the
fallacy, that whatever _costs_ money _is_ money; that whatever or
whoever you pay money _for_, is an article of property, and the fact of
your paying for it, _proves_ it property. 1. The children of Israel were
required to purchase their firstborn from under the obligations of the
priesthood, Num. xviii. 15, 16; iii. 45-51; Ex. xiii. 13; xxxiv. 20.
This custom still exists among the Jews, and the word _buy_ is still
used to describe the transaction. Does this prove that their firstborn
were or are, held as property? They were _bought_ as really as were
_servants_. 2. The Israelites were required to pay money for their own
souls. This is called sometimes a ransom, sometimes an atonement. Were
their souls therefore marketable commodities? 3. When the Israelites set
apart themselves or their children to the Lord by vow, for the
performance of some service, an express statute provided that a _price_
should be set upon the "_persons_," and it prescribed the manner and
_terms_ of the "estimation" or valuation, by the payment of which, the
persons might be _bought off_ from the service vowed. The _price_ for
males from one month old to five years, was five shekels, for females,
three; from five years old to twenty, for males, twenty shekels, for
females, ten; from twenty years old to sixty, for males, fifty shekels,
for females, thirty; above sixty years old, for males, fifteen shekels,
for females, ten, Lev. xxvii. 2-8. What egregious folly to contend that
all these descriptions of persons were goods and chattels because they
were _bought_ and their _prices_ regulated by law! 4. Bible saints
_bought_ their wives. Boaz bought Ruth. "Moreover Ruth the Moabitess,
the wife of Mahlon, have I _purchased_ (bought) to be my wife." Ruth iv.
10.[A] Hosea bought his wife. "So I _bought_ her to me for fifteen
pieces of silver, and for an homer of Barley, and an half homer of
barley." Hosea iii. 2. Jacob bought his wives Rachael and Leah, and not
having money, paid for them in labor--seven years a piece. Gen. xxix.
15-23. Moses probably bought his wife in the same way, and paid for her
by his labor, as the servant of her father.[B] Exod. ii. 21. Shechem,
when negotiating with Jacob and his sons for Dinah, says, "Ask me never
so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto
me." Gen. xxxiv. 11, 12. David purchased Michael, and Othniel, Achsah,
by performing perilous services for the fathers of the damsels. 1 Sam.
xviii. 25-27; Judg. i. 12, 13. That the purchase of wives, either with
money or by service, was the general practice, is plain from such
passages as Ex. xxii. 17, and 1 Sam. xviii. 25. Among the modern Jews
this usage exists, though now a mere form, there being no _real_
purchase. Yet among their marriage ceremonies, is one called "marrying
by the penny." The similarity in the methods of procuring wives and
servants, in the terms employed in describing the transactions, and in
the prices paid for each, are worthy of notice. The highest price of
wives (virgins) and servants was the same. Comp. Deut, xxii. 28, 29, and
Ex. xxii. 17, with Lev. xxvii. 2-8. The _medium_ price of wives and
servants was the same. Comp. Hos. iii. 2, with Ex. xxi. 32. Hosea seems
to have paid one half in money and the other half in grain. Further, the
Israelitish female bought-servants were _wives_, their husbands and
masters being the same persons. Ex. xxi. 8, Judg. xix. 3, 27. If
_buying_ servants proves them property, buying wives proves _them_
property. Why not contend that the _wives_ of the ancient fathers of the
faithful were their "chattels," and used as ready change at a pinch; and
thence deduce the rights of modern husbands? Alas! Patriarchs and
prophets are followed afar off! When will pious husbands live up to
their Bible privileges, and become partakers with Old Testament worthies
in the blessedness of a husband's rightful immunities! Refusing so to
do, is questioning the morality of those "good old slaveholders and
patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
[Footnote A: In the verse preceding, Boaz says, "I have _bought_ all
that was Elimelech's * * * of the hand of Naomi." In the original, the
same word (_kana_) is used in both verses. In the 9th, "a parcel of
land" is "bought," in the 10th a "wife" is "bought." If the Israelites
had been as profound at inferences as our modern Commentators, they
would have put such a fact as this to the rack till they had tortured
out of it a divine warrant for holding their wives as property and
speculating in the article whenever it happened to be scarce.]
[Footnote B: This custom still prevails in some eastern countries. The
Crim Tartars, who are poor, serve an apprenticeship for their wives,
during which they live under the same roof with them and at the close of
it are adopted into the family.]
This use of the word buy, is not peculiar to the Hebrew. In the Syriac,
the common expression for "the espoused," is "the bought." Even so late
as the 16th century, the common record of _marriages_ in the old German
Chronicles was, "A BOUGHT B."
The word translated _buy_, is, like other words, modified by the nature
of the subject to which it is applied. Eve said, "I have _gotten_
(bought) a man from the Lord." She named him Cain, that is _bought_. "He
that heareth reproof, getteth (buyeth) understanding," Prov. xv. 32. So
in Isa. xi. 11. "The Lord shall set his hand again to recover (to _buy_)
the remnant of his people." So Ps. lxxviii. 54. "He brought them to his
mountain which his right hand had _purchased_," (gotten.) Neh. v. 8. "We
of our ability have _redeemed_ (bought) our brethren the Jews, that were
sold unto the heathen." Here "_bought_" is not applied to persons
reduced to servitude, but to those taken _out_ of it. Prov. viii. 22.
"The Lord possessed (bought) me in the beginning of his way." Prov. xix.
8. "He that _getteth_ (buyeth) wisdom loveth his own soul." Finally, to
_buy_ is a _secondary_ meaning of the Hebrew word _kana_.
Even at this day the word _buy_ is used to describe the procuring of
servants, where slavery is abolished. In the British West Indies, where
slaves became apprentices in 1834, they are still, (1837,) "bought."
This is the current word in West India newspapers. Ten years since
servants were "_bought_" in New York, and still are in New Jersey, as
really as in Virginia, yet the different senses in which the word is
used in those states, puts no man in a quandary. Under the system of
legal _indenture_ in Illinois, servants now are "_bought_."[A] Until
recently immigrants to this country were "bought" in great numbers. By
voluntary contract they engaged to work a given time to pay for their
passage. This class of persons, called "redemptioners," consisted at one
time of thousands. Multitudes are "bought" _out_ of slavery by
themselves or others. Under the same roof with the writer is a "servant
bought with money." A few weeks since, she was a slave; when "bought,"
she was a slave no longer. Alas! for our leading politicians if "buying"
men makes them "chattels." The Whigs say, that Calhoun has been "bought"
by the administration; and the other party, that Clay and Webster have
been "bought" by the Bank. The histories of the revolution tell us that
Benedict Arnold was "bought" by British gold, and that Williams,
Paulding, and Van Wert, could not be "bought" by Major Andre. When a
northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country gossip thus
hits off the indecency, "The cotton bags _bought_ him." Sir Robert
Walpole said, "Every man has his price, and whoever will pay it, can
_buy_ him," and John Randolph said, "The northern delegation is in the
market; give me money enough, and I can _buy_ them." The temperance
publications tell us that candidates for office _buy_ men with whiskey;
and the oracles of street tattle, that the court, district attorney, and
jury, in the late trial of Robinson were _bought_, yet we have no
floating visions of "chattels personal," man-auctions, or coffles.
[Footnote A: The following statute is now in force in the free state of
Illinois--"No negro, mulatto, or Indian, shall at any time _purchase_
any servant other than of their own complexion: and if any of the
persons aforesaid shall presume to _purchase_ a white servant, such
servant shall immediately become free, and shall be so held, deemed and
taken."]
In Connecticut, town paupers are "bought" by individuals, who, for a
stipulated sum become responsible to the town for their comfortable
support for one year. If these "bought" persons perform any labor for
those who "buy" them, it is wholly _voluntary_. It is hardly necessary
to add that they are in no sense the "property" of their purchasers.[A]
[Footnote A: "The select-men" of each town annually give notice, that at
such a time and place, they will proceed to _sell_ the poor of said
town. The persons thus "sold" are "bought" by such persons, approved by
the "select-men," as engage to furnish them with sufficient wholesome
food, adequate clothing, shelter, medicine, &c., for such a sum as the
parties may agree upon. The Connecticut papers frequently contain
advertisements like the following: "NOTICE--The poor of the town of
Chatham will be SOLD on the first Monday in April, 1837, at the house of
F. Penfield, Esq., at 9 o'clock in the forenoon,"--[Middletown Sentinel,
Feb. 3, 1837.] ]
The transaction between Joseph and the Egyptians gives a clue to the use
of "buy" and "bought with money." Gen. xlvii. 18-26. The Egyptians
proposed to Joseph to become servants. When the bargain was closed,
Joseph said, "Behold I have _bought you_ this day," and yet it is plain
that neither party regarded the persons _bought_ as articles of
property, but merely as bound to labor on certain conditions, to pay for
their support during the famine. The idea attached by both parties to
"buy us," and "behold I have bought you," was merely that of service
voluntarily offered, and secured by contract, in return, for _value
received_, and not at all that the Egyptians were bereft of their
personal ownership, and made articles of property. And this buying of
_services_ (in this case it was but one-fifth part) is called in
Scripture usage, _buying the persons_. This case claims special notice,
as it is the only one where the whole transaction of buying servants is
detailed--the preliminaries, the process, the mutual acquiescence, and
the permanent relation resulting therefrom. In all other instances, the
mere fact is stated without particulars. In this case, the whole process
is laid open. 1. The persons "bought," _sold themselves_, and of their
own accord. 2. Paying for the permanent _service_ of persons, or even a
portion of it, is called "buying" those persons; just as paying for the
_use_ of land or houses for a number of years in succession is called in
Scripture usage _buying_ them. See Lev. xxv. 28, 33, and xxvii. 24. The
objector, at the outset, takes it for granted, that servants were bought
of _third_ persons; and thence infers that they were articles of
property. Both the alleged fact and the inference are _sheer
assumptions_. No instance is recorded, under the Mosaic system, in which
a _master sold his servant_.
That servants who were "bought," _sold themselves_, is a fair inference
from various passages of Scripture.[A] In Leviticus xxv. 47, the case of
the Israelite, who became the servant of the stranger, the words are,
"If he SELL HIMSELF unto the stranger." Yet the 51st verse informs us
that this servant was "BOUGHT" and that the price of his purchase was
paid to _himself_. The _same word_, and the same _form_ of the word,
which, in verse 47, is rendered _sell himself_, is in verse 39 of the
same chapter, rendered _be sold_; in Deut. xxviii. 68, the same word is
rendered "be sold." "And there ye shall BE SOLD unto your enemies for
bond-men and bond-women and NO MAN SHALL BUY YOU." How could they "_be
sold_" without _being bought_? Our translation makes it nonsense. The
word _Makar_ rendered "_be sold_" is used here in Hithpael conjugation,
which is generally reflexive in its force, and like the middle voice in
Greek, represents what an individual does for himself, and should
manifestly have been rendered "ye shall _offer yourselves_ for sale, and
there shall be no purchaser." For a clue to Scripture usage on this
point, see 1 Kings xxi. 20. 25.--"Thou hast _sold thyself_ to work
evil." "There was none like unto Ahab which did sell _himself_ to work
wickedness."--2 Kings xvii. 17. "They used divination and enchantments,
and _sold themselves_ to do evil."--Isa. l. 1. "For your iniquities have
ye _sold yourselves."_ Isa. lii. 3, "Ye have _sold yourselves_ FOR
NOUGHT, and ye shall be redeemed without money." See also, Jer. xxxiv.
14; Rom. vii. 14, vi. 16; John, viii. 34, and the case of Joseph and the
Egyptians, already quoted. In the purchase of wives, though spoken of
rarely, it is generally stated that they were bought of _third_ persons.
If _servants_ were bought of third persons, it is strange that no
_instance_ of it is on record.
[Footnote A: Those who insist that the servants which the Israelites
were commanded to buy of "the heathen which were round about" them, were
to be bought of _third persons_, virtually charge God with the
inconsistency of recognizing and affirming the right of those very
persons to freedom, upon whom, say they, he pronounced the doom of
slavery. For they tell us, that the sentence of death uttered against
those heathen was commuted into slavery, which punishment God denounced
against them. Now if "the heathen round about" were doomed to slavery,
the _sellers_ were doomed as well as the _sold_. Where, we ask, did the
sellers get their right to sell? God by commanding the Israelites to
BUY, affirmed the right of _somebody_ to _sell_, and that the
_ownership_ of what was sold existed _somewhere_; which _right_ and
ownership he commanded them to _recognize_ and _respect_. We repeat the
question, where did the heathen _sellers_ get their right to sell, since
_they_ were dispossessed of their right to _themselves_ and doomed to
slavery equally with those whom they sold. Did God's decree vest in them
a right to _others_ while it annulled their right to _themselves_? If,
as the objector's argument assumes, one part of "the heathen round
about" were _already_ held as slaves by the other part, _such_ of course
were not _doomed_ to slavery, for they were already slaves. So also, if
those heathen who held them as slaves had a _right_ to hold them, which
right God commanded the Israelites to _buy out_, thus requiring them to
recognize _it_ as a _right_, and on no account to procure its transfer
to themselves without paying to the holders an equivalent, surely, these
_slaveholders_ were not doomed by God to be slaves, for according to the
objector, God had himself affirmed their right _to hold others as
slaves_, and commanded his people to respect it.]
We now proceed to inquire into the _condition_ of servants under the
patriarchal and Mosaic systems.
I. THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF SERVANTS.
The leading design of the laws defining the relations of master and
servant, was the good of both parties--more especially the good of the
_servants_. While the master's interests were guarded from injury, those
of the servants were _promoted_. These laws made a merciful provision
for the poorer classes, both of the Israelites and Strangers, not laying
on burdens, but lightening them--they were a grant of _privileges_ and
_favors_.
I. BUYING SERVANTS WAS REGARDED AS A KINDNESS TO THE PERSONS BOUGHT, and
as establishing between them and their purchasers a bond of affection
and confidence. This is plain from the frequent use of it to illustrate
the love and care of God for his chosen people. Deut. xxxii. 6; Ex. xv.
16; Ps. lxxiv. 2; Prov. viii. 22.
II. NO STRANGER COULD JOIN THE FAMILY OF AN ISRAELITE WITHOUT BECOMING A
PROSELYTE. Compliance with this condition was the _price of the
privilege_. Gen. xvii. 9-14, 23, 27. In other words, to become a servant
was virtually to become an Israelite.[A] In the light of this fact, look
at the relation sustained by a proselyted servant to his master. Was it
a sentence consigning to _punishment_, or a ticket of admission to
_privileges_?
[Footnote A: The rites by which a stranger became a proselyte
transformed him into a Jew. Compare 1 Chron. ii. 17, with 2 Sam. xvii.
25. In Esther viii. 17, it is said "Many of the people of the land
_became Jews_." In the Septuagint, the passage is thus rendered, "Many
of the heathen were circumcised and became Jews." The intimate union and
incorporation of the proselytes with the Hebrews is shown by such
passages as Isa. lvi. 6, 7, 8; Eph. ii. 11, 22; Num. x. 29-32. Calmet,
Art. Proselyte, says "They were admitted to all the prerogatives of the
people of the Lord." Mahommed doubtless borrowed from the laws and
usages of the Jews, his well known regulation for admitting to all civil
and religious privileges, all proselytes of whatever nation or
religion.]
III. EXPULSION FROM THE FAMILY WAS THE DEPRIVATION OF A PRIVILEGE IF NOT
A PUNISHMENT. When Sarah took umbrage at the conduct of Hagar and
Ishmael, her servants, "She said unto Abraham _cast out_ this bond-woman
and her son." * * And Abraham rose up early in the morning and took
bread and a bottle of water and gave it unto Hagar and the child, and
_sent her away_. Gen. xxi. 10, 14; in Luke xvi. 1-8, our Lord tells us
of the steward or head-servant of a rich man who defrauded his master,
and was, in consequence, excluded from his household. The servant
anticipating such a punishment, says, "I am resolved what to do, that
when I am _put out_ of the stewardship, they may receive me into their
houses." The case of Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, appears to be a
similar one. He was guilty of fraud in procuring a large sum of money
from Naaman, and of deliberate lying to his master, on account of which
Elisha seems to have discarded him. 2 Kings v. 20-27. In this connection
we may add that if a servant neglected the observance of any ceremonial
rite, and was on that account excommunicated from the congregation of
Israel, such excommunication excluded him also from the _family_ of an
Israelite. In other words he could be a _servant_ no longer than he was
an _Israelite_. To forfeit the latter _distinction_ involved the
forfeiture of the former _privilege_--which proves that it _was_ a
privilege.
IV. THE HEBREW SERVANT COULD COMPEL HIS MASTER TO KEEP HIM.
When the six years' contract had expired, if the servant _demanded_ it,
the law _obliged_ the master to retain him permanently, however little
he might need his services. Deut. xv. 12-17; Ex. xxi. 2-6. This shows
that the system was framed to advance the interest and gratify the
wishes of the servant quite as much as those of the master.
V. SERVANTS WERE ADMITTED INTO COVENANT WITH GOD. Deut. xxix. 10-13.
VI. THEY WERE GUESTS AT ALL NATIONAL AND FAMILY FESTIVALS Ex. xii.
43-44; Deut xii. 12, 18, xvi. 10-16.
VII. THEY WERE STATEDLY INSTRUCTED IN MORALITY AND RELIGION. Deut. xxxi.
10-13; Josh. viii. 33-35; 2 Chron. xvii. 8-9, xxxv. 3, and xxxiv. 30.
Neh. viii. 7, 8.
VIII. THEY WERE RELEASED FROM THEIR REGULAR LABOR NEARLY ONE HALF OF THE
WHOLE TIME. During which they had their entire support, and the same
instruction that was provided for the other members of the Hebrew
community. The Law secured to them,
1. _Every seventh year;_ Lev. xxv. 3-6; thus giving to those who were
servants during the entire period between the jubilees, _eight whole
years_, (including the jubilee year,) of unbroken rest.
2. _Every seventh day._ This in forty-two years, the eight being
subtracted from the fifty, would amount to just _six years_.
3. _The three annual festivals._ Ex. xxiii. 17, xxxiv. 23. The
_Passover_, which commenced on the 15th of the 1st month, and lasted
seven days, Deut. xvi. 3, 8. The Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, which
began on the 6th day of the 3d month, and lasted seven days. Deut. xvi.
10, 11. The Feast of Tabernacles, which commenced on the 15th of the 7th
month, and lasted eight days. Deut. xvi. 13, 15; Lev. xxiii. 34-39. As
all met in one place, much time would be spent on the journey. Cumbered
caravans move slowly. After their arrival, a day or two would be
requisite for divers preparations before the celebration, besides some
time at the close of it, in preparations for return. If we assign three
weeks to each festival--including the time spent on the journeys, and
the delays before and after the celebration, together with the _festival
week_, it will be a small allowance for the cessation of their regular
labor. As there were three festivals in the year, the main body of the
servants would be absent from their stated employments at least _nine
weeks annually_, which would amount in forty-two years, subtracting the
sabbaths, to six years and eighty-four days.
4. _The new moons_. The Jewish year had twelve; Josephus says that the
Jews always kept _two_ days for the new moon. See Calmet on the Jewish
Calendar, and Horne's Introduction; also 1 Sam. xx, 18, 19, 27. This, in
forty-two years, would be two years 280 days.
5. _The feast of trumpets_. On the first day of the seventh month, and
of the civil year. Lev. xxiii. 24, 25.
6. _The atonement day_. On the tenth of the seventh month Lev. xxiii.
27.
These two feasts would consume not less than sixty-five days not
reckoned above.
Thus it appears that those who continued servants during the period
between the jubilees, were by law released from their labor,
TWENTY-THREE YEARS AND SIXTY-FOUR DAYS, OUT OF FIFTY YEARS, and those
who remained a less time, in nearly the same proportion. In this
calculation, besides making a donation of all the _fractions_ to the
objector, we have left out those numerous _local_ festivals to which
frequent allusion is made, Judg. xxi. 19; 1 Sam. ix. 12. 22. etc., and
the various _family_ festivals, such as at the weaning of children; at
marriages; at sheep shearings; at circumcisions; at the making of
covenants, &c., to which reference is often made, as in 1 Sam, xx. 6.
28, 29. Neither have we included the festivals instituted at a later
period of the Jewish history--the feast of Purim, Esth. ix. 28, 29; and
of the Dedication, which lasted eight days. John x. 22; 1 Mac. iv. 59.
Finally, the Mosaic system secured to servants, an amount of time which,
if distributed, would be almost ONE HALF OF THE DAYS IN EACH YEAR.
Meanwhile, they were supported, and furnished with opportunities of
instruction. If this time were distributed over _every day_, the
servants would have to themselves nearly _one half of each day_.
The service of those Strangers who were _national_ servants or
tributaries, was regulated upon the same benevolent principle, and
secured to them TWO-THIRDS of the whole year. "A month they were in
Lebanon, and two months they were at home." 1 Kings, v. 13-15. Compared
with 2 Chron. 11. 17-19, viii. 7-9; 1 Kings, ix 20. 22. The regulations
under which the inhabitants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth and
Kirjath-jearim, (afterwards called _Nethinims_) performed service for
the Israelites, must have secured to them nearly the whole of their
time. If, as is probable, they served in courses corresponding to those
of their priests whom they assisted, they were in actual service less
than one month annually.
IX. THE SERVANT WAS PROTECTED BY LAW EQUALLY WITH THE OTHER MEMBERS OF
THE COMMUNITY
Proof.--"Judge righteously between every man and his brother and THE
STRANGER THAT IS WITH HIM." "Ye shall not RESPECT PERSONS in judgment,
but ye shall hear the SMALL as well as the great." Deut. i. 16, 19. Also
Lev. xix. 15. xxiv. 22. "Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the
STRANGER, as for one of your own country." So Num. xv. 29. "Ye shall
have ONE LAW for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him that
is born among the children of Israel and for the STRANGER that
sojourneth among them." Deut. xxvii. 19. "Cursed be he that PERVERTETH
THE JUDGMENT OF THE STRANGER."[A] Deut. xxvii. 19.
[Footnote A: In a work entitled, "Instruction in the Mosaic Religion" by
Professor Jholson, of the Jewish seminary at Frankfort-on-the-Main,
translated into English by Rabbi Leeser, we find the following.--Sec.
165. "Question. Does holy writ any where make a difference between the
Israelite and the other who is no Israelite, in those laws and
prohibitions which forbid us the _committal of any thing against our
fellow men?_"
"Answer. No where we do find a trace of such a difference. See Lev. xix.
33-36."
"God says thou shalt not murder, _steal_, cheat, &c. In every place the
action _itself_ is prohibited as being an abomination to God _without
respect to the PERSONS against whom it is committed_." ]
X. THE MOSAIC SYSTEM ENJOINED THE GREATEST AFFECTION AND KINDNESS
TOWARDS SERVANTS, FOREIGN AS WELL AS JEWISH.
"The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among
you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." Lev. xix. 34. "For the Lord
your God * * REGARDETH NOT PERSONS. He doth execute the judgment of the
fatherless and widow, and LOVETH THE STRANGER, in giving him food and
raiment, LOVE YE THEREFORE THE STRANGER." Deut. x. 17, 19. "Thou shalt
neither vex a STRANGER nor oppress him." Ex. xxii. 21. "Thou shalt not
oppress a STRANGER, for ye know the heart of a stranger." Ex. xxiii. 9.
"If thy brother be waxen poor thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be
a STRANGER or a sojourner, that he may live with thee, take thou no
usury of him or increase, but fear thy God." Lev. xxv. 35, 36. Could
this same stranger be taken by one that feared his God, and held as a
slave, and robbed of time, earnings, and all his rights?
XI. SERVANTS WERE PLACED UPON A LEVEL WITH THEIR MASTERS IN ALL CIVIL
AND RELIGIOUS RIGHTS. Num. xv. 15, 16, 29; ix. 14; Deut. i. 16, 17; Lev.
xxiv. 22. To these may be added that numerous class of passages which
represents God as regarding _alike_ the natural rights of _all_ men, and
making for all an _equal_ provision. Such as, 2 Chron. xix. 7; Prov.
xxiv. 23, xxviii. 21; Job. xxxiv. 19, 2 Sam. xiv. 14; Acts x. 35; Eph.
vi. 9.
Finally--With such watchful jealousy did the Mosaic Institutes guard the
_rights_ of servants, as to make the mere fact of a servant's escape
from his master presumptive evidence that his master had _oppressed_
him; and on that presumption, annulled his master's authority over him,
gave him license to go wherever he pleased, and commanded all to protect
him. Deut. xxiii. 15, 16. As this regulation will be examined under a
subsequent head, where its full discussion more appropriately belongs,
we notice it here merely to point out its bearings on the topic under
consideration.
THESE ARE REGULATIONS OF THAT MOSAIC SYSTEM WHICH IS CLAIMED BY
SLAVEHOLDERS AS THE PROTOTYPE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.
II. WERE PERSONS MADE SERVANTS AGAINST THEIR WILLS?
We argue that they became servants of _their own accord,_ because,
I. TO BECOME A SERVANT WAS TO BECOME A PROSELYTE. Whoever of the
strangers became a servant, he was required to abjure idolatry, to enter
into covenant with God[A], be circumcised in token of it, be bound to
keep the Sabbath, the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of
Tabernacles, and to receive instruction in the moral and ceremonial law.
Were the servants _forced_ through all these processes? Was the
renunciation of idolatry _compulsory_? Were they _dragged_ into covenant
with God? Were they seized and circumcised by _main strength_? Were they
_compelled_ mechanically to chew and swallow the flesh of the Paschal
lamb, while they abhorred the institution, spurned the laws that
enjoined it, detested its author and its executors, and instead of
rejoicing in the deliverance which it commemorated, bewailed it as a
calamity, and cursed the day of its consummation? Were they _driven_
from all parts of the land three times in the year to the annual
festivals? Were they drugged with instruction which they nauseated? Were
they goaded through a round of ceremonies, to them senseless and
disgusting mummeries; and drilled into the tactics of a creed rank with
loathed abominations? We repeat it, to become a _servant_, was to become
a _proselyte_. Did God authorize his people to make proselytes at the
point of the bayonet? by the terror of pains and penalties? by
converting men into _merchandise?_ Were _proselyte and chattel_
synonymes in the Divine vocabulary? Must a man be sunk to a _thing_
before taken into covenant with God? Was this the stipulated condition
of adoption? the sure and sacred passport to the communion of the
saints?
[Footnote A: Maimonides, a contemporary with Jarchi, and who stands with
him at the head of Jewish writers, gives the following testimony on this
point: "Whether a servant be born in the power of an Israelite, or
whether he be purchased from the heathen, the master is to bring them
both into the covenant.
"But he that is in the _house_ is entered on the eighth day, and he that
is bought with money, on the day on which his master receives him,
unless the slave be _unwilling_. For if the master receive a grown
slave, and he be _unwilling_, his master is to bear with him, to seek to
win him over by instruction, and by love and kindness, for one year.
After which, should he _refuse_ so long, it is forbidden to keep him
longer than a year. And the master must send him back to the strangers
from whence he came. For the God of Jacob will not accept any other than
the worship of a _willing_ heart."--Maimon, Hilcoth Miloth, Chap. 1,
Sec. 8.
The ancient Jewish Doctors assert that the servant from the Strangers
who at the close of his probationary year, refused to adopt the Jewish
religion and was on that account sent back to his own people, received a
_full compensation_ for his services, besides the payment of his
expenses. But that _postponement_ of the circumcision of the foreign
servant for a year (_or even at all_ after he had entered the family of
an Israelite) of which the Mishnic doctors speak, seems to have been _a
mere usage_. We find nothing of it in the regulations of the Mosaic
system. Circumcision was manifestly a rite strictly _initiatory_.
Whether it was a rite merely _national_ or _spiritual_, or _both_, comes
not within the scope of this inquiry. ]
II. THE SURRENDER OF FUGITIVE SERVANTS TO THEIR MASTERS WAS PROHIBITED.
"Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped
from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in
that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh
him best; thou shalt not oppress him." Deut. xxiii. 15, 16.
As though God had said, "To deliver him up would be to recognize the
_right_ of the master to hold him; his _fleeing_ shows his _choice_,
proclaims his wrongs and his title to protection; you shall not force
him back and thus recognize the _right_ of the master to hold him in
such a condition as induces him to flee to others for protection." It
may be said that this command referred only to the servants of _heathen_
masters in the surrounding nations. We answer: the terms of the command
are unlimited. But the objection, if valid, would merely shift the
pressure of the difficulty to another point. Did God require them to
protect the _free choice_ of a _single_ servant from the heathen, and
yet _authorize_ the same persons, to crush the free choice of
_thousands_ of servants from the heathen? Suppose a case. A _foreign_
servant escapes to the Israelites; God says, "He shall dwell with thee,
in that place which _he shall choose_, in one of thy gates where it
_liketh him_ best." Now, suppose this same servant, instead of coming
into Israel of his own accord, had been _dragged_ in by some kidnapper,
who bought him of his master, and forced him into a condition against
his will; would He who forbade such treatment of the stranger, who
_voluntarily_ came into the land, sanction the same treatment of the
_same person_, provided in addition to this last outrage, the previous
one had been committed of forcing him into the nation against his will?
To commit violence on the free choice of a foreign servant is forsooth a
horrible enormity, provided you _begin_ the violence _after_ he has come
among you. But if you commit the first act on the _other side of the
line_; if you begin the outrage by buying him from a third person
against his will, and then tear him from home, drag him across the line
into the land of Israel, and hold him as a slave--ah! that alters the
case, and you may perpetrate the violence now with impunity! Would
_greater_ favor have been shown to this new comer than to the old
residents--those who had been servants in Jewish families perhaps for a
generation? Were the Israelites commanded to exercise towards _him_,
uncircumcised and out of the covenant, a justice and kindness denied to
the multitudes who _were_ circumcised, and _within_ the covenant? But,
the objector finds small gain to his argument on the supposition that
the covenant respected merely the fugitives from the surrounding
nations, while it left the servants of the Israelites in a condition
against their wills. In that case, the surrounding nations would adopt
retaliatory measures, and become so many asylums for Jewish fugitives.
As these nations were not only on every side of them, but in their
midst, such a proclamation would have been an effectual lure to men
whose condition was a constant counteraction of will. Besides the same
command which protected the servant from the power of his foreign
_master_, protected him equally from the power of an _Israelite_. It was
not, merely "Thou shalt not deliver him unto his _master_," but "he
shall dwell with thee, in that place which _he shall choose_ in one of
thy gates where it liketh _him_ best." Every Israelite was forbidden to
put him in any condition _against his will_. What was this but a
proclamation, that all who _chose_ to live in the land and obey the
laws, were left to their own free will, to dispose of their services at
such a rate, to such persons, and in such places as they pleased?
Besides, grant that this command prohibited the sending back of
_foreign_ servants only, there was no law requiring the return of
servants who had escaped from the _Israelites_. _Property_ lost, and
_cattle_ escaped, they were required to return, but not escaped
_servants_. These verses contain, 1st, a command, "Thou shalt not
deliver," &c., 2d. a declaration of the fugitive's right of _free
choice_, and of God's will that he should exercise it at his own
discretion; and 3d, a command guarding this right, namely, "Thou shalt
not oppress him," as though God had said, "If you restrain him from
exercising his _own choice_, as to the place and condition of his
residence, it is _oppression_, and shall not be tolerated."[A]
[Footnote A: Perhaps it may be objected that this view of Deut. xxiii.
15, 16, makes nonsense of Ex. xxi. 27, which provides that if a man
strikes out his servant's tooth he shall let him go free. Small favor
indeed if the servant might set himself free whenever he pleased!
Answer--The former passage might remove the servant from the master's
_authority_, without annulling the master's legal claims upon the
servant, if he had paid him in advance and had not received from him an
equivalent, and this equally, whether his master were a Jew or a
Gentile. The latter passage, "He shall let him go free _for his tooth's
sake,"_ not only freed the servant from the master's authority, but also
from any pecuniary claim which the master might have on account of
having paid his wages in advance; and this _as a compensation_, for the
loss of a tooth.]
III. THE SERVANTS HAD PECULIAR OPPORTUNITIES AND FACILITIES FOR ESCAPE.
Three times every year, all the males over twelve years, were required
to attend the national feasts. They were thus absent from their homes
not less than three weeks at each time, making nine weeks annually. As
these caravans moved over the country, were there military scouts lining
the way, to intercept deserters?--a corporal's guard at each pass of the
mountains, sentinels pacing the hilltops, and light-horse scouring the
defiles? The Israelites must have had some safe contrivance for taking
their "_slaves_" three times in a year to Jerusalem and back. When a
body of slaves is moved any distance in our _republic_, they are
handcuffed and chained together, to keep them from running away, or
beating their drivers' brains out. Was this the _Mosaic_ plan, or an
improvement introduced by Samuel, or was it left for the wisdom of
Solomon? The usage, doubtless, claims a paternity not less venerable and
biblical! Perhaps they were lashed upon camels, and transported in
bundles, or caged up and trundled on wheels to and fro, and while at the
Holy City, "lodged in jail for safe keeping," the Sanhedrim appointing
special religious services for their benefit, and their "drivers"
officiating at "ORAL instruction." Meanwhile, what became of the sturdy
_handmaids_ left at home? What hindered them from stalking off in a
body? Perhaps the Israelitish matrons stood sentry in rotation round the
kitchens, while the young ladies scoured the country, as mounted
rangers, picking up stragglers by day, and patrolled the streets,
keeping a sharp look-out at night!
IV. WILFUL NEGLECT OF CEREMONIAL RITES DISSOLVED THE RELATION.
Suppose the servants from the heathen had, upon entering Jewish
families, refused circumcision; if _slaves_, how simple the process of
emancipation! Their _refusal_ did the job. Or, suppose they had refused
to attend the annual feasts, or had eaten leavened bread during the
Passover, or compounded the ingredients of the anointing oil, or had
touched a dead body, a bone, or a grave, or in any way had contracted
ceremonial uncleanness, and refused to be cleansed with the "water of
separation," they would have been "cut off from the people;"
_excommunicated_. Ex. xii. 19; xxx. 33; Num. xix. 16.
V. SERVANTS OF THE PATRIARCHS NECESSARILY VOLUNTARY.
Abraham's servants are an illustration. At one time he had three hundred
and eighteen _young men_ "born in his house," and many more _not_ born
in his house. His servants of all ages were probably MANY THOUSANDS. How
did Abraham and Sarah contrive to hold fast so many thousand servants
against their wills? The most natural supposition is that the Patriarch
and his wife "took turns" in surrounding them! The neighboring tribes,
instead of constituting a picket guard to hem in his servants, would
have been far more likely to sweep them and him into captivity, as they
did Lot and his household. Besides, there was neither "constitution" nor
"compact," to send back Abraham's fugitives, nor a truckling police to
pounce upon them, nor gentlemen-kidnappers, suing for his patronage,
volunteering to howl on their track, boasting their blood-hound scent,
and pledging their honour to hunt down and deliver up, provided they had
a description of the "flesh-marks," and were suitably stimulated by
pieces of silver.[A] Abraham seems also to have been sadly deficient in
all the auxiliaries of family government, such as stocks, hand-cuffs,
foot-chains, yokes, gags, and thumb-screws. His destitution of these
patriarchal indispensables is the more afflicting, since he faithfully
trained "his household to do justice and judgment," though so deplorably
destitute of the needful aids.
[Footnote A: The following is a standing newspaper advertisement of one
of these professional man-catchers, a member of the New York bar, who
coolly plies his trade in the commercial emporium, sustained by the
complacent greetings and courtesies of "HONORABLE MEN!" "IMPORTANT TO
THE SOUTH.--F.H. Pettis, native of Orange County, Va., being located in
the city of New York, in the practice of law, announces to his friends
and the public in general, that he has been engaged as Counsel and
Adviser in General for a party whose business it is in the northern
cities to arrest and secure runaway slaves. He has been thus engaged for
several years, and as the act of Congress alone governs now in this
city, in business of this sort, which renders it easy for the recovery
of such property, he invites post paid communications to him, inclosing
a fee of $20 in each case, and a power of Attorney minutely descriptive
of the party absconded, and if in the northern region, he, or she will
soon be had.
"Mr. Pettis will attend promptly to all law business confided to him.
"N.B. New York City is estimated to contain 5,000 Runaway Slaves.
"PETTIS." ]
Probably Job had even more servants than Abraham. See Job. i. 3, 14-19,
and xlii. 12. That his thousands of servants staid with him entirely of
their own accord, is proved by the _fact_ of their staying with him.
Suppose they had wished to quit his service, and so the whole army had
filed off before him in full retreat, how could the patriarch have
brought them to halt? Doubtless with his wife, seven sons, and three
daughters for allies, he would have soon out-flanked the fugitive host
and dragged each of them back to his wonted chain and staple.
But the impossibility of Job's servants being held against their wills,
is not the only proof of their voluntary condition. We have his own
explicit testimony that he had not "withheld from the poor their
_desire_." Job. xxxi. 16. Of course he could hardly have made them live
with him, and forced them to work for him against _their desire_.
When Isaac sojourned in the country of the Philistines he "had _great
store_ of servants." And we have his testimony that the Philistines
hated him, added to that of inspiration that they "envied" him. Of
course they would hardly volunteer to organize patroles and committees
of vigilance to keep his servants from running away, and to drive back
all who were found beyond the limits of his plantation without a "pass!"
If the thousands of Isaac's servants were held against their wills, who
held them?
The servants of the Jews, during the building of the wall of Jerusalem,
under Nehemiah, may be included under this head. That they remained with
their masters of their own accord, we argue from the fact, that the
circumstances of the Jews made it impossible for them to _compel_ their
residence and service. They were few in number, without resources,
defensive fortifications, or munitions of war, and surrounded withal by
a host of foes, scoffing at their feebleness and inviting desertion from
their ranks. Yet so far from the Jews attempting in any way to restrain
their servants, or resorting to precautions to prevent escape, they put
arms into their hands, and enrolled them as a night-guard, for the
defence of the city. By cheerfully engaging in this service and in labor
by day, when with entire ease they might all have left their masters,
marched over to the enemy, and been received with shoutings, the
servants testified that their condition was one of _their own choice_,
and that they regarded their own interests as inseparably identified
with those of their masters. Neh. iv. 23.
VI. NO INSTANCES OF ISRAELITISH MASTERS SELLING SERVANTS. Neither
Abraham nor Isaac seem ever to have sold one, though they had "great
store of servants." Jacob was himself a servant in the family of Laban
twenty-one years. He had afterward a large number of servants. Joseph
invited him to come into Egypt, and to bring all that he had with
him--"thou and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks
and thy herds, and ALL THAT THOU HAST." Gen. xlv. 10. Jacob took his
flocks and herds but _no servants_. Yet we are told that Jacob "took his
journey with _all that he had_." Gen. xlvi. 1. And after his arrival in
Egypt, Joseph said to Pharaoh "my father, and my brethren, and their
flocks, and their herds and _all that they have_, are come." Gen. xlvii.
1. The servants doubtless, served under their _own contracts_, and when
Jacob went into Egypt, they _chose_ to stay in their own country.
The government might sell _thieves_, if they had no property, until
their services had made good the injury, and paid the legal fine. Ex.
xxii. 3. But _masters_ seem to have had no power to sell their
_servants_. To give the master a _right_ to sell his servant, would
annihilate the servant's right of choice in his own disposal; but says
the objector, "to give the master a right to _buy_ a servant, equally
annihilates the servant's _right of choice_." Answer. It is one thing to
have a right to buy a man, and a quite another thing to have a right to
buy him of _another_ man.[A]
[Footnote A: There is no evidence that masters had the power to dispose
of even the _services_ of their servants, as men hire out their laborers
whom they employ by the year; but whether they had or not, affects not
the argument.]
Though servants were not bought of their masters, yet young females were
bought of their _fathers_. But their purchase as _servants_ was their
betrothal as WIVES. Ex. xxi. 7, 8. "If a man sell his daughter to be a
maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please
not her master WHO HATH BETROTHED HER TO HIMSELF, he shall let her be
redeemed."[B]
[Footnote B: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as
follows:--"A Hebrew handmaid might not be sold but to one who laid
himself under obligations, to espouse her to himself or to his son, when
she was fit to be betrothed."--_Maimonides--Hilcoth--Obedim_, Ch. IV.
Sec. XI. Jarchi, on the same passage, says, "He is bound to espouse her
to be his wife, for the _money of her purchase_ is the money of her
_espousal_."]
VII. VOLUNTARY SERVANTS FROM THE STRANGERS.
We infer that _all_ the servants from the Strangers were voluntary in
becoming such, since we have direct testimony that some of them were so.
"Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether
he be of thy brethren, OR OF THY STRANGERS that are in thy land within
thy gates." Deut. xxiv. 14. We learn from this that some of the
servants, which the Israelites obtained from the strangers were procured
by presenting the inducement of _wages_ to their _free choice_, thus
recognizing their right to sell their services to others, or not, at
their own pleasure. Did the Israelites, when they went among the heathen
to procure servants, take money in one hand and ropes in the other? Did
they _ask_ one man to engage in their service, and _drag_ along with
them the next that they met, in spite of his struggles. Did they knock
for admission at one door and break down the next? Did they go through
one village with friendly salutations and respectful demeanor, and with
the air of those soliciting favors, offer wages to the inhabitants as an
inducement to engage in their service--while they sent on their agents
to prowl through the next, with a kidnapping posse at their heels, to
tear from their homes as many as they could get within their clutches?
VIII. HEBREW SERVANTS VOLUNTARY.
We infer that the Hebrew servant was voluntary in COMMENCING his
service, because he was preeminently so IN CONTINUING it. If, at the
year of release, it was the servant's _choice_ to remain with his
master, the law required his ear to be bored by the judges of the land,
thus making it impossible for him to be held against his will. Yea more,
his master was _compelled_ to keep him, however much he might wish to
get rid of him.
IX. THE MANNER OF PROCURING SERVANTS, AN APPEAL TO CHOICE.
The Israelites were commanded to offer them a suitable inducement, and
then leave them to decide. They might neither seize them by _force_, nor
frighten them by _threats_, nor wheedle them by false pretences, nor
_borrow_ them, nor _beg_ them; but they were commanded to BUY
them[A]--that is, they were to recognize the _right_ of the individuals
to _dispose_ of their own services, and their right to _refuse all
offers_, and thus oblige those who made them, _to do their own work_.
Suppose all, with one accord, had _refused_ to become servants, what
provision did the Mosaic law make for such an emergency? NONE.
[Footnote A: The case of thieves, whose services were sold until they
had earned enough to make restitution to the person wronged, and to pay
the legal penalty, _stands by itself_, and has nothing to do with the
condition of servants.]
X. INCIDENTAL CORROBORATIVES. Various incidental expressions corroborate
the idea that servants became such by their own contract. Job. xli. 4,
is an illustration, "Will he (Leviathan) make a COVENANT with thee? wilt
thou take him for a SERVANT forever?" Isa. xiv. 1, 2 is also an
illustration. "The strangers shall be joined with them (the Israelites)
and _they shall_ CLEAVE to the house of Jacob, and the house of Israel
shall possess them in the land of the Lord, for servants and handmaids."
The transaction which made the Egyptians the SERVANTS OF PHARAOH was
voluntary throughout. See Gen. xlvii. 18-26. Of their own accord they
came to Joseph and said, "There is not aught left but our _bodies_ and
our lands; _buy_ us;" then in the 25th verse, "We will be Pharaoh's
servants." To these it may be added, that the sacrifices and offerings
which ALL were required to present, were to be made VOLUNTARILY. Lev. i.
2. 3.
The pertinence and point of our Lord's declaration in Luke xvi. 13, is
destroyed on the supposition that servants did not become such by _their
own choice_. "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate
the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise
the other." Let it be kept in mind, that our Lord was a _Jew_. The lost
sheep of the house of Israel were his flock. Wherever he went, they were
around him: whenever he spake, they were his auditors. His public
preaching and his private teaching and conversation, were full of
references to their own institutions, laws and usages, and of
illustrations drawn from them. In the verse quoted, he illustrates the
impossibility of their making choice of God as their portion, and
becoming his servants, while they chose the world, and were _its_
servants. To make this clear, he refers to one of their own
institutions, that of _domestic service_, with which, in all its
relations, incidents and usages, they were perfectly familiar. He
reminds them of the well-known impossibility of any person being the
servant of two masters, and declares the sole ground of that
impossibility to be, the fact that the servant _chooses_ the service of
the one, and _spurns_ that of the other. "He shall _hold to_ the one and
_despise_ (reject) the other." As though our Lord had said, "No one can
become the servant of another, when his will revolts from his service,
and when the conditions of it tend to make him hate the man." Since the
fact that the servant _spurns_ one of two masters, makes it impossible
for him to serve _that one_, if he spurned _both_ it would make it
impossible for him to serve _either_. So, also, if the fact that an
individual did not "hold to" or choose the service of another, proves
that he could not become his servant, then the question, whether or not
he should become the servant of another was suspended on _his own will_.
Further, the phraseology of the passage shows that the _choice_ of the
servant decided the question. "He will HOLD TO the one,"--hence there is
no difficulty in the way of his serving _him_; but "no servant can
serve" a master whom he does not "_hold to_," or _cleave_ to, whose
service he does not _choose_. This is the sole ground of the
impossibility asserted by our Lord.
The last clause of the verse furnishes an application of the principle
asserted in the former part, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Now in
what does the impossibility of serving both God and the world consist?
Solely in the fact that the will which chooses the one refuses the
other, and the affections which "hold to" the one, reject the other.
Thus the question, Which of the two is to be served, is suspended alone
upon the _choice_ of the individual.
XI. RICH STRANGERS DID NOT BECOME SERVANTS. Indeed, so far were they
from becoming servants themselves, that they bought and held Jewish
servants. Lev. xxv. 47. Since _rich_ strangers did not become servants
to the Israelites, we infer that those who _did_, became such not
because they were _strangers_, but because they were _poor_,--not
because, on account of their being heathen, they were _compelled by
force_ to become servants, but because, on account of their _poverty_,
they _chose_ to become servants to better their condition.
XII. INSTANCES OF VOLUNTARY SERVANTS. Mention is often made of persons
becoming servants who were manifestly VOLUNTARY. As the Prophet Elisha.
1 Kings xix. 21; 2 Kings iii. 11. Elijah was his _master_. 2 Kings ii.
5. The word translated master, is the same that is so rendered in almost
every instance where masters are spoken of under the Mosaic and
patriarchal systems. Moses was the servant of Jethro. Ex. iii. 1; iv.
10. Joshua was the servant of Moses. Ex. xxxiii. 11. Num. xi. 28. Jacob
was the servant of Laban. Gen. xxix. 18-27. See also the case of the
Gibeonites who _voluntarily_ became servants to the Israelites and
afterwards performed service for the "house of God" throughout the
subsequent Jewish history, were incorporate with the Israelites,
registered in the genealogies, and manifestly of their own accord
remained with them, and "_clave_" to them. Neh. x. 28, 29; xi. 3; Ez.
vii. 7.
Finally, in all the regulations respecting servants and their service,
no form of expression is employed from which it could be inferred, that
servants were made such, and held in that condition by force. Add to
this the entire absence of all the machinery, appurtenances and
incidents of _compulsion_.
Voluntary service on the part of servants would have been in keeping
with regulations which abounded in the Mosaic system and sustained by a
multitude of analogies. Compulsory service on the other hand, could have
harmonized with nothing, and would have been the solitary disturbing
force, marring its design, counteracting its tendencies, and confusing
and falsifying its types. The directions given to regulate the
performance of service for the _public_, lay great stress on the
_willingness_ of those employed to perform it. For the spirit and usages
that obtained under the Mosaic system in this respect, see 1 Chron.
xxviii. 21; Ex. xxxv. 5, 21, 22, 29; 1 Chron. xxix. 5, 6, 9, 14, 17; Ex.
xxv. 2; Judges v. 2; Lev. xxii. 29; 2 Chron. xxxv. 8; Ezra i. 6; Ex.
xxxv; Neh. xi. 2.[A]
[Footnote A: We should naturally infer that the directions which
regulated the rendering of service to individuals, would proceed upon
the same principle in this respect with those which regulated the
rendering of service to the _public_. Otherwise the Mosaic system,
instead of constituting in its different parts a harmonious _whole_,
would be divided against itself; its principles counteracting and
nullifying each other.]
Again, the voluntariness of servants is a natural inference from the
fact that the Hebrew word _ebedh,_ uniformly rendered _servant_, is
applied to a great variety of classes and descriptions of persons under
the patriarchal and Jewish dispensations, _all of whom_ were voluntary
and most of them eminently so. For instance, it is applied to persons
rendering acts of _worship_ about seventy times, whereas it is applied
to _servants_ not more than half that number of times.
To this we may add, that the illustrations drawn from the condition and
service of _servants_ and the ideas which the term servant is employed
to convey when applied figuratively to moral subjects would, in most
instances, lose all their force, and often become absurdities if the
will of the servant _resisted_ his service, and he performed it only by
_compulsion_. Many passages will at once occur to those who are familiar
with the Bible. We give a single example. "_To whom YE YIELD YOURSELVES
servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey._" Rom. vi. 16. It
would hardly be possible to assert the voluntariness of servants more
strongly in a direct proposition than it is here asserted by
implication.
III. WERE SERVANTS FORCED TO WORK WITHOUT PAY
As the servants became and continued such of _their own accord_, it
would be no small marvel if they _chose_ to work without pay. Their
becoming servants, pre-supposes _compensation_ as a motive. That they
_were paid_ for their labor, we argue.
1. BECAUSE GOD REBUKED THE USING OF SERVICE WITHOUT WAGES. "Wo unto him
that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong;
THAT USETH HIS NEIGHBOR'S SERVICE WITHOUT WAGES, AND GIVETH HIM NOT FOR
HIS WORK." Jer. xxii. 13. The Hebrew word _rea_, translated _neighbor_,
means any one with whom we have to do--all descriptions of persons, even
those who prosecute us in lawsuits, and enemies while in the act of
fighting us--"As when a man riseth against his NEIGHBOR and slayeth
him." Deut. xxii. 26. "Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know
not what to do in the end thereof, when thy NEIGHBOR hath put thee to
shame." Prov. xxv. 8. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy
NEIGHBOR." Ex. xx. 16. "If a man come presumptuously upon his NEIGHBOR
to slay him with guile." Ex. xxi. 14, &c. The doctrine plainly
inculcated in this passage is, that every man's labor, or "service,"
being his own property, he is entitled to the profit of it, and that for
another to "use" it without paying him the value of it, is
"unrighteousness." The last clause of the verse "and giveth him not for
his work," reaffirms the same principle, that every man is to be _paid_
for "his work." In the context, the prophet contrasts the
unrighteousness of those who used the labor of others without pay, with
the justice and equity practiced by their patriarchal ancestor toward
the poor. "Did not thy father eat and drink and _do judgment and
justice_, and then it was well with him. He _judged the cause of the
poor and needy_; then it was well with him. But thine eyes and thine
heart are not but for thy _covetousness_, and for to shed innocent
blood, and for _oppression_, and for violence to do it." Jer. xxii. 15,
16. 17.[A]
[Footnote A: Paul lays down the same principle in the form of a precept
"Masters give unto your servants that which is JUST and EQUAL." Col. iv.
1. Thus not only asserting the _right_ of the servant to an equivalent
for his labor, and the duty of the master to render it, but condemning
all those relations between master and servant which were not founded
upon justice and equality of rights. The apostle James enforces the same
principle. "Behold, the hire of the laborers, who have reaped down your
fields, which is of you kept back _by fraud_, crieth." James v. 4. As
though he had said, "wages are the _right_ of laborers; those who work
for you have a just claim on you for _pay_; this you refuse to render,
and thus _defraud_ them by keeping from them what _belongs_ to them."
See also Mal. iii 5.]
II. GOD TESTIFIES THAT IN OUR DUTY TO OUR FELLOW MEN, ALL THE LAW AND
THE PROPHETS HANG UPON THIS COMMAND, "THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS
THYSELF." Our Savior, in giving this command, quoted _verbatim_ one of
the laws of the Mosaic system. Lev. xix. 18. In the 34th verse of the
same chapter, Moses applies this law to the treatment of strangers, "The
stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you,
and THOU SHALT LOVE HIM AS THYSELF." If it be loving others as
ourselves, to make them work for us without pay; to rob them of food and
clothing also, would be a stronger illustration still of the law of
love! _Super_-disinterested benevolence! And if it be doing unto others
as we would have them do to us, to make them work for _our own_ good
alone, Paul should be called to order for his hard sayings against human
nature, especially for that libellous matter in Eph. v. 29, "No man ever
yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherisheth it."
III. SERVANTS WERE OFTEN WEALTHY. As persons became servants FROM
POVERTY, we argue that they were compensated, since they frequently
owned property, and sometimes a large amount. Ziba, the servant of
Mephibosheth, gave David "Two hundred loaves of bread, and a hundred
bunches of raisins, and a hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of
wine." 2 Sam. xvi. 1. The extent of his possessions can be inferred from
the fact, that though the father of fifteen sons, he had twenty
servants. In Lev. xxv. 47-49, where a servant, reduced to poverty, sold
himself, it is declared that he may be _redeemed,_ either by his
kindred, or by HIMSELF. Having been forced to sell himself from poverty,
he must have acquired considerable property _after_ he became a servant.
If it had not been common for servants to acquire property over which
they had the control, the servant of Elisha would hardly have ventured
to take a large sum of money, (nearly $3000[A]) from Naaman, 2 Kings v.
22, 23. As it was procured by deceit, he wished to conceal the means
used in getting it; but if servants could "own nothing, nor acquire
anything," to embark in such an enterprise would have been consummate
stupidity. The fact of having in his possession two talents of silver,
would of itself convict him of theft.[B] But since it was common for
servants to own property, he might have it, and invest or use it,
without attracting special attention, and that consideration alone would
have been a strong motive to the act. His master, though he rebuked him
for using such means to get the money, not only does not take it from
him, but seems to expect that he would invest it in real estate, and
cattle, and would procure servants with it. 2 Kings v. 26. We find the
servant of Saul having money, and relieving his master in an emergency.
1 Sam. ix. 8. Arza, the servant of Elah, was the _owner of a house_.
That it was somewhat magnificent, would be a natural inference from its
being a resort of the king. 1 Kings xvi. 9. When Jacob became the
servant of Laban, it was evidently from poverty, yet Laban said to him,
Tell me "what shall thy _wages_ be?" After Jacob had been his servant
for ten years, he proposed to set up for himself, but Laban said
"Appoint me thy wages and I will give it," and he paid him his price.
During the twenty years that Jacob was a servant, he always worked for
wages and at his own price. Gen. xxix. 15, 18; xxx. 28-33. The case of
the Gibeonites, who, after becoming servants, still occupied their
cities, and remained in many respects, a distinct people for
centuries;[C] and that of the 150,000 Canaanites, the _servants_ of
Solomon, who worked out their "tribute of bond-service" in levies,
periodically relieving each other, are additional illustrations of
independence in the acquisition and ownership of property.
[Footnote A: Though we have not sufficient data to decide upon the
_relative_ value of that sum, _then_ and now, yet we have enough to
warrant us in saying that two talents of silver, had far more value
_then_ than three thousand dollars have _now_.]
[Footnote B: Whoever heard of the slaves in our southern states stealing
a large amount of money? They _"know how to take care of themselves"_
quite too well for that. When they steal, they are careful to do it on
such a small scale, or in the taking of _such things_ as will make
detection difficult. No doubt they steal now and then, and a gaping
marvel would it be if they did not. Why should they not follow in the
footsteps of their masters and mistresses? Dull scholars indeed! if,
after so many lessons from _proficients_ in the art, who drive the
business by _wholesale_, they should not occasionally copy their
betters, fall into the _fashion_, and try their hand in a small way, at
a practice which is the _only permanent and universal_ business carried
on around them! Ignoble truly! never to feel the stirrings of high
impulse, prompting to imitate the eminent pattern set before them in the
daily vocation of "Honorables" and "Excellencies," and to emulate the
illustrious examples of Doctors of Divinity, and _Right_ and _Very
Reverends!_ Hear President Jefferson's testimony. In his Notes on
Virginia, pp. 207-8, speaking of slaves, he says, "That disposition to
theft with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their
_situation_, and not to any special depravity of the moral sense. It is
a problem which I give the master to solve, whether the religious
precepts against the violation of property were not framed for HIM as
well as for his slave--and whether the slave may not as justifiably take
a _little_ from one who has taken ALL from him, as he may _slay_ one who
would slay him?"]
[Footnote C: The Nethinims, which name was afterwards given to the
Gibeonites on account of their being _set apart_ for the service of the
tabernacle, had their own houses and cities and "dwelt every one in his
own possession." Neh. xi. 3. 21; Ezra ii. 70; 1 Chron. ix. 2.]
Again. The Israelites often _hired_ servants from the strangers. Deut.
xxiv. 17.
Since then it is certain that they gave wages to a part of their
Canaanitish servants, thus recognizing their _right_ to a reward for
their labor, we infer that they did not rob the rest of their earnings.
If God gave them a license to make the strangers work for them without
pay--if this was good and acceptable in His sight, and _right and just
in itself_, they must have been great fools to have wasted their money
by paying wages when they could have saved it, by making the strangers
do all their work for nothing! Besides, by refusing to avail themselves
of this "Divine license," they despised the blessing and cast contempt
on the giver! But far be it from us to do the Israelites injustice;
perhaps they seized all the Canaanites they could lay their hands on,
and forced them to work without pay, but not being able to catch enough
to do their work, were obliged to offer wages in order to eke out the
supply!
The parable of our Lord, contained in Mat. xviii. 23-34, not only
derives its significance from the fact, that servants can both _own_ and
_owe_ and _earn_ property, over which they had the control, but would be
made a medley of contradictions on any other supposition.--1. Their lord
at a set time proceeded to "take account" and "reckon" with his
servants; the phraseology itself showing that the relations between the
parties, were those of debt and credit. 2. As the reckoning went on, one
of his servants was found to _owe_ him ten thousand talents. From the
fact that the servant _owed_ this to his master, we naturally infer,
that he must have been at some time, and in some way, the responsible
_owner_ of that amount, or of its substantial equivalent. Not that he
had had that amount put into his hands to invest, or disburse, in his
master's name, merely as his _agent_, for in that case no claim of
_debt_ for value received would lie, but, that having sustained the
responsibilities of legal _proprietorship_, he was under the liabilities
resulting therefrom. 3. Not having on hand wherewith to pay, he says to
his master "have patience with me _and I will pay thee all_." If the
servant had been his master's _property_, his time and earnings belonged
to the master as a matter of course, hence the promise to earn and pay
over that amount, was virtually saying to his master, "I will take money
out of your pocket with which to pay my debt to you," thus adding insult
to injury. The promise of the servant to pay the debt on condition that
the time for payment should be postponed, not only proceeds upon the
fact that his time was his own, that he was constantly earning property
or in circumstances that enabled him to earn it, and that he was the
_proprietor_ of his earnings, but that his master had _full knowledge_
of that fact.--In a word, the supposition that the master was the
_owner_ of the servant, would annihilate all legal claim upon him for
value received, and that the servant was the _property_ of the master,
would absolve him from all obligations of debt, or rather would always
_forestall_ such obligations--for the relations of owner and creditor in
such case, would annihilate each other, as would those of _property_ and
_debtor_. The fact that the same servant was the creditor of one of his
fellow servants, who owed him a considerable sum, and that at last he
was imprisoned until he should pay all that was due to his master, are
additional corroborations of the same point.
IV. HEIRSHIP.--Servants frequently inherited their master's property;
especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the family.
Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, Gen. xv. 23; Ziba, the servant of
Mephibosheth; Jarha, the servant of Sheshan, who married his daughter,
and thus became his heir, he having no sons, and the _husbandmen_ who
said of their master's son, "this is the HEIR, let us kill him, and the
INHERITANCE WILL BE OURS," are illustrations; also Prov. xxx. 23, an
_handmaid_ (or _maid-servant_,) that is _heir_ to her mistress; also
Prov. xvii. 2--"A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth
shame, and SHALL HAVE PART OF THE INHERITANCE AMONG THE BRETHREN." This
passage gives servants precedence as heirs, even over the wives and
daughters of their masters. Did masters hold by force, and plunder of
earnings, a class of persons, from which, in frequent contingencies,
they selected both heirs for their property, and husbands for their
daughters?
V. ALL WERE REQUIRED TO PRESENT OFFERINGS AND SACRIFICES. Deut. xvi. 16,
17; 2 Chron. xv. 9-11; Numb. ix. 13, 14. Beside this, "every man" from
twenty years old and above, was required to pay a tax of half a shekel
at the taking of the census; this is called "an offering unto the Lord
to make an atonement for their souls." Ex. xxx. 12-16. See also Ex.
xxxiv. 20. Servants must have had permanently the means of _acquiring_
property to meet these expenditures.
VI. SERVANTS WHO WENT OUT AT THE SEVENTH YEAR, WERE "FURNISHED
LIBERALLY." Deut. xv. 10-14. "Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of
thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine press, of that
wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou shalt give him."[A]
If it be said that the servants from the Strangers did not receive a
like bountiful supply, we answer, neither did the most honorable class
of _Israelitish_ servants, the free-holders; and for the same reason,
_they did not go out in the seventh year,_ but continued until the
jubilee. If the fact that the Gentile servants did not receive such a
_gratuity_ proves that they were robbed of their _earnings_, it proves
that the most valued class of _Hebrew_ servants were robbed of theirs
also; a conclusion too stubborn for even pro-slavery masticators,
however unscrupulous.
[Footnote A: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as
follows--"'Thou shalt furnish him liberally,' &c. That is to say,
_'Loading, ye shall load him,'_ likewise every one of his family with as
much as he can take with him--abundant benefits. And if it be
avariciously asked, 'How much must I give him?' I say unto _you, not
less than thirty shekels,_ which is the valuation of a servant, as
declared in Ex. xxi. 32."--Maimonides, Hilcoth Obedim, Chap. ii. Sec.
3.]
VII. SERVANTS WERE BOUGHT. In other words, they received compensation in
advance.[A] Having shown, under a previous head, that servants _sold
themselves_, and of course received the compensation for themselves,
except in cases where parents hired out the time of their children till
they became of age,[B] a mere reference to the fact is all that is
required for the purposes of this argument. As all the strangers in the
land were required to pay an annual tribute to the government, the
Israelites might often "buy" them as family servants, by stipulating
with them to pay their annual tribute. This assumption of their
obligations to the government might cover the whole of the servant's
time of service, or a part of it, at the pleasure of the parties.
[Footnote A: But, says the objector, if servants received their pay in
advance, and if the Israelites were forbidden to surrender the fugitive
to his master, it would operate practically as a bounty offered to all
servants who would leave their master's service encouraging them to make
contracts, get their pay in advance and then run away, thus cheating
their masters out of their money as well as their own services.--We
answer, the prohibition, Deut xxiii. 15. 16, "Thou shalt not deliver
unto his master," &c., sets the servant free from his _authority_ and of
course, from all those liabilities of injury, to which _as his servant_,
he was subjected, but not from the obligation of legal contracts. If the
servant had received pay in advance, and had not rendered an equivalent
for this "value received," he was not absolved from his obligation to do
so, but he was absolved from all obligations to pay his master in _that
particular way_, that is, _by working for him as his servant_.]
[Footnote B: Among the Israelites, girls became of age at twelve, and
boys at thirteen years.]
VIII. THE RIGHT OF SERVANTS TO COMPENSATION IS RECOGNISED IN Ex. xxi.
27. "And if he smite out his man-servant's, or his maid-servant's tooth,
he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake." This regulation is
manifestly based upon the _right_ of the servant to the _use_ of himself
and all this powers, faculties and personal conveniences, and
consequently his just claim for remuneration, upon him, who should
however _unintentionally_, deprive him of the use even of the least of
them. If the servant had a right to his _tooth_ and the use _of_ it,
upon the same principle, he had a right to the rest of his body and the
use of it. If he had a right to the _fraction_, and if it was his to
hold, to use, and to have pay for; he had a right to the _sum total_,
and it was his to hold, to use, and to have pay for.
IX. WE FIND MASTERS AT ONE TIME HAVING A LARGE NUMBER OF SERVANTS, AND
AFTERWARDS NONE, WITH NO INTIMATION IN ANY CASE THAT THEY WERE SOLD. The
wages of servants would enable them to set up in business for
themselves. Jacob, after being Laban's servant for twenty-one years,
became thus an independent herdsman, and had many servants. Gen. xxx.
43; xxxii. 16. But all these servants had left him before he went down
into Egypt, having doubtless acquired enough to commence business for
themselves. Gen. xlv. 10, 11; xlvi. 1-7, 32. The case of Ziba, the
servant of Mephibosheth, who had twenty servants, has been already
mentioned.
X. GOD'S TESTIMONY TO THE CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM. Gen. xviii. 19. "For I
know him that he will command his children and his household after him,
and they shall keep THE WAY OF THE LORD TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT." God
here testifies that Abraham taught his servants "the way of the Lord."
What was the "way of the Lord" respecting the payment of wages where
service was rendered? "Wo unto him that useth this neighbor's service
WITHOUT WAGES!" Jer. xxii. 13. "Masters, give unto your servants that
which is JUST AND EQUAL." Col. iv. 1. "Render unto all their DUES." Rom.
xiii. 7. "The laborer is WORTHY of HIS HIRE." Luke x. 7. How did Abraham
teach his servants to "_do justice_" to others? By doing injustice to
_them_? Did he exhort them to "render to all their dues" by keeping back
_their own_? Did he teach them that "the laborer was worthy of his hire"
by robbing them of _theirs_? Did he beget in them a reverence for
honesty by pilfering all their time and labor? Did he teach them "not to
defraud" others "in any matter" by denying _them_ "what was just and
equal?" If each of Abraham's pupils under such a catechism did not
become a very _Aristides_ in justice, then illustrious examples,
patriarchal dignity, and _practical_ lessons, can make but slow headway
against human perverseness!
XI. SPECIFIC PRECEPTS OF THE MOSAIC LAW ENFORCING GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
Out of many, we select the following: (1.) "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox
when he treadeth out the corn." Deut. xxv. 4. Here is a general
principle applied to a familiar case. The ox representing all domestic
animals. Isa. xxx. 24. A _particular_ kind of service, _all_ kinds; and
a law requiring an abundant provision for the wants of an animal
ministering to man in a _certain_ way,--a general principle of treatment
covering all times, modes, and instrumentalities of service. The object
of the law was; not merely to enjoin tenderness towards brutes, but to
inculcate the duty of rewarding those who serve us; and if such care be
enjoined, by God, both for the ample sustenance and present enjoyment of
_a brute_, what would be a meet return for the services of _man?_--MAN
with his varied wants, exalted nature and immortal destiny! Paul says
expressly, that this principle lies at the bottom of the statute. 1 Cor.
ix. 9, 10, "For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle
the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for
oxen? Or saith he it altogether for OUR sakes? that he that ploweth
should plow in HOPE, and that he that thresheth in hope should be
PARTAKER OF HIS HOPE." In the context, Paul innumerates the four grand
divisions of labor among the Jews in illustration of the principle that
the laborer, whatever may be the service he performs, is entitled to a
_reward_. The priests, Levites and all engaged in sacred things--the
military, those who tended flocks and herds, and those who cultivated
the soil. As the latter employment engaged the great body of the
Israelites, the Apostle amplifies his illustration under that head by
much detail--and enumerates the five great departments of agricultural
labor among the Jews--vine-dressing, plowing, sowing, reaping and
threshing, as the representatives of universal labor. In his epistle to
Timothy. 1 Tim. v. 18. Paul quotes again this precept of the Mosaic law,
and connects with it the declaration of our Lord. Luke x. 7. "The
laborer is worthy of his hire,"--as both inculcating the _same_
doctrine, that he who labors, whatever the employment, or whoever the
laborer, is entitled to a reward. The Apostle thus declares the
principle of right respecting the performance of service for others, and
the rule of duty towards those who perform it, to be the same under both
dispensations. (2.) "If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay
with thee, then thou shalt relieve him, YEA THOUGH HE BE A STRANGER or a
SOJOURNER that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or
increase, but fear thy God. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon
usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase." Lev. xxv. 35-37. Now, we
ask, by what process of pro-slavery legerdemain, this regulation can be
made to harmonize with the doctrine of WORK WITHOUT PAY? Did God declare
the poor stranger entitled to RELIEF, and in the same breath, authorize
them to "use his service without wages;" force him to work and ROB HIM
OF HIS EARNINGS?
IV.--WERE MASTERS THE PROPRIETORS OF SERVANTS AS LEGAL PROPERTY?
This topic has been unavoidably somewhat anticipated, in the foregoing
discussion, but a variety of additional considerations remain to be
noticed.
I. SERVANTS WERE NOT SUBJECTED TO THE USES NOR LIABLE TO THE
CONTINGENCIES OF PROPERTY. 1 _They were never taken in payment for their
masters' debts_. Children were sometimes taken (without legal authority)
for the debts of a father. 2 Kings iv. 1; Job xxiv. 9; Isa. l. 1; Matt.
xviii. 25. Creditors took from debtors property of all kinds, to satisfy
their demands. Job xxiv. 3, cattle are taken; Prov. xxii. 27, household
furniture; Lev. xxv. 25-28, the productions of the soil; Lev. xxv.
27-30, houses; Ex. xxii. 26, 27; Deut. xxiv. 10-13; Matt. v. 40,
clothing; but _servants_ were taken in _no instance_. 2. _Servants were
never given as pledges_. _Property_ of all sorts was pledged for value
received; household furniture, clothing, cattle, money, signets,
personal ornaments, &c., but no servants. 3. _Servants were not put into
the hands of others, or consigned to their keeping_. The precept giving
directions how to proceed in a case where property that has life is
delivered to another "to keep," and "it die or be hurt or driven away,"
enumerates oxen, asses, sheep or "any _beast_," but not "_servants_."
Ex. xxii. 10. 4. _All lost property was to be restored_. Oxen, asses,
sheep, raiment, and "all lost things," are specified--servants _not_.
Deut. xxii 1-3. Besides, the Israelites were forbidden to return the
runaway servant. Deut. xxiii, 15. 5. _Servants were not sold_. When by
flagrant misconduct, unfaithfulness or from whatever cause, they had
justly forfeited their privilege of membership in an Israelitish family,
they were not sold, but _expelled_ from the household. Luke xvi. 2-4; 2
Kings v. 20, 27; Gen. xxi. 14. 6 _The Israelites never received servants
as tribute_. At different times all the nations round about them were
their tributaries and paid them annually large amounts. They received
property of all kinds in payment of tribute. Gold, silver, brass, iron,
precious stone, and vessels, armor, spices, raiment, harness, horses,
mules, sheep, goats, &c., are in various places enumerated, but
_servants_, never. 7. _The Israelites never gave away their servants as
presents_. They made costly presents, of great variety. Lands, houses,
all kinds of domestic animals, beds, merchandize, family utensils,
precious metals, grain, honey, butter, cheese, fruits, oil, wine,
raiment, armor, &c., are among their recorded _gifts_. Giving presents
to superiors and persons of rank, was a standing usage. 1 Sam. x. 27;
xvi. 20; 2 Chron. xvii. 5. Abraham to Abimelech, Gen. xxi. 27; Jacob to
the viceroy of Egypt, Gen. xliii. 11; Joseph to his brethren and father,
Gen. xlv. 22, 23; Benhadad to Elisha, 2 Kings viii. 8, 9; Ahaz to
Tiglath Pilezer, 2 Kings vi. 8; Solomon to the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings
x. 13; Jeroboam to Ahijah, 1 Kings xiv. 3; Asa to Benhadad, 1 Kings xv.
18, 19. Abigail the wife of Nabal to David, 1 Sam. xxv. 18. David to the
elders of Judah, 1 Sam. xxx. 26. Jehoshaphat to his sons, 2. Chron. xxi.
3. The Israelites to David, 1. Chron. xii. 39, 40. Shobi Machir and
Barzillai to David, 2 Sam. xvii. 28, 29. But no servants were given as
presents, though it was a prevailing fashion in the surrounding nations.
Gen. xii. 16, xx. 14. In the last passage we are told that Abimelech
king of the Philistines "took sheep and oxen and men servants and women
servants and gave them unto Abraham." Not long after this Abraham made
Abimelech a present, the same kind with that which he had received from
him except that he gave him _no servants_. "And Abraham took sheep and
oxen and gave them unto Abimelech." Gen. xxi. 27. It may be objected
that Laban "GAVE" handmaids to his daughters, Jacob's wives. Without
enlarging on the nature of the polygamy then prevalent, suffice it to
say that the handmaids of wives were regarded as wives, though of
inferior dignity and authority. That Jacob so regarded his handmaids, is
proved by his curse upon Reuben, Gen. xlix. 4, and 1 Chron. v. 1; also
by the equality of their children with those of Rachel and Leah. But had
it been otherwise--had Laban given them as _articles of property_, then,
indeed, the example of this "good old slaveholder and patriarch," Saint
Laban, would have been a forecloser to all argument. Ah! we remember his
jealousy for _religion_--his holy indignation when he found that his
"GODS" were stolen! How he mustered his clan, and plunged over the
desert in hot pursuit seven days by forced marches; how he ransacked a
whole caravan, sifting the contents of every tent, little heeding such
small matters as domestic privacy, or female seclusion, for lo! the zeal
of his "IMAGES" had eaten him up! No wonder that slavery, in its
Bible-navigation, drifting dismantled before the free gusts, should scud
under the lee of such a pious worthy to haul up and refit; invoking his
protection, and the benediction, of his "GODS!" Again, it may be
objected that, servants were enumerated in inventories of property. If
that proves _servants_ property, it proves _wives_ property. "Thou shall
not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shall not covet thy neighbor's
WIFE, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his
ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's." Ex. xx. 17. In inventories
of mere property, if servants are included, it is in such a way as to
show that they are not regarded as property. Eccl. ii. 7, 8. But when
the design is to show, not merely the wealth, but the _greatness_ and
_power_ of any one, servants are spoken of, as well as property. In a
word, if _riches_ alone are spoken of, no mention is made of servants;
if _greatness_, servants and property. Gen. xiii. 2, 5. "And Abraham was
very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." Yet we are told, in the
verse preceding, that he came up out of Egypt "with _all_ that he had."
"And Lot also had flocks, and herds, and tents." In the seventh verse
servants are mentioned, "And there was a strife between the HERDMEN of
Abraham's cattle and the HERDMEN of Lot's cattle." It is said of Isaac.
"And the man waxed _great_, and went forward, and grew until he became
_very great_. For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds,
and _great store of servants_." In immediate connection with this we
find Abimelech the king of the Philistines saying to him. "Thou art much
_mightier_ than we." Shortly after this avowal, Isaac is waited upon by
a deputation consisting of Abimelech, Phicol the chief captain of his
army, and Ahuzzath, who says to him "Let there be now an oath betwixt us
and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee, that thou wilt _do us no
hurt_." Gen. xxvi. 13, 14, 16, 26, 28, 29.--A plain concession of the
_power_ which Isaac had both for aggression and defence in his "great
store of _servants_;" that is, of willing and affectionate adherents to
him as a just and benevolent prince. When Hamor and Shechem speak to the
Hivites of the _riches_ of Abraham and his sons, they say, "Shall not
their _cattle_ and their _substance_ and _every beast of theirs_ be
ours?" Gen. xxxiv. 23. See also Josh. xxii. 8; Gen. xxxiv. 23; Job.
xlii. 12; 2 Chron. xxi. 3; xxxii. 27-29; Job. i. 3-5; Deut. viii. 12-17;
Gen. xxiv. 35; xxvi. 13; xxx. 43. Jacob's wives say to him, "All the
_riches_ which God has taken from our father that is ours and our
children's." Then follows an inventory of property--"All his cattle,"
"all his goods," "the cattle of his getting." His numerous servants are
not included with his property. Comp. Gen. xxx. 43, with Gen. xxxi.
16-18. When Jacob sent messengers to Esau, wishing to impress him with
an idea of his state and sway, he bade them tell him not only of his
RICHES, but of his GREATNESS; that he had "oxen, and asses, and flocks,
and men-servants, and maid-servants." Gen. xxxii. 4, 5. Yet in the
present which he sent, there were no servants; though he manifestly
selected the _most valuable_ kinds of property. Gen. xxxii. 14, 15; see
also Gen. xxxvi. 6, 7; xxxiv. 23. As flocks and herds were the staples
of wealth, a large number of servants presupposed large possessions of
cattle, which would require many herdsmen. When Jacob and his sons went
down into Egypt it is repeatedly asserted that they took _all that they
had_. "Their cattle and their goods which they had gotten in the land of
Canaan," "Their flocks and their herds" are mentioned, but no
_servants_. And as we have besides a full catalogue of the _household_,
we know that he took with him no servants. That Jacob _had_ many
servants before his migration into Egypt, we learn from Gen, xxx. 43;
xxxii. 5, 16, 19. That he was not the _proprietor_ of these servants as
his property is a probable inference from the fact that he did not take
them with him, since we are expressly told that he did take all his
_property_. Gen. xlv. 10; xlvi. 1, 32; xlvii. 1. When servants are
spoken of in connection with _mere property_, the terms used to express
the latter do not include the former. The Hebrew word _mikne_, is an
illustration. It is derived from _kana_, to procure, to buy, and its
meaning is, a _possession, wealth, riches_. It occurs more than forty
times in the Old Testament, and is applied always to _mere property_,
generally to domestic animals, but never to servants. In some instances,
servants are mentioned in distinction from the _mikne_. "And Abraham
took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their SUBSTANCE
that they had gathered; and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and
they went forth to go into the land of Canaan." Gen. xii. 5. Many will
have it, that these _souls_ were a part of Abraham's _substance_
(notwithstanding the pains here taken to separate them from it)--that
they were slaves taken with him in his migration as a part of his family
effects. Who but slaveholders, either actually or in heart, would
torture into the principle and practice of slavery, such a harmless
phrase as "_the souls that they had gotten?_" Until the African slave
trade breathed its haze into the eyes of the church and smote her with
palsy and decay, commentators saw no slavery in, "The souls that they
had gotten." In the Targum of Onkelos[A] it is rendered, "The souls whom
they had brought to obey the law in Haran." In the Targum of Jonathan,
"The souls whom they had made proselytes in Haran." In the Targum of
Jerusalem, "The souls proselyted in Haran." Jarchi, the prince of Jewish
commentators, "The souls whom they had brought under the Divine wings."
Jerome, one of the most learned of the Christian fathers, "The persons
whom they had proselyted." The Persian version, the Vulgate, the Syriac,
the Arabic, and the Samaritan all render it, "All the wealth which they
had gathered, and the souls which they had made in Haran." Menochius, a
commentator who wrote before our present translation of the Bible,
renders it, "Quas de idolatraria converterant." "Those whom they had
converted from idolatry." Paulus Fagius,[B] "Quas instituerant in
religione." "Those whom they had established in religion." Luke Francke,
a German commentator who lived two centuries ago, "Quas legi
subjicerant."--"Those whom they had brought to obey the law." The same
distinction is made between _persons_ and property, in the enumeration
of Esau's household and the inventory of his effects. "And Esau took his
wives and his sons and his daughters, and all the _persons_ of his
house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his _substance_ which
he had got in the land of Canaan, and went into the country from the
face of his brother Jacob. For their _riches_ were more than that they
might dwell together; and the land could not bear them because of their
_cattle_." Gen. xxxvi. 6, 7.
[Footnote A: The Targums are Chaldee paraphrases of parts of the Old
Testament. The Targum of Onkelos is, for the most part, a very accurate
and faithful translation of the original, and was probably made at about
the commencement of the Christian era. The Targum of Jonathan Ben
Uzziel, bears about the same date. The Targum of Jerusalem was probably
about five hundred years later. The Israelites, during their captivity
in Babylon, lost, as a body, their own language. These translations into
the Chaldee, the language which they acquired in Babylon, were thus
called for by the necessity of the case.]
[Footnote B: This eminent Hebrew scholar was invited to England to
superintend the translation of the Bible into English, under the
patronage of Henry the Eighth. He had hardly commenced the work when he
died. This was nearly a century before the date of our present
translation.]
II. THE CONDITION AND SOCIAL ESTIMATION OF SERVANTS MAKE THE DOCTRINE
THAT THEY WERE COMMODITIES, AN ABSURDITY. As the head of a Jewish family
possessed the same power over his wife, children, and grandchildren (if
they were in his family) as over his servants, if the latter were
articles of property, the former were equally such. If there were
nothing else in the Mosaic Institutes or history establishing the social
equality of the servants with their masters and their master's wives and
children, those precepts which required that they should be guests at
all the public feasts, and equal participants in the family and social
rejoicings, would be quite sufficient to settle the question. Deut. xii.
12, 18; xvi. 10, 11, 13, 14. Ex. xii. 43, 44. St. Paul's testimony in
Gal. iv. 1, shows the condition of servants: "Now I say unto you, that
the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT,
though he be lord of all." That the interests of Abraham's servants were
identified with those of their master's family, and that the utmost
confidence was reposed in them, is shown in their being armed. Gen. xiv.
14, 15. When Abraham's servant went to Padanaram, the young Princess
Rebecca did not disdain to say to him. "Drink, MY LORD," as "she hasted
and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink." Laban, the
brother of Rebecca, "ungirded his camels, and brought him water to wash
his feet, and the men's feet that were with him!" In the arrangements of
Jacob's household on his journey from Padanaram to Canaan, we find his
two maid servants treated in the same manner and provided with the same
accommodations as Rachel and Leah. Each of them had a separate tent
appropriated to her use. Gen. xxxi. 33. The social equality of servants
with their masters and other members of their master's families, is an
obvious deduction from Ex. xxi. 7, 10, from which we learn that the sale
of a young Jewish female as a servant, was also _betrothed as a wife_,
either to her master, or to one of his sons. In 1 Sam. ix. is an account
of a festival in the city of Zuph, at which Samuel presided. None but
those bidden, sat down at the feast, and only "about thirty persons"
were invited. Quite a select party!--the elite of the city. Saul and his
servant had just arrived at Zuph, and _both_ of them, at Samuel's
solicitation, accompany him as invited guests. "And Samuel took Saul and
his SERVANT, and brought THEM into the PARLOR (!) and made THEM sit in
the CHIEFEST SEATS among those that were bidden." A _servant_ invited by
the chief judge, ruler, and prophet in Israel, to dine publicly with a
select party, in company with his master, who was at the same time
anointed King of Israel! and this servant introduced by Samuel into the
PARLOR, and assigned, with his master, to the _chiefest seat_ at the
table! This was "_one_ of the servants" of Kish, Saul's father; not the
steward or the chief of them--not at all a _picked_ man, but "_one_ of
the servants;" _any_ one that could be most easily spared, as no
endowments specially rare would be likely to find scope in looking after
asses. David seems to have been for a time in all respects a servant in
Saul's family. He "_stood before him_." "And Saul sent to Jesse, saying,
let David, I pray thee, _stand before me_." He was Saul's personal
servant, went on his errands, played on the harp for his amusement, bore
his armor for him, and when he wished to visit his parents, asked
permission of Jonathan, Saul's son. Saul also calls him "my servant." 1
Sam. xvi. 21-23; xviii. 5; xx. 5, 6; xxii. 8. Yet David sat with the
king at meat, married his daughter, and lived on terms of the closest
intimacy with the heir apparent of the throne. Abimelech, who was first
elected king of Shechem, and afterwards reigned over all Israel, _was
the son of a_ MAID-SERVANT. His mother's family seems to have been of
much note in the city of Shechem, where her brothers manifestly held
great sway. Judg. ix. 1-6, 18. Jarha, an Egyptian, the servant of
Sheshan, married his daughter. Tobiah, "the servant" and an Ammonite
married the daughter of Shecaniah one of the chief men among the Jews in
Jerusalem and was the intimate associate of Sanballat the governor of
the Samaritans. We find Elah, the King of Israel, at a festive
entertainment, in the house of Arza, his steward, or head servant, with
whom he seems to have been on terms of familiarity. 1 Kings xvi. 8, 9.
See also the intercourse between Gideon and his servants. Judg. vi. 27,
and vii. 10, 11. The Levite of Mount Ephraim and his servant. Judg. xx.
3, 9, 11, 13, 19, 21, 22. King Saul and his servant Doeg, one of his
herdmen. 1 Sam. xx. 1, 7; xxii. 9, 18, 22. King David and Ziba, the
servant of Mephibosheth. 2 Sam. xvi. 1-4. Jonathan and his servant. 1
Sam. xiv. 1-14. Elisha and his servant, Gehazi. 2 Kings iv. v. vi. Also
between Joram king of Israel and the servant of Elisha. 2 Kings viii. 4,
5, and between Naaman "the Captain of the host of the king of Syria" and
the same person. 2 Kings v. 21-23. The fact stated under a previous head
that servants were always invited guests at public and social festivals,
is in perfect keeping with the foregoing exemplifications of the
prevalent estimation in which servants were held by the Israelites.
Probably no one of the Old Testament patriarchs had more servants than
Job; "This man was the greatest man of all the men of the east." Job, i.
3. We are not left in the dark as to the condition of his servants.
After asserting his integrity, his strict justice, honesty, and equity,
in his dealings with his fellow men, and declaring "I delivered the
poor," "I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame," "I was a
father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out," * *
* he says "If I did despise the cause of my man-servant or my
maid-servant when they CONTENDED with me * * * then let mine arm fall
from the shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone." Job.
xxix. 12, 15, 16; xxxi. 13, 22. The language employed in this passage is
the phraseology applied in judicial proceedings to those who implead one
another, and whether it be understood literally or figuratively, shows
that whatever difference existed between Job and his servants in other
respects, so far as _rights_ are concerned, they were on equal ground
with him, and that in the matter of daily intercourse, there was not the
least restraint on their _free speech_ in calling in question all his
transactions with them, and that the relations and claims of both
parties were adjudicated on the principles of equity and reciprocal
right. "If I _despised_ the cause of my man-servant," &c. In other
words, if I treated it lightly, as though servants were not men, had not
rights, and had not a claim for just dues and just estimation as human
beings. "When they _contended_ with me," that is, when they plead their
rights, claimed what was due to them, or questioned the justice of any
of my dealings with them.
In the context Job virtually affirms as the ground of his just and
equitable treatment of his servants, that they had the same rights as he
had, and were, as human beings, entitled to equal consideration with
himself. By what language could he more forcibly utter his conviction of
the oneness of their common origin and of the identity of their common
nature, necessities, attribute and rights? As soon as he has said, "If I
did despise the cause of my man-servant," &c., he follows it up with
"What then shall I do when God raiseth up? and when he visiteth, what
shall I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb, make _him_? and
did not one fashion us in the womb." In the next verse Job glories in
the fact that he has not "_withheld from the poor their desire_." Is it
the "desire" of the poor to be _compelled_ by the rich to work for them,
and without _pay_?
III. THE CASE OF THE GIBEONITES. The condition of the inhabitants of
Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim, under the Hebrew
commonwealth, is quoted in triumph by the advocates of slavery; and
truly they are right welcome to all the crumbs that can be gleaned from
it. Milton's devils made desperate snatches at fruit that turned to
ashes on their lips. The spirit of slavery raves under tormenting
gnawings, and casts about in blind phrenzy for something to ease, or
even to mock them. But for this, it would never have clutched at the
Gibeonites, for even the incantations of the demon cauldron could not
extract from their case enough to tantalize starvation's self. But to
the question. What was the condition of the Gibeonites under the
Israelites? 1. _It was voluntary_. Their own proposition to Joshua was
to become servants. Josh. ix. 8, 11. It was accepted, but the kind of
service which they should perform, was not specified until their gross
imposition came to light; they were then assigned to menial offices in
the Tabernacle. 2. _They were not domestic servants in the families of
the Israelites_. They still resided in their own cities, cultivated
their own fields, tended their flocks and herds, and exercised the
functions of a _distinct_, though not independent community. They were
subject to the Jewish nation as _tributaries_. So far from being
distributed among the Israelites and their internal organization as a
distinct people abolished, they remained a separate, and, in some
respects, an independent community for many centuries. When attacked by
the Amorites, they applied to the Israelites as confederates for aid--it
was rendered, their enemies routed, and themselves left unmolested in
their cities. Josh. x. 6-18. Long afterwards, Saul slew some of them,
and God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. David inquired of
the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the
atonement?" At their demand, he delivered up to them seven of Saul's
descendants. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-9. The whole transaction was a formal
recognition of the Gibeonites as a distinct people. There is no
intimation that they served either families or individuals of the
Israelites, but only the "house of God," or the Tabernacle. This was
established first at Gilgal, a days' journey from their cities; and then
at Shiloh, nearly two days' journey from them; where it continued about
350 years. During this period the Gibeonites inhabited their ancient
cities and territory. Only a few, comparatively, could have been absent
at any one time in attendance on the Tabernacle. Wherever allusion is
made to them in the history, the main body are spoken of as _at home_.
It is preposterous to suppose that all the inhabitants of these four
cities could find employment at the Tabernacle. One of them "was a great
city, as one of the royal cities;" so large, that a confederacy of five
kings, apparently the most powerful in the land, was deemed necessary
for its destruction. It is probable that the men were divided into
classes, ministering in rotation--each class a few days or weeks at a
time. As the priests whose assistants they were, served by courses in
rotation a week at a time; it is not improbable that their periods of
service were so arranged as to correspond. This service was their
_national tribute_ to the Israelites, for the privilege of residence and
protection under their government. No service seems to have been
required of the _females_. As these Gibeonites were Canaanites, and as
they had greatly exasperated the Israelites by impudent imposition and
lying, we might assuredly expect that they would reduce _them_ to the
condition of chattels, if there was _any_ case in which God permitted
them to do so.
IV. EGYPTIAN BONDAGE ANALYZED. Throughout the Mosaic system, God warns
the Israelites against holding their servants in such a condition as
they were held in by the Egyptians. How often are they pointed back to
the grindings of their prison-house! What motives to the exercise of
justice and kindness towards their servants, are held out to their fears
in threatened judgments; to their hopes in promised good; and to all
within them that could feel, by those oft repeated words of tenderness
and terror! "For ye were bondmen in the land of Egypt"--waking anew the
memory of tears and anguish, and of the wrath that avenged them. But
what was the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt? Of what rights were
they plundered and what did they retain?
1. _They were not dispersed among the families of Egypt,[A] but formed a
separate community_. Gen. xlvi. 34. Ex. viii. 22, 24; ix. 26; x. 23; xi.
7; iv. 29; ii. 9; xvi. 22; xvii. 5; vi. 14. 2. _They had the exclusive
possession of the land of Goshen,[B] "the best part of the land" of
Egypt_. Gen. xlv. 18; xlvii. 6, 11, 27; Ex. viii. 22; ix. 26; xii. 4.
Goshen must have been at a considerable distance from those parts of
Egypt inhabited by the Egyptians; so far at least as to prevent their
contact with the Israelites, since the reason assigned for locating them
in Goshen was, that shepherds were "an abomination to the Egyptians;"
besides, their employments would naturally lead them out of the settled
parts of Egypt to find a free range of pasturage for their immense
flocks and herds. 3. _They lived in permanent dwellings_. These were
_houses_, not _tents_. In Ex. xii. 7, 22, the two side _posts_, and the
upper door _posts_, and the lintel of the houses are mentioned. Each
family seems to have occupied a house _by itself_. Acts vii. 20. Ex.
xii. 4--and judging from the regulation about the eating of the
Passover, they could hardly have been small ones, Ex. xii. 4; probably
contained separate apartments, as the entertainment of sojourners seems
to have been a common usage. Ex. iii. 23; and also places for
concealment. Ex. ii. 2, 3; Acts vii. 20. They appear to have been well
apparelled. Ex. xii. 11. 4. _They owned "flocks and herds," and "very
much cattle_." Ex. xii. 4, 6, 32, 37, 38. From the fact that "_every
man_" was commanded to kill either a lamb or a kid, one year old, for
the Passover, before the people left Egypt, we infer that even the
poorest of the Israelites owned a flock either of sheep or goats.
Further, the immense multitude of their flocks and herds may be judged
of from the expostulation of Moses with Jehovah. Num. xii. 21, 22. "The
people among whom I am are six hundred thousand footmen, and thou hast
said I will give them flesh that they may eat a whole month; shall the
flocks and the herds be slain for them to _suffice_ them." As these six
hundred thousand were only the _men_ "from twenty years old and upward,
that were able to go forth to war," Ex. i. 45, 46; the whole number of
the Israelites could not have been less than three millions and a half.
Flocks and herds to "suffice" all these for food, might surely be called
"very much cattle." 5. _They had their own form of government_, and
preserved their tribe and family divisions, and their internal
organization throughout, though still a province of Egypt, and
_tributary_ to it. Ex. ii. 1; xii. 19, 21; vi. 14, 25; v. 19; iii. 16,
18. 6. _They had in a considerable measure, the disposal of their own
time._ Ex. iii. 16, 18; xii. 6; ii. 9; and iv. 27, 29-31. _They seem to
have practised the fine arts_. Ex. xxxii. 4; xxxv. 22, 35. 7. _They were
all armed_. Ex. xxxii. 27. 8. _They held their possessions
independently, and the Egyptians seem to have regarded them as
inviolable_. No intimation is given that the Egyptians dispossessed them
of their habitations, or took away their flocks, or herds, or crops, or
implements of agriculture, or any article of property. 9. _All the
females seem to have known something of domestic refinements_. They were
familiar with instruments of music, and skilled in the working of fine
fabrics. Ex. xv. 20; xxxv. 25, 26; and both males and females were able
to read and write. Deut. xi. 18-20; xvii. 19; xxvii. 3. 10. _Service
seems to have been exacted from none but adult males_. Nothing is said
from which the bond service of females could be inferred; the hiding of
Moses three months by his mother, and the payment of wages to her by
Pharaoh's daughter, go against such a supposition. Ex. ii. 29. 11.
_Their food was abundant and of great variety_. So far from being fed
upon a fixed allowance of a single article, and hastily prepared, "they
sat by the flesh-pots," and "did eat bread to the full." Ex. xvi. 3; and
their bread was prepared with leaven. Ex. xii. 15, 39. They ate "the
fish freely, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the
onions, and the garlic." Num. xi. 4, 5; xx. 5. Probably but a small
portion of the people were in the service of the Egyptians at any one
time. The extent and variety of their own possessions, together with
such a cultivation of their crops as would provide them with bread, and
such care of their immense flocks and herds, as would secure their
profitable increase, must have kept at home the main body of the nation.
During the plague of darkness, God informs us that "ALL the children of
Israel had light in their dwellings." We infer that they were _there_ to
enjoy it. See also Ex. ix. 26. It seems improbable that the making of
brick, the only service named during the latter part of their sojourn in
Egypt, could have furnished permanent employment for the bulk of the
nation. See also Ex. iv. 29-31. Besides, when Eastern nations employed
tributaries, it was as now, in the use of the levy, requiring them to
furnish a given quota, drafted off periodically, so that comparatively
but a small portion of the nation would be absent _at any one time_. The
adult males of the Israelites were probably divided into companies,
which relieved each other at stated intervals of weeks or months. It
might have been during one of these periodical furloughs from service
that Aaron performed the journey to Horeb. Ex. iv. 27. At the least
calculation this journey must have consumed _eight weeks_. Probably
one-fifth part of the proceeds of their labor was required of the
Israelites in common with the Egyptians. Gen. xlvii. 24, 26. Instead of
taking it from their _crops_, (Goshen being better for _pasturage_) they
exacted it of them in brick making; and labor might have been exacted
only from the _poorer_ Israelites, the wealthy being able to pay their
tribute in money. The fact that all the elders of Israel seem to have
controlled their own time, (See Ex. iv. 29; iii. 16; v. 20,) favors the
supposition. Ex. iv. 27, 31. Contrast this bondage of Egypt with
American slavery. Have our slaves "flocks and herds even very much
cattle?" Do they live in commodious houses of their own, "sit by the
flesh-pots," "eat fish freely," and "eat bread to the full"? Do they
live in a separate community, in their distinct tribes, under their own
rulers, in the exclusive occupation of an extensive tract of country for
the culture of their crops, and for rearing immense herds of their own
cattle--and all these held inviolable by their masters? Are our female
slaves free from exactions of labor and liabilities of outrage? or when
employed, are they paid wages, as was the Israelitish woman by the
king's daughter? Have they the disposal of their own time, and the means
for cultivating social refinements, for practising the fine arts, and
for personal improvement? THE ISRAELITES UNDER THE BONDAGE OF EGYPT,
ENJOYED ALL THESE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. True, "all the service wherein
they made them serve was with rigor." But what was this when compared
with the incessant toil of American slaves; the robbery of all their
time and earnings, and even the "power to own any thing, or acquire any
thing?" a "quart of corn a-day," the legal allowance of food![C] their
_only_ clothing for one half the year, "_one_ shirt and _one_ pair of
pantaloons!"[D]_two hours and a half_ only, for rest and refreshment in
the twenty-four![E]--their dwellings, _hovels_, unfit for human
residence, with but one apartment, where both sexes and all ages herd
promiscuously at night, like the beasts of the field.[F] Add to this,
the ignorance, and degradation;[G] the daily sunderings of kindred, the
revelries of lust, the lacerations and baptisms of blood, sanctioned by
law, and patronized by public sentiment. What was the bondage of Egypt
when compared with this? And yet for her oppression of the poor, God
smote her with plagues, and trampled her as the mire, till she passed
away in his wrath, and the place that knew her in her pride, knew her no
more. Ah! "I have seen the afflictions of my people, and I have heard
their groanings, and am come down to deliver them." HE DID COME, and
Egypt sank a ruinous heap, and her blood closed over her. If such was
God's retribution for the oppression of heathen Egypt, of how much sorer
punishment shall a Christian people be thought worthy, who cloak with
religion a system, in comparison with which the bondage of Egypt
dwindles to nothing? Let those believe who can, that God commissioned
his people to rob others of _all_ their rights, while he denounced
against them wrath to the uttermost, if they practised the _far lighter_
oppression of Egypt--which robbed its victims of only the least and
cheapest of their rights, and left the females unplundered even of
these. What! Is God divided against himself? When He had just turned
Egypt into a funeral pile; while his curse yet blazed upon her unburied
dead, and his bolts still hissed amidst her slaughter, and the smoke of
her torment went upwards because she had "ROBBED THE POOR," did He
license the VICTIMS of robbery to rob the poor of ALL? As _Lawgiver_,
did he _create_ a system tenfold more grinding than that for which he
had just hurled Pharaoh headlong, and overwhelmed his princes and his
hosts, till "hell was moved to meet them at their coming?"
[Footnote C: See law of North Carolina, Haywood's Manual 524-5. To show
that slaveholders are not better than their laws. We give a few
testimonies. Rev. Thomas Clay, of Georgia, (a slaveholder,) in an
address before the Georgia presbytery, in 1834, speaking of the slave's
allowance of food, says:--"The quantity allowed by custom is a _peck of
corn a week._" The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser of May 30,
1788, says, "a _single peck of corn a week, or the like measure of
rice_, is the ordinary quantity of provision for a _hard-working_ slave;
to which a small quantity of meat is occasionally, though _rarely_,
added."
The Gradual Emancipation Society of North Carolina, in their Report for
1836, signed Moses Swaim, President, and William Swaim, Secretary, says,
in describing the condition of slaves in the Eastern part of that State,
"The master puts the unfortunate wretches upon short allowances,
scarcely sufficient for their sustenance, so that a _great part_ of them
go _half naked_ and _half starved_ much of the time." See Minutes of the
American Convention, convened in Baltimore, Oct. 25, 1826.
Rev. John Rankin, a native of Tennessee, and for many years a preacher
in slave states, says of the food of slaves, "It _often_ happens that
what will _barely keep them alive_, is all that a cruel avarice will
allow them. Hence, in some instances, their allowance has been reduced
to a _single pint of corn each_, during the day and night. And some have
no better allowance than a small portion of cotton seed; while perhaps
they are not permitted to taste meat so much as once in the course of
seven years. _Thousands of them are pressed with the gnawings of cruel
hunger during their whole lives._" Rankin's Letters on Slavery, pp. 57,
58.
Hon. Robert J. Turnbull, of Charleston, S.C., a slaveholder, says, "The
subsistence of the slaves consists, from March until August, of corn
ground into grits, or meal, made into what is called _hominy_, or baked
into corn bread. The other six months, they are fed upon the sweet
potatoe. Meat, when given, is only by way of _indulgence or favor_."
_See "Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and
Western States," by a South Carolinian. Charleston_, 1822.
Asa A. Stone, a theological student, residing at Natchez, Mississippi,
wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Evangelist in 1835, in
which he says, "On almost every plantation, the hands suffer more or
less from hunger at some seasons of almost every year. There is always a
_good deal of suffering_ from hunger. On many plantations, and
particularly in Louisiana, the slaves are in a condition of _almost
utter famishment_ during a great portion of the year."
At the commencement of his letter, Mr. S. says, "Intending, as I do,
that my statements shall be relied on, and knowing that, should you
think fit to publish this communication, they will come to this country,
where their correctness may be tested by comparison with real life, I
make them with the utmost care and precaution."
President Edwards, the younger, in a sermon preached half a century ago,
at New Haven, Conn., says, speaking of the allowance of food given to
slaves--"They are supplied with barely enough to keep them from
starving."
In the debate on the Missouri question in the U.S. Congress, 1819-20,
the admission of Missouri to the Union, as a slave state, was urged,
among other grounds as a measure of humanity to the slaves of the south.
Mr. Smyth, a member of Congress, from Virginia, and a large slaveholder,
said, "The plan of our opponents seems to be to confine the slave
population to the southern states, to the countries where sugar, cotton,
and tobacco are cultivated. But, sir, by confining the slaves to a part
of the country where crops are raised for exportation, and the bread and
meat are purchased, _you doom them to scarcity and hunger_. Is it not
obvious that the way to render their situation more comfortable is to
allow them to be taken where there is not the same motive to force the
slave to INCESSANT TOIL that there is in the country where cotton,
sugar, and tobacco are raised for exportation. It is proposed to hem in
the blacks _where they are_ HARD WORKED and ILL FED, that they may be
rendered unproductive and the race be prevented from increasing. * *
* The proposed measure would be EXTREME CRUELTY to the blacks. * * *
You would * * * doom them to SCARCITY and HARD LABOR."--[Speech of
Mr. Smyth, of Va., Jan. 28, 1820.]--See National Intelligencer. ]
[Footnote D: See law of Louisiana, Martin's Digest, 6, 10. Mr. Bouldin,
a Virginia slaveholder, in a speech in Congress, Feb. 16, 1835, (see
National Intelligencer of that date,) said "_he knew_ that many negroes
had died from exposure to weather." Mr. B. adds, "they are clad in a
flimsy fabric that will turn neither wind nor water." Rev. John Rankin
says, in his Letters on slavery, page 57, "In every slaveholding state,
_many slaves suffer extremely_, both while they labor and while they
sleep, _for want of clothing_ to keep them warm. Often they are driven
through frost and snow without either stocking or shoe, until the path
they tread is died with their blood. And 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_." ]
[Footnote E: See law of Louisiana, act of July 7, 1806, Martin's Digest,
6, 10-12. The law of South Carolina permits the master to _compel_ his
slaves to work fifteen hours in the twenty-four, in summer, and fourteen
in the winter--which would be in winter, from daybreak in the morning
until _four hours_ after sunset!--See 2 Brevard's Digest, 243. The
preamble of this law commences thus: "Whereas, _many_ owners of slaves
_do confine them so closely to hard labor that they have not sufficient
time for natural rest:_ be it therefore enacted," &c. In a work entitled
"Travels in Louisiana in 1802," translated from the French, by John
Davis, is the following testimony under this head:--
"The labor of Slaves in Louisiana is _not_ severe, unless it be at the
rolling of sugars, an interval of from two to three months, then they
work _both night and day_. Abridged of their sleep, they scarce retire
to rest during the whole period." See page 81. On the 87th page of the
same work, the writer says, _"Both in summer and winter_ the slaves must
be _in the field_ by the _first dawn of day."_ And yet he says, "the
labor of the slave is _not severe_, except at the rolling of sugars!"
The work abounds in eulogies of slavery.
In the "History of South Carolina and Georgia," vol. 1, p. 120, is the
following: "_So laborious_ is the task of raising, beating, and cleaning
rice, that had it been possible to obtain European servants in
sufficient numbers, _thousands and tens of thousands_ MUST HAVE
PERISHED."
In an article on the agriculture of Louisiana, published in the second
number of the "Western Review" is the following:--"The work is admitted
to be severe for the hands, (slaves) requiring, when the process of
making sugar is commenced, TO BE PRESSED NIGHT AND DAY."
Mr. Philemon Bliss, of Ohio, in his letters from Florida, in 1835, says,
"The negroes commence labor by daylight in the morning, and excepting
the plowboys, who must feed and rest their horses, do not leave the
field till dark in the evening."
Mr. Stone, in his letter from Natchez, an extract of which was given
above, says, "It is a general rule on all regular plantations, that the
slaves rise in season in the morning, to _be in the field as soon as it
is light enough for them to see to work_, and remain there until it is
_so dark that they cannot see_. This is the case at all seasons of the
year."
President Edwards, in the sermon already extracted from, says, "The
slaves are kept at hard labor from _five o'clock in the morning till
nine at night_, excepting time to eat twice during the day."
Hon. R.J. Turnbull, a South Carolina slaveholder, already quoted,
speaking of the harvesting of cotton, says: _"All the pregnant women_
even, on the plantation, and weak and _sickly_ negroes incapable of
other labor, are then _in requisition_." * * * See "Refutation of the
Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States," by a
South Carolinian. ]
[Footnote F: A late number of the "Western Medical Reformer" contains a
dissertation by a Kentucky physician, on _Cachexia Africana_, or African
consumption, in which the writer says--
"This form of disease deserves more attention from the medical
profession than it has heretofore elicited. Among the causes may be
named the mode and manner in which the negroes live. They are _crowded_
together in a _small hut_, sometimes having an imperfect, and sometimes
no floor--and seldom raised from the ground, illy ventilated, and
surrounded with filth. Their diet and clothing, are also causes which
might be enumerated as exciting agents. They live on a coarse, crude and
unwholesome diet, and are imperfectly clothed, both summer and winter;
sleeping upon filthy and frequently damp beds."
Hon. R.J. Turnbull, of South Carolina, whose testimony on another point
has been given above, says of the slaves, that they live in "_clay
cabins_, with clay chimneys," &c. Mr. Clay, a Georgia slaveholder, from
whom an extract has been given already, says, speaking of the dwellings
of the slaves, "Too many individuals of both sexes are crowded into one
house, and the proper separation of apartments _cannot_ be observed.
That the slaves are insensible to the evils arising from it, does not in
the least lessen the unhappy consequences." Clay's Address before the
Presbytery of Georgia.--P. 13. ]
[Footnote G: Rev. C.C. Jones, late of Georgia, now Professor in the
Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina, made a report before
the presbytery of Georgia, in 1833, on the moral condition of the slave
population, which report was published under the direction of the
presbytery. In that report Mr. Jones says, "They, the slaves, are shut
out from our sympathies and efforts as immortal beings, and are educated
and disciplined as creatures of profit, and of profit only, for this
world." In a sermon preached by Mr. Jones, before two associations of
planters, in Georgia, in 1831, speaking of the slaves he says, "They are
a nation of HEATHEN in our very midst." "What have we done for our poor
negroes? With shame we must confess that we have done NOTHING!" "How can
you pray for Christ's kingdom to come while you are neglecting a people
perishing for lack of vision around your very doors." "We withhold the
Bible from our servants and keep them in ignorance of it, while we
_will_ not use the means to have it read and explained to them." Jones'
Sermon, pp. 7, 9.
An official report of the Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and
Georgia, adopted at its session in Columbia, S.C., and published in the
Charleston Observer of March 22, 1834, speaking of the slaves, says,
"There are over _two millions_ of _human beings_, in the condition of
HEATHEN, and, in some respects, _in a worse condition_!" * * * "From
long continued and close observation, we believe that their moral and
religious condition is such, as that they may justly be considered the
_heathen_ of this Christian country, and will _bear comparison with
heathen in any country in the world_." * * * "The negroes are destitute
of the privileges of the gospel, and _ever will be under the present
state of things."_ Report, &c., p. 4.
A writer in the Church Advocate, published in Lexington, Ky., says, "The
poor negroes are left in the ways of spiritual darkness, no efforts are
being made for their enlightenment, no seed is being sown, nothing but a
moral wilderness is seen, over which the soul sickens--the heart of
Christian sympathy bleeds. Here nothing is presented but a moral waste,
as _extensive as our influence_, as appalling as the valley of death."
The following is an extract of a letter from Bishop Andrew of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, to Messrs. Garrit and Maffit, editors of the
"Western Methodist," then published at Nashville, Tennessee.
"_Augusta, Jan. 29, 1835._
"The Christians of the South owe a heavy debt to slaves on their
plantations, and the ministers of Christ especially are debtors to the
whole slave population. I fear a cry goes up to heaven on this subject
against us; and how, I ask, shall the scores who have left the ministry
of the Word, that they may make corn and cotton, and buy and sell, and
get gain, meet this cry at the bar of God? and what shall the hundreds
of money-making and money-loving masters, who have grown rich by the
toil and sweat of their slaves, and _left their souls to perish_, say
when they go with them to the judgment of the great day?"
"The Kentucky Union for the moral and religious improvement of the
colored race,"--an association composed of some of the most influential
ministers and laymen of Kentucky, says in a general circular to the
religious public, "To the female character among the black population,
we cannot allude but with feelings of the bitterest shame. A similar
condition of moral pollution, and utter disregard of a pure and virtuous
reputation, is to be found only _without the pale of Christendom_. That
such a state of society should exist in a Christian nation, without
calling forth any particular attention to its existence, though ever
before our eyes and in our families, is a moral phenomenon at once
unaccountable and disgraceful."
Rev. James A. Thome, a native of Kentucky, and still residing there,
said in a speech in New York, May 1834, speaking of licentiousness among
the slaves, "I would not have you fail to understand that this is a
_general_ evil. Sir, what I now say, I say from deliberate conviction of
its truth; that the slave states are Sodoms, and almost every village
family is a brothel. (In this, I refer to the inmates of the kitchen,
and not to the whites.)"
A writer in the "Western Luminary," published in Lexington, Ky., made
the following declaration to the same point in the number of that paper
for May 7, 1835: "There is one topic to which I will allude, which will
serve to establish the heathenism of this population. I allude to the
UNIVERSAL LICENTIOUSNESS which prevails. _Chastity is no virtue among
them_--its violation neither injures female character in their own
estimation, or that of their master or mistress--no instruction is ever
given, _no censure pronounced_. I speak not of the world. I SPEAK OF
CHRISTIAN FAMILIES GENERALLY."
Rev. Mr. Converse, long a resident of Virginia, and agent of the
Colonization Society, said, in a sermon before the Vt. C.S.--"Almost
nothing is done to instruct the slaves in the principles and duties of
the Christian religion. * * * The majority are emphatically _heathens_.
* * Pious masters (with some honorable exceptions) are criminally
negligent of giving religious instruction to their slaves. * * * They
can and do instruct their own children, and _perhaps_ their house
servants; while those called "field hands" live, and labor, and die,
without being told by their _pious_ masters (?) that Jesus Christ died
to save sinners."
The page is already so loaded with references that we forbear. For
testimony from the mouths of slaveholders to the terrible lacerations
and other nameless outrages inflicted on the slaves, the reader is
referred to the number of the Anti-Slavery Record for Jan. 1837. ]
We now proceed to examine the various objections which will doubtless be
set in array against all the foregoing conclusions.
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
The advocates of slavery find themselves at their wit's end in pressing
the Bible into their service. Every movement shows them hard pushed.
Their ever-varying shifts, their forced constructions and blind
guesswork, proclaim both their _cause_ desperate, and themselves.
Meanwhile their invocations for help to "those good old slaveholders and
patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,"[A] sent up without ceasing from
the midst of their convulsions, avail as little as did the screams and
lacerations of the prophets of Baal to bring an answer of fire. The
Bible defences thrown around slavery by the professed ministers of the
Gospel, do so torture common sense, Scripture, and historical facts it
were hard to tell whether absurdity, fatuity, ignorance, or blasphemy,
predominates, in the compound; each strives so lustily for the mastery,
it may be set down a drawn battle. How often has it been bruited that
the color of the negro is the _Cain-mark_, propagated downward. Cain's
posterity started an opposition to the ark, forsooth, and rode out the
flood with flying streamers! How could miracle be more worthily
employed, or better vindicate the ways of God to man than by pointing
such an argument, and filling out for slaveholders a Divine title-deed!
[Footnote A: The Presbytery of Harmony, South Carolina, at their meeting
in Wainsborough, S.C., Oct. 28, 1836, appointed a special committee to
report on slavery. The following resolution is a part of the report
adopted by the Presbytery. "Resolved, That slavery has existed from the
days of those GOOD OLD SLAVEHOLDERS AND PATRIARCHS, Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, who are now in the kingdom of Heaven."
Abraham receives abundant honor at the hands of slave-holding divines.
Not because he was the "father of the faithful," forsook home and
country for the truth's sake, was the most eminent preacher and
practiser of righteousness in his day; nay, verily, for all this he gets
faint praise; but then he had "SERVANTS BOUGHT WITH MONEY!!!" This is
the finishing touch of his character, and its effect on slaveholders is
electrical. Prose fledges into poetry, cold compliments warm into
praise, eulogy rarifies into panegyric and goes off in rhapsody. In
their ecstasies over Abraham, Isaac's paramount claims to their homage
are lamentably lost sight of. It is quite unaccountable, that in their
manifold oglings over Abraham's "servants bought with money," no
slaveholder is ever caught casting loving side-glances at Gen. xxvii.
29, 37, where Isaac, addressing Jacob, says, "Be _lord_ over thy
brethren and let thy mother's sons _bow down_ to thee." And afterwards,
addressing Esau, he says, speaking of the birth-right immunities
confirmed to Jacob, "Behold I have made him thy _Lord_ and all his
brethren have I GIVEN TO HIM FOR SERVANTS!"
Here is a charter for slaveholding, under the sign manual of that "good
old slaveholder and patriarch, Isaac." Yea, more--a "Divine Warrant" for
a father holding his _children_ as slaves and bequeathing them as
property to his heirs! Better still, it proves that the favorite
practice amongst our slaveholders of bequeathing their _colored_
children to those of a different hue, was a "Divine institution," for
Isaac "_gave_" Esau, who was "_red_ all over," to Jacob, "_as a
servant_." Now gentlemen, "honor to whom honor." Let Isaac no longer be
stinted of the glory that is his due as the great prototype of that
"peculiar domestic institution," of which you are eminent patrons, that
nice discrimination, by which a father, in his will, makes part of his
children _property_, and the rest, their _proprietors_, whenever the
propriety of such a disposition is indicated, as in the case of Jacob
and Esau, by the decisive tokens of COLOR and HAIR, (for, to show that
Esau was Jacob's _rightful_ property after he was "given to him" by
Isaac "for a servant," the difference in _hair_ as well as color, is
expressly stated by inspiration!)
One prominent feature of patriarchal example has been quite overlooked
by slaveholders. We mean the special care of Isaac to inform Jacob that
those "given to him as servants" were "HIS BRETHREN," (twice repeated.)
The deep veneration of slaveholders for every thing patriarchal, clears
them from all suspicion of _designedly_ neglecting this authoritative
precedent, and their admirable zeal to perpetuate patriarchal fashions,
proves this seeming neglect, a mere _oversight_: and is an
all-sufficient guarantee that henceforward they will religiously
illustrate in their own practice, the beauty of this hitherto neglected
patriarchal usage. True, it would be an odd codicil to a will, for a
slaveholder, after bequeathing to _some_ of his children, all his
slaves, to add a supplement, informing them that such and such and such
of them were their _brothers and sisters_. Doubtless it would be at
first a sore trial also, but what _pious_ slaveholder would not be
sustained under it by the reflection that he was humbly following in the
footsteps of his illustrious patriarchal predecessors!
Great reformers must make great sacrifices, and if the world is to be
brought back to the purity of patriarchal times, upon whom will the ends
of the earth come, to whom will all trembling hearts and failing eyes
spontaneously turn as leaders to conduct the forlorn hope through the
wilderness to that promised land, if not to slaveholders, those
disinterested pioneers whose self-denying labors have founded far and
wide the "patriarchal institution" of _concubinage_, and through evil
report and good report, have faithfully stamped their own image and
superscription, in variegated hues, upon the faces of a swarming progeny
from generation to generation. ]
OBJECTION I. "_Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto
his brethren._" Gen. ix. 25.
This prophecy of Noah is the _vade mecum_ of slaveholders, and they
never venture abroad without it; it is a pocket-piece for sudden
occasion, a keepsake to dote over, a charm to spell-bind opposition, and
a magnet to draw to their standard "whatsoever worketh abomination or
maketh a lie." But "cursed be Canaan" is a poor drug to ease a throbbing
conscience--a mocking lullaby to unquiet tossings. Those who justify
negro slavery by the curse on Canaan, _assume_ as usual all the points
in debate. 1. That _slavery_ was prophesied, rather than mere _service_
to others, and _individual_ bondage rather than _national_ subjection
and tribute. 2. That the _prediction_ of crime justifies it; or at least
absolves those whose crimes fulfil it. How piously the Pharaohs might
have quoted the prophecy, "_Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that
is not theirs, and they shall afflict them four hundred years._" And
then, what saints were those that crucified the Lord of glory! 3. That
the Africans are descended from Canaan. Africa was peopled from Egypt
and Ethiopia, which countries were settled by Mizraim and Cush. For the
location and boundaries of Canaan's posterity, see Gen. x. 15-19. So a
prophecy of evil to one people, is quoted to justify its infliction upon
another. Perhaps it may be argued that Canaan includes all Ham's
posterity. If so, the prophecy is yet unfulfilled. The other sons of Ham
settled Egypt and Assyria, and, conjointly with Shem, Persia, and
afterward, to some extent, the Grecian and Roman empires. The history of
these nations gives no verification of the prophecy. Whereas, the
history of Canaan's descendants for more than three thousand years, is a
record of its fulfillment. First, they were put to tribute by the
Israelites; then by the Medes and Persians; then by the Macedonians,
Grecians and Romans, successively; and finally, were subjected by the
Ottoman dynasty, where they yet remain. Thus Canaan has been for ages
the servant mainly of Shem and Japhet, and secondarily of the other sons
of Ham. It may still be objected, that though Canaan alone is _named_,
yet the 22d and 24th verses show the posterity of Ham in general to be
meant. "And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father,
and told his two brethren without." "And Noah awoke from his wine, and
knew what his YOUNGER son had done unto him, and said," &c. It is argued
that this "_younger_ son" cannot be Canaan, as he was the _grandson_ of
Noah, and therefore it must be Ham. We answer, whoever that "_younger
son_" was, Canaan alone was named in the curse. Besides, the Hebrew word
_Ben_, signifies son, grandson, or _any one_ of the posterity of an
individual.[A] "_Know ye Laban, the_ SON (grandson) _of Nahor_?" Gen.
xxix. 5. "_Mephibosheth the_ SON (grandson) _of Saul_." 2 Sam. xix. 24;
2 Sam. ix. 6. "_The driving of Jehu the_ SON (grandson) _of Nimshi_." 2
Kings ix. 20. See also Ruth iv. 17; 2 Sam. xxi. 6; Gen. xxxi. 55. Shall
we forbid the inspired writer to use the same word when speaking of
Noah's grandson? Further, Ham was not the "_younger_ son." The order of
enumeration makes him the _second_ son. If it be said that Bible usage
varies, the order of birth not always being observed in enumerations;
the reply is, that, enumeration in that order, is the _rule_, in any
other order the _exception_. Besides, if a younger member of a family
takes precedence of older ones in the family record, it is a mark of
pre-eminence, either in endowments, or providential instrumentality.
Abraham, though sixty years younger than his eldest brother, stands
first in the family genealogy. Nothing in Ham's history shows him
pre-eminent; besides, the Hebrew word _Hakkatan_ rendered "the
_younger_," means the _little, small_. The same word is used in Isa. lx.
22. "A LITTLE ONE _shall become a thousand_." Isa. xxii. 24. "_All
vessels of_ SMALL _quantity_." Ps. cxv. 13. "_He will bless them that
fear the Lord both_ SMALL _and great_." Ex. xviii, 22. "_But every_
SMALL _matter they shall judge_." It would be a literal rendering of
Gen. ix. 24, if it were translated thus, "when Noah knew what his little
son,"[B] or grandson (_Beno Hakkatan_) "had done unto him, he said
cursed be Canaan," &c. Further, even if the Africans were the
descendants of Canaan, the assumption that their enslavement fulfils
this prophecy, lacks even plausibility, for, only a _fraction_ of the
inhabitants of Africa have at any time been the slaves of other nations.
If the objector say in reply, that a large majority of the Africans have
always been slaves _at home_, we answer: _It is false in point of fact_,
though zealously bruited often to serve a turn; and _if it were true_,
how does it help the argument? The prophecy was, "Cursed be Canaan, a
servant of servants shall he be _unto his_ BRETHREN.," not unto
_himself!_
[Footnote A: So _av_, the Hebrew word for father, signifies any
ancestor, however remote. 2 Chron. xvii. 3; xxviii. 1; xxxiv. 2; Dan. v.
2.]
[Footnote B: The French follows the same analogy; _grandson_ being
_petit fils_ (little son.)]
OBJECTION II.--"_If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and
he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if
he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his
money._" Ex. xxi. 20, 21. What was the design of this regulation? Was it
to grant masters an indulgence to beat servants with impunity, and an
assurance, that if they beat them to death, the offence should not be
_capital_? This is substantially what commentators tell us. What Deity
do such men worship? Some blood-gorged Moloch, enthroned on human
hecatombs, and snuffing carnage for incense? Did He who thundered from
Sinai's flames, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL," offer a bounty on _murder_?
Whoever analyzes the Mosaic system, will often find a moot court in
session, trying law points, settling definitions, or laying down rules
of evidence. Num. xxxv. 10-22; Deut. xix. 4-6; Lev. xxiv. 19-22; Ex.
xxi. 18, 19, are some of the cases stated, with tests furnished the
judges by which to detect _the intent_, in actions brought before them.
Their ignorance of judicial proceedings, laws of evidence, &c., made
such instructions necessary. The detail gone into, in the verses quoted,
is manifestly to enable them to get at the _motive_ and find out whether
the master _designed_ to kill. 1. "If a man smite his servant with a
_rod_."--The instrument used, gives a clue to the _intent_. See Num.
xxxv. 16-18. A _rod_, not an axe, nor a sword, nor a bludgeon, nor any
other death-weapon--hence, from the _kind_ of instrument, no design to
_kill_ would be inferred; for _intent_ to kill would hardly have taken a
_rod_ for its weapon. But if the servant "_die under his hand_," then
the unfitness of the instrument, is point blank against him; for,
striking with a _rod_ so as to cause death, presupposed very many blows
and great violence, and this kept up till the death-gasp, showed an
_intent to kill_. Hence "He shall _surely_ be punished." But if he
continued a day or two, the _length of time that he lived_, the _kind_
of instrument used, and the master's pecuniary interest in his _life_,
("he is his _money_,") all made a strong case of presumptive evidence,
showing that the master did not _design_ to kill. Further, the word
_nakam_, here rendered _punished_, occurs thirty-five times in the Old
Testament, and in almost every place is translated "_avenge_," in a few,
"_to take vengeance_," or "_to revenge_," and in this instance ALONE,
"_punish_." As it stands in our translation, the pronoun preceding it,
refers to the _master_, whereas it should refer to the _crime_, and the
word rendered _punished_, should have been rendered _avenged_. The
meaning is this: If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and
he die under his hand, IT (the death) shall surely be avenged, or
literally, _by avenging it shall be avenged_; that is, the _death_ of
the servant shall be _avenged_ by the _death_ of the master. So in the
next verse, "If he continue a day or two," his death is not to be
avenged by the _death_ of the _master_, as in that case the crime was to
be adjudged _manslaughter_, and not _murder_. In the following verse,
another case of personal injury is stated, for which the injurer is to
pay _a sum of money_; and yet our translators employ the same
phraseology in both places! One, an instance of deliberate, wanton,
killing by piecemeal; the other, an accidental, and comparatively slight
injury--of the inflicter, in both cases, they say the same thing! Now,
just the discrimination to be looked for where GOD legislates, is marked
in the original. In the case of the servant wilfully murdered, He says,
"It (the death) shall surely be _avenged_," that is, the life of the
wrong doer shall expiate the crime. The same word is used in the Old
Testament, when the greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the
perpetrators to _destruction_. In the case of the unintentional injury,
in the following verse, God says, "He shall surely be _fined_,
(_anash_.) "He shall _pay_ as the judges determine." The simple meaning
of the word _anash_, is to lay a fine. It is used in Deut. xxii. 19:
"They shall _amerce_ him in one hundred shekels," and in 2 Chron. xxxvi.
3: "He condemned (_mulcted_) the land in a hundred talents of silver and
a talent of gold." That _avenging_ the death of the servant, was neither
imprisonment, nor stripes, nor a fine but that it was _taking the
master's life_ we infer, 1. From the _use_ of the word _nakam_. See Gen.
iv. 24; Josh. x. 13; Judg. xv. 7; xvi. 28; 1 Sam. xiv. 24; xviii. 25;
xxv. 31; 2 Sam. iv. 8; Judg. v. 2; 1 Sam. xxv. 26-33. 2. From the
express statute, Lev. xxiv. 17: "He that killeth ANY man shall surely be
put to death." Also, Num. xxxv. 30, 31: "Whoso killeth ANY person, the
murderer shall be put to death. Moreover, ye shall take NO SATISFACTION
for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death, but he shall surely
be put to death." 3. The Targum of Jonathan gives the verse thus, "Death
by the sword shall surely be adjudged." The Targum of Jerusalem,
"Vengeance shall be taken for him to the _uttermost_." Jarchi, the same.
The Samaritan version: "He shall die the death." Again, the clause "for
he is his money," is quoted to prove that the servant is his master's
property, and therefore, if he died, the master was not to be punished.
The assumption is, that the phrase, "HE IS HIS MONEY," proves not only
that the servant is _worth money_ to the master, but that he is an
_article of property_. If the advocates of slavery insist upon taking
this principle of interpretation into the Bible, and turning it loose,
let them stand and draw in self-defence. If they endorse for it at one
point, they must stand sponsors all around the circle. It will be too
late to cry for quarter when its stroke clears the table, and tilts them
among the sweepings beneath. The Bible abounds with such expressions as
the following: "This (bread) _is_ my body;" "all they (the Israelites)
_are_ brass and tin;" this (water) _is_ the blood of the men who went in
jeopardy of their lives;" "the Lord God _is_ a sun;" "the seven good
ears _are_ seven years;" "the tree of the field _is_ man's life;" "God
_is_ a consuming fire;" "he _is_ his money," &c. A passion for the exact
_literalities_ of the Bible is too amiable, not to be gratified in this
case. The words in the original are (_Káspo-hu_,) "his _silver_ is he."
The objector's principle of interpretation is a philosopher's stone! Its
miracle touch transmutes five feet eight inches of flesh and bones into
_solid silver_! Quite a _permanent_ servant, if not so nimble
withal--reasoning against _"forever_," is forestalled henceforth, and,
Deut. xxiii. 15, quite outwitted. The obvious meaning of the phrase,
"_He is his money_," is, he is _worth money_ to his master, and since,
if the master had killed him, it would have taken money out of his
pocket, the _pecuniary loss_, the _kind of instrument used_, and _the
fact of his living sometime after the injury_, (if the master _meant_ to
kill, he would be likely to _do_ it while about it.) all together make a
strong case of presumptive evidence clearing the master from _intent to
kill_. But let us look at the objector's _inferences_. One is, that as
the master might dispose of his _property_ as he pleased, he was not to
be punished, if he destroyed it. Whether the servant died under the
master's hand, or after a day or two, he was _equally_ his property, and
the objector admits that in the _first_ case the master is to be "surely
punished" for destroying _his own property_! The other inference is,
that since the continuance of a day or two, cleared the master of
_intent to kill_, the loss of the servant would be a sufficient
punishment for inflicting the injury which caused his death. This
inference makes the Mosaic law false to its own principles. A _pecuniary
loss_ was no part of the legal claim, where a person took the _life_ of
another. In such case, the law spurned money, whatever the sum. God
would not cheapen human life, by balancing it with such a weight. "Ye
shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a murderer, but he shall
surely be put to death." Num. xxxv. 31. Even in excusable homicide,
where an axe slipped from the helve and killed a man, no sum of money
availed to release from confinement in the city of refuge, until the
death of the High Priest. Num. xxxv. 32. The doctrine that the loss of
the servant would be a penalty _adequate_ to the desert of the master,
admits his _guilt_ and his desert of _some_ punishment, and it
prescribes a kind of punishment, rejected by the law, in all cases where
man took the life of man, whether with or without intent to kill. In
short, the objector annuls an integral part of the system--makes a _new_
law, and coolly metes out such penalty as he thinks fit. Divine
legislation revised and improved! The master who struck out his
servant's tooth, whether intentionally or not, was required to set him
free. The _pecuniary loss_ to the master was the same as though he had
killed him. Look at the two cases. A master beats his servant so that he
dies of his wounds; another accidentally strikes out his servant's
tooth,--_the pecuniary loss of both masters is the same_. If the loss of
the servant's services is punishment sufficient for the crime of killing
him, would God command the same punishment for the accidental knocking
out of a _tooth_? Indeed, unless the injury was done _inadvertently_,
the loss of the servant's services was only a part of the
punishment--mere reparation to the _individual_ for injury done; the
main punishment, that strictly _judicial_, was reparation to the
_community_. To set the servant _free_, and thus proclaim his injury,
his right to redress, and the measure of it--answered not the ends of
_public_ justice. The law made an example of the offender, that "those
that remain might hear and fear." "If a man cause a blemish in his
neighbor, as he hath done, so shall it be done unto him. Breach for
breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Ye shall have one manner of law as
well for the STRANGER as for one of your own country." Lev. xxiv. 19,
20, 22. Finally, if a master smote out _his_ servant's tooth, the law
smote out his tooth--thus redressing the _public_ wrong; and it
cancelled the servant's obligation to the master, thus giving some
compensation for the injury done, and exempting him from perilous
liabilities in future.
OBJECTION III. "_Both thy bondmen and 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 the strangers that do
sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are
with you, which they begat 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._" Lev. xxv. 44-46.
The _points_ in these verses, urged as proof, that the Mosaic system
sanctioned slavery, are 1. The word "BONDMEN." 2. "BUY." 3. "INHERITANCE
AND POSSESSION." 4. "FOREVER."
We will now ascertain what sanction to slavery is derivable from these
terms.
1. "BONDMEN." The fact that servants from the heathen are called
"_bondmen_," while others are called "_servants_," is quoted as proof
that the former were slaves. As the caprices of King James' translators
were not inspired, we need stand in no special awe of them. The word
here rendered bondmen is uniformly rendered servants elsewhere. The
Hebrew word "_ebedh_," the plural of which is here translated
"_bondmen_," is often applied to Christ. "Behold my _servant_ (bondman,
slave?) whom I uphold." Isa. xlii. 1. "Behold my _servant_ (Christ)
shall deal prudently." Isa. lii. 13. "And he said it is a light thing
that thou (Christ) shouldst be my _servant_." Isa. xlix. 6. "To a
_servant_ of rulers." Isa. xlix. 7. "By his knowledge shall my righteous
_servant_ (Christ) justify many." Is. liii. 11. "Behold I will bring
forth my _servant_ the BRANCH." Zech. iii. 8. In 1 Kings xii. 6, 7, it
is applied to King Rehoboam. "And they spake unto him, saying if thou
wilt be a _servant_ unto this people, then they will be thy _servants_
forever." In 2 Chron. xii. 7, 8, 9, 13, to the king and all the nation.
The word is used to designate those who perform service for _individuals
or families_, about thirty-five times in the Old Testament. To designate
_tributaries_ about twenty-five times. To designate the _subjects of
government_, about thirty-three times. To designate the worshippers both
of the true God, and of false gods, about seventy times. It is also used
in salutations and courteous addresses nearly one hundred times. In
fine, the word is applied to all persons doing service for others, and
that _merely to designate them as the performers of such service_,
whatever it might be, or whatever the ground on which it might be
rendered. To argue from the fact, of this word being used to designate
domestic servants, that they were made servants by _force_, worked
without pay, and held as articles of property, is such a gross
assumption and absurdity as to make formal refutation ridiculous. We
repeat what has been shown above, that the word rendered bondmen in Lev.
xxv. 44, is used to point out persons rendering service for others,
totally irrespective of the principle on which that service was
rendered; as is manifest from the fact that it is applied
indiscriminately to tributaries, to domestics, to all the subjects of
governments, to magistrates, to all governmental officers, to younger
sons--defining their relation to the first born, who is called _lord_
and _ruler_--to prophets, to kings, and to the Messiah. To argue from
the meaning of the word _ebedh_ as used in the Old Testament, that those
to whom it was applied rendered service against their will, and without
pay, does violence to the scripture use of the term, sets at nought all
rules of interpretation, and outrages common sense. If _any_ inference
as to the meaning of the term is to be drawn from the condition and
relations of the various classes of persons, to whom it is applied, the
only legitimate one would seem to be, that the term designates a person
who renders service to another in return for something of value received
from him. The same remark applies to the Hebrew verb _abadh_, to serve,
answering to the noun _ebedh_ (servant). It is used in the Old Testament
to describe the _serving_ of tributaries, of worshippers, of domestics,
of Levites, of sons to a father, of younger brothers to the elder, of
subjects to a ruler, of hirelings, of soldiers, of public officers to
the government, of a host to his guests, &c. Of these it is used to
describe the serving of _worshippers_ more than forty times, of
_tributaries_, about thirty five, and of servants or domestics, about
_ten_.
If the Israelites not only held slaves, but multitudes of them, if
Abraham had thousands, and if they abounded under the Mosaic system, why
had their language no word that _meant slave_? That language must be
wofully poverty-stricken, which has no signs to represent the most
common and familiar objects and conditions. To represent by the same
word, and without figure, property, and the owner of that property, is a
solecism. Ziba was an "_ebedh_," yet he "_owned_" (!) twenty _ebedhs_!
In our language, we have both _servant_ and _slave_. Why? Because we
have both the _things_, and need _signs_ for them. If the tongue had a
sheath, as swords have scabbards, we should have some _name_ for it: but
our dictionaries give us none. Why? Because there is no such _thing_.
But the objector asks, "Would not the Israelites use their word _ebedh_
if they spoke of the slave of a heathen?" Answer. Their _national_
servants or tributaries, are spoken of frequently, but domestics
servants so rarely, that no necessity existed, even if they were slaves,
for coining a new word. Besides, the fact of their being domestics,
under _heathen laws and usages_, proclaimed their liabilities; their
_locality_ made a _specific_ term unnecessary. But if the Israelites had
not only _servants_, but a multitude of _slaves_, a _word meaning
slave_, would have been indispensible for every day convenience.
Further, the laws of the Mosaic system were so many sentinels on the
outposts to warn off foreign practices. The border ground of Canaan, was
quarantine ground, enforcing the strictest non-intercourse in usages
between the without and the within.
2. "BUY." The _buying_ of servants, is discussed at length. pp. 17-23.
To that discussion the reader is referred. We will add in this place but
a single consideration. This regulation requiring the Israelites to
_"buy"_ servants of the heathen, prohibited their taking them without
buying. _Buying_ supposes two parties: a _price_ demanded by one and
paid by the other, and consequently, the _consent_ of both buyer and
seller, to the transaction. Of course the command to the Israelites to
_buy_ servants of the heathen, prohibited their getting them unless they
first got _somebody's_ consent to the transaction, and paid to
_somebody_ a fair equivalent. Now, who were these _somebodies_? This at
least is plain, they were not _Israelites_, but heathen. "Of _them_
shall ye buy." Who then were these _somebodies_, whose right was so
paramount, that _their_ consent must be got and the price paid must go
into _their_ pockets? Were they the persons themselves who became
servants, or some _other_ persons. "Some _other_ persons to be sure,"
says the objector, "the countrymen or the neighbors of those who become
servants." Ah! this then is the import of the Divine command to the
Israelites.
"When you go among the heathen round about to get a man to work for you,
I straightly charge you to go first to his _neighbors_, get _their_
consent that you may have him, settle the terms with _them_, and pay to
them a fair equivalent. If it is not _their_ choice to let him go, I
charge you not to take him on your peril. If _they_ consent, and you pay
_them_ the full value of his labor, then you may go and catch the man
and drag him home with you, and make him work for you, and I will bless
you in the work of your hands and you shall eat of the fat of the land.
As to the man himself, his choice is nothing, and you need give him
nothing for his work: but take care and pay his _neighbors_ well for
him, and respect _their_ free choice in taking him, for to deprive a
heathen man by force and without pay of the _use of himself_ is well
pleasing in my sight, but to deprive his heathen neighbors of the use of
him is that abominable thing which my soul hateth."
3. "FOREVER." This is quoted to prove that servants were to serve during
their life time, and their posterity from generation to generation.[A]
No such idea is contained in the passage. The word "forever," instead of
defining the length of _individual_ service, proclaims the permanence of
the regulation laid down in the two verses preceding, namely, that their
_permanent domestics_ should be of the _Strangers_, and not of the
Israelites; it declares the duration of that general provision. As if
God had said, "You shall _always_ get your _permanent_ laborers from the
nations round about you; your servants shall _always_ be of that class
of persons." As it stands in the original, it is plain--"_Forever of
them shall ye serve yourselves_." This is the literal rendering.
[Footnote A: One would think that the explicit testimony of our Lord
should for ever forestall all cavil on this point. "_The servant abideth
not in the house_ FOR EVER, but the Son, abideth ever." John viii. 35.]
That "_forever_" refers to the permanent relations of a _community_,
rather than to the services of _individuals_, is a fair inference from
the form of the expression, "Both thy bondmen, &c., shall be of the
_heathen_. OF THEM shall ye buy." "They shall be your possession." "THEY
shall be your bondmen forever." "But over your brethren the CHILDREN OF
ISRAEL," &c. To say nothing of the uncertainty of _these individuals_
surviving those _after_ whom they are to live, the language used applies
more naturally to a _body_ of people, than to _individual_ servants.
Besides _perpetual_ service cannot be argued from the term _forever_.
The ninth and tenth verses of the same chapter limit it absolutely by
the jubilee. "Then thou shalt cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound
* * throughout ALL your land." "And ye shall proclaim liberty throughout
all the land unto ALL the inhabitants thereof." It may be objected that
"inhabitants" here means _Israelitish_ inhabitants alone. The command
is, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto ALL _the inhabitants
thereof_." Besides, in the sixth verse, there is an enumeration of the
different classes of the inhabitants, in which servants and Strangers
are included; and in all the regulations of the jubilee, and the
sabbatical year, the Strangers are included in the precepts,
prohibitions, and promises. Again: the year of jubilee was ushered in by
the day of atonement. What did these institutions show forth? The day of
atonement prefigured the atonement of Christ, and the year of jubilee,
the gospel jubilee. And did they prefigure an atonement and a jubilee to
_Jews_ only? Were they types of sins remitted, and of salvation
proclaimed to the nation of Israel alone? Is there no redemption for us
Gentiles in these ends of the earth, and is our hope presumption and
impiety? Did that old partition wall survive the shock that made earth
quake, and hid the sun, burst graves and rocks, and rent the temple
veil? and did the Gospel only rear it higher to thunder direr perdition
from its frowning battlements on all without? No! The God of OUR
salvation lives. "Good tidings of great joy shall be to ALL people." One
shout shall swell from all the ransomed, "Thou hast redeemed us unto God
by thy blood out of EVERY kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."
To deny that the blessings of the jubilee extended to the servants from
the _Gentiles_, makes Christianity _Judaism_.[A] It not only eclipses
the glory of the Gospel, but strikes out its sun. The refusal to release
servants at the jubilee falsified and disannulled a grand leading type
of the atonement, and was a libel on the doctrine of Christ's
redemption. But even if _forever_ did refer to _individual_ service, we
have ample precedents for limiting the term by the jubilee. The same
word defines the length of time which _Jewish_ servants served who did
not go out at the end of their six years' term. And all admit that they
went out at the jubilee. Ex. xxi. 2-6; Deut. xv. 12-17. The 23d verse of
the same chapter is quoted to prove that "_forever_" in the 46th verse
extends beyond the jubilee. "The land shall not be sold FOREVER, for the
land is mine"--since it would hardly be used in different senses in the
same general connection. As _forever_, in the 46th verse, respects the
_general arrangement_, and not _individual service_ the objection does
not touch the argument. Besides, in the 46th verse, the word used is
_Olam_, meaning _throughout the period_, whatever that may be. Whereas
in the 23d verse, it is _Tsemithuth_, meaning, a _cutting off_, or _to
be cut off_; and the import of it is, that the owner of an inheritance
shall not forfeit his _proprietorship_ of it; though it may for a time
pass from his control into the hands of his creditors or others, yet the
owner shall be permitted to _redeem_ it, and even if that be not done,
it shall not be "_cut off_," but shall revert to him at the jubilee.
[Footnote A: So far from the Strangers not being released by the
proclamation of liberty on the morning of the jubilee, they were the
only persons who were, as a body, released by it. The rule regulating
the service of Hebrew servants was, "Six years shall he serve, and in
the seventh year he shall go out free." The _free holders_ who had
"fallen into decay," and had in consequence mortgaged their inheritances
to their more prosperous neighbors, and become in some sort their
servants, were released by the jubilee, and again resumed their
inheritances. This was the only class of Jewish servants (and it could
not have been numerous,) which was released by the jubilee; all others
went out at the close of their six years' term.]
3. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION." "Ye shall take them as an INHERITANCE
for your children after you to inherit them for a POSSESSION. This, as
has been already remarked refers to the _nations_, and not to the
_individual_ servants procured from the senations. The holding of
servants as a _possession_ is discussed at large pp. 47-64. To what is
there advanced we here subjoin a few brief considerations. We have
already shown, that servants could not he held as a _property_
possession, and inheritance; that they became such of their _own
accord_, were paid wages, released from their regular labor nearly _half
the days in each year_, thoroughly _instructed_ and _protected_ in all
their personal, social, and religious rights, equally with their
masters. All remaining, after these ample reservations, would be small
temptation, either to the lust of power or of lucre; a profitable
"possession" and "inheritance," truly! What if our American slaves were
all placed in _just such a condition_! Alas, for that soft, melodious
circumlocution, "OUR PECULIAR species of property!" Verily, emphasis
would be cadence, and euphony and irony meet together! What eager
snatches at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective of connection,
principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations of meaning by
other passages--and all to eke out such a sense as sanctifies existing
usages, thus making God pander for lust. The words _nahal_ and _nahala_,
inherit and inheritance, by no means necessarily signify _articles of
property_. "The people answered the king and said, "we have none
_inheritance_ in the son of Jesse." 2 Chron. x. 16. Did they mean
gravely to disclaim the holding of their king as an article of
_property_? "Children are an _heritage_ (inheritance) of the Lord." Ps.
cxxvii. 3. "Pardon our iniquity, and take us for thine _inheritance_."
Ex. xxxiv. 9. When God pardons his enemies, and adopts them as children,
does he make them _articles of property_? Are forgiveness, and
chattel-making, synonymes? "_I_ am their _inheritance_." Ezek. xliv. 28.
"I shall give thee the heathen for thine _inheritance_." Ps. ii. 18. See
also Deut. iv. 20; Josh. xiii. 33; Ps. lxxxii. 8; lxxviii. 62, 71; Prov.
xiv. 18.
The question whether the servants were a PROPERTY-"_possession_," has
been already discussed, pp. 47-64, we need add in this place but a word.
As an illustration of the condition of servants from the heathen that
were the "possession" of Israelitish families, and of the way in which
they became servants, the reader is referred to Isa. xiv. 1, 2. "For the
Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them
in their own land; and the strangers will be _joined_ with them, and
_they shall CLEAVE to the house of Jacob_. And the people shall take
them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel shall
_possess_ them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids; and
they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall
rule over the oppressors."
We learn from these verses, 1st. That these servants which were to be
"_possessed_" by the Israelites, were to be "joined with them," i.e.,
become proselytes to their religion. 2d. That they should "CLEAVE to the
house of Jacob," i.e., that they would forsake their own people
voluntarily, attach themselves to the Israelites as servants, and of
their own free choice leave home and friends, to accompany them on their
return, and to take up their permanent abode with them, in the same
manner that Ruth accompanied Naomi from Moab to the land of Israel, and
that the "souls gotten" by Abraham in Padanaram, accompanied him when he
left it and went to Canaan. "And the house of Israel shall _possess_
them for servants," i.e. shall _have_ them for servants.
In the passage under consideration, "they shall be your _possession_,"
the original word translated "possession" is _ahuzza_. The same word is
used in Gen. xlvii. 11. "And Joseph placed his father and his brethren,
and gave them a _possession_ in the land of Egypt." Gen. xlvii. 11. In
what sense was Goshen the _possession_ of the Israelites? Answer, in the
sense of _having it to live in_, not in the sense of having it as
_owners_. In what sense were the Israelites to _possess_ these nations,
and _take them_ as an _inheritance for their children_? Answer, they
possessed them as a permanent source of supply for domestic or household
servants. And this relation to these nations was to go down to posterity
as a standing regulation, having the certainty and regularity of a
descent by inheritance. The sense of the whole regulation may be given
thus: "Thy permanent domestics, which thou shalt have, shall be of the
nations that are round about you, of _them_ shall ye buy male and female
domestics." "Moreover of the children of the foreigners that do sojourn
among you, of _them_ shall ye buy, and of their families that are with
you, which they begat in your land, and _they_ shall be your permanent
resource." "And ye shall take them as a _perpetual_ source of supply to
whom your children after you shall resort for servants. ALWAYS, _of
them_ shall ye serve yourselves." The design of the passage is manifest
from its structure. So far from being a permission to purchase slaves,
it was a prohibition to employ Israelites for a certain term and in a
certain grade of service, and to point out the _class_ of persons from
which they were to get their supply of servants, and the _way_ in which
they were to get them.[A]
[Footnote A: Rabbi Leeser, who translated from the German the work
entitled "Instruction in the Mosaic Religion" by Professor Jholson of
the Jewish seminary at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in his comment on these
verses, says, "It must be observed that it was prohibited to SUBJECT _a
Stranger to slavery_. The _buying_ of slaves _alone_ is permitted, but
not stealing them."
Now whatever we call that condition in which servants were, whether
servitude or slavery, and whatever we call the persons in that
condition, whether servants or _slaves_, we have at all events, the
testimony that the Israelites were prohibited to _subject_ a Stranger to
that condition, or in other words, the free choice of the servant was
not to be compelled. ]
OBJECTION IV. "_If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and
be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a BOND-SERVANT
but as an HIRED-SERVANT, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee, and
shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee_." Lev. xxv. 39, 40.
As only _one_ class is called "_hired_," it is inferred that servants of
the other class were _not paid_ for their labor. That God, while
thundering anathemas against those who "used their neighbor's service
without wages," granted a special indulgence to his chosen people to
force others to work, and rob them of earnings, provided always, in
selecting their victims, they spared "the gentlemen of property and
standing," and pounced only upon the strangers and the common people.
The inference that "_hired_" is synonymous with _paid_, and that those
servants not _called_ "hired," were _not paid_ for their labor, is a
mere assumption. The meaning of the English verb to _hire_, is to
procure for a _temporary_ use at a certain price--to engage a person to
temporary service for wages. That is also the meaning of the Hebrew word
"_saukar_." It is not used when the procurement of _permanent_ service
is spoken of. Now, we ask, would _permanent_ servants, those who
constituted a stationary part of the family, have been designated by the
same term that marks _temporary_ servants? The every-day distinctions in
this matter, are familiar as table-talk. In many families the domestics
perform only the _regular_ work. Whatever is occasional merely, as the
washing of a family, is done by persons hired expressly for the purpose.
The familiar distinction between the two classes, is "servants," and
"hired help," (not _paid_ help.) _Both_ classes are _paid_. One is
permanent, and the other occasional and temporary, and _therefore_ in
this case called "hired."[A] A variety of particulars are recorded
distinguishing, _hired_ from _bought_ servants. 1. Hired servants were
paid daily at the close of their work. Lev. xix. 13; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15;
Job. vii. 2; Matt. xx. 8. "_Bought_" servants were paid in advance, (a
reason for their being called _bought_,) and those that went out at the
seventh year received a _gratuity_. Deut. xv. 12, 13. 2. The "hired"
were paid _in money_, the "bought" received their _gratuity_, at least,
in grain, cattle, and the product of the vintage. Deut. xv. 14. 3. The
"hired" _lived_ in their own families, the "bought" were a part of their
masters' families. 4. The "hired" supported their families out of their
wages; the "bought" and their families were supported by the master
_beside_ their wages. 5. Hired servants were expected to work more
_constantly_, and to have more _working hours_ in the day than the
bought servants. This we infer from the fact, that "a hireling's day,"
was a sort of proverbial phrase, meaning a _full_ day. No subtraction of
time being made from it. So _a hireling's year_ signifies an entire year
without abatement. Job. vii. 1; xiv. 6; Isa. xvi. 14; xxi. 16.
[Footnote A: To suppose a servant robbed of his earnings because he is
not called a _hired_ servant, is profound induction! If I employ a man
at twelve dollars a month to work my farm, he is my "_hired_" man, but
if _I give him such a portion of the crop_, or in other words, if he
works my farm "_on shares_," every farmer knows that he is no longer
called a "_hired_" man. Yet he works the same farm, in the same way, at
the same times, and with the same teams and tools; and does the same
amount of work in the year, and perhaps clears twenty dollars a month,
instead of twelve. Now as he is no longer called "hired," and as he
still works my farm, suppose my neighbors sagely infer, that since he is
not my "_hired_" laborer, I _rob_ him of his earnings, and with all the
gravity of owls, pronounce their oracular decision, and hoot it abroad.
My neighbors are deep divers! like some theological professors, they go
not only to the bottom but come up covered with the tokens.]
The "bought" servants, were, _as a class, superior to the hired_--were
more trust-worthy, were held in higher estimation, had greater
privileges, and occupied a more elevated station in society. 1. They
were intimately incorporated with the family of the master, were guests
at family festivals, and social solemnities, from which hired servants
were excluded. Lev. xxii. 10, 11; Ex. xii. 43, 45. 2. Their interests
were far more identified with those of their masters' family. They were
often, actually or prospectively, heirs of their masters' estates, as in
the case of Eliezer, of Ziba, and the sons of Bilhah, and Zilpah. When
there were no sons, or when they were unworthy, bought servants were
made heirs. Prov. xvii. 2. We find traces of this usage in the New
Testament. "But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among
themselves saying, this is the _heir_, come let us kill him, _that the
inheritance may be ours_." Luke xx. 14. In no instance does a _hired_
servant inherit his master's estate. 3. Marriages took place between
servants and their master's daughters. "Sheshan had a _servant_, an
Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha
his servant to wife." 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35. There is no instance of a
_hired_ servant forming such an alliance. 4. Bought servants and their
descendants were treated with the same affection and respect as the
other members of the family.[A] The treatment of Abraham's servants.
Gen. xxiv. and xviii. 1-7; the intercourse between Gideon and Phurah
Judg. vii. 10, 11; Saul and his servant, 1 Sam. ix. 5, 22; Jonathan and
his servant, 1 Sam. xiv. 1-14, and Elisha and Gehazi are illustrations.
The tenderness exercised towards home-born servants or the children of
_handmaids_, and the strength of the tie that bound them to the family,
are employed by the Psalmist to illustrate the regard of God for him,
his care over him, and his own endearing relation to him, when in the
last extremity he prays, "Save the son of thy _handmaid_." Ps. lxxxvi.
16. So also in Ps. cxvi. 16. Oh Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy
servant, and the son of thy _handmaid_. Also, Jer. ii. 14. Is Israel a
servant? Is he a _home-born_?[B] WHY IS HE SPOILED? No such tie seems to
have existed between _hired_ servants and their masters. Their
untrustworthiness was proverbial. John x. 12, 13. They were reckoned at
but half the value of bought servants. Deut. xv. 18. None but the
_lowest class_ of the people engaged as hired servants, and the kinds of
labor assigned to them required little knowledge and skill. No persons
seem to have become hired servants except such as were forced to it from
extreme poverty. The hired servant is called "poor and needy," and the
reason assigned by God why he should be paid as soon as he had finished
his work is, "For _he is poor_, and setteth his heart upon it." Deut.
xxiv. 14, 15. See also, 1 Sam. ii. 5. Various passages show the low
repute and trifling character of the class from which they were hired.
Judg. ix. 4; 1 Sam. ii. 5. The superior condition of bought servants is
manifest in the high trust confided to them, and in their dignity and
authority in the household. In no instance is a _hired_ servant thus
distinguished. The _bought_ servant is manifestly the master's
representative in the family, sometimes with plenipotentiary powers over
adult children, even negotiating marriage for them. Abraham adjured his
servant, not to take a wife for Isaac of the daughters of the
Canaanites. The servant himself selected the individual. Servants
exercised discretionary power in the management of their masters'
estates, "And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master,
_for all the goods of his master were in his hand_." Gen. xxiv. 10. The
reason assigned is not that such was Abraham's direction, but that the
servant had discretionary control. Servants had also discretionary power
in the _disposal of property_. Gen. xxiv. 22, 30, 53. The condition of
Ziba in the house of Mephibosheth, is a case in point. So is Prov. xvii.
2. Distinct traces of this estimation are to be found in the New
Testament, Matt. xxiv. 45; Luke xii. 42, 44. So in the parable of the
talents, the master seems to have set up each of his servants in trade
with a large capital. The unjust steward had large _discretionary_
power, was "accused of wasting his master's goods," and manifestly
regulated with his debtors the _terms_ of settlement. Luke xvi. 4-8.
Such trusts were never reposed in _hired_ servants.
[Footnote A: "For the _purchased servant_ who is an Israelite, or
proselyte, shall fare as his master. The master shall not eat fine
bread, and his servant bread of bran. Nor yet drink old wine, and give
his servant new: nor sleep on soft pillows, and bedding, and his servant
on straw. I say unto you, that he that gets a _purchased_ servant does
well to make him as his friend, or he will prove to his employer as if
he got himself a master."--Maimonides, in Mishna Kiddushim. Chap. 1,
Sec. 2.]
[Footnote B: Our translators in rendering it "Is he a home-born SLAVE,"
were wise beyond what is written.]
The inferior condition of _hired_ servants, is illustrated in the
parable of the prodigal son. When he came to himself, the memory of his
home, and of the abundance enjoyed by even the _lowest_ class of
servants in his father's household, while he was perishing with hunger
among the swine and husks, so filled him with anguish at the contrast,
that he exclaimed, "How many _hired_ servants of my father, have bread
enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger." His proud heart broke.
"I will arise," he cried, "and go to my father;" and then to assure his
father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add; "Make me as one of
thy _hired_ servants." If _hired_ servants were the _superior_ class--to
bespeak the situation, savored little of that sense of unworthiness that
seeks the dust with hidden face, and cries "unclean." Unhumbled nature
_climbs_; or if it falls, clings fast, where first it may. Humility
sinks of its own weight, and in the lowest deep, digs lower. The design
of the parable was to illustrate on the one hand, the joy of God, as he
beholds afar off, the returning sinner "seeking an injured father's
face," who runs to clasp and bless him with an unchiding welcome; and on
the other, the contrition of the penitent, turning homeward with tears
from his wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with its ill-desert he
sobs aloud, "The lowest place, _the lowest place_, I can abide no
other." Or in those inimitable words, "Father I have sinned against
Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son;
make me as one of thy HIRED servants." The supposition that _hired_
servants were the _highest_ class, takes from the parable an element of
winning beauty and pathos.
It is manifest to every careful student of the Bible, that _one_ class
of servants, was on terms of equality with the children and other
members of the family. Hence the force of Paul's declaration, Gal. iv.
1, "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child,
DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all." If this
were the _hired_ class, the prodigal was a sorry specimen of humility.
Would our Lord have put such language upon the lips of one held up by
himself, as a model of gospel humility, to illustrate its deep sense of
all ill-desert? If this is _humility_, put it on stilts, and set it a
strutting, while pride takes lessons, and blunders in aping it.
Israelites and Strangers belonged indiscriminately to _each_ class of
the servants, the _bought_ and the _hired_. That those in the former
class, whether Jews or Strangers, rose to honors and authority in the
family circle, which were not conferred on _hired_ servants, has been
shown. It should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of privileges,
merely _political_, the hired servants from the _Israelites_, were more
favored than even the bought servants from the _Strangers_. No one from
the Strangers, however wealthy or highly endowed, was eligible to the
highest office, nor could he own the soil. This last disability seems to
have been one reason for the different periods of service required of
the two classes of bought servants. The Israelite was to serve six
years--the Stranger until the jubilee. As the Strangers could not own
the soil, nor houses, except within walled towns, they would naturally
attach themselves to Israelitish families. Those who were wealthy, or
skilled in manufactures, instead of becoming servants would need
servants for their own use, and as inducements for the Strangers to
become servants to the Israelites, were greater than persons of their
own nation could hold out to them, these wealthy Strangers would
naturally procure the poorer Israelites for servants. Lev. xxv. 47. In a
word, such was the political condition of the Strangers, that the Jewish
polity offered a virtual bounty, to such as would become permanent
servants, and thus secure those privileges already enumerated, and for
their children in the second generation a permanent inheritance. Ezek.
xlvii. 21-23. None but the monied aristocracy would be likely to decline
such offers. On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and
an inheritance of land being a sacred possession, to hold it free of
incumbrance was with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of family
honor and personal character. 1 Kings xxi. 3. Hence, to forego the
control of one's inheritance, after the division of the paternal domain,
or to be kept out of it after having acceded to it, was a burden
grievous to be borne. To mitigate as much as possible such a calamity,
the law released the Israelitish servant at the end of six[A] years; as,
during that time--if of the first class--the partition of the
patrimonial land might have taken place or, if of the second, enough
money might have been earned to disencumber his estate, and thus he
might assume his station as a lord of the soil. If neither contingency
had occurred, then after another six years the opportunity was again
offered, and so on, until the jubilee. So while strong motives urged the
Israelite to discontinue his service as soon as the exigency had passed
which made him a servant, every consideration impelled the _Stranger_ to
_prolong_ his term of service;[B] and the same kindness which dictated
the law of six years' service for the Israelite, assigned as the general
rule, a much longer period to the Gentile servant, who had every
inducement to protract the term. It should be borne in mind, that adult
Jews ordinarily became servants, only as a temporary expedient to
relieve themselves from embarrassment, and ceased to be such when that
object was effected. The poverty that forced them to it was a calamity,
and their service was either a means of relief, or a measure of
prevention; not pursued as a permanent business, but resorted to on
emergencies--a sort of episode in the main scope of their lives. Whereas
with the Stranger, it was a _permanent employment_, pursued both as a
_means_ of bettering their own condition, and that of their posterity,
and as an _end_ for its own sake, conferring on them privileges, and a
social estimation not otherwise attainable.
[Footnote A: Another reason for protracting the service until the
seventh year, seems to have been the coincidence of that period with
other arrangements, in the Jewish economy. Its pecuniary
responsibilities, social relations, and general internal structure, were
_graduated_ upon a septennial scale. Besides, as those Israelites who
had become servants through poverty, would not sell themselves, till
other expedients to recruit their finances had failed--(Lev. xxv.
35)--their _becoming servants_ proclaimed such a state of their affairs,
as demanded the labor of a _course of years_ fully to reinstate them.]
[Footnote B: The Stranger had the same inducements to prefer a long term
of service that those have who cannot own land, to prefer a long
_lease_.]
We see from the foregoing, why servants purchased from the heathen, are
called by way of distinction, _the_ servants, (not _bondmen_,) 1. They
followed it as a _permanent business_. 2. Their term of service was
_much longer_ than that of the other class. 3. As a class, they
doubtless greatly outnumbered the Israelitish servants. 4. All the
Strangers that dwelt in the land were _tributaries_, required to pay an
annual tax to the government, either in money, or in public service,
(called a _"tribute of bond-service;"_) in other words, all the
Strangers were _national servants_, to the Israelites, and the same
Hebrew word used to designate _individual_ servants, equally designates
_national_ servants or tributaries. 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, 14; 2 Chron.
viii. 7-9; Deut, xx. 11; 2 Sam. x. 19; 1 Kings ix. 21, 22; 1 Kings iv.
21; Gen. xxvii. 29. The same word is applied to the Israelites, when
they paid tribute to other nations. 2 Kings xvii. 3.; Judg. iii. 8, 14;
Gen. xlix. 15. Another distinction between the Jewish and Gentile bought
servants, was in their _kinds_ of service. The servants from the
Strangers were properly the _domestics_, or household servants, employed
in all family work, in offices of personal attendance, and in such
mechanical labor, as was required by increasing wants and needed
repairs. The Jewish bought servants seem almost exclusively
_agricultural_. Besides being better fitted for it by previous habits,
agriculture, and the tending of cattle, were regarded by the Israelites
as the most honorable of all occupations. After Saul was elected king,
and escorted to Gibeah, the next report of him is, "_And behold Saul
came after the herd out of the field_." 1 Sam. xi. 5. Elisha "was
plowing with twelve yoke of oxen." 1 Kings xix. 19. King Uzziah "loved
husbandry." 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. Gideon _was "threshing wheat"_ when
called to lead the host against the Midianites. Judg. vi. 11. The
superior honorableness of agriculture is shown, in that it was protected
and supported by the fundamental law of the theocracy--God indicating it
as the chief prop of the government. The Israelites were like permanent
fixtures on their soil, so did they cling to it. To be agriculturists on
their own patrimonial inheritances, was with them the grand claim to
honorable estimation. When Ahab proposed to Naboth that he should sell
him his vineyard, king though he was, he might well have anticipated
from an Israelitish freeholder, just such an indignant burst as that
which his proposal drew forth, "And Naboth said to Ahab, the Lord forbid
it me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee." 1
Kings xxi. 2, 3. Agriculture being pre-eminently a _Jewish_ employment,
to assign a native Israelite to other employments as a business, was to
break up his habits, do violence to cherished predilections, and put him
to a kind of labor in which he had no skill, and which he deemed
degrading.[C] In short, it was in the earlier ages of the Mosaic system,
practically to _unjew_ him, a hardship and a rigor grievous to be borne,
as it annihilated a visible distinction between the descendants of
Abraham and the Strangers. _To guard this and another fundamental
distinction_, God instituted the regulation, "If thy brother that
dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not
compel him to serve as a bond-servant." In other words, thou shalt not
put him to servant's work--to the business, and into the condition of
domestics. In the Persian version it is translated, "Thou shalt not
assign to him the work of _servitude_." In the Septuagint, "He shall not
serve thee with the service of a _domestic_." In the Syriac, "Thou shalt
not employ him after the manner of servants." In the Samaritan, "Thou
shalt not require him to serve in the service of a servant." In the
Targum of Onkelos, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a
household servant." In the Targum of Jonathan, "Thou shalt not cause him
to serve according to the usages of the servitude of servants."[D] The
meaning of the passage is, _thou shalt not assign him to the same grade,
nor put him to the same service, with permanent domestics._ The
remainder of the regulation is--_"But as an hired servant and as a
sojourner shall he be with thee."_ Hired servants were not incorporated
into the families of their masters; they still retained their own family
organization, without the surrender of any domestic privilege, honor, or
authority; and this, even though they resided under the same roof with
their master. The same substantially may be said of the sojourner though
he was not the owner of the land which he cultivated, and of course had
not the control of an inheritance, yet he was not in a condition that
implied subjection to him whose land he tilled, or that demanded the
surrender of any _right_, or exacted from him any homage, or stamped him
with any inferiority; unless, it be supposed that a degree of
inferiority would naturally attach to a state of _dependence_ however
qualified. While bought servants were associated with their master's
families at meals, at the Passover, and at other family festivals, hired
servants and sojourners were not. Ex. xii. 44, 45; Lev. xxii. 10, 11.
Hired servants were not subject to the authority of their masters in any
such sense as the master's wife, children, and bought servants. Hence
the only form of oppressing hired servants spoken of in the Scriptures
as practicable to masters, is that of _keeping back their wages._ To
have taken away such privileges in the case under consideration, would
have been pre-eminent "_rigor_;" for it was not a servant born in the
house of a master, nor a minor, whose minority had been sold by the
father, neither was it one who had not yet acceded to his inheritance,
nor finally, one who had received the _assignment_ of his inheritance,
but was working off from it an incumbrance, before entering upon its
possession and control. But it was that of _the head of a family_, who
had known better days, now reduced to poverty, forced to relinquish the
loved inheritance of his fathers, with the competence and respectful
consideration its possession secured to him, and to be indebted to a
neighbor for shelter, sustenance, and employment. So sad a reverse,
might well claim sympathy; but one consolation cheers him in the house
of his pilgrimage; he is an _Israelite--Abraham is his father_ and now
in his calamity he clings closer than ever, to the distinction conferred
by his birth-right. To rob him of this, were "the unkindest cut of all."
To have assigned him to a grade of service filled only by those whose
permanent business was serving, would have been to "rule over him with"
peculiar "rigor." "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a
bond-servant," or literally, _thou shalt not serve thyself with him,
with the service of a servant_, guaranties his political privileges, and
a kind and grade of service comporting with his character and relations
as an Israelite. And "as a _hired_ servant, and as a sojourner shall he
be with thee," secures to him his family organization, the respect and
authority due to its head, and the general consideration resulting from
such a station. Being already in possession of his inheritance, and the
head of a household, the law so arranged the conditions of his service
as to _alleviate_ as much as possible the calamity which had reduced him
from independence and authority, to penury and subjection. The import of
the command which concludes this topic in the forty-third verse, ("Thou
shalt not rule over him with rigor,") is manifestly this, you shall not
disregard those differences in previous associations, station,
authority, and political privileges, upon which this regulation is
based; for to hold this class of servants _irrespective_ of these
distinctions, and annihilating them, is to "rule with rigor." The same
command is repeated in the forty-sixth verse, and applied to the
distinction between servants of Jewish, and those of Gentile extraction,
and forbids the overlooking of distinctive Jewish peculiarities, the
disregard of which would be _rigorous_ in the extreme.[E] The
construction commonly put upon the phrase "rule with rigor," and the
inference drawn from it, have an air vastly oracular. It is interpreted
to mean, "you shall not make him a chattel, and strip him of legal
protection, nor force him to work without pay." The inference is like
unto it, viz., since the command forbade such outrages upon the
Israelites, it permitted and commissioned their infliction upon the
Strangers. Such impious and shallow smattering captivates scoffers and
libertines; its flippancy and blasphemy, and the strong scent of its
loose-reined license works like a charm upon them. What boots it to
reason against such rampant affinities! In Ex. i. 13, it is said that
the Egyptians, "made the children of Israel to _serve_ with rigor." This
rigor is affirmed of the _amount of labor_ extorted and the _mode_ of
the exaction. The expression "serve with rigor," is never applied to the
service of servants under the Mosaic system. The phrase, "thou shall not
RULE over him with rigor," does not prohibit unreasonable exactions of
labor, nor inflictions of cruelty. Such were provided against otherwise.
But it forbids confounding the distinctions between a Jew and a
Stranger, by assigning the former to the same grade of service, for the
same term of time and under the same political disabilities as the
latter.
[Footnote C: The Babylonish captivity seems to have greatly modified
Jewish usage in this respect. Before that event, their cities were
comparatively small, and few were engaged in mechanical or mercantile
employments. Afterward their cities enlarged apace and trades
multiplied.]
[Footnote D: Jarchi's comment on "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as
a bond-servant" is, "The Hebrew servant is not to be required to do any
thing which is accounted degrading--such as all offices of personal
attendance, as loosing his master's shoe-latchet, bringing him water to
wash his hands and feet, waiting on him at table, dressing him, carrying
things to and from the bath. The Hebrew servant is to work with his
master as a son or brother, in the business of his farm, or other labor,
until his legal release."]
[Footnote E: The disabilities of the Strangers, which were distinctions,
based on a different national descent, and important to the preservation
of nation characteristics, and a national worship, did not at all affect
their _social_ estimation. They were regarded according to their
character and worth as _persons_, irrespective of their foreign origin,
employments and political condition.]
We are now prepared to review at a glance, the condition of the
different classes of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each.
In the possession of all fundamental rights, all classes of servants
were on an absolute equality, all were equally protected by law in their
persons, character, property and social relations; all were voluntary,
all were compensated for their labor, and released from it nearly one
half of the days in each year; all were furnished with stated
instruction; none in either class were in any sense articles of
property, all were regarded as _men_, with the rights, interests, hopes
and destinies of _men_. In all these respects, _all_ classes of servants
among the Israelites, formed but ONE CLASS. The _different_ classes, and
the differences in _each_ class, were, 1. _Hired Servants_. This class
consisted both of Israelites and Strangers. Their employments were
different. The _Israelite_ was an agricultural servant. The Stranger was
a _domestic_ and _personal_ servant, and in some instances _mechanical_;
both were occasional and temporary. Both lived in their own families,
their wages were _money_, and they were paid when their work was done.
2. _Bought Servants_, (including those "born in the house.") This class
also, consisted of Israelites and Strangers, the same difference in
their kinds of employment as noticed before. Both were paid in
advance,[A] and neither was temporary. The Israelitish servant, with the
exception of the _freeholder_, completed his term in six years. The
Stranger was a permanent servant, continuing until the jubilee. A marked
distinction obtained also between different classes of _Jewish_ bought
servants. Ordinarily, they were merged in their master's family, and,
like his wife and children, subject to his authority; (and, like them,
protected by law from its abuse.) But the _freeholder_ was an exception;
his family relations and authority remained unaffected, nor was he
subjected as an inferior to the control of his master, though dependent
on him for employment.
[Footnote A: The payment _in advance_, doubtless lessened the price of
the purchase; the servant thus having the use of the money, and the
master assuming all the risks of life, and health for labor; at the
expiration of the six years' contract, the master having suffered no
loss from the risk incurred at the making of it, was obliged by law to
release the servant with a liberal gratuity. The reason assigned for
this is, "he hath been worth a double hired servant unto thee in serving
thee six years," as if it had been said, as you have experienced no loss
from the risks of life, and ability to labor, incurred in the purchase,
and which lessened the price, and as, by being your servant for six
years, he has saved you the time and trouble of looking up and hiring
laborers on emergencies, therefore, "thou shalt furnish him liberally,"
&c. This gratuity at the close of the service shews the _principle_ of
the relation; _equivalent_ for value received. ]
It should be kept in mind, that _both_ classes of servants, the
Israelite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed _equal, natural and
religious rights_, but _all the civil and political privileges_ enjoyed
by those of their own people who were _not_ servants. They also shared
in common with them the political disabilities which appertained to all
Strangers, whether servants of Jewish masters, or masters of Jewish
servants. Further, the disabilities of the servants from the Strangers
were exclusively _political_ and _national_. 1. They, in common with all
Strangers, could not own the soil. 2. They were ineligible to civil
offices. 3. They were assigned to employments less honorable than those
in which Israelitish servants engaged; agriculture being regarded as
fundamental to the existence of the state, other employments were in
less repute, and deemed _unjewish_.
Finally, the Strangers, whether servants or masters, were all protected
equally with the descendants of Abraham. In respect to political
privileges, their condition was much like that of unnaturalized
foreigners in the United States; whatever their wealth or intelligence,
or moral principle, or love for our institutions, they can neither go to
the ballot-box, nor own the soil, nor be eligible to office. Let a
native American, be suddenly bereft of these privileges, and loaded with
the disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would be a light
matter, to _him_, would be the severity of _rigor_. The recent condition
of the Jews and Catholics in England, is another illustration.
Rothschild, the late banker, though the richest private citizen in the
world, and perhaps master of scores of English servants, who sued for
the smallest crumbs of his favor, was, as a subject of the government,
inferior to the lowest among them. Suppose an Englishman of the
Established Church, were by law deprived of power to own the soil, of
eligibility to office and of the electoral franchise, would Englishmen
think it a misapplication of language, if it were said, the government
"rules over him with rigor?" And yet his person, property, reputation,
conscience, all his social relations, the disposal of his time, the
right of locomotion at pleasure, and of natural liberty in all respects,
are just as much protected by law as the Lord Chancellor's.
FINALLY.--As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, rife with
meaning in doctrine and duty; the practical power of the whole, depended
upon the exact observance of those distinctions and relations which
constituted its significancy. Hence, the care to preserve inviolate the
distinction between a _descendant of Abraham_ and a _Stranger_, even
when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the initiatory
ordinances, entered the congregation, and become incorporated with the
Israelites by family alliance. The regulation laid down in Ex. xxi. 2-6,
is an illustration. In this case, the Israelitish servant, whose term
expired in six years, married one of his master's _permanent female
domestics_; but her marriage did not release her master from _his_ part
of the contract for her whole term of service, nor from his legal
obligation to support and educate her children. Neither did it do away
that distinction, which marked her national descent by a specific
_grade_ and _term_ of service, nor impair her obligation to fulfil _her_
part of the contract. Her relations as a permanent domestic grew out of
a distinction guarded with great care throughout the Mosaic system. To
render it void, would have been to divide the system against itself.
This God would not tolerate. Nor, on the other hand, would he permit the
master to throw off the responsibility of instructing her children, nor
the care and expense of their helpless infancy and rearing. He was bound
to support and educate them, and all her children born afterwards during
her term of service. The whole arrangement beautifully illustrates that
wise and tender regard for the interests of all the parties concerned,
which arrays the Mosaic system in robes of glory, and causes it to shine
as the sun in the kingdom of our Father.[B] By this law, the children
had secured to them a mother's tender care. If the husband loved his
wife and children, he could compel his master to keep him, whether he
had any occasion for his services or not. If he did not love them, to be
rid of him was a blessing; and in that case, the regulation would prove
an act for the relief of an afflicted family. It is not by any means to
be inferred, that the release of the servant in the seventh year, either
absolved him from the obligations of marriage, or shut him out from the
society of his family. He could doubtless procure a service at no great
distance from them, and might often do it, to get higher wages, or a
kind of employment better suited to his taste and skill. The great
number of days on which the law released servants from regular labor,
would enable him to spend much more time with his family, than can be
spent by most of the agents of our benevolent societies with _their_
families, or by many merchants, editors, artists, &c., whose daily
business is in New York, while their families reside from ten to one
hundred miles in the country.
[Footnote B: Whoever profoundly studies the Mosaic Institutes with a
teachable and reverential spirit, will feel the truth and power of that
solemn appeal and interrogatory of God to his people Israel, when he had
made an end of setting before them all his statutes and ordinances.
"What nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments SO
RIGHTEOUS, as _all_ this law which I set before you this day." Deut. iv.
8.]
We conclude this inquiry by touching upon an objection, which, though
not formally stated, has been already set aside by the tenor of the
foregoing argument. It is this,--"The slavery of the Canaanites by the
Israelites, was appointed by God as a commutation of the punishment of
death denounced against them for their sins."[A] If the absurdity of a
sentence consigning persons to death, and at the same time to perpetual
slavery, did not sufficiently laugh at itself; it would be small
self-denial, in a case so tempting, to make up the deficiency by a
general contribution. Only _one_ statute was ever given respecting the
disposition to be made of the inhabitants of Canaan. If the sentence of
death was pronounced against them, and afterwards _commuted_, when?
where? by whom? and in what terms was the commutation, and where is it
recorded? Grant, for argument's sake, that all the Canaanites were
sentenced to unconditional extermination; how can a right to _enslave_
them, be drawn from such premises? The punishment of death is one of the
highest recognitions of man's moral nature possible. It proclaims him
rational, accountable, guilty, deserving death for having done his
utmost to cheapen human life, when the proof of its priceless worth
lived in his own nature. But to make him a _slave_, cheapens to nothing
_universal human nature_, and instead of healing a wound, gives a
death-stab. What! repair an injury to rational being in the robbery of
one of its rights, not only by robbing it of all, but by annihilating
their _foundation_, the everlasting distinction between persons and
things? To make a man a chattel, is not the _punishment_, but the
_annihilation_ of a _human_ being, and, so far as it goes, of _all_
human beings. This commutation of the punishment of death, into
perpetual slavery, what a fortunate discovery! Alas! for the honor of
Deity, if commentators had not manned the forlorn hope, and by a timely
movement rescued the Divine character, at the very crisis of its fate,
from the perilous position in which inspiration had carelessly left it!
Here a question arises of sufficient importance for a separate
dissertation; but must for the present be disposed of in a few
paragraphs. WERE THE CANAANITES SENTENCED BY GOD TO INDIVIDUAL AND
UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION? As the limits of this inquiry forbid our
giving all the grounds of dissent from commonly received opinions, the
suggestions made, will be thrown out merely as QUERIES, rather than laid
down as _doctrines_. The directions as to the disposal of the
Canaanites, are mainly in the following passages, Ex. xxiii. 23-33;
xxxiv. 11; Deut. vii. 16-24; ix. 3; xxxi. 3-5. In these verses, the
Israelites are commanded to "destroy the Canaanites," to "drive out,"
"consume," "utterly overthrow," "put out," "dispossess them," &c. Did
these commands enjoin the unconditional and universal destruction of the
_individuals_, or merely of the _body politic_? The word _haram_, to
destroy, signifies _national_, as well as individual destruction; the
destruction of _political_ existence, equally with _personal_; of
governmental organization, equally with the lives of the subjects.
Besides, if we interpret the words destroy, consume, overthrow, &c., to
mean _personal_ destruction, what meaning shall we give to the
expressions, "drive out before thee," "cast out before thee," "expel,"
"put out," "dispossess," &c., which are used in the same and in parallel
passages? In addition to those quoted above, see Josh. iii. 10; xvii.
18; xxiii. 5; xxiv. 18; Judg. i. 20, 29-35; vi. 9. "I will _destroy_ all
the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies
_turn their backs unto thee_." Ex. xxiii. 27. Here "_all their enemies_"
were to _turn their backs_, and "_all the people_" to be "_destroyed_."
Does this mean that God would let all their _enemies_ escape, but kill
their _friends_, or that he would _first_ kill "all the people" and THEN
make them "turn their backs," an army of runaway corpses? In Josh. xxiv.
8, God says, speaking of the Amorites, "I _destroyed_ them from before
you." In the 18th verse of the same chapter, it is said, "The Lord
_drave out_ from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt
in the land." In Num. xxxii. 39, we are told that "the children of
Machir the son of Manasseh, went to Gilead, and took it, and
_dispossessed_ the Amorite which was in it." If these commands required
the destruction of all the _individuals,_ the Mosaic law was at war with
itself, for directions as to the treatment of native residents form a
large part of it. See Lev. xix. 34; xxv. 35, 36; xxiv. 22.; Ex. xxiii.
9; xxii. 21; Deut. i. 16, 17; x. 17, 19; xxvii. 19. We find, also, that
provision was made for them in the cities of refuge, Num. xxxv. 15,--the
gleanings of the harvest and vintage were theirs, Lev. xix. 9, 10;
xxiii. 22;--the blessings of the Sabbath, Ex. xx. 10;--the privilege of
offering sacrifices secured, Lev. xxii. 18; and stated religious
instruction provided for them. Deut. xxxi. 9, 12. Now does this same law
require the _individual extermination_ of those whose lives and
interests it thus protects? These laws were given to the Israelites,
long _before_ they entered Canaan; and they must have inferred from
them, that a multitude of the inhabitants of the land were to _continue
in it_, under their government. Again Joshua was selected as the leader
of Israel to execute God's threatenings upon Canaan. He had no
discretionary power. God's commands were his official instructions.
Going beyond them would have been usurpation; refusing to carry them
out, rebellion and treason. Saul was rejected from being king for
disobeying God's commands in a single instance. Now if God commanded the
individual destruction of all the Canaanites Joshua disobeyed him in
every instance. For at his death, the Israelites still "_dwelt among
them_," and each nation is mentioned by name. Judg. i. 27-36, and yet we
are told that Joshua "left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded
Moses;" and that he "took all that land." Josh. xi. 15-22. Also, that
"there _stood not a man_ of _all_ their enemies before them." Josh. xxi.
44. How can this be if the command to destroy, destroy utterly, &c.,
enjoined _individual_ extermination, and the command to drive out,
unconditional expulsion from the country, rather than their expulsion
from the _possession_ or _ownership_ of it, as the lords of the soil?
That the latter is the true sense to be attached to those terms, we
argue, further from the fact that the same terms are employed by God to
describe the punishment which he would inflict upon the Israelites if
they served other Gods. "Ye shall utterly perish," "be utterly
destroyed," "consumed," &c., are some of them.--See Deut. iv. 20; viii.
19, 20.[B] Josh. xxiii. 12, 13-16; 1. Sam. xii. 25. The Israelites _did_
serve other Gods, and Jehovah _did_ execute upon them his
threatenings--and thus himself _interpreted_ these threatenings. He
subverted their _government_, dispossessed them of their land, divested
them of national power, and made them _tributaries_, but did not
_exterminate_ them. He "destroyed them utterly" as an independent body
politic, but not as individuals. Multitudes of the Canaanites were
slain, but not a case can be found in which one was either killed or
expelled who _acquiesced_ in the transfer of the territory, and its
sovereignty, from the inhabitants of the land to the Israelites. Witness
the case of Rahab and her kindred, and that of the Gibeonites.[C] The
Canaanites knew of the miracles wrought for the Israelites; and that
their land had been transferred to them as a judgment for their sins.
Josh. ii. 9-11; ix. 9, 10, 24. Many of them were awed by these wonders,
and made no resistance. Others defied God and came out to battle. These
last occupied the fortified cities, were the most inveterate
heathen--the aristocracy of idolatry, the kings, the nobility and
gentry, the priests, with their crowds of satellites, and retainers that
aided in idolatrous rites, and the military forces, with the chief
profligates of both sexes. Many facts corroborate the general position.
Witness that command (Deut. xxiii. 15, 16,) which, not only prohibited
the surrender of the fugitive servant to his master, but required the
Israelites to receive him with kindness, permit him to dwell where he
pleased, and to protect and cherish him. Whenever any servant, even a
Canaanite, fled from his master to the Israelites, Jehovah, so far from
commanding them to _kill_ him, straitly charged them, "He shall dwell
with thee, even among you, in that place which _he_ shall choose--in one
of thy gates where it liketh _him_ best--thou shalt not oppress him."
Deut. xxiii. 16. The Canaanitish servant by thus fleeing to the
Israelites, submitted himself as a dutiful subject to their national
government, and pledged his allegiance. Suppose _all_ the Canaanites had
thus submitted themselves to the Jewish theocracy, and conformed to the
requirements of the Mosaic institutes, would not _all_ have been spared
upon the same principle that _one_ was? Again, look at the multitude of
_tributaries_ in the midst of Israel, and that too, after they had
"waxed strong," and the uttermost nations quaked at the terror of their
name--the Canaanites, Philistines and others, who became proselytes--as
the Nethenims, Uriah the Hittite--Rahab, who married one of the princes
of Judah--Jether, an Ishmaelite, who married Abigail the sister of David
and was the father of Amasa, the captain of the host of Israel. Comp. 1
Chron. ii. 17, with 2 Sam. xvii. 25.--Ittai--the six hundred Gittites,
David's body guard. 2. Sam xv. 18, 21. Obededom the Gittite, adopted
into the tribe of Levi. Comp. 2 Sam. vi. 10, 11, with 1 Chron. xv. 18,
and xxvi. 4, 5--Jaziz, and Obil. 1 Chron, xxvii. 30, 31. Jephunneh the
Kenezite, Josh. xiv. 6, and father of Caleb a ruler of the tribe of
Judah. Numb. xiii. 2, 6--the Kenites registered in the genealogies of
the tribe of Judah, Judg. i. 16; 1 Chron. ii. 55, and the one hundred
and fifty thousand Canaanites, employed by Solomon in the building of
the Temple.[D] Besides, the greatest miracle on record, was wrought to
save a portion of those very Canaanites, and for the destruction of
those who would exterminate them. Josh. x. 12-14. Further--the terms
employed in the directions regulating the disposal of the Canaanites,
such as "drive out," "put out," "cast out," "expel," "dispossess," &c.,
seem used interchangeably with "consume," "destroy," "overthrow," &c.,
and thus indicate the sense in which the latter words are used. As an
illustration of the meaning generally attached to these and similar
terms, we refer to the history of the Amalekites. "I will utterly put
out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." Ex. xvii. 14. "Thou
shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt
not forget it." Deut. xxv. 19. "Smite Amalek and _utterly destroy_ all
that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant
and suckling, ox and sheep." 1 Sam. xv. 2, 3. "Saul smote the
Amalekites, and he took Agag the king of the Amalekites, alive and
UTTERLY DESTROYED ALL THE PEOPLE with the edge of the sword." Verses 7,
8. In verse 20, Saul says, "I have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and
have _utterly destroyed_ the Amalekites." In 1 Sam. xxx. 1, 2, we find
the Amalekites marching an army into Israel, and sweeping everything
before them--and this in about eighteen years after they had all been
"UTTERLY DESTROYED!" In 1 Kings ii. 15-17, is another illustration. We
are informed that Joab remained in Edom six months with all Israel,
"until he had _cut off every male_" in Edom. In the next verse we learn
that Hadad and "certain Edomites" were not slain. Deut. xx. 16, 17, will
probably be quoted against the preceding view. We argue that the command
in these verses, did not include all the individuals of the Canaanitish
nations, but only the inhabitants of the _cities_, (and even those
conditionally,) because, only the inhabitants of _cities_ are
specified--"of the _cities_ of these people thou shalt save alive
nothing that breatheth." Cities then, as now, were pest-houses of vice,
they reeked with abominations little practised in the country. On this
account, their influence would be far more perilous to the Israelites
than that of the country. Besides, they were the centres of
idolatry--there were the temples and altars, and idols, and priests,
without number. Even their buildings, streets, and public walks were so
many visibilities of idolatry. The reason assigned in the 18th verse for
exterminating them, strengthens the idea--"that they teach you not to do
after all the abominations which they have done unto their gods." This
would be a reason for exterminating all the nations and individuals
_around_ them, as all were idolaters; but God commanded them, in certain
cases, to spare the inhabitants. Contact with _any_ of them would be
perilous--with the inhabitants of the _cities_ peculiarly, and of the
_Canaanitish_ cities pre-eminently so. The 10th and 11th verses contain
the general rule prescribing the method in which cities were to be
summoned to surrender. They were first to receive the offer of peace--if
it was accepted, the inhabitants became _tributaries_--but if they came
out against Israel in battle, the _men_ were to be killed, and the woman
and little ones saved alive. The 15th verse restricts this lenient
treatment to the inhabitants of the cities _afar off_. The 16th directs
as to the disposal of the inhabitants of the Canaanitish cities. They
were to save alive "nothing that breathed." The common mistake has been,
in supposing that the command in the 15th verse refers to the _whole
system of directions preceding,_ commencing with the 10th, whereas it
manifestly refers only to the _inflictions_ specified in the 12th, 13th,
and, 14th, making a distinction between those _Canaanitish_ cities that
_fought_, and the cities _afar off_ that fought--in one case destroying
the males and females, and in the other, the _males_ only. The offer of
peace, and the _conditional preservation_, were as really guarantied to
_Canaanitish_ cities as to others. Their inhabitants were not to be
exterminated unless they came out against Israel in battle. Whatever be
the import of the commands respecting the disposition to be made of the
Canaanites, all admit the fact that the Israelites did _not_ utterly
exterminate them. Now, if entire and unconditional extermination was the
command of God, it was _never_ obeyed by the Israelites, consequently
the truth of God stood pledged to consign _them_ to the same doom which
he had pronounced upon the Canaanites, but which they had refused to
visit upon them. "If ye will not drive out all the inhabitants of the
land from before you, then it shall come to pass that * * _I shall do
unto you as I thought to do unto them_." Num. xxxiii. 55, 56. As the
Israelites were not exterminated, we infer that God did not pronounce
_that_ doom upon them; and as he _did_ pronounce upon them the _same_
doom, whatever it was, which they should _refuse_ to visit upon the
Canaanites, it follows that the doom of unconditional _extermination_
was _not_ pronounced against the Canaanites. But let us settle this
question by the "law and the testimony." "There was not a city that made
peace with the children of Israel save the Hivites, the inhabitants of
Gibeon; all others they took in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden
their hearts, that they should COME OUT AGAINST ISRAEL IN BATTLE, that
he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but
that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses." Josh. xi. 19.
20. That is, if they had _not_ come out against Israel in battle, they
would have had "favor" shown them, and would not have been "_destroyed
utterly_." The great design was to _transfer the territory_ of the
Canaanites to the Israelites, and along with it, _absolute sovereignty
in every respect_; to annihilate their political organizations, civil
polity, and jurisprudence, and their system of religion, with all its
rights and appendages; and to substitute therefor, a pure theocracy,
administered by Jehovah, with the Israelites as His representatives and
agents. In a word the people were to be _denationalized,_ their
political existence annihilated, their idol temples, altars, groves,
images, pictures, and heathen rites destroyed, and themselves put under
tribute. Those who resisted the execution of Jehovah's purpose were to
be killed, while those who quietly submitted to it were to be spared.
All had the choice of these alternatives, either free egress out of the
land;[E] or acquiescence in the decree, with life and residence as
tributaries, under the protection of the government; or resistance to
the execution of the decree, with death. "_And it shall come to pass, if
they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name,
the Lord liveth, as they taught my people to swear by Baal;_ THEN SHALL
THEY BE BUILT IN THE MIDST OF MY PEOPLE."
[Footnote A: In the prophecy, Gen. ix. 25, the subjection of the
Canaanites as a conquered people rendering tribute to other nations, is
foretold by inspiration. The fulfilment of this prediction, seems to
have commenced in the subjection of the Canaanites to the Israelites as
tributaries. If the Israelites had exterminated them, as the objector
asserts they were commanded to do; the prediction would have been
_falsified_.]
[Footnote B: These two verses are so explicit we quote them entire--"And
it shall be if thou do at all forget the Lord they God and walk after
other Gods and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this
day that ye shall surely _perish_, as the nations which the Lord
destroyed before your face, _so_ shall ye perish." The following
passages are, if possible still more explicit--"The Lord shall send upon
thee cursing, vexation and rebuke in all that thou settest thine hand
unto for to do, until thou be _destroyed_, and until thou perish
quickly." "The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee until he
have _consumed_ thee." "They (the 'sword,' 'blasting,' &c.) shall pursue
thee until thou _perish_." "From heaven shall it come down upon thee
until thou be _destroyed_." "All these curses shall come upon thee till
thou be _destroyed_." "He shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck until
he have _destroyed_ thee." "The Lord shall bring a nation against thee,
a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the
old, nor show favor to the young, * * until he have _destroyed_ thee."
All these, with other similar threatenings of _destruction_, are
contained in the twenty-eighth chapter of Deut. See verses 20-25, 45,
48, 51. In the _same_ chapter God declares that as a punishment for the
same transgressions, the Israelites shall "be _removed_ into all the
kingdoms of the earth," thus showing that the terms employed in the
other verses, "destroy," "perish," "perish quickly," "consume," &c.,
instead of signifying utter, personal destruction doubtless meant their
destruction as an independent nation. In Josh. xxiv. 8, 18, "destroyed"
and "drave out," are used synonymously.]
[Footnote C: Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the
Gibeonites, and of Rahab and her kindred, was a violation of the command
of God. We answer, if it had been, we might expect some such intimation.
If God had straitly commanded them to _exterminate all the Canaanites_,
their pledge to save them alive, was neither a repeal of the statute,
nor absolution for the breach of it. If _unconditional destruction_ was
the import of the command, would God have permitted such an act to pass
without rebuke? Would he have established such a precedent when Israel
had hardly passed the threshold of Canaan, and was then striking the
first blow of a half century war? What if they _had_ passed their word
to Rahab and the Gibeonites? Was that more binding than God's command?
So Saul seems to have passed _his_ word to Agag; yet Samuel hewed him in
pieces, because in saving his life, Saul had violated God's command.
When Saul sought to slay the Gibeonites in "his zeal for the children of
Israel and Judah," God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it.
When David inquired of them what atonement he should make, they say,
"The man that devised against us, that we should be destroyed from
_remaining in any of the coast of Israel_, let seven of his sons be
delivered," &c. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-6.]
[Footnote D: If the Canaanites were devoted by God to unconditional
extermination, to have employed them in the erection of the
temple,--what was it but the climax of impiety? As well might they
pollute its altars with swine's flesh or make their sons pass through
the fire to Moloch.]
[Footnote E: Suppose all the Canaanitish nations had abandoned their
territory at the tidings of Israel's approach, did God's command require
the Israelites to chase them to ends of the earth, and hunt them out,
until every Canaanite was destroyed? It is too preposterous for belief,
and yet it follows legitimately from that construction, which interprets
the terms "consume," "destroy," "destroy utterly," &c. to mean
unconditional, individual extermination.]
[The original design of the preceding Inquiry embraced a much wider
range of topics. It was soon found, however, that to fill up the outline
would be to make a volume. Much of the foregoing has therefore been
thrown into a mere series of _indices_, to trains of thought and classes
of proof, which, however limited or imperfect, may perhaps, afford some
facilities to those who have little leisure for protracted
investigation.]
NO. 5.
THE
ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
THE
POWER OF CONGRESS
OVER THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
* * * * *
REPRINTED FROM THE NEW-YORK EVENING POST, WITH ADDITIONS BY THE AUTHOR.
* * * * *
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
NO. 143 NASSAU-STREET.
1838.
* * * * *
This periodical contains 3 1/2 sheets.--Postage under 100 miles, 6 cts.;
over 100, 10 cts.
POWER OF CONGRESS
OVER THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
A civilized community presupposes a government of law. If that
government be a republic, its citizens are the sole _sources_, as well
as the _subjects_ of its power. Its constitution is their bill of
directions to their own agents--a grant authorizing the exercise of
certain powers, and prohibiting that of others. In the Constitution of
the United States, whatever else may be obscure, the clause granting
power to Congress over the Federal District may well defy
misconstruction. Art. 1, Sec. 6, Clause 18: "The Congress shall have
power to exercise exclusive legislation, _in all cases whatsoever_, over
such District." Congress may make laws for the District "in all
_cases_," not of all _kinds_; not all _laws_ whatsoever, but laws "in
all _cases_ whatsoever." The grant respects the _subjects_ of
legislation, _not_ the moral nature of the laws. The law-making power
every where is subject to _moral_ restrictions, whether limited by
constitutions or not. No legislature can authorize murder, nor make
honesty penal, nor virtue a crime, nor exact impossibilities. In these
and similar respects, the power of Congress is held in check by
principles, existing in the nature of things, not imposed by the
Constitution, but presupposed and assumed by it. The power of Congress
over the District is restricted only by those principles that limit
ordinary legislation, and, in some respects, it has even wider scope.
In common with the legislatures of the States, Congress cannot
constitutionally pass ex post facto laws in criminal cases, nor suspend
the writ of habeas corpus, nor pass a bill of attainder, nor abridge the
freedom of speech and of the press, nor invade the right of the people
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, nor enact
laws respecting an establishment of religion. These are general
limitations. Congress cannot do these things _any where_. The exact
import, therefore, of the clause "in all cases whatsoever," is, _on all
subjects within the appropriate sphere of legislation_. Some
legislatures are restrained by constitutions, from the exercise of
powers strictly within the proper sphere of legislation. Congressional
power over the District has no such restraint. It traverses the whole
field of legitimate legislation. All the power which any legislature has
within its own jurisdiction, Congress holds over the District of
Columbia.
It has been objected that the clause in question respects merely police
regulations, and that its sole design was to enable Congress to protect
itself against popular tumults. But if the convention that framed the
Constitution aimed to provide for a _single_ case only, why did they
provide for "_all_ cases whatsoever?" Besides, this clause was opposed
in many of the state conventions, because the grant of power was
extended to "_all_ cases whatsoever," instead of being restricted to
police regulations _alone_. In the Virginia Convention, George Mason,
the father of the Virginia Constitution, Patrick Henry, Mr. Grayson, and
others, assailed it on that ground. Mr. Mason said, "This clause gives
an unlimited authority in every possible case within the District. He
would willingly give them exclusive power as far as respected the police
and good government of the place, but he would give them no more." Mr.
Grayson exclaimed against so large a grant of power--said that control
over the _police_ was all-sufficient, and "that the Continental Congress
never had an idea of exclusive legislation in all cases." Patrick Henry
said: "Shall we be told, when about to grant such illimitable authority,
that it will never be exercised? Is it consistent with any principle of
prudence or good policy, to grant _unlimited, unbounded authority_?" Mr.
Madison said in reply: "I did conceive that the clause under
consideration was one of those parts which would speak its own praise. I
cannot comprehend that the power of legislation over a small District,
will involve the dangers which he apprehends. When any power is given,
it's delegation necessarily involves authority to make laws to execute
it. * * * * The powers which are found necessary to be given, are
therefore delegated _generally_, and particular and minute specification
is left to the Legislature. * * * It is not within the limits of human
capacity to delineate on paper all those particular cases and
circumstances, in which legislation by the general legislature, would be
necessary." Governor Randolph said: "Holland has no ten miles square,
but she has the Hague where the deputies of the States assemble. But the
influence which it has given the province of Holland, to have the seat
of government within its territory, subject in some respects to its
control, has been injurious to the other provinces. The wisdom of the
convention is therefore manifest in granting to Congress exclusive
jurisdiction over the place of their session." (_See debates in the
Virginia Convention_, p. 320.) In the forty-third number of the
"Federalist," Mr. Madison says: "The indispensable necessity of
_complete_ authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence
with it."
Finally, that the grant in question is to be interpreted according to
the obvious import of its _terms_, and not in such a way as to restrict
it to _police_ regulations, is proved by the fact, that the State of
Virginia proposed an amendment to the United States Constitution at the
time of its adoption, providing that this clause "should be so construed
as to give power only over the _police and good government_ of said
District," _which amendment was rejected_. Fourteen other amendments,
proposed at the same time by Virginia, were _adopted_.
The former part, of the clause under consideration, "Congress shall have
power to exercise _exclusive_ legislation," gives sole jurisdiction, and
the latter part, "in all cases whatsoever," defines the _extent_ of it.
Since, then, Congress is the _sole_ legislature within the District, and
since its power is limited only by the checks common to all
legislatures, it follows that what the law-making power is intrinsically
competent to do _any_ where, Congress is competent to do in the District
of Columbia.
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE.
Having disposed of preliminaries, we proceed to argue the _real
question_ at issue. Is the law-making power competent to abolish slavery
when not restricted in that particular by constitutional provisions--or,
_Is the abolition of slavery within the appropriate sphere of
legislation?_
In every government, absolute sovereignty exists _somewhere_. In the
United States it exists primarily with the _people_, and _ultimate_
sovereignty _always_ exists with them. In each of the States, the
legislature possesses a _representative_ sovereignty, delegated by the
people through the Constitution--the people thus committing to the
legislature a portion of their sovereignty, and specifying in their
constitutions the amount and the conditions of the grant. That the
_people_ in any state where slavery exists, have the power to abolish
it, none will deny. If the legislature have not the power, it is because
_the people_ have reserved it to themselves. Had they lodged with the
legislature "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever," they would have parted with their sovereignty over the
legislation of the State, and so far forth the legislature would have
become _the people_, clothed with all their functions, and as such
competent, _during the continuance of the grant_, to do whatever the
people might have done before the surrender of their power:
consequently, they would have the power to abolish slavery. The
sovereignty of the District of Columbia exists _somewhere_--where is it
lodged? The citizens of the District have no legislature of their own,
no representation in Congress, and no political power whatever. Maryland
and Virginia have surrendered to the United States their "full and
absolute right and entire sovereignty," and the people of the United
States have committed to Congress by the Constitution, the power to
"exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such
District."
Thus, the sovereignty of the District of Columbia, is shown to reside
solely in the Congress of the United States; and since the power of the
people of a state to abolish slavery within their own limits, results
from their entire sovereignty within the state, so the power of Congress
to abolish slavery in the District, results from its entire
_sovereignty_ within the District. If it be objected that Congress can
have no more power over the District, than was held by the legislatures
of Maryland and Virginia, we ask what clause in the constitution
graduates the power of Congress by the standard of a state legislature?
Was the United States constitution worked into its present shape under
the measuring line and square of Virginia and Maryland? and is its power
to be bevelled down till it can run in the grooves of state legislation?
There is a deal of prating about constitutional power over the District,
as though Congress were indebted for it to Maryland and Virginia. The
powers of those states, whether few or many, prodigies or nullities,
have nothing to do with the question. As well thrust in the powers of
the Grand Lama to join issue upon, or twist papal bulls into
constitutional tether, with which to curb congressional action. The
Constitution of the United States gives power to Congress, and takes it
away, and _it alone_. Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution
_before_ they ceded to the united States the territory of the District.
By their acts of cession, they abdicated their own sovereignty over the
District, and thus made room for that provided by the United States
constitution, which sovereignty was to commence as soon as a cession of
territory by states, and its acceptance by Congress furnished a sphere
for its exercise.
That the abolition of slavery is within the sphere of legislation, I
argue, _secondly_, from the fact, that _slavery as a legal system, is
the creature of legislation_. The law by _creating_ slavery, not only
affirmed its _existence_ to be within the sphere and under the control
of legislation, but equally, the _conditions_ and _terms_ of its
existence, and the _question_ whether or not it _should_ exist. Of
course legislation would not travel _out_ of its sphere, in abolishing
what is _within_ it, and what was recognised to be within it, by its own
act. Cannot legislatures repeal their own laws? If law can take from a
man his rights, it can give them back again. If it can say, "your body
belongs to your neighbor," it can say, "it belongs to _yourself_, and I
will sustain your right." If it can annul a man's right to himself, held
by express grant from his Maker, and can create for another an
artificial title to him, can it not annul the artificial title, and
leave the original owner to hold himself by his original title?
3. _The abolition of slavery has always been considered within the
appropriate sphere of legislation_. Almost every civilized nation has
abolished slavery by law. The history of legislation since the revival
of letters, is a record crowded with testimony to the universally
admitted competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery. It is so
manifestly an attribute not merely of absolute sovereignty, but even of
ordinary legislation, that the competency of a legislature to exercise
it, may well nigh be reckoned among the legal axioms of the civilized
world. Even the night of the dark ages was not dark enough to make this
invisible.
The Abolition decree of the great council of England was passed in 1102.
The memorable Irish decree, "that all the English slaves in the whole of
Ireland, be immediately emancipated and restored to their former
liberty," was issued in 1171. Slavery in England was abolished by a
general charter of emancipation in 1381. Passing over many instances of
the abolition of slavery by law, both during the middle ages and since
the reformation, we find them multiplying as we approach our own times.
In 1776 slavery was abolished in Prussia by special edict. In St.
Domingo, Cayenne, Guadaloupe and Martinique, in 1794, where more than
600,000 slaves were emancipated by the French government. In Java, 1811;
in Ceylon, 1815; in Buenos Ayres, 1816; in St. Helena, 1819; in
Colombia, 1821; by the Congress of Chili in 1821; in Cape Colony, 1823;
in Malacca, 1825; in the southern provinces of Birmah, in 1826; in
Bolivia, 1826; in Peru, Guatemala, and Monte Video, 1828, in Jamaica,
Barbadoes, Bermudas, Bahamas, the Mauritius, St. Christopher's, Nevis,
the Virgin Islands, Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Vincents,
Grenada, Berbice, Tobago, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Honduras, Demarara, and
the Cape of Good Hope, on the 1st of August, 1834. But waving details,
suffice it to say, that England, France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden,
Denmark, Austria, Prussia, and Germany, have all and often given their
testimony to the competency of the law to abolish slavery. In our own
country, the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act of abolition in
1780, Connecticut, in 1784; Rhode Island, 1784; New-York, 1799;
New-Jersey, in 1804; Vermont, by Constitution, in 1777; Massachusetts,
in 1780; and New Hampshire, in 1784.
When the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery, has thus
been recognised every where and for ages, when it has been embodied in
the highest precedents, and celebrated in the thousand jubilees of
regenerated liberty, is it forsooth an achievement of modern discovery,
that such a power is a nullity?--that all these acts of abolition are
void, and that the millions disenthralled by them, are, either
themselves or their posterity, still legally in bondage?
4. _Legislative power has abolished slavery in its parts_. The law of
South Carolina prohibits the working of slaves more than fifteen hours
in the twenty-four. [_See__Brevard's Digest_, 253.] In other words, it
takes from the slaveholder his power over nine hours of the slave's time
daily; and if it can take nine hours it may take twenty-four--if
two-fifths, then five-fifths. The laws of Georgia prohibit the working
of slaves on the first day of the week; and if they can do it for the
first, they can for the six following. Laws embodying the same principle
have existed for ages in nearly all governments that have tolerated
slavery.
The law of North Carolina prohibits the "immoderate" correction of
slaves. If it has power to prohibit _immoderate_ correction, it can
prohibit _moderate_ correction--_all_ correction, which would be virtual
emancipation; for, take from the master the power to inflict pain, and
he is master no longer. Cease to ply the slave with the stimulus of
fear, and he is free. Laws similar to this exist in slaveholding
governments generally.
The Constitution of Mississippi gives the General Assembly power to make
laws "to oblige the owners of slaves to _treat them with humanity_." The
Constitution of Missouri has the same clause, and an additional one
making it the DUTY of the legislature to pass such laws as may be
necessary to secure the _humane_ treatment of the slaves. This grant of
power to those legislatures empowers them to decide what _is_ and what
is _not_ "humane treatment." Otherwise it gives no "power"--the clause
is mere waste paper, and flouts in the face of a mocked and befooled
legislature. A clause giving power to require "humane treatment" covers
all the _particulars_ of such treatment--gives power to exact it in all
_respects--requiring_ certain acts, and _prohibiting_ others--maiming,
branding, chaining together, allowing each but a quart of corn a day,[A]
and but "one shirt and one pair of pantaloons" in six
months[B]--separating families, destroying marriages, floggings for
learning the alphabet and reading the Bible--robbing them of their oath,
of jury trial, and of the right to worship God according to
conscience--the legislature has power to specify each of these
acts--declare that it is not "_humane_ treatment," and PROHIBIT it.--The
legislature may also believe that driving men and women into the field,
and forcing them to work without pay as long as they live, is not
"humane treatment," and being constitutionally bound "to _oblige_"
masters to practise "humane treatment"--they have the _power_ to
_prohibit such_ treatment, and are bound to do it.
[Footnote A: Law of North Carolina, Haywood's Manual, 524-5.]
[Footnote B: Law of Louisiana, Martin's Digest, 610.]
The law of Louisiana makes slaves real estate, prohibiting the holder,
if he be also a _land_ holder, to separate them from the soil.[C] If it
has power to prohibit the sale _without_ the soil, it can prohibit the
sale _with_ it; and if it can prohibit the _sale_ as property, it can
prohibit the _holding_ as property. Similar laws exist in the French,
Spanish, and Portuguese colonies.
[Footnote C: Virginia made slaves real estate by a law passed in 1705.
(_Beverly's Hist. of Va._, p. 98.) I do not find the precise time when
this law was repealed, probably when Virginia became the chief slave
breeder for the cotton-growing and sugar-planting country, and made
young men and women "from fifteen to twenty-five" the main staple
production of the State.]
The law of Louisiana requires the master to give his slaves a certain
amount of food and clothing, (_Martin's Digest_, 610.) If it can oblige
the master to give the slave _one_ thing, it can oblige him to give him
another: if food and clothing, then wages, liberty, his own body. Such
laws exist in most slaveholding governments.
By the slave laws of Connecticut, under which slaves are now held, (for
even Connecticut is still a slave State,) slaves might receive and hold
property, and prosecute suits in their own name as plaintiffs: [This
last was also the law of Virginia in 1795. See Tucker's "Dissertation on
Slavery," p. 73.] There were also laws making marriage contracts legal,
in certain contingencies, and punishing infringements of them,
["_Reeve's Law of Baron and Femme_," p. 310-1.] Each of the laws
enumerated above, does, _in principle_, abolish slavery; and all of them
together abolish it _in fact_. True, not as a _whole_, and at a
_stroke_, nor all in one place; but in its _parts_, by piecemeal, at
divers times and places; thus showing that the abolition of slavery is
within the boundary of _legislation_.
5._The competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery has been
recognized by all the slaveholding States, either directly or by
implication_. Some States recognize it in their _Constitutions_, by
giving the legislature power to emancipate such slaves as may "have
rendered the state some distinguished service," and others by express
prohibitory restrictions. The Constitutions of Mississippi, Arkansas,
and other States, restrict the power of the legislature in this respect.
Why this express prohibition, if the law-making power cannot abolish
slavery? A stately farce, indeed, formally to construct a special
clause, and with appropriate rites induct it into the Constitution, for
the express purpose of restricting a nonentity!--to take from the
lawmaking power what it _never had_, and what _cannot_ pertain to it!
The legislatures of those States have no power to abolish slavery,
simply because their Constitutions have expressly _taken away_ that
power. The people of Arkansas, Mississippi, &c., well knew the
competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery, and hence their
zeal to _restrict_ it. The fact that these and other States have
inhibited their legislatures from the exercise of this power, shows that
the abolition of slavery is acknowledged to be a proper subject of
legislation, when Constitutions impose no restrictions.
The slaveholding States have recognised this power in their _laws_. The
Virginia Legislature passed a law in 1786 to prevent the further
importation of Slaves, of which the following is an extract: "And be it
further enacted that every slave imported into this commonwealth
contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, shall upon such
importation become _free_." By a law of Virginia, passed Dec. 17, 1792,
a slave brought into the state and kept _there a year_, was _free_. The
Maryland Court of Appeals at the December term 1813 (see case of Stewart
_vs._ Oakes,) decided that a slave owned in Maryland, and sent by his
master into Virginia to work at different periods, making one year in
the whole, became _free_, being _emancipated_ by the law of Virginia
quoted above. North Carolina and Georgia in their acts of cession,
transferring to the United States the territory now constituting the
States of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, made it a condition of the
grant, that the provisions of the ordinance of '87, should be secured to
the inhabitants _with the exception of the sixth article which prohibits
slavery_; thus conceding, both the competency of law to abolish slavery,
and the power of Congress to do it, within its jurisdiction. Besides,
these acts show the prevalent belief at that time, in the slaveholding
States, that the general government had adopted a line of policy aiming
at the exclusion of slavery from the entire territory of the United
States, not included within the original States, and that this policy
would be pursued unless prevented by specific and formal stipulation.
Slaveholding states have asserted this power _in their judicial
decisions._ In numerous cases their highest courts have decided that if
the legal owner of slaves takes them into those States where slavery has
been abolished either by law or by the constitution, such removal
emancipates them, such law or constitution abolishing their slavery.
This principle is asserted in the decision of the Supreme Court of
Louisiana, in the case of Lunsford _vs._ Coquillon, 14 Martin's La.
Reps. 401. Also by the Supreme Court of Virginia, in the case of Hunter
_vs._ Fulcher, 1 Leigh's Reps. 172. The same doctrine was laid down by
Judge Washington, of the United States Supreme Court, in the case of
Butler _vs._ Hopper, Washington's Circuit Court Reps. 508. This
principle was also decided by the Court of Appeals in Kentucky; case of
Rankin _vs._ Lydia, 2 Marshall's Reps. 407; see also, Wilson _vs._
Isbell, 5 Call's Reps. 425, Spotts _vs._ Gillespie, 6 Randolph's Reps.
566. The State _vs._ Lasselle, 1 Blackford's Reps. 60, Marie Louise
_vs._ Mariot, 8 La. Reps. 475. In this case, which was tried in 1836,
the slave had been taken by her master to France and brought back; Judge
Mathews, of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, decided that "residence for
one moment" under the laws of France emancipated her.
6. _Eminent statesmen, themselves slaveholders, have conceded this
power_. Washington, in a letter to Robert Morris, dated April 12, 1786,
says: "There is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do,
to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery; but there is only
one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that
is by _legislative_ authority." In a letter to Lafayette, dated May 10,
1786, he says: "It (the abolition of slavery) certainly might, and
assuredly ought to be effected, and that too by _legislative_
authority." In a letter to John Fenton Mercer, dated Sept. 9, 1786, he
says: "It is among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which
slavery in this country may be abolished by _law_." In a letter to Sir
John Sinclair, he says: "There are in Pennsylvania, _laws_ for the
gradual abolition of slavery, which neither Maryland nor Virginia have
at present, but which nothing is more certain that that they _must
have_, and at a period not remote." Speaking of movements in the
Virginia Legislature in 1777, for the passage of a law emancipating the
slaves, Mr. Jefferson says: "The principles of the amendment were agreed
on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day; but it
was found that the public mind would not bear the proposition, yet the
day is not far distant, when _it must bear and adopt it_."--Jefferson's
Memoirs, v. 1, p. 35. It is well known that Jefferson, Pendleton, Mason,
Wythe and Lee, while acting as a committee of the Virginia House of
Delegates to revise the State Laws, prepared a plan for the gradual
emancipation of the slaves by law. These men were the great lights of
Virginia. Mason, the author of the Virginia Constitution; Pendleton, the
President of the memorable Virginia Convention in 1787, and President of
the Virginia Court of Appeals; Wythe was the Blackstone of the Virginia
bench, for a quarter of a century Chancellor of the State, the professor
of law in the University of William and Mary, and the preceptor of
Jefferson, Madison, and Chief Justice Marshall. He was author of the
celebrated remonstrance to the English House of Commons on the subject
of the stamp act. As to Jefferson, his _name_ is his biography.
Every slaveholding member of Congress from the States of Maryland,
Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, voted for the
celebrated ordinance of 1787, which _abolished_ the slavery then
existing in the Northwest Territory. Patrick Henry, in his well known
letter to Robert Pleasants, of Virginia, January 18, 1773, says: "I
believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to
_abolish_ this lamentable evil." William Pinkney, of Maryland, advocated
the abolition of slavery by law, in the legislature of that State, in
1789. Luther Martin urged the same measure both in the Federal
Convention, and in his report to the Legislature of Maryland. In 1796,
St. George Tucker, professor of law in the University of William and
Mary, and Judge of the General Court, published an elaborate
dissertation on slavery, addressed to the General Assembly of the State,
and urging upon them the abolition of slavery by _law_.
John Jay, while New-York was yet a slave State, and himself in law a
slaveholder, said in a letter from Spain, in 1786, "An excellent law
might be made out of the Pennsylvania one, for the gradual abolition of
slavery. Were I in your legislature, I would present a bill for the
purpose, drawn up with great care, and I would never cease moving it
till it became a law, or I ceased to be a member."
Daniel D. Tompkins, in a message to the Legislature of New-York, January
8, 1812, said: "To devise the means for the gradual and ultimate
_extermination_ from amongst us of slavery, is work worthy the
representatives of a polished and enlightened nation."
The Virginia Legislature asserted this power in 1832. At the close of a
month's debate, the following proceedings were had. I extract from an
editorial article of the Richmond Whig, of January 26, 1832.
"The report of the Select Committee, adverse to legislation on the
subject of Abolition, was in these words: _Resolved_, as the opinion of
this Committee, that it is INEXPEDIENT FOR THE PRESENT, to make any
legislative enactments for the abolition of Slavery." This Report Mr.
Preston moved to reverse, and thus to declare that it _was_ expedient,
_now_ to make Legislative enactments for the abolition of slavery. This
was meeting the question in its strongest form. It demanded action, and
immediate action. On this proposition the vote was 58 to 73. Many of the
most decided friends of abolition voted against the amendment; because
they thought public opinion not sufficiently prepared for it, and that
it might prejudice the cause to move too rapidly. The vote on Mr.
Witcher's motion to postpone the whole subject indefinitely, indicates
the true state of opinion in the House.--That was the test question, and
was so intended and proclaimed by its mover. That motion was
_negatived_, 71 to 60; showing a majority of 11, who by that vote,
declared their belief that "at the proper time, and in the proper mode,
Virginia ought to commence a system of gradual abolition."
8. _The Congress of the United States have asserted this power_. The
ordinance of '87, declaring that there should be "neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude," in the North Western territory, abolished the
slavery then existing there. The Supreme Court of Mississippi, in its
decision in the case of Harvey _vs._ Decker, Walker's Mi. Reps. 36,
declared that the ordinance emancipated the slaves then held there. In
this decision the question is argued ably and at great length. The
Supreme Court of Louisiana made the same decision in the case of Forsyth
_vs._ Nash, 4 Martin's La. Reps 385. The same doctrine was laid down by
Judge Porter, (late United States Senator from Louisiana,) in his
decision at the March term of the La. Supreme Court, 1830, in the case
of Merry _vs._ Chexnaider, 20 Martin's Reps. 699.
That the ordinance abolished the slavery then existing, is also shown by
the fact, that persons holding slaves in the territory petitioned for
the repeal of the article abolishing slavery, assigning that as a
reason. "The petition of the citizens of Randolph and St. Clair counties
in the Illinois country, stating that they were in possession of slaves,
and praying the repeal of that act (the 6th article of the ordinance of
'87) and the passage of a law legalizing slavery there." [Am. State
papers, Public Lands, v. 1. p. 69,] Congress passed this ordinance
before the United States Constitution was adopted, when it derived all
its authority from the articles of Confederation, which conferred powers
of legislation far more restricted than those conferred on Congress over
the District and Territories by the United States Constitution. Now, we
ask, how does the Constitution _abridge_ the powers which Congress
possessed under the articles of confederation?
The abolition of the slave trade by Congress, in 1808, is another
illustration of the competency of legislative power to abolish slavery.
The African slave trade has become such a mere _technic_, in common
parlance, that the fact of its being _proper slavery_ is overlooked. The
buying and selling, the transportation, and the horrors of the middle
passage, were mere _incidents_ of the slavery in which the victims were
held. Let things be called by their own names. When Congress abolished
the African slave trade, it abolished SLAVERY--supreme slavery--power
frantic with license, trampling a whole hemisphere scathed with its
fires, and running down with blood. True, Congress did not, in the
abolition of the slave trade, abolish _all_ the slavery within its
jurisdiction, but it did abolish all the slavery in _one part_ of its
jurisdiction. What has rifled it of power to abolish slavery in
_another_ part of its jurisdiction, especially in that part where it has
"exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever?"
9. _The Constitution of the United States recognizes this power by the
most conclusive implication_. In Art. 1, sec. 3, clause 1, it prohibits
the abolition of the slave trade previous to 1808: thus implying the
power of Congress to do it at once, but for the restriction; and its
power to do it _unconditionally_, when that restriction ceased. Again:
In Art. 4, sec. 2, "No person held to service or labor in one state
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of
any law or regulation therein, be discharged from said service or
labor." This clause was inserted, as all admit, to prevent the runaway
slave from being emancipated by the _laws_ of the free states. If these
laws had _no power_ to emancipate, why this constitutional guard to
prevent it?
The insertion of the clause, was the testimony of the eminent jurists
that framed the Constitution, to the existence of the _power_, and their
public proclamation, that the abolition of slavery was within the
appropriate sphere of legislation. The right of the owner to that which
is rightfully property, is founded on a principle of _universal law_,
and is recognised and protected by all civilized nations; property in
slaves is, by general consent, an _exception_; hence slaveholders
insisted upon the insertion of this clause in the United States
Constitution that they might secure by an _express provision_, that from
which protection is withheld, by the acknowledged principles of
universal law.[A] By demanding this provision, slaveholders consented
that their slaves should not be recognised as property by the United
States Constitution, and hence they found their claim, on the fact of
their being "_persons_, and _held_ to service."
[Footnote A: The fact, that under the articles of Confederation,
slaveholders, whose slaves had escaped into free states, had no legal
power to force them back,--that _now_ they have no power to recover, by
process of law, their slaves who escape to Canada, the South American
States, or to Europe--the case already cited in which the Supreme Court
of Louisiana decided, that residence "_for one moment_," under the laws
of France emancipated an American slave--the case of Fulton, _vs._
Lewis, 3 Har. and John's Reps., 56, where the slave of a St. Domingo
slaveholder, who brought him to Maryland in '93, was pronounced free by
the Maryland Court of Appeals--these, with other facts and cases "too
numerous to mention," are illustrations of the acknowledged truth here
asserted, that by the consent of the civilized world, and on the
principles of universal law, slaves are not "_property_," but
_self-proprietors_, and that whenever held as property under _law_, it
is only by _positive legislative acts_, forcibly setting aside the law
of nature, the common law, and the principles of universal justice and
right between man and man,--principles paramount to all law, and from
which alone law derives its intrinsic authoritative sanction.]
But waiving all concessions, whether of constitutions, laws, judicial
decisions, or common consent, I take the position that the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District, follows from the fact, that
as the sole legislature there, it has unquestionable power _to adopt the
Common Law, as the legal system within its exclusive jurisdiction_. This
has been done, with certain restrictions, in most of the States, either
by legislative acts or by constitutional implication. THE COMMON LAW
KNOWS NO SLAVES. Its principles annihilate slavery wherever they touch
it. It is a universal, unconditional, abolition act. Wherever slavery is
a legal system, it is so only by _statute_ law, and in violation of
common law. The declaration of Lord Chief Justice Holt, that "by the
common law, no man can have property in another," is an acknowledged
axiom, and based upon the well known common law definition of property.
"The subjects of dominion or property are _things_, as
contra-distinguished from _persons_." Let Congress adopt the common law
in the District of Columbia, and slavery there is at once abolished.
Congress may well be at home in common law legislation, for the common
law is the grand element of the United States Constitution. All its
_fundamental_ provisions are instinct with its spirit; and its
existence, principles and paramount authority, are presupposed and
assumed throughout the whole. The preamble of the Constitution plants
the standard of the Common Law immovably in its foreground. "We, the
people of the United States, in order to ESTABLISH JUSTICE, &c., do
ordain and establish this Constitution;" thus proclaiming _devotion to
justice_, as the controlling motive in the organization of the
Government, and its secure establishment the chief object of its aims.
By this most solemn recognition, the common law, that grand legal
embodiment of "_justice_" and fundamental right was made the groundwork
of the Constitution, and intrenched behind its strongest munitions. The
second clause of Sec. 9, Art. 1; Sec. 4, Art. 2, and the last clause of
Sec. 2, Art. 3, with Articles 7, 8, 9, and 13 of the Amendments, are
also express recognitions of the common law as the presiding Genius of
the Constitution.
By adopting the common law within its exclusive jurisdiction Congress
would carry out the principles of our glorious Declaration, and follow
the highest precedents in our national history and jurisprudence. It is
a political maxim as old as civil legislation, that laws should be
strictly homogeneous with the principles of the government whose will
they express, embodying and carrying them out--being indeed the
_principles themselves_, in preceptive form--representatives alike of
the nature and the power of the Government--standing illustrations of
its genius and spirit, while they proclaim and enforce its authority.
Who needs be told that slavery is in antagonism to the principles of the
Declaration, and the spirit of the Constitution, and that these and the
principles of the common law gravitate toward each other with
irrepressible affinities, and mingle into one? The common law came
hither with our pilgrim fathers; it was their birthright, their panoply,
their glory, and their song of rejoicing in the house of their
pilgrimage. It covered them in the day of their calamity, and their
trust was under the shadow of its wings. From the first settlement of
the country, the genius of our institutions and our national spirit have
claimed it as a common possession, and exulted in it with a common
pride. A century ago, Governor Pownall, one of the most eminent
constitutional jurists of colonial times, said of the common law, "In
all the colonies the common law is received as the foundation and main
body of their law." In the Declaration of Rights, made by the
Continental Congress at its first session in '74, there was the
following resolution: "Resolved, That the respective colonies are
entitled to the common law of England, and especially to the great and
inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage
according to the course of that law." Soon after the organization of the
general government, Chief Justice Ellsworth, in one of his decisions on
the bench of the United States Supreme Court, said: "The common law of
this country remains the same as it was before the revolution." Chief
Justice Marshall, in his decision in the case of Livingston _vs._
Jefferson, said: "When our ancestors migrated to America, they brought
with them the common law of their native country, so far as it was
applicable to their new situation and I do not conceive that the
revolution in any degree changed the relations of man to man, or the law
which regulates them. In breaking our political connection with the
parent state, we did not break our connection with each other."
[_See__Hall's Law Journal, new series._] Mr. Duponceau, in his
"Dissertation on the Jurisdiction of Courts in the United States," says,
"I consider the common law of England the _jus commune_ of the United
States. I think I can lay it down as a correct principle, that the
common law of England, as it was at the time of the declaration of
Independence, still continues to be the national law of this country, so
far as it is applicable to our present state, and subject to the
modifications it has received here in the course of nearly half a
century." Chief Justice Taylor of North Carolina, in his decision in the
case of the State _vs._ Reed, in 1823, Hawkes' N.C. Reps. 454, says, "a
law of _paramount obligation to the statute_ was violated by the
offence--COMMON LAW, founded upon the law of nature, and confirmed by
revelation." The legislation of the United States abounds in
recognitions of the principles of the common law, asserting their
paramount binding power. Sparing details, of which our national state
papers are full, we illustrate by a single instance. It was made a
condition of the admission of Louisiana into the Union, that the right
of trial by jury should be secured to all her citizens,--the United
States government thus employing its power to enlarge the jurisdiction
of the common law in this its great representative.
Having shown that the abolition of slavery is within the competency of
the law-making power, when unrestricted by constitutional provisions,
and that the legislation of Congress over the District _is_ thus
unrestricted, its power to abolish slavery there is established.
Besides this general ground, the power of Congress to abolish slavery in
the District may be based upon another equally tenable. We argue it from
the fact, that slavery exists there _now_ by an act of Congress. In the
act of 16th July, 1790, Congress accepted portions of territory offered
by the states of Maryland and Virginia, and enacted that the laws, as
they then were, should continue in force, "until Congress shall
otherwise by law provide;" thus making the slave codes of Maryland and
Virginia its own. Under these laws, adopted by Congress, and in effect
re-enacted and made laws of the District, the slaves there are now held.
Is Congress so impotent in its own "exclusive jurisdiction" that it
_cannot_ "otherwise by law provide?" If it can say, what _shall_ be
considered property, it can say what shall _not_ be considered property.
Suppose a legislature enacts, that marriage contracts shall be mere
bills of sale, making a husband the proprietor of his wife, as his _bona
fide_ property; and suppose husbands should herd their wives in droves
for the market as beasts of burden, or for the brothel as victims of
lust, and then prate about their inviolable legal property, and deny the
power of the legislature, which stamped them property, to undo its own
wrong, and secure to wives by law the rights of human beings. Would such
cant about "legal rights" be heeded where reason and justice held sway,
and where law, based upon fundamental morality, received homage? If a
frantic legislature pronounces woman a chattel, has it no power, with
returning reason, to take back the blasphemy? Is the impious edict
irrepealable? Be it, that with legal forms it has stamped wives "wares."
Can no legislation blot out the brand? Must the handwriting of Deity on
human nature be expunged for ever? Has law no power to stay the erasing
pen, and tear off the scrawled label that covers up the IMAGE OF GOD? We
now proceed to show that
THE POWER OF CONGRESS TO ABOLISH SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT HAS BEEN, TILL
RECENTLY, UNIVERSALLY CONCEDED.
1. It has been assumed by Congress itself. The following record stands
on the journals of the House of Representatives for 1804, p. 225: "On
motion made and seconded that the House do come to the following
resolution: 'Resolved, That from and after the 4th day of July, 1805,
all blacks and people of color that shall be born within the District of
Columbia, or whose mothers shall be the property of any person residing
within said District, shall be free, the males at the age of ----, and
the females at the age of ----. The main question being taken that the
House do agree to said motion as originally proposed, it was negatived
by a majority of 46.'" Though the motion was lost, it was on the ground
of its alleged _inexpediency_ alone, and not because Congress lacked the
constitutional power. In the debate which preceded the vote, the _power_
of Congress was conceded. In March, 1816, the House of Representatives
passed the following resolution:--"Resolved, That a committee be
appointed to inquire into the existence of an inhuman and illegal
traffic in slaves, carried on in and through the District of Columbia,
and to report whether any and what measures are necessary for _putting a
stop to the same_."
On the 9th of January, 1829, the House of Representatives passed the
following resolution by a vote of 114 to 66: "Resolved, That the
Committee on the District of Columbia be instructed to inquire into the
_expediency_ of providing by _law_ for the gradual abolition of slavery
within the District, in such manner that the interests of no individual
shall be injured thereby." Among those who voted in the affirmative were
Messrs. Barney of Md., Armstrong of Va., A.H. Shepperd of N.C., Blair of
Tenn., Chilton and Lyon of Ky., Johns of Delaware, and others from slave
states.
2. It has been conceded directly, or impliedly, by all the committees on
the District of Columbia that have reported on the subject. In a report
of the committee on the District, Jan. 11, 1837, by their chairman, Mr.
Powell of Virginia, there is the following declaration "The Congress of
the United States, has by the constitution exclusive jurisdiction over
the District, and has power upon this subject, (_slavery_) as upon all
other subjects of legislation, to exercise _unlimited discretion_."
Reps. of Comms. 2d Session, 19th Cong. v. I. No. 43. In February, 1829,
the committee on the District, Mr. Alexander of Virginia, Chairman, in
their report pursuant to Mr. Miner's resolutions, recognize a contingent
abolition proceeding upon the consent of the people. In December, 1831,
the committee on the District, Mr. Doddridge of Virginia, Chairman,
reported, "That until the adjoining states act on the subject (slavery)
it would be (not _unconstitutional_ but) unwise and impolitic, if not
unjust, for Congress to interfere." In April, 1836, a special committee
on abolition memorials reported the following resolutions by their
Chairman, Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina: "Resolved, that Congress
possesses no constitutional authority to interfere in any way with the
institution of slavery in any of the states of this confederacy."
"Resolved, That Congress _ought not to interfere_ in any way with
slavery in the District of Columbia." "Ought not to interfere,"
carefully avoiding the phraseology of the first resolution, and thus in
effect conceding the constitutional power. In a widely circulated
"Address to the electors of the Charleston District," Mr. Pinckney is
thus denounced by his own constituents: "He has proposed a resolution
which is received by the plain common sense of the whole country as a
concession that Congress has authority to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia."
3. It has been conceded by the _citizens of the District_. A petition
for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District, signed by nearly
eleven hundred of its citizens, was presented to Congress, March 24,
1837. Among the signers to this petition, were Chief Justice Cranch,
Judge Van Ness, Judge Morsel, Prof. J.M. Staughton, Rev. Dr. Balch, Rev.
Dr. Keith, John M. Munroe, and a large number of the most influential
inhabitants of the District. Mr. Dickson, of New York, asserted on the
floor of Congress in 1835, that the signers of this petition owned more
than half of the property in the District. The accuracy of this
statement has never been questioned.
This power has been conceded by _grand juries of the District_. The
grand jury of the county of Alexandria, at the March term 1802,
presented the domestic slave trade as a grievance, and said, "We
consider these grievances demanding _legislative_ redress." Jan. 19,
1829, Mr. Alexander, of Virginia, presented a representation of the
grand jury in the city of Washington, remonstrating against "any measure
for the abolition of slavery within said District, unless accompanied by
measures for the removal of the emancipated from the same;" thus, not
only conceding the power to emancipate slaves, but affirming an
additional power, that of _excluding them when free_. See Journal H.R.
1828-9, p. 174.
4. This power has been conceded _by State Legislatures_. In 1828 the
Legislature of Pennsylvania instructed their Senators in Congress "to
procure, if practicable, the passage of a law to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia." Jan. 28, 1829, the House of Assembly of New York
passed a resolution, that their "Senators in Congress be instructed to
make every possible exertion to effect the passage of a law for the
abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia." In February, 1837,
the Senate of Massachusetts "Resolved, That Congress having exclusive
legislation in the District of Columbia, possess the right to abolish
slavery and the slave trade therein, and that the early exercise of such
right is demanded by the enlightened sentiment of the civilized world,
by the principles of the revolution, and by humanity." The House of
Representatives passed the following resolution at the same session:
"Resolved, That Congress having exclusive legislation in the District of
Columbia, possess the right to abolish slavery in said District, and
that its exercise should only be restrained by a regard to the public
good."
November 1, 1837, the Legislature of Vermont, "Resolved, that Congress
have the full power by the constitution to abolish slavery and the slave
trade in the District of Columbia, and in the territories." The
Legislature of Vermont passed in substance the same resolution, at its
session in 1836.
May 30, 1836, a committee of the Pennsylvania Legislature reported the
following resolution: "Resolved, That Congress does possess the
constitutional power, and it is expedient to abolish slavery and the
slave trade within the District of Columbia."
In January, 1836, the Legislature of South Carolina "Resolved, That we
should consider the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia as
a violation of the rights of the citizens of that District derived from
the _implied_ conditions on which that territory was ceded to the
General Government." Instead of denying the constitutional power, they
virtually admit its existence, by striving to smother it under an
_implication_. In February, 1836, the Legislature of North Carolina
"Resolved, That, although by the Constitution all legislative power over
the District of Columbia is vested in the Congress of the United States,
yet we would deprecate any legislative action on the part of that body
towards liberating the slaves of that District, as a breach of faith
towards those States by whom the territory was originally ceded, and
will regard such interference as the first step towards a general
emancipation of the slaves of the South." Here is a full concession of
the _power_, February 2, 1836, the Virginia Legislature passed
unanimously the following resolution: "Resolved, by the General Assembly
of Virginia, that the following article be proposed to the several
states of this Union, and to Congress, as an amendment of the
Constitution of the United States: 'The powers of Congress shall not be
so construed as to authorize the passage of any law for the emancipation
of slaves in the District of Columbia, without the consent of the
individual proprietors thereof, unless by the sanction of the
Legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, and under such conditions as they
shall by law prescribe.'"
Fifty years after the formation of the United States constitution the
states are solemnly called upon by the Virginia Legislature, to amend
that instrument by a clause asserting that, in the grant to Congress of
"exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever" over the District, the
"case" of slavery is not included!! What could have dictated such a
resolution but the conviction that the power to abolish slavery is an
irresistible interference from the constitution _as it is_. The fact
that the same legislature passed afterward a resolution, though by no
means unanimously, that Congress does not possess the power, abates not
a tittle of the testimony in the first resolution. March 23d, 1824, "Mr.
Brown presented the resolutions of the General Assembly of Ohio,
recommending to Congress the consideration of a system for the gradual
emancipation of persons of color held in servitude in the United
States." On the same day, "Mr. Noble, of Indiana, communicated a
resolution from the legislature of that state, respecting the gradual
emancipation of slaves within the United States." Journal of the United
States Senate, for 1824-5, p. 231.
The Ohio and Indiana resolutions, by taking for granted the _general_
power of Congress over the subject of slavery, do virtually assert its
_special_ power within its _exclusive_ jurisdiction.
5. The power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, has been
conceded by bodies of citizens in the slave states. The petition of
eleven hundred citizens of the District of Columbia, in 1827, has been
already mentioned. "March 5, 1830, Mr. Washington presented a memorial
of inhabitants of the county of Frederick, in the state of Maryland,
praying that provision may be made for the gradual abolition of slavery
in the District of Columbia." Journal H.R. 1829-30, p. 358.
March 30, 1828. Mr. A.H. Shepperd, of North Carolina, presented a
memorial of citizens of that state, "praying Congress to take measures
fur the entire abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia."
Journal H.R. 1829-30, p. 379.
January 14, 1822. Mr. Rhea, of Tennessee, presented a memorial of
citizens of that state, praying "that provision may be made, whereby all
slaves which may hereafter be born in the District of Columbia, shall be
free at a certain period of their lives." Journal H.R. 1821-22, p. 142.
December 13, 1824. Mr. Saunders of North Carolina, presented a memorial
of citizens of that state, praying "that measures may be taken for the
gradual abolition of slavery in the United States." Journal H.R.
1824-25, p. 27.
December 16, 1828. "Mr. Barnard presented the memorial of the American
Convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, held in Baltimore,
praying that slavery may be abolished in the District of Columbia."
Journal U.S. Senate, 1828-29, p. 24.
6. Distinguished statesmen and jurists in the slaveholding states, have
conceded the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. The
testimony of Messrs. Doddridge, Powell, and Alexander, of Virginia,
Chief Justice Cranch, and Judges Morsell and Van Ness, of the District,
has already been given. In the debate in Congress on the memorial of the
Society of Friends, in 1790, Mr. Madison, in speaking of the territories
of the United States, explicitly declared, from his own knowledge of the
views of the members of the convention that framed the constitution, as
well as from the obvious import of its terms, that in the territories
"Congress have certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery."
Congress can have no more power over the territories than that of
"exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," consequently, according
to Mr. Madison, "it has certainly the power to regulate the subject of
slavery in the" _District_. In March, 1816, John Randolph introduced a
resolution for putting a stop to the domestic slave trade within the
District. December 12, 1827, Mr. Barney, of Maryland, presented a
memorial for abolition in the District, and moved that it be printed.
Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, objected to the printing, but
"expressly admitted the right of Congress to grant to the people of the
District any measures which they might deem necessary to free themselves
from the deplorable evil."--(See letter of Mr. Claiborne, of
Mississippi, to his constituents, published in the Washington Globe, May
9, 1836.) The sentiments of Henry Clay on the subject are well known. In
a speech before the U.S. Senate, in 1836, he declared the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District "unquestionable." Messrs.
Blair, of Tennessee, Chilton, Lyon, and Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky,
A.H. Shepperd, of North Carolina, Messrs. Armstrong and Smyth, of
Virginia, Messrs. Dorsey, Archer, and Barney, of Maryland, and Johns, of
Delaware, with numerous others from slave states, have asserted the
power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. In the speech of
Mr. Smyth, of Virginia, on the Missouri question, January 28, 1820, he
says on this point: "If the future freedom of the blacks is your real
object, and not a mere pretence, why do you not begin _here_? Within the
ten miles square, you have _undoubted power_ to exercise exclusive
legislation. _Produce a bill to emancipate the slaves in the District of
Columbia_, or, if you prefer it, to emancipate those born hereafter."
To this may be added the testimony of the present Vice President of the
United States, Hon. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. In a speech before
the United States' Senate, February 1, 1820, (National Intelligencer,
April 29, 1820,) he says: "Congress has the express power stipulated by
the Constitution, to exercise exclusive legislation over this District
of ten miles square. Here slavery is sanctioned by law. In the District
of Columbia, containing a population of 30,000 souls, and probably as
many slaves as the whole territory of Missouri, THE POWER OF PROVIDING
FOR THEIR EMANCIPATION RESTS WITH CONGRESS ALONE. Why, then, let me ask,
Mr. President, why all this sensibility--this commiseration--this
heart-rending sympathy for the slaves of Missouri, and this cold
insensibility, this eternal apathy, towards the slaves in the District
of Columbia?"
It is quite unnecessary to add, that the most distinguished northern
statesmen of both political parties, have always affirmed the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District. President Van Buren in his
letter of March 6, 1836, to a committee of gentlemen in North Carolina,
says, "I would not, from the light now before me, feel myself safe in
pronouncing that Congress does not possess the power of abolishing
slavery in the District of Columbia." This declaration of the President
is consistent with his avowed sentiments touching the Missouri question,
on which he coincided with such men as Daniel D. Tompkins, De Witt
Clinton, and others, whose names are a host.[A] It is consistent also,
with his recommendation in his late message on the 5th of last month, in
which, speaking of the District, he strongly urges upon Congress "a
thorough and careful revision of its local government," speaks of the
"entire dependence" of the people of the District "upon Congress,"
recommends that a "uniform system of local government" be adopted, and
adds, that "although it was selected as the seat of the General
Government, the site of its public edifices, the depository of its
archives, and the residence of officers intrusted with large amounts of
public property, and the management of public business, yet it never has
been subjected to, or received, that _special_ and _comprehensive_
legislation which these circumstances peculiarly demanded."
[Footnote A: Mr. Van Buren, when a member of the Senate of New-York,
voted for the following preamble and resolutions, which passed
unanimously:--Jan. 28th, 1820. "Whereas, the inhibiting the further
extension of slavery in the United States, is a subject of deep concern
to the people of this state: and whereas, we consider slavery as an evil
much to be deplored, and that _every constitutional barrier should be
interposed to prevent its further extension_: and that the constitution
of the United States _clearly gives congress the right_ to require new
states, not comprised within the original boundary of the United States,
to _make the prohibition of slavery_ a condition of their admission into
the Union: Therefore,
"Resolved, That our Senators be instructed, and our members of Congress
be requested, to oppose the admission as a state into the Union, of any
territory not comprised as aforesaid, without making _the prohibition of
slavery_ therein an indispensable condition of admission." ]
The tenor of Senator Tallmadge's speech on the right of petition, in the
last Congress, and of Mr. Webster's on the reception of abolition
memorials, may be taken as universal exponents of the sentiments of
northern statesmen as to the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia.
After presenting this array of evidence, _direct testimony_ to show that
the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, has always
till recently been _universally conceded_, is perhaps quite superfluous.
We subjoin; however, the following:
The Vice-President of the United States in his speech on the Missouri
question, quoted above, after contending that the restriction of slavery
in Missouri would be unconstitutional, adds, "But I am at a loss to
conceive why gentlemen should arouse all their sympathies upon this
occasion, when they permit them to lie dormant upon the same subject, in
relation to other sections of country, in which THEIR POWER COULD NOT BE
QUESTIONED." Then follows immediately the assertion of congressional
power to abolish slavery in the District, as already quoted. In the
speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., also quoted above, he declares the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District to be "UNDOUBTED."
Mr. Sutherland, of Pennsylvania, in a speech in the House of
Representatives, on the motion to print Mr. Pinckney's Report, is thus
reported in the Washington Globe, of May 9th, '36. "He replied to the
remark that the report conceded that Congress had a right to legislate
upon the subject in the District of Columbia, and said that SUCH A RIGHT
HAD NEVER BEEN, TILL RECENTLY, DENIED."
The American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia, with a large
circulation and list of contributors in the slave states, holds the
following language in the September No. 1833, p. 55: "Under this
'exclusive jurisdiction,' granted by the constitution, Congress has
power to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of
Columbia. It would hardly be necessary to state this as a distinct
proposition, had it not been occasionally questioned. The truth of the
assertion, however, is too obvious to admit of argument--and we believe
HAS NEVER BEEN DISPUTED BY PERSONS WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE
CONSTITUTION."
Finally--an explicit, and unexpected admission, that an "_over-whelming
majority_" of the _present_ Congress concede the power to abolish
slavery in the District, has just been made by a member of Congress from
South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston Mercury of Dec.
27, well known as the mouth-piece of Mr. Calhoun. The following is an
extract:
"The time has arrived when we must have new guarantees under the
constitution, or the union must be dissolved. _Our views of the
constitution are not those of the majority. An overwhelming majority
think that by the constitution, Congress may abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia--may abolish the slave trade between the States;
that is, it may prohibit their being carried out of the State in which
they are--and prohibit it in all the territories, Florida among them.
They think_, NOT WITHOUT STRONG REASONS, _that the power of Congress
extends to all of these subjects_."
In another letter, the same correspondent says:
"_The fact is, it is vain to attempt_, AS THE CONSTITUTION IS NOW, _to
keep the question of slavery out of the halls of Congress_,--until, by
some decisive action, WE COMPEL SILENCE, or _alter the constitution_,
agitation and insult is our eternal fate in the confederacy."
OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING CONCLUSIONS CONSIDERED.
We now proceed to notice briefly the main arguments that have been
employed in Congress and elsewhere against the power of Congress to
abolish slavery in the District. One of the most plausible, is that "the
conditions on which Maryland and Virginia ceded the District to the
United States, would be violated, if Congress should abolish slavery
there." The reply to this is, that Congress had no power to _accept_ a
cession coupled with conditions restricting the power given it by the
constitution. Nothing short of a convention of the states, and an
alteration of the constitution, abridging its grant of power, could have
empowered Congress to accept a territory on any other conditions than
that of exercising "exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever,"
over it.
To show the futility of the objection, here follow the acts of cession.
The cession of Maryland was made in November, 1788, and is as follows:
"An act to cede to Congress a district of ten miles square in this state
for the seat of the government of the United States."
"Be it enacted, by the General Assembly of Maryland, that the
representatives of this state in the House of Representatives of the
Congress of the United States, appointed to assemble at New-York, on the
first Wednesday of March next, be, and they are hereby authorized and
required on the behalf of this state, to cede to the Congress of the
United States, any district in this state, not exceeding ten miles
square, which the Congress may fix upon, and accept for the seat of
government of the United States." Laws of Maryland, vol. 2, chap. 46.
The cession from Virginia was made by act of the Legislature of that
State on the 3d of December, 1788, in the following words:
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That a tract of country, not
exceeding ten miles square, or any lesser quantity, to be located within
the limits of the State, and in any part thereof, as Congress may, by
law, direct, shall be, and the same is hereby for ever ceded and
relinquished to the Congress and Government of the United States, in
full and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil, as
of persons residing or to reside thereon, pursuant to the tenor and
effect of the eighth section of the first article of the government of
the constitution of the United States."
But were there no provisos to these acts? The Maryland act had _none_.
That part of the District therefore, which includes the cities of
Washington and Georgetown, can lay claim to nothing with which to ward
off the power of Congress. The Virginia act had this proviso: "Sect. 2.
Provided, that nothing herein contained, shall be construed to vest in
the United States any right of property in the _soil_, or to affect the
rights of individuals _therein_, otherwise than the same shall or may be
transferred by such individuals to the United States."
This specification touching the soil was merely definitive and
explanatory of that clause in the act of cession, "_full and absolute
right._" Instead of restraining the power of Congress on _slavery_ and
other subjects, it even gives it wider scope; for exceptions to _parts_
of a rule, give double confirmation to those parts not embraced in the
exceptions. If it was the _design_ of the proviso to restrict
congressional action on the subject of _slavery_, why is the _soil
alone_ specified? As legal instruments are not paragons of economy in
words, might not "John Doe," out of his abundance, and without spoiling
his style, have afforded an additional word--at least a hint--that
slavery was _meant_, though nothing was _said_ about it? The subject
must have been too "delicate," even for the most distant allusion! The
mystery of silence is solved!!
But again, Maryland and Virginia, in their acts of cession, declare them
to be "in pursuance of" that clause of the constitution which gives to
Congress "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over" the ten
miles square--thus, instead of _restricting_ that clause, both States
gave an express and decided confirmation of it. Now, their acts of
cession either accorded with that clause of the constitution, or they
conflicted with it. If they conflicted with it, _accepting_ the cessions
was a violation of the constitution. If they accorded, the objector has
already had his answer. The fact that Congress accepted the cessions,
proves that in its view their _terms_ did not conflict with the
constitutional grant of "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all
cases whatsoever over such District." The inquiry whether these acts of
cession were consistent or inconsistent with the United States
constitution, is totally irrelevant to the question at issue. What saith
the CONSTITUTION? That is the question. Not, what saith Virginia, or
Maryland, or--equally to the point--John Bull! If Maryland and Virginia
had been the authorized interpreters of the constitution for the Union,
these acts of cession could hardly have been magnified more than they
were by Messrs. Garland and Wise in the last Congress. A true
understanding of the constitution can be had, forsooth, only by holding
it up in the light of Maryland and Virginia legislation!
We are told, again, that those States would not have ceded the District
if they had supposed the constitution gave Congress power to abolish
slavery in it.
This comes with an ill grace from Maryland and Virginia. They _knew_ the
constitution. They were parties to it. They had sifted it, clause by
clause, in their State conventions. They had weighed its words in the
balance--they had tested them as by fire; and finally, after long
pondering, they _adopted_ the constitution. And _afterward_, self-moved,
they ceded the ten miles square, and declared the cession made "in
pursuance of" that oft-cited clause, "Congress shall have power to
exercise exclusive legalisation in all cases whatsoever over such
District," &c. And now verily "they would not have ceded if they had
_supposed_!" &c. Cede it they _did_, and "in full and absolute right
both of soil and persons." Congress accepted the cession--state power
over the District ceased, and congressional power over it commenced--and
now, the sole question to be settled is, _the amount of power over the
District, lodged in Congress by the constitution_. The constitution--the
CONSTITUTION--that is the point. Maryland and Virginia "suppositions"
must be potent suppositions, to abrogate a clause in the United States
Constitution! That clause either gives Congress power to abolish slavery
in the District, or it does _not_--and that point is to be settled, not
by state "suppositions," nor state usages, nor state legislation, but
_by the terms of the clause themselves_.
Southern members of Congress, in the recent discussions, have conceded
the power of a contingent abolition in the District, by suspending it
upon the consent of the people. Such a doctrine from _declaimers_ like
Messrs. Alford, of Georgia, and Walker, of Mississippi, would excite no
surprise; but that it should be honored with the endorsement of such men
as Mr. Rives and Mr. Calhoun, is quite unaccountable. Are attributes of
_sovereignty_ mere creatures of _contingency_? Is delegated _authority_
mere conditional _permission_? Is a _constitutional power_ to be
exercised by those who hold it, only by popular _sufferance_? Must it
lie helpless at the pool of public sentiment, waiting the gracious
troubling of its waters? Is it a lifeless corpse, save only when popular
"consent" deigns to put breath into its nostrils? Besides, if the
consent of the people of the District be necessary, the consent of the
_whole_ people must be had--not that of a majority, however large.
Majorities, to be authoritative, must be _legal_--and a legal majority
without legislative power, right of representation, or even the
electoral franchise, would be an anomaly. In the District of Columbia,
such a thing as a majority in a legal sense is unknown to law. To talk
of the power of a majority, or the will of a majority there, is mere
mouthing. A majority? Then it has an authoritative will--and an organ to
make it known--and an executive to carry it into effect--Where are they?
We repeat it--if the consent of the people of the District be necessary,
the consent of _every one_ is necessary--and _universal_ consent will
come only with the Greek Kalends and a "perpetual motion." A single
individual might thus perpetuate slavery in defiance of the expressed
will of a whole people. The most common form of this fallacy is given by
Mr. Wise, of Virginia, in his speech, February 16, 1835, in which he
denied the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, unless
the inhabitants owning slaves petitioned for it!! Southern members of
Congress at the present session ring changes almost daily upon the same
fallacy. What! pray Congress _to use_ a power which it _has not_? "It is
required of a man according to what he _hath_," saith the Scripture. I
commend Mr. Wise to Paul for his ethics. Would that he had got his
_logic_ of him! If Congress does not possess the power, why taunt it
with its weakness, by asking its exercise? Why mock it by demanding
impossibilities? Petitioning, according to Mr. Wise, is, in matters of
legislation, omnipotence itself; the very source of all constitutional
power; for, _asking_ Congress to do what it _cannot_ do, gives it the
power--to pray the exercise of a power that is _not, creates_ it. A
beautiful theory! Let us work it both ways. If to petition for the
exercise of a power that is _not_, creates it--to petition against the
exercise of a power that _is_, annihilates it. As southern gentlemen are
partial to summary processes, pray, sirs, try the virtue of your own
recipe on "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever;" a better
subject for experiment and test of the prescription could not be had.
But if the petitions of the citizens of the District give Congress the
_right_ to abolish slavery, they impose the _duty_; if they confer
constitutional authority, they create constitutional obligation. If
Congress _may_ abolish because of an expression of their will, it _must_
abolish at the bidding of that will. If the people of the District are a
_source of power_ to Congress, their _expressed will_ has the force of a
constitutional provision, and has the same binding power upon the
National Legislature. To make Congress dependent on the District for
authority, is to make it a _subject_ of its authority, restraining the
exercise of its own discretion, and sinking it into a mere organ of the
District's will. We proceed to another objection.
"The southern states would not have ratified the constitution, if they
had supposed that it gave this power." It is a sufficient answer to this
objection, that the northern states would not have ratified it, if they
had supposed that it _withheld_ the power. If "suppositions" are to take
the place of the constitution--coming from both sides, they neutralize
each other. To argue a constitutional question by _guessing_ at the
"suppositions" that might have been made by the parties to it, would
find small favor in a court of law. But even a desperate shift is some
easement when sorely pushed. If this question is to be settled by
"suppositions," suppositions shall be forth coming, and that without
stint.
First, then, I affirm that the North ratified the constitution,
"supposing" that slavery had begun to wax old, and would speedily vanish
away, and especially that the abolition of the slave trade, which by the
constitution was to be surrendered to Congress after twenty years, would
cast it headlong.
Would the North have adopted the constitution, giving three-fifths of
the "slave property" a representation, if it has "supposed" that the
slaves would have increased from half a million to two millions and a
half by 1838--and that the census of 1840 would give to the slave
states, 30 representatives of "slave property?"
If they had "supposed" that this representation would have controlled
the legislation of the government, and carried against the North every
question vital to its interests, would Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin
Franklin, Roger Sherman, Elbridge Gerry, William Livingston, John
Langdon, and Rufus King have been such madmen, as to sign the
constitution, and the Northern States such suicides as to ratify it?
Every self-preserving instinct would have shrieked at such an infatuate
immolation. At the adoption of the United States constitution, slavery
was regarded as a fast waning system. This conviction was universal.
Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Grayson, St. George Tucker,
Madison, Wythe, Pendleton, Lee, Blair, Mason, Page, Parker, Edmund
Randolph, Iredell, Spaight, Ramsey, William Pinckney, Luther Martin,
James McHenry, Samuel Chase, and nearly all the illustrious names south
of the Potomac, proclaimed it before the sun, that the days of slavery
were beginning to be numbered. A reason urged in the convention that
formed the United States constitution, why the word slave should not be
used in it, was, that _when slavery should cease_ there might remain
upon the National Charter no record that it had even been. (See speech
of Mr. Burrill, of R.I., on the Missouri question.)
I now proceed to show by testimony, that at the date of the United
States constitution, and for several years before and after that period,
slavery was rapidly on the wane; that the American Revolution with the
great events preceding accompanying, and following it, had wrought an
immense and almost universal change in the public sentiment of the
nation of the subject, powerfully impelling it toward the entire
abolition of the system--and that it was the _general belief_ that
measures for its abolition throughout the Union, would be commenced by
the individual States generally before the lapse of many years. A great
mass of testimony establishing this position is at hand and might be
presented, but narrow space, little time, the patience of readers, and
the importance of speedy publication, counsel brevity. Let the following
proofs suffice. First, a few dates as points of observation.
The first _general_ Congress met in 1774. The revolutionary war
commenced in '75. Independence was declared in '76. The articles of
confederacy were adopted by the thirteen states in '78. Independence
acknowledged in '83. The convention for forming the U.S. constitution
was held in '87, the state conventions for considering it in '87, and
'88. The first Congress under the constitution in '89.
Dr. Rush, of Pennsylvania, one of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence, in a letter to the celebrated Granville Sharpe, May 1,
1773, says: "A spirit of humanity and religion begins to awaken in
several of the colonies in favor of the poor negroes. The clergy begin
to bear a public testimony against this violation of the laws of nature
and christianity. Great events have been brought about by small
beginnings. _Anthony Benezet stood alone a few years ago in opposing
negro slavery in Philadelphia_, and NOW THREE-FOURTHS OF THE PROVINCE AS
WELL AS OF THE CITY CRY OUT AGAINST IT."--(Stuart's Life of Sharpe, p.
21.)
In the preamble to the act prohibiting the importation of slaves into
Rhode Island, June 1774, is the following: "Whereas, the inhabitants of
America are generally engaged in the preservation of their own rights
and liberties, among which that of personal freedom must be considered
the greatest, and as those who are desirous of enjoying all the
advantages of liberty themselves, _should be willing to extend personal
liberty to others_, therefore," &c.
October 20, 1774, the Continental Congress passed the following: "We,
for ourselves and the inhabitants of the several colonies whom we
represent, _firmly agree and associate under the sacred ties of virtue,
honor, and love of our country_, as follows:
"2d Article. _We will neither import nor purchase any slaves imported_
after the first day of December next, after which time we will _wholly
discontinue_ the slave trade, and we will neither be concerned in it
ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or
manufactures to those who are concerned in it."
The Continental Congress, in 1775, setting forth the causes and the
necessity for taking up arms, say: "_If it were possible_ for men who
exercise their reason to believe that the Divine Author of our existence
intended a part of the human race _to hold an absolute property in_, and
_unbounded power over others_, marked out by infinite goodness and
wisdom as objects of a legal domination, never rightfully resistible,
however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these colonies might
at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence that
this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body."
In 1776, the celebrated Dr. Hopkins, then at the head of New England
divines, published a pamphlet entitled, "An Address to the owners of
negro slaves in the American colonies," from which the following is an
extract: "The conviction of the unjustifiableness of this practice
(slavery) has been _increasing_, and _greatly spreading of late_, and
_many_ who have had slaves, have found themselves so unable to justify
their own conduct in holding them in bondage, as to be induced to _set
them at liberty_. May this conviction soon reach every owner of slaves
in _North America!_ Slavery is, _in every instance_, wrong, unrighteous,
and oppressive--a very great and crying sin--_there being nothing of the
kind equal to it on the face of the earth._"
The same year the American Congress issued a solemn MANIFESTO to the
world. These were its first words: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that _all_ men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." _Once_, these were words
of power; _now_, "a rhetorical flourish."
The celebrated Patrick Henry of Virginia, in a letter, of Jan. 18, 1773,
to Robert Pleasants, afterwards president of the Virginia Abolition
Society, says: "Believe me, I shall honor the Quakers for their noble
efforts to abolish slavery. It is a debt we owe to the purity of our
religion to show that it is at variance with that law that warrants
slavery. I exhort you to persevere in so worthy a resolution."
In 1779, the Continental Congress ordered a pamphlet to be published,
entitled, "Observations on the American Revolution," from which the
following is an extract: "The great principle (of government) is and
ever will remain in force, _that men are by nature free_; as accountable
to him that made them, they must be so; and so long as we have any idea
of divine _justice_, we must associate that of _human freedom_. Whether
men can part with their liberty, is among the questions which have
exercised the ablest writers; but it is _conceded on all hands, that the
right to be free_ CAN NEVER BE ALIENATED--still less is it practicable
for one generation to mortgage the privileges of another."
Extract from the Pennsylvania act for the Abolition of Slavery, passed
March 1, 1780: * * * "We conceive that it is our duty, and we
rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to
others which has been extended to us. Weaned by a long course of
experience from those narrow prejudices and partialities we have
imbibed, we find our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence
towards men of all conditions and nations: * * * Therefore be it
enacted, that no child born hereafter be a slave," &c.
Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, written just before the close of
the Revolutionary War, says: "I think a change already perceptible since
the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is
abating, that of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition
mollifying, _the way I hope preparing under the auspices of heaven_, FOR
A TOTAL EMANCIPATION, and that this is disposed, in the order of events,
to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their
extirpation."
In a letter to Dr. Price, of London, who had just published a pamphlet
in favor of the abolition of slavery, Mr. Jefferson, then Minister at
Paris, (August 7, 1785,) says: "From the mouth to the head of the
Chesapeake, _the bulk of the people will approve of your pamphlet in
theory_, and it will find a respectable minority ready to _adopt it in
practice_--a minority which, for weight and worth of character,
_preponderates against the greater number_." Speaking of Virginia, he
says: "This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the
interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and
oppression,--a conflict in which THE SACRED SIDE IS GAINING DAILY
RECRUITS. Be not, therefore discouraged--what you have written will do a
_great deal of good_; and could you still trouble yourself with our
welfare, no man is more able to give aid to the laboring side. The
College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, since the remodelling of
its plan, is the place where are collected together all the young men of
Virginia, under preparation for public life. They are there under the
direction (most of them) of a Mr. Wythe, one of the most virtuous of
characters, and _whose sentiments on the subject of slavery are
unequivocal_. I am satisfied, if you could resolve to address an
exhortation to those young men with all the eloquence of which you are
master that _its influence on the future decision of this important
question would be great, perhaps decisive_. Thus, you see, that so far
from thinking you have cause to repent of what you have done, _I wish
you to do more, and wish it on an assurance of its
effect_."--Jefferson's Posthumous Works, vol. 1, p. 268.
In 1786, John jay, afterward Chief Justice of the United States, drafted
and signed a petition to the Legislature of New York, on the subject of
slavery, beginning with these words:
"Your memorialists being deeply affected by the situation of those, who,
although FREE BY THE LAWS OF GOD, are held in slavery by the laws of the
State," &c.
This memorial bore also the signature of the celebrated Alexander
Hamilton; Robert R. Livingston, afterward Secretary of Foreign Affairs
of the United States, and Chancellor of the State of New York; James
Duane, Mayor of the City of New York, and many others of the most
eminent individuals in the State.
In the preamble of an instrument, by which Mr. Jay emancipated a slave
in 1784, is the following passage:
"Whereas, the children of men are by nature equally free, and cannot,
without injustice, be either reduced to or HELD in slavery."
In his letter while Minister at Spain, in 1786, he says, speaking of the
abolition of slavery: "Till America comes into this measure, her prayers
to heaven will be IMPIOUS. This is a strong expression, but it is just.
I believe God governs the world; and I believe it to be a maxim in his,
as in our court, that those who ask for equity _ought to do it_."
In 1785, the New York Manumission Society was formed. John Jay was
chosen its first President, and held the office five years. Alexander
Hamilton was its second President, and after holding the office one
year, resigned upon his removal to Philadelphia as Secretary of the
United States' Treasury. In 1787, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society was
formed. Benjamin Franklin, warm from the discussions of the convention
that formed the United States constitution, was chosen President, and
Benjamin Rush, Secretary--both signers of the Declaration of
Independence. In 1789, the Maryland Abolition Society was formed. Among
its officers were Samuel Chace, Judge of the United States Supreme
Court, and Luther Martin, a member of the convention that formed the
United States constitution. In 1790, the Connecticut Abolition Society
was formed. The first President was Rev. Dr. Stiles, President of Yale
College, and the Secretary, Simeon Baldwin, (the late Judge Baldwin of
New Haven.) In 1791, this Society sent a memorial to Congress, from
which the following is an extract:
"From a sober conviction of the unrighteousness of slavery, your
petitioners have long beheld, with grief, our fellow men doomed to
perpetual bondage, in a country which boasts of her freedom. Your
petitioners are fully of opinion, that calm reflection will at last
convince the world, that the whole system of African slavery is unjust
in its nature--impolitic in its principles--and, in its consequences,
ruinous to the industry and enterprise of the citizens of these States.
From a conviction of these truths, your petitioners were led, by
motives, we conceive, of general philanthropy, to associate ourselves
for the protection and assistance of this unfortunate part of our fellow
men; and, though this Society has been _lately_ established, it has now
become _generally extensive_ through this state, and, we fully believe,
_embraces, on this subject, the sentiments of a large majority of its
citizens_."
The same year the Virginia Abolition Society was formed. This Society,
and the Maryland Society, had auxiliaries in different parts of those
States. Both societies sent up memorials to Congress. The memorial of
the Virginia Society is headed--"The memorial of the _Virginia Society_,
for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, &c." The following is an
extract:
"Your memorialists, fully believing that 'righteousness exalteth a
nation,' and that slavery is not only an odious degradation, but an
_outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of human
nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the gospel_, which
breathes 'peace on earth, good will to men;' lament that a practice, so
inconsistent with true policy and the inalienable rights of men, should
subsist in so enlightened an age, and among a people professing, that
all mankind are, by nature, equally entitled to freedom."
About the same time a Society was formed in New-Jersey. It had an acting
committee of five members in each county in the State. The following is
an extract from the preamble to its constitution:
"It is our boast, that we live under a government founded on principles
of justice and reason, wherein _life, liberty_, and the _pursuit of
happiness_, are recognised as the universal rights of men; and whilst we
are anxious to preserve these rights to ourselves, and transmit them
inviolate, to our posterity, we _abhor that inconsistent, illiberal, and
interested policy, which withholds those rights, from an unfortunate and
degraded class of our fellow creatures_."
Among other distinguished individuals who were efficient officers of
these Abolition Societies, and delegates from their respective state
societies, at the annual meetings of the American convention for
promoting the abolition of slavery, were Hon. Uriah Tracy, United
States' Senator, from Connecticut; Hon. Zephaniah Swift, Chief Justice
of the same State; Hon. Cesar A. Rodney, Attorney General of the United
States; Hon. James A. Bayard, United States Senator, from Delaware;
Governor Bloomfield, of New Jersey; Hon. Wm. Rawle, the late venerable
head of the Philadelphia bar; Dr. Casper Wistar, of Philadelphia;
Messrs. Foster and Tillinghast, of Rhode Island; Messrs. Ridgeley,
Buchanan, and Wilkinson, of Maryland; and Messrs. Pleasants, McLean, and
Anthony, of Virginia.
In July, 1787, the old Congress passed the celebrated ordinance,
abolishing slavery in the northwestern territory, and declaring that it
should never thereafter exist there. This ordinance was passed while the
convention that formed the United States constitution was in session. At
the first session of Congress under the constitution, this ordinance was
ratified by a special act. Washington, fresh from the discussions of the
convention, in which _more than forty days had been spent in adjusting
the question of slavery, gave it his approval._ The act passed with only
one dissenting voice, (that of Mr. Yates, of New-York,) _the South
equally with the North avowing the fitness and expediency of the measure
of general considerations, and indicating thus early the line of
national policy, to be pursued by the United States Government on the
subject of slavery_.
In the debates in the North Carolina Convention, Mr. Iredell, afterward
a Judge of the United States' Supreme Court, said, "_When the entire
abolition of slavery takes place_, it will be an event which must be
pleasing to every generous mind and every friend of human nature." Mr.
Galloway said, "I wish to see this abominable trade put an end to. I
apprehend the clause (touching the slave trade) means to _bring forward
manumission."_ Luther Martin, of Md., a member of the convention that
formed the United States constitution, said, "We ought to authorize the
General Government to make such regulations as shall be thought most
advantageous for _the gradual abolition of slavery,_ and the
_emancipation of the slaves_ which are already in the States." Judge
Wilson, of Pennsylvania, one of the framers of the constitution, said,
in the Pennsylvania convention of '87, Deb. Pa. Con. p. 303, 156: "I
consider this (the clause relative to the slave trade) as laying the
foundation for _banishing slavery out of this country_. It will produce
the same kind of gradual change which was produced in Pennsylvania; the
new states which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress
in this particular, and _slaves will never be introduced_ among them. It
presents us with the pleasing prospect that the rights of mankind will
be acknowledged and established _throughout the Union_. Yet the lapse of
a few years, and Congress will have power to _exterminate slavery_
within our borders." In the Virginia convention of '87, Mr. Mason,
author of the Virginia constitution, said, "The augmentation of slaves
weakens the States, and such a trade is _diabolical_ in itself, and
disgraceful to mankind. As much as I value a union of all the states, I
would not admit the southern states, (i.e., South Carolina and Georgia,)
into the union, _unless they agree to a discontinuance of this
disgraceful trade._" Mr. Tyler opposed with great power the clause
prohibiting the abolition of the slave trade till 1808, and said, "My
earnest desire is, that it shall he handed down to posterity that I
oppose this wicked clause." Mr. Johnson said, "The principle of
emancipation _has begun since the revolution. Let us do what we will, it
will come round._"--[_Deb. Va. Con._ p. 463.] Patrick Henry, arguing the
power of Congress under the United States constitution to abolish
slavery in the States, said, in the same convention, "Another thing will
contribute to bring this event (the abolition of slavery) about. Slavery
is _detested._ We feel its fatal effects; we deplore it with all the
pity of humanity."--[_Deb. Va. Con._ p. 431.] In the Mass. Con. of '88,
Judge Dawes said, "Although slavery is not smitten by an apoplexy, yet
_it has received a mortal wound_, and will die of consumption."--[_Deb.
Mass. Con._ p. 60.] General Heath said that, "Slavery was confined to
the States _now existing, it could not be extended_. By their ordinance,
Congress had declared that the new States should be republican States,
and _have no slavery._"--p. 147.
In the debate in the first Congress, February 11th and 12th, 1789, on
the petitions of the Society of Friends, and the Pennsylvania Abolition
Society, Mr. Parker, of Virginia, said, "I hope, Mr. Speaker, the
petition of these respectable people will be attended to _with all the
readiness the importance of its object demands_; and I cannot help
expressing the pleasure I feel in finding _so considerable a part_ of
the community attending to matters of such a momentous concern to the
_future prosperity_ and happiness of the people of America. I think it
my duty, as a citizen of the Union, _to espouse their cause_."
Mr. Page, of Virginia, (afterward Governor)--"Was _in favor_ of the
commitment; he hoped that the designs of the respectable memorialists
would not be stopped at the threshold, in order to preclude a fair
discussion of the prayer of the memorial. With respect to the alarm that
was apprehended, he conjectured there was none; but there might be just
cause, if the memorial was _not_ taken into consideration. He placed
himself in the case of a slave, and said, that on hearing that Congress
had refused to listen to the decent suggestions of a respectable part of
the community, he should infer, that the general government, _from which
was expected great good would result to_ EVERY CLASS _of citizens_, had
shut their ears against the voice of humanity, and he should despair of
any alleviation of the miseries he and his posterity had in prospect; if
any thing could induce him to rebel, it must be a stroke like this,
impressing on his mind all the horrors of despair. But if he was told,
that application was made in his behalf, and that Congress were willing
to hear what could be urged in favor of discouraging the practice of
importing his fellow-wretches, he would trust in their justice and
humanity, and _wait the decision patiently_."
Mr. Scott, of Pennsylvania: "I cannot, for my part, conceive how any
person _can be said to acquire a property in another_; but enough of
those who reduce men to the state of transferable goods, or use them
like beasts of burden, who deliver them up as the property or patrimony
of another man. Let us argue on principles countenanced by reason, and
becoming humanity. _I do not know how far I might go, if I was one of
the judges of the United States, and those people were to come before me
and claim their emancipation, but I am sure I would go as far as I
could_."
Mr. Burke, of South Carolina, said, "He _saw the disposition of the
House_, and he feared it would be referred to a committee, maugre all
their opposition."
Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, said, "That on entering into this
government, they (South Carolina and Georgia) apprehended that the other
states, not knowing the necessity the citizens of the Southern states
were under to hold this species of property, _would, from motives of
humanity and benevolence, be led to vote for a general emancipation_;
and had they not seen, that the constitution provided against the effect
of such a disposition, I may be bold to say, they never would have
adopted it."
In the debate, at the same session, May 13th, 1789, on the petition of
the Society of Friends respecting the slave trade, Mr. Parker, of
Virginia, said, "He hoped Congress would do all that lay in their power
to _restore to human nature its inherent privileges_, and if possible,
wipe off the stigma, which America labored under. The inconsistency in
our principles, with which we are justly charged _should be done away_,
that we may show by our actions the pure beneficence of the doctrine we
held out to the world in our Declaration of Independence."
Mr. Jackson of Georgia, said, "IT WAS THE FASHION OF THE DAY TO FAVOR
THE LIBERTY OF THE SLAVES. * * * * * What is to be done for
compensation? Will Virginia set all her negroes free? Will they give up
the money they have cost them; and to whom? _When this practice comes to
be tried, then the sound of liberty will lose those charms which make it
grateful to the ravished ear_."
Mr. Madison of Virginia,--"The dictates of humanity, the principles of
the people, the national safety and happiness, and prudent policy,
require it of us. The constitution has particularly called our attention
to it. * * * * * I conceive the constitution in this particular
was formed in order that the Government, whilst it was restrained from
having a total prohibition, might be able to _give some testimony of the
sense of America_, with respect to the African trade. * * * * * It
is to be hoped, that by expressing a national disapprobation of this
trade, we may destroy it, and save ourselves from reproaches, AND OUR
POSTERITY THE IMBECILITY EVER ATTENDANT ON A COUNTRY FILLED WITH SLAVES.
I do not wish to say any thing harsh to the hearing of gentlemen who
entertain different sentiments from me, or different sentiments from
those I represent. But if there is any one point in which it is clearly
the policy of this nation, so far as we constitutionally can, _to vary
the practice_ obtaining under some of the state governments, it is this.
But it is _certain_ a majority of the states are _opposed to this
practice_."--[Cong. Reg. v. 1, p. 308-12.]
A writer in the "Gazette of the United States," Feb. 20th, 1790, (then
the government paper,) who opposes the abolition of slavery, and avows
himself a _slaveholder_, says, "I have seen in the papers accounts of
_large associations_, and applications to Government for _the abolition
of slavery_. Religion, humanity, and the generosity natural to a free
people, are the _noble principles which dictate those measures_. SUCH
MOTIVES COMMAND RESPECT, AND ARE ABOVE ANY EULOGIUM WORDS CAN BESTOW."
It is well known, that in the convention that formed the constitution of
Kentucky in 1780, the effort to prohibit slavery was nearly successful.
The writer has frequently heard it asserted in Kentucky, and has had it
from some who were members of that convention, that a decided majority
of that body would have voted for its exclusion but for the great
efforts and influence of two large slaveholders--men of commanding
talents and sway--Messrs. Breckenridge and Nicholas. The following
extract from a speech made in that convention by a member of it, Mr.
Rice, a native Virginian, is a specimen of the _free discussion_ that
prevailed on that "delicate subject." Said Mr. Rice: "I do a man greater
injury, when I deprive him of his liberty, than when I deprive him of
his property. It is vain for me to plead that I have the sanction of
law; for this makes the injury the greater--it arms the community
against him, and makes his case desperate. The owners of such slaves
then are _licensed robbers_, and not the just proprietors of what they
claim. Freeing them is not depriving them of property, but _restoring it
to the right owner_. In America, a slave is a standing monument of the
tyranny and inconsistency of human governments. The master is the enemy
of the slave; he _has made open war upon him_, AND IS DAILY CARRYING IT
ON in unremitted efforts. Can any one imagine, then, that the slave is
indebted to his master, and _bound to serve him_? Whence can the
obligation arise? What is it founded upon? What is my duty to an enemy
that is carrying on war against me? I do not deny, but in some
circumstances, it is the duty of the slave to serve; but it is a duty he
owes himself, and not his master."
President Edwards, the younger, said, in a sermon preached before the
Connecticut Abolition Society, Sept. 15, 1791: "Thirty years ago,
scarcely a man in this country thought either the slave trade or the
slavery of negroes to be wrong; but now how many and able advocates in
private life, in our legislatures, in Congress, have appeared, and have
openly and irrefragably pleaded the rights of humanity in this as well
as other instances? And if we judge of the future by the past, _within
fifty years from this time, it will be as shameful for a man to hold a
negro slave, as to be guilty of common robbery or theft_."
In 1794, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church adopted its
"Scripture proofs," notes, comments, &c. Among these was the following:
"1 Tim. i. 10. The law is made for manstealers. This crime among
the Jews exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment.
Exodus xxi. 16. And the apostle here classes them with _sinners
of the first rank_. The word he uses, in its original import
comprehends all who are concerned in bringing any of the human
race into slavery, or in _retaining_ them in it. _Stealers of
men_ are all those who bring off slaves or freemen, and _keep_,
sell, or buy them."
In 1794, Dr. Rush declared: "Domestic slavery is repugnant to the
principles of Christianity. It prostrates every benevolent and just
principle of action in the human heart. It is rebellion against the
authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and
efficacy of the death of a common Savior. It is an usurpation of the
prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe, who has solemnly
claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men."
In 1795, Mr. Fiske, then an officer of Dartmouth College, afterward a
Judge in Tennessee, said, in an oration published that year, speaking of
slaves: "I steadfastly maintain, that we must bring them to _an equal
standing, in point of privileges, with the whites_! They must enjoy all
the rights belonging to human nature."
When the petition on the abolition of the slave trade was under
discussion in the Congress of '89, Mr. Brown. of North Carolina, said,
"The emancipation of the slaves _will be effected_ in time; it ought to
be a gradual business, but he hoped that Congress would not
_precipitate_ it to the great injury of the southern States." Mr.
Hartley, of Pennsylvania said, in the sane debate, "_He was not a little
surprised to hear the cause of slavery advocated in that house._"
WASHINGTON, in a letter to Sir John Sinclair, says, "There are, in
Pennsylvania, laws for the gradual abolition of slavery which neither
Maryland nor Virginia have at present, but which _nothing is more
certain_ than that they _must have_, and at a period NOT REMOTE." In
1782, Virginia passed her celebrated manumission act. Within nine years
from that time nearly eleven thousand slaves were voluntarily
emancipated by their masters. Judge Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery,"
p. 72. In 1787, Maryland passed an act legalizing manumission. Mr.
Dorsey, of Maryland, in a speech in Congress, December 27th, 1826,
speaking of manumissions under that act, said, that "_The progress of
emancipation was astonishing_, the State became crowded with a free
black population."
The celebrated William Pinkney, in a speech before the Maryland House of
Delegates, in 1789, on the emancipation of slaves, said, "Sir, by the
eternal principles of natural justice, _no master in the state has a
right to hold his slave in bondage for a single hour_. I would as soon
believe the incoherent tale of a schoolboy, who should tell me he had
been frightened by a ghost, as that the grant of this permission (to
emancipate) ought in any degree to alarm us. Are we apprehensive that
these men will become more dangerous by becoming freemen? Are we
alarmed, lest by being admitted into the enjoyment of civil rights, they
will be inspired with a deadly enmity against the rights of others?
Strange, unaccountable paradox! How much more rational would it be, to
argue that the natural enemy of the privileges of a freeman, is he who
is robbed of them himself! Dishonorable to the species is the idea that
they would ever prove injurious to our interests--released from the
shackles of slavery, by the justice of government and the bounty of
individuals--the want of fidelity and attachment would be next to
impossible."
Hon. James Campbell, in an address before the Pennsylvania Society of
the Cincinnati, July 4, 1787, said, "Our separation from Great Britain
has extended the empire of _humanity_. The time _is not far distant_
when our sister states, in imitation of our example, _shall turn their
vassals into freemen._" The Convention that formed the United States'
constitution being then in session, attended at the delivery of this
oration with General Washington at their head.
A Baltimore paper of September 8th, 1780, contains the following notice
of Major General Gates: "A few days ago passed through this town the
Hon. General Gates and lady. The General, previous to leaving Virginia,
summoned his numerous family of slaves about him, and amidst their tears
of affection and gratitude, gave them their FREEDOM."
In 1791 the university of William and Mary, in Virginia, conferred upon
Granville Sharpe the degree of Doctor of Laws. Sharpe was at that time
the acknowledged head of British abolitionists. His indefatigable
exertions, prosecuted for years in the case of Somerset, procured that
memorable decision in the Court of King's Bench, which settled the
principle that no slave could be held in England. He was most
uncompromising in his opposition to slavery, and for twenty years
previous he had spoken, written, and accomplished more against it than
any man living.
In the "Memoirs of the Revolutionary War in the Southern Department," by
Gen. Lee, of Va., Commandant of the Partizan Legion, is the following:
"The Constitution of the United States, adopted lately with so much
difficulty, has effectually provided against this evil, (by importation)
after a few years. It is much to be lamented that having done so much in
this way, _a provision had not been made for the gradual abolition of
slavery_."--p. 233, 4.
Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, Judge of the Supreme Court of that state, and
professor of law in the University of William and Mary, addressed a
letter to the General Assembly of that state, in 1796, urging the
abolition of slavery; from which the following is an extract. Speaking
of the slaves in Virginia, he says: "Should we not, at the time of the
revolution, have loosed their chains and broken their fetters; or if the
difficulties and dangers of such an experiment prohibited the attempt,
during the convulsions of a revolution, is it not our duty, _to embrace
the first moment_ of constitutional health and vigor to effectuate so
desirable an object, and to remove from us a stigma with which our
enemies will never fail to upbraid us, nor consciences to reproach us?"
Mr. Faulkner, in a speech before the Virginia Legislature, Jan. 20,
1832, said:--"The idea of a gradual emancipation and removal of the
slaves from this commonwealth, is coeval with the declaration of our
independence from the British yoke. It sprung into existence during the
first session of the General Assembly, subsequent to the formation of
your republican government. When Virginia stood sustained in her
legislation by the pure and philosophic intellect of Pendleton--by the
patriotism of Mason and Lee--by the searching vigor and sagacity of
Wythe, and by the all-embracing, all-comprehensive genius of Thomas
Jefferson! Sir, it was a committee composed of those five illustrious
men, who, in 1777, submitted to the general assembly of this state, then
in session, _a plan for the gradual emancipation of the slaves of this
commonwealth_."
Hon. Benjamin Watkins Leigh, late United States' senator from Virginia,
in his letters to the people of Virginia, in 1832, signed Appomattox, p.
43, says: "I thought, till very lately, that it was known to every body
that during the Revolution, _and for many years after, the abolition of
slavery was a favorite topic with many of our ablest statesmen_, who
entertained, with respect, all the schemes which wisdom or ingenuity
could suggest for accomplishing the object. Mr. Wythe, to the day of his
death, _was for a simple abolition, considering the objection to color
as founded in prejudice_. By degrees, all projects of the kind were
abandoned. Mr. Jefferson _retained_ his opinion, and now we have these
projects revived."
Governor Barbour, of Virginia, in his speech in the U.S. Senate, on the
Missouri question, Jan. 1820, said:--"We are asked why has Virginia
_changed her policy_ in reference to slavery? That the sentiments _of
our most distinguished men_, for thirty years _entirely corresponded_
with the course which the friends of the restriction (of slavery in
Missouri) now advocated; and that the Virginia delegation, one of which
was the late President of the United Stance, voted for the restriction,
(of slavery) in the northwestern territory, and that Mr. Jefferson has
delineated a gloomy picture of the baneful effects of slavery. When it
is recollected that the Notes of Mr. Jefferson were written during the
progress of the revolution, it is no matter of surprise that the writer
should have imbibed a large portion of that enthusiasm which such an
occasion was so well calculated to produce. As to the consent of the
Virginia delegation to the restriction in question, whether the result
of a disposition to restrain the slave trade indirectly, or the
influence of that _enthusiasm_ to which I have just alluded, * * * *
it is not now important to decide. We have witnessed its effects. The
liberality of Virginia, or, as the result may prove, her folly, which
submitted to, or, if you will, PROPOSED _this measure_, (abolition of
slavery in the N.W. territory) has eventuated in effects which speak a
monitory lesson. _How is the representation from this quarter on the
present question?_"
Mr. Imlay, in his early history of Kentucky, p. 185, says: "We have
disgraced the fair face of humanity, and trampled upon the sacred
privileges of man, at the very moment that we were exclaiming against
the tyranny of your (the English) ministry. But in contending for the
birthright of freedom, we have learned to feel _for the bondage of
others_, and in the libations we offer to the goddess of liberty, we
_contemplate an emancipation of the slaves of this country_, as
honorable to themselves as it will be glorious to us."
In the debate in Congress, Jan. 20, 1806, on Mr. Sloan's motion to lay a
tax on the importation of slaves, Mr. Clark of Va. said: "He was no
advocate for a system of slavery." Mr. Marion, of S. Carolina, said: "He
never had purchased, nor should he ever purchase a slave." Mr. Southard
said: "Not revenue, but an expression of the _national sentiment_ is the
principal object." Mr. Smilie--"I rejoice that the word (slave) is not
in the Constitution; its not being there does honor to the worthies who
would not suffer it to become a _part_ of it." Mr. Alston, of N.
Carolina--"In two years we shall have the power to prohibit the trade
altogether. Then this House will be UNANIMOUS. No one will object to our
exercising our full constitutional powers." National Intelligencer,
Jany. 24, 1806.
These witnesses need no vouchers to entitle them to credit--nor their
testimony comments to make it intelligible--their _names_ are their
_endorsers_ and their strong words their own interpreters. We wave all
comments. Our readers are of age. Whosoever hath ears to _hear_, let him
HEAR. And whosoever will not hear the fathers of the revolution, the
founders of the government, its chief magistrates, judges, legislators
and sages, who dared and periled all under the burdens, and in the heat
of the day that tried men's souls--then "neither will he be persuaded
though THEY rose from the dead."
Some of the points established by the testimony are--The universal
expectation that the _moral_ influence of Congress, of state
legislatures, of seminaries of learning, of churches, of the ministers
of religion, and of public sentiment widely embodied in abolition
societies, would be exerted against slavery, calling forth by argument
and appeal the moral sense of the nation, and creating a power of
opinion that would abolish the system throughout the union. In a word,
that free speech and a free press would be wielded against slavery
without ceasing and without restriction. Full well did the south know,
not only that the national government would probably legislate against
slavery wherever the constitution placed it within its reach, but she
knew also that Congress had already marked out the line of national
policy to be pursued on the subject--had committed itself before the
world to a course of action against slavery, wherever she could move
upon it without encountering a conflicting jurisdiction--that the nation
had established by solemn ordinance memorable precedent for subsequent
action, by abolishing slavery in the northwest territory, and by
declaring that it should never thenceforward exist there; and this too,
as soon as by cession of Virginia and other states, the territory came
under Congressional control. The south knew also that the sixth article
in the ordinance prohibiting slavery was first proposed by the largest
slaveholding state in the confederacy--that the chairman of the
committee that reported the ordinance was a slaveholder--that the
ordinance was enacted by Congress during the session of the convention
that formed the United States Constitution--that the provisions of the
ordinance were, both while in prospect, and when under discussion,
matters of universal notoriety and _approval_ with all parties, and when
finally passed, received the vote _of every member of Congress from each
of the slaveholding states_. The south also had every reason for
believing that the first Congress under the constitution would _ratify_
that ordinance--as it _did_ unanimously.
A crowd of reflections, suggest by the preceding testimony, press for
utterance. The right of petition ravished and trampled by its
constitutional guardians, and insult and defiance hurled in the faces of
the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE while calmly remonstrating _with their_ SERVANTS
for violence committed on the nation's charter and their own dearest
rights! Add to this "the right of peaceably assembling" violently
wrested--the rights of minorities, _rights_ no longer--free speech
struck dumb--free _men_ outlawed and murdered--free presses cast into
the streets and their fragments strewed with shoutings, or flourished in
triumph before the gaze of approving crowds as proud members of
prostrate law!
The spirit and power of our fathers, where are they? Their deep homage
always and every where rendered to FREE THOUGHT, with its _inseparable
signs--free speech and a free press_--their reverence for justice,
liberty, _rights_ and all-pervading law, where are they?
But we turn from these considerations--though the times on which we have
fallen, and those towards which we are borne with headlong haste, call
for their discussion as with the voices of departing life--and proceed
to topics relevant to the argument before us.
The seventh article of the amendments to the constitution is alleged to
withhold from Congress the power to abolish slavery in the District. "No
person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law." All the slaves in the District have been "deprived of
liberty" by legislative acts. Now, these legislative acts "depriving"
them "of liberty," were either "due process of law," or they were _not_.
If they _were_, then a legislative act, taking from the master that
"property" which is the identical "liberty" previously taken from the
slave, would be "due process of law" _also_, and of course a
_constitutional_ act; but if the legislative acts "depriving" them of
"liberty" were _not_ "due process of law," then the slaves were deprived
of liberty _unconstitutionally_, and these acts are _void_. In that case
the _constitution emancipates them_.
If the objector reply, by saying that the import of the phrase "due
process of law," is _judicial_ process solely, it is granted, and that
fact is our rejoinder; for no slave in the District _has_ been deprived
of his liberty by "a judicial process," or, in other words, by "due
process of law;" consequently, upon the objector's own admission, every
slave in the District has been deprived of liberty _unconstitutionally_,
and is therefore _free by the constitution_. This is asserted only of
the slaves under the "exclusive legislation" of Congress.
The last clause of the article under consideration is quoted for the
same purpose: "Nor shall private property be taken for public use
without just compensation." Each of the state constitutions has a clause
of similar purport. The abolition of slavery in the District by
Congress, would not, as we shall presently show, violate this clause
either directly or by implication. Granting for argument's sake, that
slaves are "private property," and that to emancipate them, would be to
"take private property" for "public use," the objector admits the power
of Congress to do _this_, provided it will do something _else_, that is,
_pay_ for them. Thus, instead of denying _the power_, the objector not
only admits, but _affirms_ it, as the ground of the inference that
compensation must accompany it. So far from disproving the existence of
_one_ power, the objector asserts the existence of _two_--one, the power
to take the slaves from their masters, the other, the power to take the
property of the United States to pay for them.
If Congress cannot constitutionally impair the right of private
property, or take it without compensation, it cannot constitutionally,
_legalize_ the perpetration of such acts, by _others_, nor _protect_
those who commit them. Does the power to rob a man of his earnings, rob
the earner of his _right_ to them? Who has a better right to the
_product_ than the producer?--to the _interest_, than the owner of the
_principal_?--to the hands and arms, than he from whose shoulders they
swing?--to the body and soul, than he whose they _are_? Congress not
only impairs but annihilates the right of private property, while it
withholds from the slaves of the District their title to _themselves_.
What! Congress powerless to protect a man's right to _himself_, when it
can make inviolable the right to a _dog_? But, waving this, I deny that
the abolition of slavery in the District would violate this clause. What
does the clause prohibit? The "taking" of "private property" for "public
use." Suppose Congress should emancipate the slaves in the District,
what would it "_take_?" Nothing. What would it _hold_? Nothing. What
would it put to "public use?" Nothing. Instead of _taking_ "private
property," Congress, by abolishing slavery, would say "private property
shall not _be_ taken; and those who have been robbed of it already,
shall be kept out of it no longer; and since every man's right to his
own body is _paramount_, he shall be protected in it." True, Congress
may not arbitrarily take property, _as_ property, from one man and give
it to another--and in the abolition of slavery no such thing is done. A
legislative act changes the _condition_ of the slave--makes him his own
_proprietor_ instead of the property of another. It determines a
question of _original right_ between two classes of persons--doing an
act of justice to one, and restraining the other from acts of injustice;
or, in other words, preventing one from robbing the other, by granting
to the injured party the protection of just and equitable laws.
Congress, by an act of abolition, would change the condition of seven
thousand "persons" in the District, but would "take" nothing. To
construe this provision so as to enable the citizens of the District to
hold as property, and in perpetuity, whatever they please, or to hold it
as property in all circumstances--all necessity, public welfare, and the
will and power of the government to the contrary notwithstanding--is a
total perversion of its whole _intent_. The _design_ of the provision,
was to throw up a barrier against Governmental aggrandizement. The right
to "take property" for _State uses_ is one thing;--the right so to
adjust the _tenures_ by which property is held, that _each may have his
own secured to him_, is another thing, and clearly within the scope of
legislation. Besides, if Congress were to "take" the slaves in the
District, it would be _adopting_, not abolishing slavery--becoming a
slaveholder itself, instead of requiring others to be such no longer.
The clause in question, prohibits the "taking" of individual property
for public uses, to be employed or disposed of _as_ property for
governmental purposes. Congress, by abolishing slavery in the District,
would do no such thing. It would merely change the _condition_ of that
which has been recognised as a qualified property by congressional acts,
though previously declared "persons" by the constitution. More than this
is done continually by Congress and every other Legislature. Property
the most absolute and unqualified, is annihilated by legislative acts.
The embargo and non-intercourse act, prostrated at a stroke, a forest of
shipping, and sank millions of capital. To say nothing of the power of
Congress to take hundreds of millions from the people by direct
taxation, who doubts its power to abolish at once the whole tariff
system, change the seat of Government, arrest the progress of national
works, prohibit any branch of commerce with the Indian tribes or with
foreign nations, change the locality of forts, arsenals, magazines, dock
yards, &c., to abolish the Post Office system, the privilege of patents
and copyrights, &c. By such acts Congress might, in the exercise of its
acknowledged powers, annihilate property to an incalculable amount, and
that without becoming liable to claims for compensation.
Finally, this clause prohibits the taking for public use of
"_property_." The constitution of the United States does not recognise
slaves as "PROPERTY" any where, and it does not recognise them in _any
sense_ in the District of Columbia. All allusions to them in the
constitution recognise them as "persons." Every reference to them points
_solely_ to the element of _personality_; and thus, by the strongest
implication, declares that the constitution _knows_ them only as
"persons," and _will_ not recognise them in any other light. If they
escape into free States, the constitution authorizes their being taken
back. But how? Not as the property of an "owner," but as "persons;" and
the peculiarity of the expression is a marked recognition of their
_personality_--a refusal to recognise them as chattels--"persons _held_
to service." Are _oxen "held_ to service?" That can be affirmed only of
_persons_. Again, slaves give political power as "persons." The
constitution, in settling the principle of representation, requires
their enumeration in the census. How? As property? Then why not include
race horses and game cocks? Slaves, like other inhabitants, are
enumerated as "persons." So by the constitution, the government was
pledged to non-interference with "the migration or importation of such
_persons_" as the States might think proper to admit until 1808, and
authorized the laying of a tax on each "person" so admitted. Further,
slaves are recognized as "persons" by the exaction of their _allegiance_
to the government. For offences against the government slaves are tried
as _persons_; as persons they are entitled to counsel for their defence,
to the rules of evidence, and to "due process of the law," and as
_persons_ they are punished. True, they are loaded with cruel
disabilities in courts of law, such as greatly obstruct and often
inevitably defeat the ends of justice, yet they are still recognised as
_persons_. Even in the legislation of Congress, and in the diplomacy of
the general government, notwithstanding the frequent and wide departures
from the integrity of the constitution on this subject, slaves are not
recognised as _property_ without qualification. Congress has always
refused to grant compensation for slaves killed or taken by the enemy,
even when these slaves had been impressed into the United States'
service. In half a score of cases since the last war, Congress has
rejected such applications for compensation. Besides, both in
Congressional acts, and in our national diplomacy, slaves and property
are not used as convertible terms. When mentioned in treaties and state
papers it is in such a way as to distinguish them from mere property,
and generally by a recognition of their _personality_. In the invariable
recognition of slaves as _persons_, the United States' constitution
caught the mantle of the glorious Declaration, and most worthily wears
it.--It recognizes all human beings as "men," "persons," and thus as
"equals." In the original draft of the Declaration, as it came from the
head of Jefferson, it is alleged that Great Britain had "waged a cruel
war against _human_ nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of
life and liberty in the persons of a distant people, carrying them into
slavery, * * determined to keep up a market where MEN should be bought
and sold,"--thus disdaining to make the charter of freedom a warrant for
the arrest of _men_, that they might be shorn both of liberty and
humanity.
The celebrated Roger Sherman, one of the committee of five appointed to
draft the Declaration of Independence, and also a member of the
Convention that formed the United States' Constitution, said, in the
first Congress after its adoption: "The constitution _does not consider
these persons_, (slaves,) _as a species of property_."--[Lloyd's Cong.
Reg. v. 1, p. 313.] That the United States' Constitution does not make
slaves "property," is shown in the fact, that no person, either as a
citizen of the United States, or by having his domicile within the
United States' government, can hold slaves. He can hold them only by
deriving his power from _state_ laws, or from the law of Congress, if he
hold slaves within the District. But no person resident within the
United States' jurisdiction, and _not_ within the District, nor within a
state whose laws support slavery, nor "held to service" under the laws
of such state or district, having escaped therefrom, _can be held as a
slave_.
Men can hold _property_ under the United States' government though
residing beyond the bounds of any state, district, or territory. An
inhabitant of the Wisconsin Territory can hold property there under the
laws of the United States, but he cannot hold _slaves_ there under the
United States' laws, nor by virtue of the United States' Constitution,
nor upon the ground of his United States citizenship, nor by having his
domicile within the United States jurisdiction. The constitution no
where recognizes the right to "slave property," _but merely the fact
that the states have jurisdiction each in its own limits, and that there
are certain "persons" within their jurisdictions "held to service" by
their own laws_.
Finally, in the clause under consideration, "private property" is not to
be taken "without _just_ compensation." "JUST!" If justice is to be
appealed to in determining the amount of compensation, let her determine
the _grounds_ also. If it be her province to say _how much_ compensation
is "just," it is hers to say whether _any_ is "just,"--whether the slave
is "just" property _at all_, rather than a "_person_." Then, if justice
adjudges the slave to be "private property," it adjudges him to be _his
own_ property, since the right to one's _self_ is the first right--the
source of all others--the original stock by which they are
accumulated--the principal, of which they are the interest. And since
the slave's "private property" has been "taken," and since
"compensation" is impossible--there being no _equivalent_ for one's
self--the least that can be done is to restore to him his original
private property.
Having shown that in abolishing slavery, "property" would not be "taken
for public use," it may be added that, in those states where slavery has
been abolished by law, no claim for compensation has been allowed.
Indeed the manifest absurdity of demanding it, seems to have quite
forestalled the _setting up_ of such a claim.
The abolition of slavery in the District, instead of being a legislative
anomaly, would proceed upon the principles of every day legislation. It
has been shown already, that the United States' Constitution does not
recognize slaves as "property." Yet ordinary legislation is full of
precedents, showing that even _absolute_ property is in many respects
wholly subject to legislation. The repeal of the law of entailments--all
those acts that control the alienation of property, its disposal by
will, its passing to heirs by descent, with the question, who shall be
heirs, and what shall be the rule of distribution among them, or whether
property shall be transmitted at all by descent, rather than escheat to
the state--these, with statutes of limitation, and various other classes
of legislative acts, serve to illustrate the acknowledged scope of the
law-making power, even where property _is in every sense absolute_.
Persons whose property is thus affected by public laws, receive from the
government no compensation for their losses, unless the state has been
put into possession of the property taken from them.
The preamble of the United States' Constitution declares it to be a
fundamental object of the organization of the government "to ESTABLISH
JUSTICE." Has Congress _no power_ to do that for which it was made the
_depository of power_? CANNOT the United States Government fulfil the
purpose _for which it was brought into being_?
To abolish slavery, is to take from no rightful owner his property; but
to "_establish justice_" between two parties. To emancipate the slave,
is to "_establish justice_" between him and his master--to throw around
the person, character, conscience, liberty, and domestic relations of
the one, _the same law_ that secures and blesses the other. In other
words, to prevent by _legal restraints_ one class of men from seizing
upon another class, and robbing them at pleasure of their earnings,
their time, their liberty, their kindred, and the very use and ownership
of their own persons. Finally, to abolish slavery is to proclaim and
_enact_ that innocence and helplessness--now _free plunder_--are
entitled to _legal protection_; and that power, avarice, and lust, shall
no longer gorge upon their spoils under the license, and by the
ministrations of _law_! Congress, by possessing "exclusive legislation
in all cases whatsoever," has a _general protective power_ for ALL the
inhabitants of the District. If it has no power to protect _one_ man, it
has none to protect another--none to protect _any_--and if it _can_
protect _one_ man and is _bound_ to protect him, it _can_ protect
_every_ man--all men--and is _bound_ to do it. All admit the power of
Congress to protect the masters in the District against their slaves.
What part of the constitution gives the power? The clause so often
quoted,--"power of legislation in all cases whatsoever," equally in the
"_case_" of defending the blacks against the whites, as in that of
defending the whites against the blacks. The power is given also by Art.
1, Sec. 8, clause 15--"Congress shall have power to suppress
insurrections"--a power to protect, as well blacks against whites, as
whites against blacks. If the constitution gives power to protect _one_
class against the other, it gives power to protect _either_ against the
other. Suppose the blacks in the District should seize the whites, drive
them into the fields and kitchens, force them to work without pay, flog
them, imprison them, and sell them at their pleasure, where would
Congress find power to restrain such acts? Answer; a _general_ power in
the clause so often cited, and an _express_ one in that cited
above--"Congress shall have power, to suppress insurrections." So much
for a _supposed_ case. Here follows a _real_ one. The whites in the
District are _perpetrating these identical acts_ upon seven thousand
blacks daily. That Congress has power to restrain these acts in one
case, all assert, and in so doing they assert the power "in _all_ cases
whatsoever." For the grant of power to suppress insurrections, is an
_unconditional_ grant, not hampered by provisos as to the color, shape,
size, sex, language, creed, or condition of the insurgents. Congress
derives its power to suppress this _actual_ insurrection, from the same
source whence it derived its power to suppress the _same_ acts in the
case _supposed_. If one case is an insurrection, the other is. The
_acts_ in both are the same; the _actors_ only are different. In the one
case, ignorant and degraded--goaded by the memory of the past, stung by
the present, and driven to desperation by the fearful looking for of
wrongs for ever to come. In the other, enlightened into the nature of
_rights_, the principles of justice, and the dictates of the law of
love, unprovoked by wrongs, with cool deliberation, and by system, they
perpetrate these acts upon those to whom they owe unnumbered obligations
for _whole lives_ of unrequited service. On which side may palliation be
pleaded, and which party may most reasonably claim an abatement of the
rigors of law? If Congress has power to suppress such acts _at all_, it
has power to suppress them _in_ all.
It has been shown already that _allegiance_ is exacted of the slave. Is
the government of the United States unable to grant _protection_ where
it exacts _allegiance_? It is an axiom of the civilized world, and a
maxim even with savages, that allegiance and protection are reciprocal
and correlative. Are principles powerless with us which exact homage of
barbarians? _Protection is the_ CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT _of every human
being under the exclusive legislation of Congress who has not forfeited
it by crime_.
In conclusion, I argue the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the
District, froth Art. 1, sec. 8, clause 1, of the constitution: "Congress
shall have power to provide for the common defence and the general
welfare of the United States." Has the government of the United States
no power under this grant, to legislate within its own exclusive
jurisdiction on subjects that vitally affect its interests? Suppose the
slaves in the District should rise upon their masters, and the United
States' government, in quelling the insurrection, should kill any number
of them. Could their masters claim compensation of the government?
Manifestly not; even though no proof existed that the particular slaves
killed were insurgents. This was precisely the point at issue between
those masters, whose slaves were killed by the State troops at the time
of the Southampton insurrection, and the Virginia Legislature; no
evidence was brought to show that the slaves killed by the troops were
insurgents; yet the Virginia Legislature decided that their masters were
_not entitled to compensation_. They proceeded on the sound principle,
that a government may in self protection destroy the claim of its
subjects even to that which has been recognised as property by its own
acts. If in providing for the common defence the United States
government, in the case supposed, would have power to destroy slaves
both as _property and persons_, it surely might stop half-way, destroy
them as _property_ while it legalized their existence as _persons_, and
thus provided for the common defence by giving them a personal and
powerful interest in the government, and securing their strength for its
defence.
Like other Legislatures, Congress has power to abate nuisances--to
remove or tear down unsafe buildings--to destroy infected cargoes--to
lay injunctions upon manufactories injurious to the public health--and
thus to "provide for the common defence and general welfare" by
destroying individual property, when it puts in jeopardy the public
weal.
Granting, for argument's sake, that slaves are "property" in the
District of Columbia--if Congress has a right to annihilate property in
the District when the public safety requires it, it may surely
annihilate its existence _as_ property when public safety requires it,
especially if it transform into a _protection_ and _defence_ that which
as _property_ periled the public interests. In the District of Columbia
there are, besides the United States' Capitol, the President's house,
the national offices, &c. of the Departments of State, Treasury, War,
and Navy, the General Post-office, and Patent Office. It is also the
residence of the President, all the highest officers of the government,
both houses of Congress, and all the foreign ambassadors. In this same
District there are also _seven thousand slaves_. Jefferson, in his Notes
on Va. p. 241, says of slavery, that "the State permitting one half of
its citizens to trample on the rights of the other, _transforms them
into enemies_;" and Richard Henry Lee, in the Va. House of Burgesses in
1758, declared that to those who held them, "_slaves must be natural
enemies._" Is Congress so _impotent_ that it _cannot_ exercise that
right pronounced both by municipal and national law, the most sacred and
universal--the right of self-preservation and defence? Is it shut up to
the _necessity_ of keeping seven thousand "enemies" in the heart of the
nation's citadel? Does the iron fiat of the constitution doom it to such
imbecility that it _cannot_ arrest the process that _made_ them
"enemies," and still goads to deadlier hate by fiery trials, and day by
day adds others to their number? Is _this_ providing for the common
defence and general welfare? If to rob men of rights excites their hate,
freely to restore them and make amends, will win their love.
By emancipating the slaves in the District, the government of the United
States would disband an army of "enemies," and enlist "for the common
defence and general welfare," a body guard of _friends_ seven thousand
strong. In the last war, a handful of British soldiers sacked Washington
city, burned the capitol, the President's house, and the national
offices and archives; and no marvel, for thousands of the inhabitants of
the District had been "TRANSFORMED INTO ENEMIES." Would _they_ beat back
invasion? If the national government had exercised its constitutional
"power to provide for the common defence and to promote the general
welfare," by turning those "enemies" into friends, then, instead of a
hostile ambush lurking in every thicket inviting assault, and secret
foes in every house paralyzing defence, an army of allies would have
rallied in the hour of her calamity, and shouted defiance from their
munitions of rocks; whilst the banner of the republic, then trampled in
dust, would have floated securely over FREEMEN exulting amidst bulwarks
of strength.
To show that Congress can abolish slavery in the District, under the
grant of power "to provide for the common defence and to promote the
general welfare," I quote an extract from a speech of Mr. Madison, of
Va., in the first Congress under the constitution, May 13, 1789.
Speaking of the abolition of the slave trade, Mr. Madison says: "I
should venture to say it is as much for the interests of Georgia and
South Carolina, as of any state in the union. Every addition they
receive to their number of slaves tends to _weaken_ them, and renders
them less capable of self-defence. In case of hostilities with foreign
nations, they will be the means of _inviting_ attack instead of
repelling invasion. It is a necessary duty of the general government to
protect every part of the empire against danger, as well _internal_ as
external. _Every thing, therefore, which tends to increase this danger,
though it may be a local affair, yet if it involves national expense or
safety, it becomes of concern to every part of the union, and is a
proper subject for the consideration of those charged with the general
administration of the government._" See Cong. Reg. vol. 1, p. 310-11.
WYTHE.
POSTSCRIPT
My apology for adding a _postscript_, to a discussion already perhaps
too protracted, is the fact that the preceding sheets were in the hands
of the printer, and all but the concluding pages had gone through the
press, before the passage of Mr. Calhoun's late resolutions in the
Senate of the United States. A proceeding so extraordinary,--if indeed
the time has not passed when _any_ acts of Congress in derogation of
freedom and in deference to slavery, can be deemed
extraordinary,--should not be suffered to pass in silence at such a
crisis as the present; especially as the passage of one of the
resolutions by a vote of 36 to 8, exhibits a shift of position on the
part of the South, as sudden as it is unaccountable, being nothing less
than the surrender of a fortress which until then they had defended with
the pertinacity of a blind and almost infuriated fatuity. Upon the
discussions during the pendency of the resolutions, and upon the vote,
by which they were carried, I make no comment, save only to record my
exultation in the fact there exhibited, that great emergencies are _true
touchstones_, and that henceforward, until this question is settled,
whoever holds a seat in Congress will find upon, and all around him, a
pressure strong enough to TEST him--a focal blaze that will find its way
through the carefully adjusted cloak of fair pretension, and the
sevenfold brass of two-faced political intrigue, and _no_-faced
_non-committalism_, piercing to the dividing asunder of joints and
marrow. Be it known to every northern man who aspires to a seat in
Congress, that hereafter it is the destiny of congressional action on
this subject, to be a MIGHTY REVELATOR--making secret thoughts public
property, and proclaiming on the house-tops what is whispered in the
ear--smiting off masks, and bursting open sepulchres beautiful
outwardly, and heaving up to the sun their dead men's bones. To such we
say,--_Remember the Missouri Question, and the fate of those who then
sold the North, and their own birthright!_
Passing by the resolutions generally without remark--the attention of
the reader is specially solicited to Mr. Clay's substitute for Mr.
Calhoun's fifth resolution.
"Resolved, That when the District of Columbia was ceded by the states of
Virginia and Maryland to the United States, domestic slavery existed in
both of these states, including the ceded territory, and that, as it
still continues in both of them, it could not be abolished within the
District without a violation of that good faith, which was implied in
the cession and in the acceptance of the territory; nor, unless
compensation were made to the proprietors of slaves, without a manifest
infringement of an amendment to the constitution of the United States;
nor without exciting a degree of just alarm and apprehension in the
states recognising slavery, far transcending in mischievous tendency,
any possible benefit which could be accomplished by the abolition."
By voting for this resolution, the south by a simultaneous movement,
shifted its mode of defence, not so much by taking a position entirely
new, as by attempting to refortify an old one--never much trusted in,
and abandoned mainly long ago, as being unable to hold out against
assault however unskilfully directed. In the debate on this resolution,
though the southern members of Congress did not _professedly_ retreat
from the ground hitherto maintained by them--that Congress has no power
by the constitution to abolish slavery in the District--yet in the main
they silently drew off from it.
The passage of this resolution--with the vote of every southern senator,
forms a new era in the discussion of this question.
We cannot join in the lamentations of those who bewail it. We hail it,
and rejoice in it. It was as we would have had it--offered by a southern
senator, advocated by southern senators, and on the ground that it "was
no compromise"--that it embodied the true southern principle--that "this
resolution stood on as high ground as Mr. Calhoun's."--(Mr.
Preston)--"that Mr. Clay's resolution was as strong as Mr.
Calhoun's"--(Mr. Rives)--that "the resolution he (Mr. Calhoun) now
refused to support, was as strong as his own, and that in supporting it,
there was no abandonment of principle by the south."--(Mr. Walker, of
Mi.)--further, that it was advocated by the southern senators generally
as an expression of their views, and as setting the question of slavery
in the District on its _true_ ground--that finally when the question was
taken, every slaveholding senator, including Mr. Calhoun himself, voted
for the resolution.
By passing this resolution, and with such avowals, the south has
surrendered irrevocably the whole question at issue between them and the
petitioners for abolition in the District. It has, unwittingly but
explicitly, conceded the main question argued in the preceding pages.
The _only_ ground taken against the right of Congress to abolish slavery
in the District is, that slavery existed in Maryland and Virginia when
the cession was made, and "_as it still continues in both of them_, it
could not be abolished without a violation of that good faith which was
implied in the cession," &c. The _sole argument_ is _not_ that exclusive
_sovereignty_ has no power to abolish slavery within its jurisdiction,
_nor_ that the powers of even _ordinary legislation_ cannot do it,--nor
that the clause granting Congress "exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever over such District," gives no power to do it; but that the
_unexpressed expectation_ of one of the parties that the other would not
"in _all_ cases" use the power which said party had consented _might be
used "in all cases," prohibits_ the use of it. The only cardinal point
in the discussion, is here not only _yielded_, but formally laid down by
the South as the leading article in their creed on the question of
Congressional jurisdiction over slavery in the District. The _sole
reason_ given why Congress should not abolish, and the sole evidence
that if it did, such abolition would be a violation of "good faith," is
that "_slavery still continues in those states_,"--thus explicitly
admitting, that if slavery did _not_ "still continue" in those States,
Congress _could_ abolish it in the District. The same admission is made
also in the _premises_, which state that slavery existed in those states
_at the time of the cession_, &c. Admitting that if it had _not_ existed
there then, but had grown up in the District under _United States'
laws_, Congress might constitutionally abolish it. Or that if the ceded
parts of those states had been the _only_ parts in which slaves were
held under their laws, Congress might have abolished in such a
contingency also. The cession in that case leaving no slaves in those
states,--no "good faith," would be "implied" in it, nor any "violated,"
by an act of abolition. The principle of the resolution makes this
further admission, that if Maryland and Virginia should at once abolish
their slavery, Congress might at once abolish it in the District. The
principle goes even further than this, and _requires_ Congress in such
case to abolish slavery in the District "by the _good faith implied_ in
the cession and acceptance of the territory." Since according to the
spirit and scope of the resolution, this "implied good faith" of
Maryland and Virginia in making the cession, was that Congress would do
nothing within the District which should go to counteract the policy, or
bring into disrepute the "institutions," or call in question the usages,
or even in any way ruffle the prejudices of those states, or do what
_they_ might think would unfavorably bear upon their interests;
_themselves_ of course being the judges.
But let us dissect another limb of the resolution. What is to be
understood by "that good faith which was IMPLIED?" It is of course an
admission that such a condition was not _expressed_ in the acts of
cession--that in their _terms_ there is nothing restricting the power of
Congress on the subject of slavery in the District--not a _word_
alluding to it, nor one inserted with such an _intent_. This "implied
faith," then, rests on no clause or word in the United States'
Constitution, or in the acts of cession, or in the acts of Congress
accepting the cession, nor does it rest on any declarations of the
legislatures of Maryland and Virginia made at the time, or in that
generation, nor on any _act_ of theirs, nor on any declaration of the
_people_ of those states, nor on the testimony of the Washingtons,
Jeffersons, Madisons, Chaces, Martins, and Jennifers, of those states
and times. The assertion rests _on itself alone!_ Mr. Clay and the other
senators who voted for the resolution, _guess_ that Maryland and
Virginia _supposed_ that Congress would by no means _use_ the power
given them by the constitution, except in such ways as would be well
pleasing in the eyes of those states; especially as one of them was the
"Ancient Dominion!" And now after the lapse of half a century, this
_assumed expectation_ of Maryland and Virginia, the existence of which
is mere matter of conjecture with the 36 senators, is conjured up and
duly installed upon the judgment-seat of final appeal, before whose nod
constitutions are to flee away, and with whom, solemn grants of power
and explicit guaranties are when weighed in the balance, altogether
lighter than vanity!
But let us survey it in another light. Why did Maryland and Virginia
leave so much to be "_implied_?" Why did they not in some way _express_
what lay so near their hearts? Had their vocabulary run so low that a
single word could not be eked out for the occasion? Or were those states
so bashful of a sudden that they dare not speak out and tell what they
wanted? Or did they take it for granted that Congress would always act
in the premises according to their wishes, and that too, without their
_making known_ their wishes? If, as honorable senators tell us, Maryland
and Virginia did verily travail with such abounding _faith_, why brought
they forth no _works_?
It is as true in _legislation_ as in religion, that the only _evidence_
of "faith" is _works_, and that "faith" _without_ works is _dead_, i.e.
has no power. But here, forsooth, a blind implication with nothing
_expressed_, an "implied" _faith_ without works, is _omnipotent_. Mr.
Clay is lawyer enough to know that even a _senatorial hypothesis_ as to
_what must have been the understanding_ of Maryland and Virginia about
congressional exercise of constitutional power, _abrogates no grant_,
and that to plead it in a court of law, would be of small service except
to jostle "their honors'" gravity! He need not be told that the
constitution gives Congress "power to exercise exclusive legislation in
all cases whatsoever over such District." Nor that the legislatures of
Maryland and Virginia constructed their acts of cession with this clause
_before their eyes_, and that both of them declared those acts made "in
_pursuance_" of said clause. Those states were aware that the United
States in their constitution had left nothing to be "_implied_" as to
the power of Congress over the District;--an admonition quite sufficient
one would think to put them on their guard, and induce them to eschew
vague implications and resort to _stipulations_. Full well did they know
also that these were times when, in matters of high import, _nothing_
was left to be "implied." The colonies were then panting from a twenty
years' conflict with the mother country, about bills of rights,
charters, treaties, constitutions, grants, limitations, and _acts of
cession_. The severities of a long and terrible discipline had taught
them to guard at all points _legislative grants_, that their exact
import and limit might be self-evident--leaving no scope for a blind
"faith," that _somehow_ in the lottery of chances there would be no
blanks, but making all sure by the use of explicit terms, and wisely
chosen words, and _just enough_ of them. The Constitution of the United
States with its amendments, those of the individual states, the national
treaties, the public documents of the general and state governments at
that period, show the universal conviction of legislative bodies, that
when great public interests were at stake, nothing should be left to be
"implied."
Further: suppose Maryland and Virginia had expressed their "implied
faith" in _words_, and embodied it in their acts of cession as a
proviso, declaring that Congress should not "exercise exclusive
legislation in _all_ cases whatsoever over the District," but that the
"case" of _slavery_ should be an exception: who does not know that
Congress, if it had accepted the cession on those terms, would have
violated the Constitution; and who that has ever studied the free mood
of those times in its bearings on slavery--proofs of which are given in
scores on the preceding pages--can for an instant believe that the
people of the United States would have altered their Constitution for
the purpose of providing for slavery an inviolable sanctuary; that when
driven in from its outposts, and everywhere retreating discomfited
before the march of freedom, it might be received into everlasting
habitations on the common homestead and hearth-stone of this free
republic? Besides, who can believe that Virginia made such a condition,
or cherished such a purpose, when at that very moment, Washington,
Jefferson, Wythe, Patrick Henry St. George Tucker, and almost all her
illustrious men, were advocating the abolition of slavery by law. When
Washington had said, two years before, Maryland and Virginia "must have
laws for the gradual abolition of slavery and at a period _not remote_;"
and when Jefferson in his letter to Price, three years before the
cession, had said, speaking of Virginia, "This is the next state to
which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in
conflict with avarice and oppression--a conflict in which THE SACRED
SIDE IS GAINING DAILY RECRUITS;" when voluntary emancipations on the
soil were then progressing at the rate of between one and two thousand
annually, (See Judge Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73;) when
the public sentiment of Virginia had undergone, and was undergoing so
mighty a revolution that the idea of the continuance of slavery as a
permanent system could not be _tolerated_, though she then contained
about half the slaves in the Union. Was this the time to stipulate for
the _perpetuity_ of slavery under the exclusive legislation of Congress?
and that too at the _same_ session of Congress when _every one_ of her
delegation voted for the abolition of slavery in the North West
Territory; a territory which she had herself ceded to Congress, and
along with it had surrendered her jurisdiction over many of her
citizens, inhabitants of that territory, who held slaves there--and
whose slaves were emancipated by that act of Congress, in which all her
delegation with one accord participated?
Now in view of the universal belief then prevalent, that slavery in this
country was doomed to short life, and especially that in Maryland and
Virginia it would be _speedily_ abolished--are we to be told that these
states _designed_ to bind Congress _never_ to terminate it? Are we to
adopt the monstrous conclusion that this was the _intent_ of the Ancient
Dominion--thus to _bind_ the United States by an "implied faith," and
that when the United States _accepted_ the cession, she did solemnly
thus plight her troth, and that Virginia did then so _understand_ it?
Verily one would think that honorable senators supposed themselves
deputed to do our _thinking_ as well as our legislation, or rather, that
they themselves were absolved from such drudgery by virtue of their
office!
Another absurdity of this dogma about "implied faith" is, that where
there was no power to exact an _express_ pledge, there was none to
demand an _implied_ one, and where there was no power to _give_ the one,
there was none to give the _other_. We have shown already that Congress
could not have accepted the cession with such a condition. To have
signed away a part of its constitutional grant of power would have been
a _breach_ of the Constitution. Further, the Congress which accepted the
cession was competent to pass a resolution pledging itself not to _use
all_ the power over the District committed to it by the Constitution.
But here its power ended. Its resolution would only bind _itself_. Could
it bind the _next_ Congress by its authority? Could the members of one
Congress say to the members of another, because we do not choose to
exercise all the authority vested in us by the Constitution, therefore
you _shall_ not? This would have been a prohibition to do what the
Constitution gives power to do. Each successive Congress would still
have gone to the Constitution for its power, brushing away in its course
the cobwebs stretched across its path by the officiousness of an
impertinent predecessor. Again, the legislatures of Virginia and
Maryland, had no power to bind Congress, either by an express or an
implied pledge, never to abolish slavery in the District. Those
legislatures had no power to bind _themselves_ never to abolish slavery
within their own territories--the ceded parts included. Where then would
they get power to bind _another_ not to do what they had no power to
bind themselves not to do? If a legislature could not in this respect
control the successive legislatures of its own State, could it control
the successive Congresses of the United States?
But perhaps we shall be told, that the "implied faith" in the acts of
cession of Maryland and Virginia was _not_ that Congress should _never_
abolish slavery in the District, but that it should not do it until
_they_ had done it within their bounds! Verily this "faith" comes little
short of the faith of miracles! "A good rule that works both ways."
First, Maryland and Virginia have "good faith" that Congress will _not_
abolish until _they_ do; and then just as "good faith" that Congress
_will_ abolish _when_ they do! Excellently accommodated! Did those
States suppose that Congress would legislate over the national domain,
the common jurisdiction of _all_, for Maryland and Virginia alone? And
who, did they suppose, would be judges in the matter?--themselves
merely? or the whole Union?
This "good faith implied in the cession" is no longer of doubtful
interpretation. The principle at the bottom of it, when fairly stated,
is this:--That the Government of the United States are bound in "good
faith" to do in the District of Columbia, without demurring, just what
and when, Maryland and Virginia do in their own States. In short, that
the general government is eased of all the burdens of legislation within
its exclusive jurisdiction, save that of hiring a scrivener to copy off
the acts of the Maryland and Virginia legislatures as fast as they are
passed, and engross them, under the title of "Laws of the United States,
for the District of Columbia!" A slight additional expense would also be
incurred in keeping up an express between the capitols of those States
and Washington city, bringing Congress from time to time its
"_instructions_" from head quarters--instructions not to be disregarded
without a violation of that, "good faith implied in the cession," &c.
This sets in strong light the advantages of "our glorious Union," if the
doctrine of Mr. Clay and the thirty-six Senators be orthodox. The people
of the United States have been permitted to set up at their own expense,
and on their own territory, two great _sounding boards_ called "Senate
Chamber" and "Representatives' Hall," for the purpose of sending abroad
"by authority" _national echoes_ of _state_ legislation!--permitted also
to keep in their pay a corps of pliant _national_ musicians, with
peremptory instructions to sound on any line of the staff according as
Virginia and Maryland may give the _sovereign_ key note!
Though this may have the seeming of mere raillery, yet an analysis of
the resolution and of the discussions upon it, will convince every fair
mind that it is but the legitimate carrying out of the _principle_
pervading both. They proceed virtually upon the hypothesis that the will
and pleasure of Virginia and Maryland are _paramount_ to those of the
_Union_. If the main design of setting apart a federal district had been
originally the accommodation of Maryland, Virginia, and the south, with
the United States as an _agent_ to consummate the object, there could
hardly have been higher assumption or louder vaunting. The sole object
of _having_ such a District was in effect totally perverted in the
resolution of Mr. Clay, and in the discussions of the entire southern
delegation, upon its passage. Instead of taking the ground, that the
benefit of the whole Union was the sole _object_ of a federal district,
that it was designed to guard and promote the interests of _all_ the
states, and that it was to be legislated over _for this end_--the
resolution proceeds upon an hypothesis _totally the reverse_. It takes a
single point of _state_ policy, and exalts it above NATIONAL interests,
utterly overshadowing them; abrogating national _rights_; making void a
clause of the Constitution; humbling the general government into a
subject--crouching for favors to a superior, and that too _on its own
exclusive jurisdiction_. All the attributes of sovereignty vested in
Congress by the Constitution it impales upon the point of an alleged
_implication_. And this is Mr. Clay's peace-offering, to appease the
lust of power and the ravenings of state encroachment! A "_compromise_,"
forsooth! that sinks the general government on _its own territory_ into
a mere colony, with Virginia and Maryland for its "mother country!" It
is refreshing to turn from these shallow, distorted constructions and
servile cringings, to the high bearing of other southern men in other
times; men, who in their character of legislators and lawyers, disdained
to accommodate their interpretations of constitutions and charters to
geographical lines, or to bend them to the purposes of a political
canvass. In the celebrated case of Cohens vs. the State of Virginia,
Hon. William Pinkney, late of Baltimore, and Hon. Walter Jones, of
Washington city, with other eminent constitutional lawyers, prepared an
elaborate written opinion, from which the following is an extract: "Nor
is there any danger to be apprehended from allowing to Congressional
legislation with regard to the District of Columbia, its FULLEST EFFECT.
Congress is responsible to the States, and to the people for that
legislation. It is in truth the legislation of the states over a
district placed under their control for _their own benefit_, not for
that of the District, except as the prosperity of the District is
involved, and necessary to the _general advantage_."--[Life of Pinkney,
p. 612.]
The profound legal opinion, from which this is an extract, was
elaborated at great length many years since, by a number of the most
distinguished lawyers in the United States, whose signatures are
appended to it. It is specific and to the point. It asserts, 1st, that
Congressional legislation over the District, is "the legislation of the
_States_ and the _people_," (not of _two_ states, and a mere _fraction_
of the people.) 2d, "Over a District placed under _their_ control," i.e.
under the control of the _whole_ of the States, not under the control of
_two twenty-sixths_ of them. 3d, That it was thus put under their
control "_for_ THEIR OWN _benefit_," the benefit of _all_ the States
_equally_; not to secure special benefits to Maryland and Virginia, (or
what it might be _conjectured_ they would regard as benefits.) 4th, It
concludes by asserting that the design of this exclusive control of
Congress over the District was "not for the benefit of the _District_,"
except as that is _connected_ with, and _a means of promoting_ the
_general_ advantage. If this is the case with the _District_, which is
_directly_ concerned, it is pre-eminently so with Maryland and Virginia,
who are but _indirectly_ interested, and would be but remotely affected
by it. The argument of Mr. Madison in the Congress of '89, an extract
from which has been given on a preceding page, lays down the same
principle; that though any matter "_may be a local affair, yet if it
involves national_ EXPENSE OR SAFETY, _it becomes of concern to every
part of the union, and is a proper subject for the consideration of
those charged with the general administration of the government_." Cong.
Reg. vol. 1. p. 310, 11.
But these are only the initiatory absurdities of this "good faith
_implied_." The thirty-six senators aptly illustrate the principle, that
error not only conflicts with truth, but is generally at issue with
itself. For if it would be a violation of "good faith" to Maryland and
Virginia, for Congress to abolish slavery in the District, it would be
_equally_ a violation for Congress to do it _with the consent_, or even
at the earnest and unanimous petition of the people of the District: yet
for years it has been the southern doctrine, that if the people of the
District demand of Congress relief in this respect, it has power, as
their local legislature, to grant it, and by abolishing slavery there,
carry out the will of the citizens. But now new light has broken in! The
optics of the thirty-six have pierced the millstone with a deeper
insight, and discoveries thicken faster than they can be telegraphed!
Congress has no power, O no, not a modicum, to help the slaveholders of
the District, however loudly they may clamor for it. The southern
doctrine, that Congress is to the District a mere local Legislature to
do its pleasure, is tumbled from the genitive into the vocative! Hard
fate--and that too at the hands of those who begat it! The reasonings of
Messrs. Pinckney, Wise, and Leigh, are now found to be wholly at fault,
and the chanticleer rhetoric of Messrs. Glascock and Garland stalks
featherless and crest-fallen. For, Mr. Clay's resolution sweeps by the
board all those stereotyped common-places, as "Congress a local
Legislature," "consent of the District," "bound to consult the wishes of
the District," &c. &c., which for the last two sessions of Congress have
served to eke out scanty supplies. It declares, that _as slavery existed
in Maryland and Virginia at the time of the cession, and as it still
continues in both those states, it could not be abolished in the
District without a violation of 'that good faith'_, &c.
But let us see where this principle of the _thirty-six_ will lead us. If
"implied faith" to Maryland and Virginia _restrains_ Congress from the
abolition of slavery in the District, it _requires_ Congress to do in
the District what those states have done within their bounds, i.e.,
restrain _others_ from abolishing it. Upon the same principle Congress
is _bound_, by the doctrine of Mr. Clay's resolution, to _prohibit
emancipation_ within the District. There is no _stopping place_ for this
plighted "faith." Congress must not only refrain from laying violent
hands on slavery, _itself_, and see to it that the slaveholders
themselves do not, but it is bound to keep the system up to the Maryland
and Virginia standard of vigor!
Again, if the good faith of Congress to Virginia and Maryland requires
that slavery should exist in the District, while it exists in those
states, it requires that it should exist there _as_ it exists in those
states. If to abolish _every_ form of slavery in the District would
violate good faith, to abolish _the_ form existing in those states, and
to substitute a totally different one, would also violate it. The
Congressional "good faith" is to be kept not only with _slavery_, but
with the _Maryland and Virginia systems_ of slavery. The faith of those
states not being in the preservation of _a_ system, but of _their_
system; otherwise Congress, instead of _sustaining_, would counteract
their policy--principles would be brought into action there conflicting
with their system, and thus the true spirit of the "implied" pledge
would be violated. On this principle, so long as slaves are "chattels
personal" in Virginia and Maryland, Congress could not make them _real
estate_, inseparable from the soil, as in Louisiana; nor could it permit
slaves to read, nor to worship God according to conscience; nor could it
grant them trial by jury, nor legalize marriage; nor require the master
to give sufficient food and clothing; nor prohibit the violent sundering
of families--because such provisions would conflict with the existing
slave laws of Virginia and Maryland, and thus violate the "good faith
implied," &c. So the principle of the resolution binds Congress in all
these particulars: 1st. Not to abolish slavery in the District _until_
Virginia and Maryland abolish. 2d. Not to abolish any _part_ of it that
exists in those states. 3d. Not to abolish any _form_ or _appendage_ of
it still existing in those states. 4th. _To abolish_ when they do. 5th.
To increase or abate its rigor _when, how_, and _as_ the same are
modified by those states. In a word, Congressional action in the
District is to float passively in the wake of legislative action on the
subject in those states.
But here comes a dilemma. Suppose the legislation of those states should
steer different courses--then there would be _two_ wakes! Can Congress
float in both? Yea, verily! Nothing is too hard for it! Its
obsequiousness equals its "power of legislation in _all_ cases
whatsoever." It can float _up_ on the Virginia tide, and ebb down on the
Maryland at the same time. What Maryland does, Congress will do in the
Maryland part. What Virginia does, Congress will do in the Virginia
part. Though Congress might not always be able to run at the bidding of
both _at once_, especially in different directions, yet if it obeyed
orders cheerfully, and "kept in its place," according to its "good faith
implied," impossibilities might not be rigidly exacted. True, we have
the highest sanction for the maxim that no _man_ can serve two
masters--but if "corporations have _no_ souls," analogy would absolve
Congress on that score, or at most give it only _a very small soul_--not
large enough to be at all in the way, as an _exception_ to the universal
rule laid down to the maxim!
In following out the absurdities of this "_implied_ good faith," it will
be seen at once that the doctrine of Mr. Clay's Resolution extends to
_all the subjects_ of _legislation_ existing in Maryland and Virginia,
which exist also within the District. Every system, "institution," law,
and established usage there, is placed beyond Congressional control
equally with slavery, and by the same "implied faith." The abolition of
the lottery system in the District as an _immorality_, was a flagrant
breach of this "good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, as the system
"still continued in those states." So to abolish imprisonment for debt,
and capital punishment, to remodel the bank system, the power of
corporations, the militia law, laws of limitation, &c., in the District,
_unless Virginia and Maryland took the lead_, would violate the "good
faith implied in the cession," &c.
That in the acts of cession no such "good faith" was "implied by
Virginia and Maryland" as is claimed in the Resolution, we argue from
the fact, that in 1781 Virginia ceded to the United States all her
northwest territory, with the special proviso that her citizens
inhabiting that territory should "have their _possessions_ and _titles_
confirmed to them, and be _protected_ in the enjoyment of their _rights_
and liberties." (See Journals of Congress vol. 9, p. 63.) The cession
was made in the form of a deed, and signed by Thomas Jefferson, Samuel
Hardy, Arthur Lee, and James Monroe. Many of these inhabitants _held
slaves_. Three years after the cession, the Virginia delegation in
Congress _proposed_ the passage of an ordinance which should abolish
slavery, in that territory, and declare that it should never thereafter
exist there. All the members of Congress from Virginia and Maryland
voted for this ordinance. Suppose some member of Congress had during the
passage of the ordinance introduced the following resolution: "Resolved,
That when the northwest territory was ceded by Virginia to the United
States, domestic slavery existed in that State, including the ceded
territory, and as it still continues in that State, it could not be
abolished within the territory without a violation of that good faith,
which was implied in the cession and in the acceptance of the
territory." What would have been the indignant response of Grayson,
Griffin, Madison, and the Lees, in the Congress of '87, to such a
resolution, and of Carrington, Chairman of the Committee, who reported
the ratification of the ordinance in the Congress of '89, and of Page
and Parker, who with every other member of the Virginia delegation
supported it?
But to enumerate all the absurdities into which the thirty-six Senators
have plunged themselves, would be to make a quarto inventory. We decline
the task; and in conclusion, merely add that Mr. Clay in presenting this
resolution, and each of the thirty-six Senators who voted for it,
entered on the records of the Senate, and proclaimed to the world, a
most unworthy accusation against the MILLIONS of American citizens who
have during nearly half a century petitioned the national legislature to
abolish slavery in the District of Colombia,--charging them either with
the ignorance or the impiety of praying the nation to violate its
"PLIGHTED FAITH." The resolution virtually indicts at the bar of public
opinion, and brands with odium, all the Manumission Societies, the
_first_ petitioners for the abolition of slavery in the District, and
for a long time the only ones, petitioning from year to year through
evil report and good report, still petitioning, by individual societies
and in their national conventions.
But as if it were not enough to table the charge against such men as
Benjamin Rush, William Rawle, John Sergeant, Robert Vaux, Cadwallader
Colden, and Peter A. Jay,--to whom we may add Rufus King, James
Hillhouse, William Pinkney, Thomas Addis Emmett, Daniel D. Tompkins, De
Witt Clinton, James Kent, and Daniel Webster, besides eleven hundred
citizens of the District itself; headed by their Chief Justice and
judges--even the sovereign States of Pennsylvania, New-York,
Massachusetts, and Vermont, whose legislatures have either memorialized
Congress to abolish slavery in the District, or instructed their
Senators to move such a measure, must be gravely informed by Messrs.
Clay, Norvell, Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, Black, Tipton, and other
honorable Senators, either that their perception is so dull, they know
not whereof they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunted they
can demand without compunction a violation of the nation's faith!
We have spoken already of the concessions unwittingly made in this
resolution to the true doctrine of Congressional power over the
District. For that concession, important as it is, we have small thanks
to render. That such a resolution, passed with such an _intent_, and
pressing at a thousand points on relations and interests vital to the
free states, should be hailed, as it has been, by a portion of the
northern press as a "compromise" originating in deference to northern
interests, and to be received by us as a free-will offering of
disinterested benevolence, demanding our gratitude to the mover,--may
well cover us with shame. We deserve the humiliation and have well
earned the mockery. Let it come!
If, after having been set up at auction in the public sales-room of the
nation, and for thirty years, and by each of a score of "compromises,"
treacherously knocked off to the lowest bidder, and that without money
and without price, the North, plundered and betrayed, _will not_, in
this her accepted time, consider the things that belong to her peace
before they are hidden from her eyes, then let her eat of the fruit of
her own way, and be filled with her own devices! Let the shorn and
blinded giant grind in the prison-house of the Philistines, till taught
the folly of intrusting to Delilahs the secret and the custody of his
strength.
Have the free States bound themselves by an oath never to profit by the
lessons of experience? If lost to _reason_, are they dead to _instinct_
also? Can nothing rouse them to cast about for self preservation? And
shall a life of tame surrenders be terminated by suicidal sacrifice?
A "COMPROMISE!" Bitter irony! Is the plucked and hood-winked North to be
wheedled by the sorcery of another Missouri compromise? A compromise in
which the South gained all, and the North lost all, and lost it for
ever. A compromise which embargoed the free laborer of the North and
West, and clutched at the staff he leaned upon, to turn it into a
bludgeon and fell him with its stroke. A compromise which wrested from
liberty her boundless birthright domain, stretching westward to the
sunset, while it gave to slavery loose reins and a free course, from the
Mississippi to the Pacific.
The resolution, as it finally passed, is here inserted. The original
Resolution, as moved by Mr. Clay, was inserted at the head of this
postscript with the impression that it was the _amended_ form. It will
be seen however, that it underwent no material modification.
"Resolved, That the interference by the citizens of any of the states,
with the view to the abolition of slavery in the District, is
endangering the rights and security of the people of the District; and
that any act or measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in the
District, would be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by
the states of Virginia and Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the people
of the slaveholding states, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to
disturb and endanger the Union."
The vote upon the Resolution stood as follows:
_Yeas_.--Messrs. Allen, Bayard, Benton, Black, Buchanan, Brown, Calhoun,
Clay, of Alabama, Clay, of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, Cuthbert,
Fulton, Grundy, Hubbard, King, Lumpkin, Lyon, Nicholas, Niles, Norvell,
Pierce, Preston, Rives, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smith, of Connecticut,
Strange, Tallmadge, Tipton, Walker, White, Williams, Wright, Young.
_Nays_.--Messrs. DAVIS, KNIGHT, McKEAN, MORRIS, PRENTISS, RUGGLES,
SMITH, of Indiana, SWIFT, WEBSTER.
THE
ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER
No. 5
* * * * *
THE
POWER OF CONGRESS
OVER THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
* * * * *
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW-YORK EVENING POST, UNDER THE SIGNATURE
OF "WYTHE."
* * * * *
WITH ADDITIONS BY THE AUTHOR.
* * * * *
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY
NO. 143 NASSAU-STREET.
1838.
* * * * *
This periodical contains 3-1/2 sheets--Postage under 100 miles, 6 cts.,
over 100, 10 cts.
POWER OF CONGRESS
OVER THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
A civilized community presupposes a government of law. If that
government be a republic, its citizens are the sole _sources_, as well
as the _subjects_ of its power. Its constitution is their bill of
directions to their own agents--a grant authorizing the exercise of
certain powers, and prohibiting that of others. In the Constitution of
the United States, whatever else may be obscure, the clause granting
power to Congress over the Federal District may well defy
misconstruction. Art. 1, Sec. 8, Clause 18: "The Congress shall have
power to exercise exclusive legislation, _in all cases whatsoever_, over
such District." Congress may make laws for the District "in all
_cases_," not of all _kinds_; not all _laws_ whatsoever, but laws "in
all _cases_ whatsoever." The grant respects the _subjects_ of
legislation, _not_ the moral nature of the laws. The law-making power
every where is subject to _moral_ restrictions, whether limited by
constitutions or not. No legislature can authorize murder, nor make
honesty penal, nor virtue a crime, nor exact impossibilities. In these
and similar respects, the power of Congress is held in check by
principles, existing in the nature of things, not imposed by the
Constitution, but presupposed and assumed by it. The power of Congress
over the District is restricted only by those principles that limit
ordinary legislation, and, in some respects, it has even wider scope.
In common with the legislatures of the States, Congress cannot
constitutionally pass ex post facto laws in criminal cases, nor suspend
the writ of habeas corpus, nor pass a bill of attainder, nor abridge the
freedom of speech and of the press, nor invade the right of the people
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, nor enact
laws respecting an establishment of religion. These are general
limitations. Congress cannot do these things _any where_. The exact
import, therefore, of the clause "in all cases whatsoever," is, _on all
subjects within the appropriate sphere of legislation_. Some
legislatures are restrained by constitutions, from the exercise of
powers strictly within the proper sphere of legislation. Congressional
power over the District has no such restraint. It traverses the whole
field of legitimate legislation. All the power which any legislature has
within its own jurisdiction, Congress holds over the District of
Columbia.
It has been objected that the clause in question respects merely police
regulations, and that its sole design was to enable Congress to protect
itself against popular tumults. But if the convention that framed the
Constitution aimed to provide for a _single_ case only, why did they
provide for "_all_ cases whatsoever?" Besides, this clause was opposed
in many of the state conventions, because the grant of power was not
restricted to police regulations _alone_. In the Virginia Convention,
George Mason, the father of the Virginia Constitution, Patrick Henry,
Mr. Grayson, and others, assailed it on that ground. Mr. Mason said,
"This clause gives an unlimited authority in every possible case within
the District. He would willingly give them exclusive power as far as
respected the police and good government of the place, but he would give
them no more." Mr. Grayson said, that control over the _police_ was
all-sufficient, and "that the Continental Congress never had an idea of
exclusive legislation in all cases." Patrick Henry said, "Is it
consistent with any principle of prudence or good policy, to grant
_unlimited, unbounded authority?_" Mr. Madison said in reply: "I did
conceive that the clause under consideration was one of those parts
which would speak its own praise. When any power is given, its
delegation necessarily involves authority to make laws to execute it....
The powers which are found necessary to be given, are therefore
delegated _generally_, and particular and minute specification is left
to the Legislature.... It is not within the limits of human capacity to
delineate on paper all those particular cases and circumstances, in
which legislation by the general legislature, would be necessary."
Governor Randolph said: "Holland has no ten miles square, but she has
the Hague where the deputies of the States assemble. But the influence
which it has given the province of Holland, to have the seat of
government within its territory, subject in some respects to its
control, has been injurious to the other provinces." The wisdom of the
convention is therefore manifest in granting to Congress exclusive
jurisdiction over the place of their session. [_Deb. Va. Con._, p. 320.]
In the forty-third number of the "Federalist," Mr. Madison says: "The
indispensable necessity of _complete_ authority at the seat of
government, carries its own evidence with it."
Finally, that the grant in question is to be interpreted according to
the obvious import of its _terms_, is proved by the fact, that Virginia
proposed an amendment to the United States' Constitution at the time of
its adoption, providing that this clause "should be so construed as to
give power only over the _police and good government_ of said District,"
_which amendment was rejected._
The former part of the clause under consideration, "Congress shall have
power to exercise _exclusive_ legislation," gives _sole_ jurisdiction,
and the latter part, "in all cases whatsoever," defines the _extent_ of
it. Since, then, Congress is the _sole_ legislature within the District,
and since its power is limited only by the checks common to all
legislatures, it follows that what the law-making power is intrinsically
competent to do _any_ where, Congress is competent to do in the District
of Columbia. Having disposed of preliminaries, we proceed to state and
argue the _real question_ at issue.
IS THE LAW-MAKING POWER COMPETENT TO ABOLISH SLAVERY WHEN NOT RESTRICTED
IN THAT PARTICULAR BY CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS--or, IS THE ABOLITION OF
SLAVERY WITHIN THE APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF LEGISLATION?
In every government, absolute sovereignty exists _somewhere_. In the
United States it exists primarily with the _people_, and _ultimate_
sovereignty _always_ exists with them. In each of the States, the
legislature possesses a _representative_ sovereignty, delegated by the
people through the Constitution--the people thus committing to the
legislature a portion of their sovereignty, and specifying in their
constitutions the amount and the conditions of the grant. That the
_people_ in any state where slavery exists, have the power to abolish
it, none will deny. If the legislature have not the power, it is because
_the people_ have reserved it to themselves. Had they lodged with the
legislature "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever," they would have parted with their sovereignty over the
legislation of the State, and so far forth the legislature would have
become _the people_, clothed with all their functions, and as such
competent, _during the continuance of the grant_, to do whatever the
people might have done before the surrender of their power:
consequently, they would have the power to abolish slavery. The
sovereignty of the District of Columbia exists _somewhere_--where is it
lodged? The citizens of the District have no legislature of their own,
no representation in Congress, and no political power whatever. Maryland
and Virginia have surrendered to the United States their "full and
absolute right and entire sovereignty," and the people of the United
States have committed to Congress by the Constitution, the power to
"exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such
District."
Thus, the sovereignty of the District of Columbia, is shown to reside
solely in the Congress of the United States; and since the power of the
people of a state to abolish slavery within their own limits, results
from their entire sovereignty within that state, so the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District, results from its entire
_sovereignty_ within the District. If it be objected that Congress can
have no more power over the District, than was held by the legislatures
of Maryland and Virginia, we ask what clause in the constitution
graduates the power of Congress by the standard of a state legislature?
Was the United States' constitution worked into its present shape under
the measuring line and square of Virginia and Maryland? and is its power
to be bevelled down till it can run in the grooves of state legislation?
There is a deal of prating about constitutional power over the District,
as though Congress were indebted for it to Maryland and Virginia. The
powers of those states, whether few or many, prodigies or nullities,
have nothing to do with the question. As well thrust in the powers of
the Grand Lama to join issue upon, or twist papal bulls into
constitutional tether, with which to curb congressional action. The
Constitution of the United States gives power to Congress, and takes it
away, and _it alone_. Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution
_before_ they ceded to the United States the territory of the District.
By their acts of cession, they abdicated their own sovereignty over the
District, and thus made room for that provided by the United States'
constitution, which sovereignty was to commence as soon as a cession of
territory by states, and its acceptance by Congress, furnished a sphere
for its exercise. That the abolition of slavery is within the sphere of
legislation, I argue,
2. FROM THE FACT, THAT SLAVERY, AS A LEGAL SYSTEM, IS THE CREATURE OF
LEGISLATION. The law, by _creating_ slavery, not only affirmed its
_existence_ to be within the sphere and under the control of
legislation, but equally, the _conditions_ and _terms_ of its existence,
and the _question_ whether or not it _should_ exist. Of course
legislation would not travel _out_ of its sphere, in abolishing what is
_within_ it, and what was recognised to be within it, by its own act.
Cannot legislatures repeal their own laws? If law can take from a man
his rights, it can give them back again. If it can say, "your body
belongs to your neighbor," it can say, "it belongs to _yourself_." If it
can annul a man's right to himself, held by express grant from his
Maker, and can create for another an _artificial_ title to him, can it
not annul the artificial title, and leave the original owner to hold
himself by his original title?
3. THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONSIDERED WITHIN THE
APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF LEGISLATION. Almost every civilized nation has
abolished slavery by law. The history of legislation since the revival
of letters, is a record crowded with testimony to the universally
admitted competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery. It is so
manifestly an attribute not merely of absolute sovereignty, but even of
ordinary legislation, that the competency of a legislature to exercise
it, may well nigh be reckoned among the legal axioms of the civilized
world. Even the night of the dark ages was not dark enough to make this
invisible.
The Abolition decree of the great council of England was passed in 1102.
The memorable Irish decree, "that all the English slaves in the whole of
Ireland, be immediately emancipated and restored to their former
liberty," was issued in 1171. Slavery in England was abolished by a
general charter of emancipation in 1381. Passing over many instances of
the abolition of slavery by law, both during the middle ages and since
the reformation, we find them multiplying as we approach our own times.
In 1776 slavery was abolished in Prussia by special edict. In St.
Domingo, Cayenne, Guadeloupe, and Martinique, in 1794, where more than
690,000 slaves were emancipated by the French government. In Java, 1811;
in Ceylon, 1815; in Buenos Ayres, 1816; in St. Helena, 1819; in
Colombia, 1821; by the Congress of Chili in 1821; in Cape Colony, 1823;
in Malacca, 1825; in the southern provinces of Birmah, 1826; in Bolivia,
1826; in Peru, Guatemala, and Monte Video, 1828, in Jamaica, Barbadoes,
Bermudas, Bahamas, the Mauritius, St. Christophers, Nevis, the Virgin
Islands, Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Vincents, Grenada, Berbice,
Tobago, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Honduras, Demarara, and the Cape of Good
Hope, on the 1st of August, 1834. But waving details, suffice it to say,
that England, France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Austria,
Prussia, and Germany, have all and often given their testimony to the
competency of the legislative power to abolish slavery. In our own
country, the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act of abolition in
1780, Connecticut, in 1784; Rhode Island, 1784; New-York, 1799;
New-Jersey, in 1804; Vermont, by Constitution, in 1777; Massachusetts,
in 1780; and New Hampshire, in 1784.
When the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery, has thus
been recognised every where and for ages, when it has been embodied in
the highest precedents, and celebrated in the thousand jubilees of
regenerated liberty, is it an achievement of modern discovery, that such
a power is a nullity?--that all these acts of abolition are void, and
that the millions disenthralled by them, are, either themselves or their
posterity, still legally in bondage?
4. LEGISLATIVE POWER HAS ABOLISHED SLAVERY IN ITS PARTS. The law of
South Carolina prohibits the working of slaves more than fifteen hours
in the twenty-four. In other words, it takes from the slaveholder his
power over nine hours of the slave's time daily; and if it can take nine
hours it may take twenty-four. The laws of Georgia prohibit the working
of slaves on the first day of the week; and if they can do it for the
first, they can for the six following.
The law of North Carolina prohibits the "immoderate" correction of
slaves. If it has power to prohibit immoderate correction, it can
prohibit _moderate_ correction--_all_ correction, which would be virtual
emancipation; for, take from the master the power to inflict pain, and
he is master no longer. Cease to ply the slave with the stimulus of
fear; and he is free.
The Constitution of Mississippi gives the General Assembly power to make
laws "to oblige the owners of slaves to _treat them with humanity_." The
Constitution of Missouri has the same clause, and an additional one
making it the DUTY of the legislature to pass such laws as may be
necessary to secure the _humane_ treatment of the slaves. This grant to
those legislatures, empowers them to decide what _is_ and what is _not_
"humane treatment." Otherwise it gives no "power"--the clause is mere
waste paper, and flouts in the face of a befooled legislature. A clause
giving power to require "humane treatment" covers all the _particulars_
of such treatment--gives power to exact it in _all respects--requiring_
certain acts, and _prohibiting_ others--maiming, branding, chaining
together, separating families, floggings for learning the alphabet, for
reading the Bible, for worshiping God according to conscience--the
legislature has power to specify each of these acts--declare that it is
not "_humane_ treatment," and PROHIBIT it.--The legislature may also
believe that driving men and women into the field, and forcing them to
work without pay, is not "humane treatment," and being Constitutionally
bound "to _oblige_" masters to practise "humane treatment"--they have
the power to _prohibit such_ treatment, and are bound to do it.
The law of Louisiana makes slaves real estate, prohibiting the holder,
if he be also a _land_ holder, to separate them from the soil.[A] If it
has power to prohibit the sale _without_ the soil, it can prohibit the
sale _with_ it; and if it can prohibit the _sale_ as property, it can
prohibit the _holding_ as property. Similar laws exist in the French,
Spanish, and Portuguese colonies.
[Footnote A: Virginia made slaves real estate by a law passed in 1705.
(_Beverly's Hist. of Va_., p. 98.) I do not find the precise time when
this law was repealed, probably when Virginia became the chief slave
breeder for the cotton-growing and sugar-planting country, and made
young men and women "from fifteen to twenty-five" the main staple
production of the State.]
The law of Louisiana requires the master to give his slaves a certain
amount of food and clothing. If it can oblige the master to give the
slave _one_ thing, it can oblige him to give him another: if food and
clothing, then wages, liberty, his own body.
By the laws of Connecticut, slaves may receive and hold property, and
prosecute suits in their own name as plaintiffs: [This last was also the
law of Virginia in 1795. See Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73.]
There were also laws making marriage contracts legal, in certain
contingencies, and punishing infringements of them, ["_Reeve's Law of
Baron and Femme_," p. 340-1.] Each of the laws enumerated above, does,
_in principle_, abolish slavery; and all of them together abolish it in
fact. True, not as a _whole_, and at a _stroke_, nor all in one place;
but in its _parts_, by piecemeal, at divers times and places; thus
showing that the abolition of slavery is within the boundary of
legislation.
5. THE COMPETENCY OF THE LAW-MAKING POWER TO ABOLISH SLAVERY, HAS BEEN
RECOGNIZED BY ALL THE SLAVEHOLDING STATES, EITHER DIRECTLY OR BY
IMPLICATION. Some States recognize it in their _Constitutions_, by
giving the legislature power to emancipate such slaves as may "have
rendered the state some distinguished service, "and others by express
prohibitory restrictions. The Constitution of Mississippi, Arkansas, and
other States, restrict the power of the legislature in this respect. Why
this express prohibition, if the law-making power _cannot_ abolish
slavery? A stately farce, indeed, to construct a special clause, and
with appropriate rites induct it into the Constitution, for the express
purpose of restricting a nonentity!--to take from the law-making power
what it _never had_, and what _cannot_ pertain to it! The legislatures
of those States have no power to abolish slavery, simply because their
Constitutions have expressly _taken away_ that power. The people of
Arkansas, Mississippi, &c., well knew the competency of the law-making
power to abolish slavery, and hence their zeal to _restrict_ it.
The slaveholding States have recognised this power in their _laws_. The
Virginia Legislature passed a law in 1786 to prevent the further
importation of Slaves, of which the following is an extract: "And be it
further enacted that every slave imported into this commonwealth
contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, shall upon such
importation become _free_." By a law of Virginia, passed Dec. 17, 1792,
a slave brought into the state and kept _there a year_, was _free_. The
Maryland Court of Appeals at the December term 1813 [case of Stewart
_vs._ Oakes,] decided that a slave owned in Maryland, and sent by his
master into Virginia to work at different periods, making one year in
the whole, became _free_, being _emancipated_ by the law of Virginia
quoted above. North Carolina and Georgia in their acts of cession,
transferring to the United States the territory now constituting the
States of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, made it a condition of the
grant, that the provisions of the ordinance of '87, should be secured to
the inhabitants _with the exception of the sixth article which prohibits
slavery_; thus conceding, both the competency of law to abolish slavery,
and the power of Congress to do it, within its jurisdiction. (These acts
show the prevalent belief at that time, in the slaveholding States, that
the general government had adopted a line of policy aiming at the
exclusion of slavery from the entire territory of the United States, not
included within the original States, and that this policy would be
pursued unless prevented by specific and formal stipulation.)
Slaveholding states have asserted this power _in their judicial
decisions_. In numerous cases their highest courts have decided that if
the legal owner of slaves takes them into those States where slavery has
been abolished either by law or by the constitution, such removal
emancipates them, such law or constitution abolishing their slavery.
This principle is asserted in the decision of the Supreme Court of
Louisiana, in the case of Lunsford _vs._ Coquillon, 14 Martin's La.
Reps. 401. Also by the Supreme Court of Virginia, in the case of Hunter
_vs._ Fulcher, 1 Leigh's Reps. 172. The same doctrine was laid down by
Judge Washington, of the United States Supreme Court, in the case of
Butler _vs._ Hopper, Washington's Circuit Court Reps. 508. This
principle was also decided by the Court of Appeals in Kentucky; case of
Rankin _vs._ Lydia, 2 Marshall's Reps. 407; see also, Wilson _vs._
Isbell, 5 Call's Reps. 425, Spotts _vs._ Gillespie, 6 Randolph's Reps.
566. The State _vs._ Lasselle, 1 Blackford's Reps. 60, Marie Louise
_vs._ Mariot, 8 La. Reps. 475. In this case, which was tried in 1836,
the slave had been taken by her master to France and brought back; Judge
Mathews, of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, decided that "residence for
one moment" under the laws of France emancipated her.
6. EMINENT STATESMEN, THEMSELVES SLAVEHOLDERS, HAVE CONCEDED THIS POWER.
Washington, in a letter to Robert Morris, dated April 12, 1786, says:
"There is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see
a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery; but there is only one
proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is
by _legislative_ authority." In a letter to Lafayette, dated May 10,
1786, he says: "It (the abolition of slavery) certainly might, and
assuredly ought to be effected, and that too by _legislative_
authority." In a letter to John Fenton Mercer, dated Sept. 9, 1786, he
says: "It is among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which
slavery in this country may be abolished by _law_." In a letter to Sir
John Sinclair, he says: "There are in Pennsylvania, _laws_ for the
gradual abolition of slavery, which neither Maryland nor Virginia have
at present, but which nothing is more certain than that they _must
have_, and at a period not remote." Speaking of movements in the
Virginia Legislature in 1777, for the passage of a law emancipating the
slaves, Mr. Jefferson says: "The principles of the amendment were agreed
on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day; but it
was found that the public mind would not bear the proposition, yet the
day is not far distant, when _it must bear and adopt it_."--Jefferson's
Memoirs, v. 1, p. 35. It is well known that Jefferson, Pendleton, Mason,
Wythe and Lee, while acting as a committee of the Virginia House of
Delegates to revise the State Laws, prepared a plan for the gradual
emancipation of the slaves by law. These men were the great lights of
Virginia. Mason, the author of the Virginia Constitution; Pendleton, the
President of the memorable Virginia Convention in 1787, and President of
the Virginia Court of Appeals; Wythe was the Blackstone of the Virginia
bench, for a quarter of a century Chancellor of the State, the professor
of law in the University of William and Mary, and the preceptor of
Jefferson, Madison, and Chief Justice Marshall. He was author of the
celebrated remonstrance to the English House of Commons on the subject
of the stamp act. As to Jefferson, his _name_ is his biography.
Every slaveholding member of Congress from the States of Maryland,
Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, voted for the
celebrated ordinance of 1787, which _abolished_ the slavery then
existing in the Northwest Territory. Patrick Henry, in his well known
letter to Robert Pleasants, of Virginia, January 18, 1773, says: "I
believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to
_abolish_ this lamentable evil." William Pinkney, of Maryland, advocated
the abolition of slavery by law, in the legislature of that State, in
1789. Luther Martin urged the same measure both in the Federal
Convention, and in his report to the Legislature of Maryland. In 1796,
St. George Tucker, of Virginia, professor of law in the University of
William and Mary, and Judge of the General Court, published an elaborate
dissertation on slavery, addressed to the General Assembly of the State,
and urging upon them the abolition of slavery by _law_.
John Jay, while New York was yet a slave State, and himself in law a
slaveholder, said in a letter from Spain, in 1786, "An excellent law
might be made out of the Pennsylvania one, for the gradual abolition of
slavery. Were I in your legislature, I would present a bill for the
purpose, drawn up with great care, and I would never cease moving it
till it became a law, or I ceased to be a member."
Daniel D. Tompkins, in a message to the Legislature of New-York January
8, 1812, said: "To devise the means for the gradual and ultimate
_extermination_ from amongst us of slavery, is a work worthy the
representatives of a polished and enlightened nation."
The Virginia Legislature asserted this power in 1832. At the close of a
month's debate, the following proceedings were had. I extract from an
editorial article of the Richmond Whig, of January 26, 1832.
"The report of the Select Committee, adverse to legislation on
the subject of Abolition, was in these words: _Resolved_, as the
opinion of this Committee, that it is INEXPEDIENT FOR THE
PRESENT, to make any _legislative enactments for the abolition
of Slavery_." This Report Mr. Preston moved to reverse, and thus
to declare that it _was_ expedient, _now_ to make legislative
enactments for the abolition of slavery. This was meeting the
question in its strongest form. It demanded action, and
immediate action. On this proposition the vote was 58 to 73.
Many of the most decided friends of abolition voted against the
amendment; because they thought public opinion not sufficiently
prepared for it, and that it might prejudice the cause to move
too rapidly. The vote on Mr. Witcher's motion to postpone the
whole subject indefinitely, indicates the true state of opinion
in the House.--That was the test question, and was so intended
and proclaimed by its mover. That motion was _negatived_, 71 to
60; showing a majority of 11, who by that vote, declared their
belief that "at the proper time, and in the proper mode,
Virginia ought to commence a system of gradual abolition."
7. THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE ASSERTED THIS POWER. The
ordinance of '87, declaring that there should be "neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude," in the North Western territory, abolished the
slavery then existing there. The Supreme Court of Mississippi, in its
decision in the case of Harvey vs. Decker, Walker's Mi. Reps. 36,
declared that the ordinance emancipated the slaves then held there. In
this decision the question is argued ably and at great length. The
Supreme Court of La. made the same decision in the case of Forsyth vs.
Nash, 4 Martin's La. Reps. 395. The same doctrine was laid down by Judge
Porter, (late United States Senator from La.,) in his decision at the
March term of the La. Supreme Court, 1830, in the case of Merry vs.
Chexnaider, 20 Martin's Reps. 699.
That the ordinance abolished the slavery then existing there is also
shown by the fact, that persons holding slaves in the territory
petitioned for the repeal of the article abolishing slavery, assigning
_that_ as a reason. "The petition of the citizens of Randolph and St.
Clair counties in the Illinois country, stating that they were in
possession of slaves, and praying the repeal of that act (the 6th
article of the ordinance of '87) and the passage of a law legalizing
slavery there." [Am. State papers, Public Lands, v. 1. p. 69.] Congress
passed this ordinance before the United States Constitution was adopted,
when it derived all its authority from the articles of Confederation,
which conferred powers of legislation far more restricted than those
conferred on Congress over the District and Territories by the United
States Constitution. Now, we ask, how does the Constitution _abridge_
the powers which Congress possessed under the articles of confederation?
The abolition of the slave trade by Congress, in 1808, is another
illustration of the competency of legislative power to abolish slavery.
The African slave trade has become such a mere _technic_, in common
parlance, that the fact of its being _proper slavery_ is overlooked. The
buying and selling, the transportation, and the horrors of the middle
passage, were mere _incidents_ of the slavery in which the victims were
held. Let things be called by their own names. When Congress abolished
the African slave trade, it abolished SLAVERY--supreme slavery--power
frantic with license, trampling a whole hemisphere scathed with its
fires, and running down with blood. True, Congress did not, in the
abolition of the slave trade, abolish _all_ the slavery within its
jurisdiction, but it did abolish all the slavery in _one_ part of its
jurisdiction. What has rifled it of power to abolish slavery in
_another_ part of its jurisdiction, especially in that part where it has
"exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever?"
8. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES RECOGNISES THIS POWER BY THE
MOST CONCLUSIVE IMPLICATION. In Art. 1, sec. 3, clause 1, it prohibits
the abolition of the slave trade previous to 1808: thus implying the
power of Congress to do it at once, but for the restriction; and its
power to do it _unconditionally_, when that restriction ceased. Again;
In Art. 4, sec. 2, "No person held to service or labor in one state
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of
any law or regulation therein, be discharged from said service or
labor." This clause was inserted, as all admit, to prevent the runaway
slave from being emancipated by the _laws_ of the free states. If these
laws had _no power_ to emancipate, why this constitutional guard to
prevent it?
The insertion of the clause, was the testimony of the eminent jurists
that framed the Constitution, to the existence of the _power_, and their
public proclamation, that the abolition of slavery was within the
appropriate sphere of legislation. The right of the owner to that which
is rightfully property, is founded on a principle of _universal law_,
and is recognised and protected by all civilized nations; property in
slaves is, by general consent, an _exception_; hence slaveholders
insisted upon the insertion of this clause in the United States
Constitution, that they might secure by an _express provision_, that
from which protection is withheld, by the acknowledged principles of
universal law.[A] By demanding this provision, slaveholders consented
that their slaves should not be recognised as property by the United
States Constitution, and hence they found their claim, on the fact of
their being "_persons_, and _held_ to service."
[Footnote A: The fact, that under the articles of Confederation,
slaveholders, whose slaves had escaped into free states, had no legal
power to force them back,--that _now_ they have no power to recover, by
process of law, their slaves who escape to Canada, the South American
States, or to Europe--the case already cited, in which the Supreme Court
of Louisiana decided, that residence "_for one moment_," under the laws
of France emancipated an American slave--the case of Fulton _vs._.
Lewis, 3 Har. and John's Reps., 56, where the slave of a St. Domingo
slaveholder, who brought him to Maryland in '93, was pronounced free by
the Maryland Court of Appeals--are illustrations of the acknowledged
truth here asserted, that by the consent of the civilized world, and on
the principles of universal law, slaves are not "_property_," and that
whenever held as property under _law_, it is only by _positive
legislative acts_, forcibly setting aside the law of nature, the common
law, and the principles of universal justice and right between man and
man,--principles paramount to all law, and from which alone law, derives
its intrinsic authoritative sanction.]
9. CONGRESS HAS UNQUESTIONABLE POWER TO ADOPT THE COMMON LAW, AS THE
LEGAL SYSTEM, WITHIN ITS EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION.--This has been done,
with certain restrictions, in most of the States, either by legislative
acts or by constitutional implication. THE COMMON LAW KNOWS NO SLAVES.
Its principles annihilate slavery wherever they touch it. It is a
universal, unconditional, abolition act. Wherever slavery is a legal
system, it is so only by _statute_ law, and in violation of the common
law. The declaration of Lord Chief Justice Holt, that, "by the common
law, no man can have property in another," is an acknowledged axiom, and
based upon the well known common law definition of property. "The
subjects of dominion or property are _things_, as contra-distinguished
from _persons_." Let Congress adopt the common law in the District of
Columbia, and slavery there is at once abolished. Congress may well be
at home in common law legislation, for the common law is the grand
element of the United States Constitution. All its _fundamental_
provisions are instinct with its spirit; and its existence, principles,
and paramount authority, are presupposed and assumed throughout the
whole. The preamble of the Constitution plants the standard of the
Common Law immovably in its foreground. "We, the people of the United
States, in order to ESTABLISH JUSTICE, &c., do ordain and establish this
Constitution;" thus proclaiming _devotion to_ JUSTICE, as the
controlling motive in the organization of the Government, and its secure
establishment the chief object of its aims. By this most solemn
recognition, the common law, that grand legal embodyment of "_justice_"
and fundamental right--was made the Groundwork of the Constitution, and
intrenched behind its strongest munitions. The second clause of Sec. 9,
Art. 1; Sec. 4, Art. 2, and the last clause of Sec. 2, Art. 3, with
Articles 7, 8, 9, and 13 of the Amendments, are also express
recognitions of the common law as the presiding Genius of the
Constitution.
By adopting the common law within its exclusive jurisdiction Congress
would carry out the principles of our glorious Declaration, and follow
the highest precedents in our national history and jurisprudence. It is
a political maxim as old as civil legislation, that laws should be
strictly homogeneous with the principles of the government whose will
they express, embodying and carrying them out--being indeed the
_principles themselves_, in preceptive form--representatives alike of
the nature and the power of the Government--standing illustrations of
its genius and spirit, while they proclaim and enforce its authority.
Who needs be told that slavery makes war upon the principles of the
Declaration, and the spirit of the Constitution, and that these and the
principles of the common law gravitate toward each other with
irrepressible affinities, and mingle into one? The common law came
hither with our pilgrim fathers; it was their birthright, their panoply,
their glory, and their song of rejoicing in the house of their
pilgrimage. It covered them in the day of their calamity, and their
trust was under the shadow of its wings. From the first settlement of
the country, the genius of our institutions and our national spirit have
claimed it as a common possession, and exulted in it with a common
pride. A century ago, Governor Pownall, one of the most eminent
constitutional jurists of colonial times, said of the common law, "In
all the colonies the common law is received as the foundation and main
body of their law." In the Declaration of Rights, made by the
Continental Congress at its first session in '74, there was the
following resolution: "Resolved, That the respective colonies are
entitled to the common law of England, and especially to the great and
inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage
according to the course of that law." Soon after the organization of the
general government, Chief Justice Ellsworth, in one of his decisions on
the bench of the United States Supreme Court, said: "The common law of
this country remains the same as it was before the revolution." Chief
Justice Marshall, in his decision in the case of Livingston _vs._
Jefferson, said: "When our ancestors migrated to America, they brought
with them the common law of their native country, so far as it was
applicable to their new situation, and I do not conceive that the
revolution in any degree changed the relations of man to man, or the law
which regulates them. In breaking our political connection with the
parent state, we did not break our connection with each other." [_Hall's
Law Journal, new series._] Mr. Duponceau, in his "Dissertation on the
Jurisdiction of Courts in the United States," says, "I consider the
common law of England the _jus commune_ of the United States. I think I
can lay it down as a correct principle, that the common law of England,
as it was at the time of the Declaration of Independence, still
continues to be the national law of this country, so far as it is
applicable to our present state, and subject to the modifications it has
received here in the course of nearly half a century." Chief Justice
Taylor of North Carolina, in his decision in the case of the State _vs._
Reed, in 1823, Hawkes' N.C. Reps. 454, says, "a law of _paramount
obligation to the statute_, was violated by the offence--COMMON LAW
founded upon the law of nature, and confirmed by revelation." The
legislation of the United States abounds in recognitions of the
principles of the common law, asserting their paramount binding power.
Sparing details, of which our national state papers are full, we
illustrate by a single instance. It was made a condition of the
admission of Louisiana into the Union, that the right of trial by jury
should be secured to all her citizens,--the United States government
thus employing its power to enlarge the jurisdiction of the common law
in this its great representative.
Having shown that the abolition of slavery is within the competency of
the law-making power, when unrestricted by constitutional provisions,
and that the legislation of Congress over the District is thus
unrestricted, its power to abolish slavery there is established.
We argue it further, from the fact, that slavery exists there _now_ by
an act of Congress. In the act of 16th July, 1790, Congress accepted
portions of territory offered by the states of Maryland and Virginia,
and enacted that the laws, as they then were, should continue in force,
"until Congress shall otherwise by law provide." Under these laws,
adopted by Congress, and in effect re-enacted and made laws of the
District, the slaves there are now held.
Is Congress so impotent in its own "exclusive jurisdiction" that it
_cannot_ "otherwise by law provide?" If it can say, what _shall_ be
considered property, it can say what shall _not_ be considered property.
Suppose a legislature should enact that marriage contracts shall be mere
bills of sale, making a husband the proprietor of his wife, as his _bona
fide_ property; and suppose husbands should herd their wives in droves
for the market as beasts of burden, or for the brothel as victims of
lust, and then prate about their inviolable legal property, and deny the
power of the legislature, which stamped them "property," to undo its own
wrong, and secure to wives by law the rights of human beings. Would such
cant about "legal rights" be heeded where reason and justice held sway,
and where law, based upon fundamental morality, received homage? If a
frantic legislature pronounces woman a chattel, has it no power, with
returning reason, to take back the blasphemy? Is the impious edict
irrepealable? Be it, that with legal forms it has stamped wives "wares."
Can no legislation blot out the brand? Must the handwriting of Deity on
human nature be expunged for ever? Has law no power to stay the erasing
pen, and tear off the scrawled label that covers up the IMAGE OF GOD?
II. THE POWER OF CONGRESS TO ABOLISH SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT HAS BEEN,
TILL RECENTLY, UNIVERSALLY CONCEDED.
1. IT HAS BEEN ASSUMED BY CONGRESS ITSELF. The following record stands
on the journals of the House of Representatives for 1804, p. 225: "On
motion made and seconded that the House do come to the following
resolution: 'Resolved, That from and after the 4th day of July, 1805,
all blacks and people of color that shall be born within the District of
Columbia, or whose mothers shall be the property of any person residing
within said District, shall be free, the males at the age of ----, and
the females at the age of ----. The main question being taken that the
house do agree to said motion as originally proposed, it was negatived
by a majority of 46.'" Though the motion was lost, it was on the ground
of its alleged _inexpediency_ alone. In the debate which preceded the
vote, the _power_ of Congress was conceded. In March, 1816, the House of
Representatives passed the following resolution:--"Resolved, That a
committee be appointed to inquire into the existence of an inhuman and
illegal traffic in slaves, carried on in and through the District of
Columbia, and to report whether any and what measures are necessary for
_putting a stop to the same_."
On the 9th of January, 1829, the House of Representatives passed the
following resolution by a vote of 114 to 66: "Resolved, That the
Committee on the District of Columbia, be instructed to inquire into the
_expediency_ of providing by _law_ for the gradual abolition of slavery
within the District, in such manner that the interests of no individual
shall be injured thereby." Among those who voted in the affirmative were
Messrs. Barney of Md., Armstrong of Va., A.H. Shepperd of N.C., Blair of
Tenn., Chilton and Lyon of Ky., Johns of Del., and others from slave
states.
2. IT HAS BEES CONCEDED BY COMMITTEES OF CONGRESS, OF THE DISTRICT of
COLUMBIA.--In a report of the committee on the District, Jan. 11, 1837,
by their chairman, Mr. Powell of Va., there is the following
declaration:--"The Congress of the United States, has by the
constitution exclusive jurisdiction over the District, and has power
upon this subject, (_slavery_,) as upon all other subjects of
legislation, to exercise _unlimited discretion_." Reps. of Comms. 2d
Sess. 19th Cong. v. iv. No. 43. In December, 1831, the committee on the
District, Dr. Doddridge of Va., Chairman, reported, "That until the
adjoining states act on the subject, (slavery) it would be (not
_unconstitutional_ but) unwise and impolitic, if not unjust, for
Congress to interfere." In April, 1836, a special committee on abolition
memorials reported the following resolutions by their Chairman, Mr.
Pinckney of South Carolina: "Resolved, That Congress possesses no
constitutional authority to interfere in any way with the institution of
slavery in any of the states of this confederacy."
"Resolved, That Congress _ought not to interfere_ in any way with
slavery in the District of Columbia." "Ought not to interfere,"
carefully avoiding the phraseology of the first resolution, and thus in
effect conceding the constitutional power. In a widely circulated
"Address to the electors of the Charleston District," Mr. Pinkney is
thus denounced by his own constituents: "He has proposed a resolution
which is received by the plain common sense of the whole country as a
concession that Congress has authority to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia."
3. IT HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY THE CITIZENS OF THE DISTRICT. A petition for
the gradual abolition of slavery in the District, signed by nearly
eleven hundred of its citizens, was presented to Congress, March 24,
1827. Among the signers to this petition, were Chief Justice Cranch,
Judge Van Ness, Judge Morsel, Prof. J.M. Staughton, and a large number
of the most influential inhabitants of the District. Mr. Dickson, of New
York, asserted on the floor of Congress in 1835, that the signers of
this petition owned more than half of the property in the District. The
accuracy of this statement has never been questioned.
THIS POWER HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY GRAND JURIES OF THE DISTRICT. The Grand
jury of the county of Alexandria, at the March term, 1802, presented the
domestic slave trade as a grievance, and said, "We consider these
grievances demanding _legislative_ redress." Jan. 19, 1829, Mr.
Alexander, of Virginia, presented a representation of the grand jury in
the city of Washington, remonstrating against "any measure for the
abolition of slavery within said District, unless accompanied by
measures for the removal of the emancipated from the same;" thus, not
only conceding the power to emancipate slaves, but affirming an
additional power, that of _excluding them when free_. Journal H.R.
1828-9, p. 174.
4. THIS POWER HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY STATE LEGISLATURES. In 1828 the
Legislature of Pennsylvania instructed their Senators in Congress "to
procure, if practicable, the passage of a law to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia." Jan. 28, 1829, the House of Assembly of New-York
passed a resolution, that their "Senators in Congress be instructed to
make every possible exertion to effect the passage of a law for the
abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia." In February, 1837,
the Senate of Massachusetts "Resolved, That Congress having exclusive
legislation in the District of Columbia, possess the right to abolish
slavery and the slave trade therein." The House of Representatives
passed the following resolution at the same session: "Resolved, That
Congress having exclusive legislation in the District of Columbia,
possess the right to abolish slavery in said District."
November 1, 1837, the Legislature of Vermont, "Resolved, that Congress
have the full power by the constitution to abolish slavery and the slave
trade in the District of Columbia, and in the territories."
May 30, 1836, a committee of the Pennsylvania Legislature reported the
following resolution: "Resolved, That Congress does possess the
constitutional power, and it is expedient to abolish slavery and the
slave trade within the District of Columbia."
In January, 1836, the Legislature of South Carolina "Resolved, That we
should consider the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia as
a violation of the rights of the citizens of that District derived from
the _implied_ conditions on which that territory was ceded to the
General Government." Instead of denying the constitutional power, they
virtually admit its existence, by striving to smother it under an
_implication_. In February, 1836, the Legislature of North Carolina
"Resolved, That, although by the Constitution _all legislative power_
over the District of Columbia is vested in the Congress of the United
States, yet we would deprecate any legislative action on the part of
that body towards liberating the slaves of that District, as a breach of
faith towards those States by whom the territory was originally ceded.
Here is a full concession of the _power_. February 2, 1836, the Virginia
Legislature passed unanimously the following resolution: "Resolved, by
the General Assembly of Virginia, that the following article be proposed
to the several states of this Union, and to Congress, as an amendment of
the Constitution of the United States: "The powers of Congress shall not
be so construed as to authorize the passage of any law for the
emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia, without the consent
of the individual proprietors thereof, unless by the sanction of the
Legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, and under such conditions as they
shall by law prescribe."
Fifty years after the formation of the United States' constitution the
states are solemnly called upon by the Virginia Legislature, to amend
that instrument by a clause asserting that, in the grant to Congress of
"exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever" over the District, the
"case" of slavery is not included!! What could have dictated such a
resolution but the conviction that the power to abolish slavery is an
irresistible inference from the constitution _as it is_. The fact that
the same legislature passed afterward a resolution, though by no means
unanimously, that Congress does not possess the power, abates not a
tittle of the testimony in the first resolution. March 23d, 1824, "Mr.
Brown presented the resolutions of the General Assembly of Ohio,
recommending to Congress the consideration of a system for the gradual
emancipation of persons of color held in servitude in the United
States." On the same day, "Mr. Noble, of Indiana, communicated a
resolution from the legislature of that state, respecting the gradual
emancipation of slaves within the United States." Journal of the United
States Senate, for 1824-5, p. 231.
The Ohio and Indiana resolutions, by taking for granted the _general_
power of Congress over the subject of slavery, do virtually assert its
_special_ power within its _exclusive_ jurisdiction.
5. THIS POWER HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY BODIES OF CITIZENS IN THE SLAVE
STATES. The petition of eleven hundred citizens of the District, has
been already mentioned. "March 5, 1830, Mr. Washington presented a
memorial of inhabitants of the county of Frederick, in the state of
Maryland, praying that provision be made for the gradual abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia." Journal H.R. 1829-30, p. 358.
March 30, 1828. Mr. A.H. Shepperd, of North Carolina, presented a
memorial of citizens of that state, "praying Congress to take measures
for the entire abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia."
Journal H.R. 1829-30, p. 379.
January 14, 1822. Mr. Rhea, of Tennessee, presented a memorial of
citizens of that state, praying "that provision may be made, whereby all
slaves which may hereafter be born in the District of Columbia, shall be
free at a certain period of their lives." Journal H.R. 1821-22, p. 142.
December 13, 1824. Mr. Saunders of North Carolina, presented a memorial
of citizens of that state, praying "that measures may be taken for the
gradual abolition of slavery in the United States." Journal H.R.
1824-25, p. 27.
December 16, 1828. "Mr. Barnard presented the memorial of the American
Convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, held in Baltimore,
praying that slavery may be abolished in the District of Columbia."
Journal U.S. Senate, 1828-29, p. 24.
6. DISTINGUISHED STATESMEN AND JURISTS IN THE SLAVEHOLDING STATES, HAVE
CONCEDED THIS POWER. The testimony of Messrs. Doddridge, and Powell, of
Virginia, Chief Justice Cranch, and Judges Morsel and Van Ness, of the
District, has already been given. In the debate in Congress on the
memorial of the Society of Friends, in 1790, Mr. Madison, in speaking of
the territories of the United States, explicitly declared, from his own
knowledge of the views of the members of the convention that framed the
constitution, as well as from the obvious import of its terms, that in
the territories, "Congress have certainly the power to regulate the
subject of slavery." Congress can have no more power over the
territories than that of "exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever," consequently, according to Mr. Madison, "it has certainly
the power to regulate the subject of slavery in the" _District_. In
March, 1816, Mr. Randolph of Va. introduced a resolution for putting a
stop to the domestic slave trade within the District. December 12, 1827,
Mr. Barney, of Md. presented a memorial for abolition in the District,
and moved that it be printed. Mr. McDuffie, of S.C., objected to the
printing, but "expressly admitted the right of Congress to grant to the
people of the District any measures which they might deem necessary to
free themselves from the deplorable evil."--[See letter of Mr. Claiborne
of Miss. to his constituents, published in the Washington Globe, May 9,
1836.] The sentiments of Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, on the subject are well
known. In a speech before the U.S. Senate, in 1836, he declared the
power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District "unquestionable."
Messrs. Blair, of Tenn., and Chilton, Lyon, and R.M. Johnson, of Ky.,
A.H. Shepperd, of N.C., Messrs. Armstrong and Smyth, of Va., Messrs.
Dorsey, Archer, and Barney, of Md., and Johns, of Del., with numerous
others from slave states, have asserted the power of Congress to abolish
slavery in the District. In the speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., on the
Missouri question, January 28, 1820, he says on this point: "If the
future freedom of the blacks is your real object, and not a mere
pretence, why do you not begin _here_? Within the ten miles square, you
have _undoubted power_ to exercise exclusive legislation. _Produce a
bill to emancipate the slaves in the District of Columbia_, or, if you
prefer it, to emancipate those born hereafter."
To this may be added the testimony of the present Vice President of the
United States, Hon. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. In a speech before
the U.S. Senate, Feb. 1, 1820, (National Intelligencer, April 20, 1820)
he says: "In the District of Columbia, containing a population of 30,000
souls, and probably as many slaves as the whole territory of Missouri,
THE POWER OF PROVIDING FOR THEIR EMANCIPATION RESTS WITH CONGRESS ALONE.
Why, then, this heart-rending sympathy for the slaves of Missouri, and
this cold insensibility, this eternal apathy, towards the slaves in the
District of Columbia?"
It is quite unnecessary to add, that the most distinguished northern
statesmen of both political parties, have always affirmed the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District: President Van Buren in his
letter of March 6, 1836, to a committee of gentlemen in North Carolina,
says, "I would not, from the light now before me, feel myself safe in
pronouncing that Congress does not possess the power of abolishing
slavery in the District of Columbia." This declaration of the President
is consistent with his avowed sentiments touching the Missouri question,
on which he coincided with such men as Daniel D. Tompkins, De Witt
Clinton, and others, whose names are a host.[A] It is consistent, also,
with his recommendation in his late message, in which, speaking of the
District, he strongly urges upon Congress "a thorough and careful
revision of its local government," speaks of the "entire dependence" of
the people of the District "upon Congress," recommends that a "uniform
system of local government" be adopted, and adds, that "although it was
selected as the seat of the General Government, the site of its public
edifices, the depository of its archives, and the residence of officers
entrusted with large amounts of public property, and the management of
public business, yet it never has been subjected to, or received, that
_special_ and _comprehensive_ legislation which these circumstances
peculiarly demanded."
[Footnote A: Mr. Van Buren, when a member of the Senate of New-York,
voted for the following preamble and resolutions, which passed
unanimously:--Jan 28th, 1820. "Whereas the inhibiting the further
extension of slavery in the United States, is a subject of deep concern
to the people of this state: and whereas, we consider slavery as an evil
much to be deplored, and that _every constitutional barrier should be
interposed to prevent its further extension_: and that the constitution
of the United States _clearly gives congress the right_ to require new
states, not comprised within the original boundary of the United States,
to _make the prohibition of slavery_ a condition of their admission into
the Union: Therefore,
"Resolved, That our Senators be instructed, and our members of Congress
be requested, to oppose the admission as a state into the Union, of an
territory not comprised as aforesaid, without making _the prohibition of
slavery_ therein an indispensable condition of admission." ]
The tenor of Mr. Tallmadge's speech on the right of petition, and of Mr.
Webster's on the reception of abolition memorials, may be taken as
universal exponents of the sentiments of northern statesmen as to the
power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.
An explicit declaration, that an "_overwhelming majority_" of the
_present_ Congress concede the power to abolish slavery in the District,
has just been made by Hon. Robert Barnwell Rhett, a member of Congress
from South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston Mercury of
Dec. 27, 1837. The following is an extract:
"The time has arrived when we must have new guaranties under the
constitution, or the Union must be dissolved. _Our views of the
constitution are not those of the majority_. AN OVERWHELMING
MAJORITY _think that by the constitution, Congress may abolish
slavery in the District of Columbia--may abolish the slave trade
between the States; that is, it may prohibit their being carried
out of the State in which they are--and prohibit it in all the
territories, Florida among them. They think_, NOT WITHOUT STRONG
REASONS, _that the power of Congress extends to all of these
subjects_."
_Direct testimony_ to show that the power of Congress to abolish slavery
in the District, has always till recently been _universally conceded_,
is perhaps quite superfluous. We subjoin, however, the following:
The Vice-President of the United States in his speech on the Missouri
question, quoted above, after contending that the restriction of slavery
in Missouri would be unconstitutional, declares, that the power of
Congress over slavery in the District "COULD NOT BE QUESTIONED." In the
speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., also quoted above, he declares the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District to be "UNDOUBTED."
Mr. Sutherland, of Penn., in a speech in the House of Representatives,
on the motion to print Mr. Pinckney's Report, is thus reported in the
Washington Globe, of May 9th, '36. "He replied to the remark that the
report conceded that Congress had a right to legislate upon the subject
in the District of Columbia, and said that SUCH A RIGHT HAD NEVER BEEN,
TILL RECENTLY, DENIED."
The American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia, with a large
circulation and list of contributors in the slave states, holds the
following language in the September No. 1833, p. 55: "Under this
'exclusive jurisdiction,' granted by the constitution, Congress has
power to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of
Columbia. It would hardly be necessary to state this as a distinct
proposition, had it not been occasionally questioned. The truth of the
assertion, however, is too obvious to admit of argument--and we believe
HAS NEVER BEEN DISPUTED BY PERSONS WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE
CONSTITUTION."
OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING CONCLUSIONS CONSIDERED.
We now proceed to notice briefly the main arguments that have been
employed in Congress, and elsewhere against the power of Congress to
abolish slavery in the District. One of the most plausible is; that "the
conditions on which Maryland and Virginia ceded the District to the
United States, would be violated, if Congress should abolish slavery
there." The reply to this is, that Congress had no power to _accept_ a
cession coupled with conditions restricting that "power of exclusive
legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District," which was
given it by the constitution.
To show the futility of the objection, we insert here the acts of
cession. The cession of Maryland was made in November, 1788, and is as
follows: "An act to cede to Congress a district of ten miles square in
this state for the seat of the government of the United States."
"Be it enacted, by the General Assembly of Maryland, that the
representatives of this state in the House of Representatives of the
Congress of the United States, appointed to assemble at New-York, on the
first Wednesday of March next, be, and they are hereby authorized and
required on the behalf of this state, to cede to the Congress of the
United States, any district in this state, not exceeding ten miles
square, which the Congress may fix upon, and accept for the seat of
government of the United States." Laws of Md., v. 2., c. 46.
The cession of Virginia was made on the 3d of December, 1788, in the
following words:
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That a tract of country, not
exceeding ten miles square, or any lesser quantity, to be located within
the limits of the State, and in any part thereof, as Congress may, by
law, direct, shall be, and the same is hereby forever ceded and
relinquished to the Congress and Government of the United States, in
full and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil, as
of persons residing or to reside thereon, pursuant to the tenor and
effect of the eighth section of the first article of the government of
the constitution of the United States."
But were there no provisos to these acts? The Maryland act had _none_.
The Virginia act had this proviso: "Sect. 2. Provided, that nothing
herein contained, shall be construed to vest in the United States any
right of property in the soil, or to affect the rights of individuals
_therein_, otherwise than the same shall or may be transferred by such
individuals to the United States."
This specification touching the soil was merely definitive and
explanatory of that clause in the act of cession, "_full and absolute
right_." Instead of restraining the power of Congress on _slavery_ and
other subjects, it even gives it freer course; for exceptions to _parts_
of a rule, give double confirmation to those parts not embraced in the
exceptions. If it was the _design_ of the proviso to restrict
congressional action on the subject of _slavery_, why is the _soil
alone_ specified? As legal instruments are not paragons of economy in
words, might not "John Doe," out of his abundance, and without spoiling
his style, have afforded an additional word--at least a hint--that
slavery was _meant_, though nothing was _said_ about it?
But again, Maryland and Virginia, in their acts of cession, declare them
to be "in pursuance of" that clause of the constitution which gives to
Congress "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over" the ten
miles square--thus, instead of _restricting_ that clause, both States
_confirm_ it. Now, their acts of cession either accorded with that
clause of the constitution, or they conflicted with it. If they
conflicted with it, _accepting_ the cessions was a violation of the
constitution. The fact that Congress accepted the cessions, proves that
in its view their _terms_ did not conflict with its constitutional grant
of power. The inquiry whether these acts of cession were consistent or
inconsistent with the United States' constitution, is totally irrelevant
to the question at issue. What saith the CONSTITUTION? That is the
question. Not, what saith Virginia, or Maryland, or--equally to the
point--John Bull! If Maryland and Virginia had been the authorized
interpreters of the constitution for the Union, these acts of cession
could hardly have been magnified more than they have been recently by
the southern delegation in Congress. A true understanding of the
constitution can be had, forsooth, only by holding it up in the light of
Maryland and Virginia legislation!
We are told, again, that those States would not have ceded the District
if they had supposed the constitution gave Congress power to abolish
slavery in it.
This comes with an ill grace from Maryland and Virginia. They _knew_ the
constitution. They were parties to it. They had sifted it clause by
clause, in their State conventions. They had weighed its words in the
balance--they had tested them as by fire; and finally, after long
pondering, they _adopted_ the constitution. And _afterward_, self-moved,
they ceded the ten miles square, and declared the cession made "in
pursuance of" that oft-cited clause, "Congress shall have power to
exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such
District." And now verily "they would not have ceded if they had
_supposed_!" &c. Cede it they _did_, and in "full and absolute right
both of soil and persons." Congress accepted the cession--state power
over the District ceased, and congressional power over it commenced--and
now, the sole question to be settled is, _the amount of power over the
District, lodged in Congress by the constitution_. The constitution--THE
CONSTITUTION--that is the point. Maryland and Virginia "suppositions"
must be potent suppositions to abrogate a clause of the United States'
Constitution! That clause either gives Congress power to abolish slavery
in the District, or it does _not_--and that point is to be settled, not
by state "suppositions," nor state usages, nor state legislation, but
_by the terms of the clause themselves_.
Southern members of Congress, in the recent discussions, have conceded
the power of a contingent abolition in the District, by suspending it
upon the _consent_ of the people. Such a doctrine from _declaimers_ like
Messrs. Alford, of Georgia, and Walker, of Mississippi, would excite no
surprise; but that it should be honored with the endorsement of such men
as Mr. Rives and Mr. Calhoun, is quite unaccountable. Are attributes of
_sovereignty_ mere creatures of _contingency_? Is delegated _authority_
mere conditional _permission_? Is a _constitutional power_ to be
exercised by those who hold it, only by popular _sufferance?_ Must it
lie helpless at the pool of public sentiment, waiting the gracious
troubling of its waters? Is it a lifeless corpse, save only when popular
"consent" deigns to puff breath into its nostrils? Besides, if the
consent of the people of the District be necessary, the consent of the
_whole_ people must be had--not that of a majority, however large.
Majorities, to be authoritative, must be _legal_--and a legal majority
without legislative power, or right of representation, or even the
electoral franchise, would be truly an anomaly! In the District of
Columbia, such a thing as a majority in a legal sense is unknown to law.
To talk of the power of a majority, or the will of a majority there, is
mere mouthing. A majority? Then it has an authoritative will--and an
organ to make it known--and an executive to carry it into effect--Where
are they? We repeat it--if the consent of the people of the District be
necessary, the consent of _every one_ is necessary--and _universal_
consent will come only with the Greek Kalends and a "perpetual motion."
A single individual might thus _perpetuate_ slavery in defiance of the
expressed will of a whole people. The most common form of this fallacy
is given by Mr. Wise, of Virginia, in his speech, February 16, 1835, in
which he denied the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the
District, unless the inhabitants owning slaves petitioned for it!!
Southern members of Congress at the present session ring changes almost
daily upon the same fallacy. What! pray Congress _to use_ a power which
it _has not_? "It is required of a man according to what he _hath_,"
saith the Scripture. I commend Mr. Wise to Paul for his ethics. Would
that he had got his _logic_ of him! If Congress does not possess the
power, why taunt it with its weakness, by asking its exercise? Why mock
it by demanding impossibilities? Petitioning, according to Mr. Wise, is,
in matters of legislation, omnipotence itself; the very _source_ of all
constitutional power; for, _asking_ Congress to do what it _cannot_ do,
gives it the power--to pray the exercise of a power that is _not,
creates_ it. A beautiful theory! Let us work it both ways. If to
petition for the exercise of a power that is _not_, creates it--to
petition against the exercise of a power that _is_, annihilates it. As
southern gentlemen are partial to summary processes, pray, sirs, try the
virtue of your own recipe on "exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever;" a better subject for experiment and test of the
prescription could not be had. But if the petitions of the citizens of
the District give Congress the _right_ to abolish slavery, they impose
the _duty_; if they confer constitutional _authority_, they create
constitutional _obligation_. If Congress _may_ abolish because of an
expression of their will, it _must_ abolish at the bidding of that will.
If the people of the District are a _source of power_ to Congress, their
_expressed_ will has the force of a constitutional provision, and has
the same binding power upon the National Legislature. To make Congress
dependent on the District for authority, is to make it a _subject_ of
its authority, restraining the exercise of its own discretion, and
sinking it into a mere organ of the District's will. We proceed to
another objection.
"_The southern states would not have ratified the constitution, if they
had supposed that it gave this power._" It is a sufficient answer to
this objection, that the northern states would not have ratified it, if
they had supposed that it _withheld_ the power. If "suppositions" are to
take the place of the constitution--coming from both sides, they
neutralize each other. To argue a constitutional question by _guessing_
at the "suppositions" that might have been made by the parties to it,
would find small favor in a court of law. But even a desperate shift is
some easement when sorely pushed. If this question is to be settled by
"suppositions" suppositions shall be forthcoming, and that without
stint.
First, then, I affirm that the North ratified the constitution,
"supposing" that slavery had begun to wax old, and would speedily vanish
away, and especially that the abolition of the slave trade, which by the
constitution was to be surrendered to Congress after twenty years, would
cast it headlong.
Would the North have adopted the constitution, giving three-fifths of
the "slave property" a representation, if it had "supposed" that the
slaves would have increased from half a million to two millions and a
half by 1838--and that the census of 1840 would give to the slave states
thirty representatives of "slave property?"
If they had "supposed" that this representation would have controlled
the legislation of the government, and carried against the North every
question vital to its interests, would Hamilton, Franklin, Sherman,
Gerry, Livingston, Langdon, and Rufus King have been such madmen, as to
sign the constitution, and the Northern States such suicides as to
ratify it? Every self-preserving instinct would have shrieked at such an
infatuate immolation. At the adoption of the United States constitution,
slavery was regarded as a fast waning system. This conviction was
universal. Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Grayson, Tucker, Madison,
Wythe, Pendleton, Lee, Blair, Mason, Page, Parker, Randolph, Iredell,
Spaight, Ramsey, Pinkney, Martin, McHenry, Chase, and nearly all the
illustrious names south of the Potomac, proclaimed it before the sun. A
reason urged in the convention that formed the United States
constitution, why the word slave should not be used in it, was, that
_when slavery should cease_, there might remain upon the National
Charter no record that it had ever been. (See speech of Mr. Burrill, of
R.I., on the Missouri question.)
I now proceed to show by testimony, that at the date of the United
States constitution, and for several years before and after that period,
slavery was rapidly on the wane; that the American Revolution with the
great events preceding, accompanying, and following it, had wrought an
immense and almost universal change in the public sentiment of the
nation on the subject, powerfully impelling it toward the entire
abolition of the system--and that it was the _general belief_ that
measures for its abolition throughout the Union, would be commenced by
the individual States generally before the lapse of many years. A great
mass of testimony establishing this position might be presented, but
narrow space, and the importance of speedy publication, counsel brevity.
Let the following proofs suffice. First, a few dates as points of
observation.
The first _general_ Congress met in 1774. The revolutionary war
commenced in '75. Independence was declared in '76. The articles of
confederation were adopted by the thirteen states in '78. Independence
acknowledged in '83. The convention for forming the U.S. constitution
was held in '87, the state conventions for considering it in '87, and
'88. The first Congress under the constitution in '89.
Dr. Rush, of Pennsylvania, one of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence, in a letter to Granville Sharpe, May 1, 1773, says "A
spirit of humanity and religion begins to awaken in several of the
colonies in favor of the poor negroes. Great events have been brought
about by small beginnings. _Anthony Benezet stood alone a few years ago
in opposing negro slavery in Philadelphia_, and NOW THREE-FOURTHS OF THE
PROVINCE AS WELL AS OF THE CITY CRY OUT AGAINST IT."--[Stuart's Life of
Sharpe, p. 21.]
In the preamble to the act prohibiting the importation of slaves into
Rhode Island, June, 1774, is the following: "Whereas the inhabitants of
America are generally engaged in the preservation of their own rights
and liberties, among which that of personal freedom must be considered
the greatest, and as those who are desirous of enjoying all the
advantages of liberty themselves, _should be willing to extend personal
liberty to others_, therefore," &c.
October 20, 1774, the Continental Congress passed the following: "We,
for ourselves and the inhabitants of the several colonies whom we
represent, _firmly agree and associate under the sacred ties of virtue,
honor, and love of our country_, as follows:
"2d Article. We _will neither import nor purchase any slaves imported_
after the first day of December next, after which time we will _wholly
discontinue_ the slave trade, and we will neither be concerned in it
ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or
manufactures to those who are concerned in it."
The Continental Congress, in 1775, setting forth the causes and the
necessity for taking up arms, say: "_If it were possible_ for men who
exercise their reason to believe that the divine Author of our existence
intended a part of the human race to _hold an absolute property in, and
unbounded power over others_," &c.
In 1776, Dr. Hopkins, then at the head of New England divines, in "An
Address to the owners of negro slaves in the American colonies," says:
"The conviction of the unjustifiableness of this practice (slavery) has
been _increasing_, and _greatly spreading of late_, and _many_ who have
had slaves, have found themselves so unable to justify their own conduct
in holding them in bondage, as to be induced to _set them at liberty_. *
* * * Slavery is, _in every instance_, wrong, unrighteous,
and oppressive--a very great and crying sin--_there being nothing of the
kind equal to it on the face of the earth._"
The same year the American Congress issued a solemn MANIFESTO to the
world. These were its first words: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." _Once_, these were words
of power; _now_, "a rhetorical flourish."
The celebrated Patrick Henry of Virginia, in a letter, of Jan. 18, 1773,
to Robert Pleasants, afterwards president of the Virginia Abolition
Society, says: "Believe me, I shall honor the Quakers for their noble
efforts to abolish slavery. It is a debt we owe to the purity of our
religion to show that it is at variance with that law that warrants
slavery. I exhort you to persevere in so worthy a resolution."
In 1779, the Continental Congress ordered a pamphlet to be published,
entitled, "Observations on the American Revolution," from which the
following is an extract: "The great principle (of government) is and
ever will remain in force, _that men are by nature free_; and so long as
we have any idea of divine _justice_, we must associate that of _human
freedom_. It is _conceded on all hands, that the right to be free_ CAN
NEVER BE ALIENATED."
Extract from the Pennsylvania act for the abolition of slavery, passed
March 1, 1780: * * "We conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice
that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others
which has been extended to us. Weaned by a long course of experience
from those narrow prejudices and partialities we had imbibed, we find
our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards men of all
conditions and nations: * * * Therefore be it enacted, that no
child born hereafter be a slave," &c.
Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, written just before the close of
the Revolutionary War, says: "I think a change already perceptible since
the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is
abating, that of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition
mollifying, _the way I hope preparing under the auspices of heaven_, FOR
A TOTAL EMANCIPATION."
In a letter to Dr. Price, of London, who had just published a pamphlet
in favor of the abolition of slavery, Mr. Jefferson, then minister at
Paris, (August 7, 1785,) says: "From the mouth to the head of the
Chesapeake, _the bulk of the people will approve of your pamphlet in
theory_, and it will find a respectable minority ready to _adopt it in
practice_--a minority which, for weight and worth of character,
_preponderates against the greater number_." Speaking of Virginia, he
says: "This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the
interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and
oppression,--a conflict in which THE SACRED SIDE IS GAINING DAILY
RECRUITS. Be not, therefore, discouraged--what you have written will do
a _great deal of good_; and could you still trouble yourself with our
welfare, no man is more able to give aid to the laboring side. The
College of William and Mary, since the remodelling of its plan, is the
place where are collected together all the young men of Virginia, under
preparation for public life. They are there under the direction (most of
them) of a Mr. Wythe, one of the most virtuous of characters, and _whose
sentiments on the subject of slavery are unequivocal._ I am satisfied,
if you could resolve to address an exhortation to those young men with
all that eloquence of which you are master, that _its influence on the
future decision of this important question would be great, perhaps
decisive._ Thus, you see, that so far from thinking you have cause to
repent of what you have done, _I wish you to do more, and wish it on an
assurance of its effect._"--Jefferson's Posthumous Works, vol. 1, p.
268.
In 1786, John Jay drafted and signed a petition to the Legislature of
New York, on the subject of slavery, beginning with these words: "Your
memorialists being deeply affected by the situation of those, who,
although FREE BY THE LAW OF GOD, are held in slavery by the laws of the
State," &c. This memorial bore also the signatures of the celebrated
Alexander Hamilton; Robert R. Livingston, afterward Secretary of Foreign
Affairs of the United States, and Chancellor of the State of New-York;
James Duane, Major of the City of New-York, and many others of the most
eminent individuals in the State.
In the preamble of an instrument, by which Mr. Jay emancipated a slave
in 1784, is the following passage:
"Whereas, the children of men are by nature equally free, and cannot,
without injustice, be either reduced to or HELD in slavery."
In his letter while Minister at Spain, in 1786, he says, speaking of the
abolition of slavery: "Till America comes into this measure, her prayers
to heaven will be IMPIOUS. I believe God governs the world; and I
believe it to be a maxim in his, as in our court, that those who ask for
equity _ought to do it._"
In 1785, the New-York Manumission Society was formed. John Jay was
chosen its first President, and held the office for five years.
Alexander Hamilton was its second President, and after holding the
office one year, resigned upon his removal to Philadelphia as Secretary
of the United States' Treasury. In 1787, the Pennsylvania Abolition
Society was formed. Benjamin Franklin, warm from the discussions of the
convention that formed the U.S. constitution, was chosen President, and
Benjamin Rush, Secretary--both signers of the Declaration of
Independence. In 1789, the Maryland Abolition Society was formed. Among
its officers were Samuel Chace, Judge of the U.S. Supreme Court, and
Luther Martin, a member of the convention that formed the U.S.
constitution. In 1790, the Connecticut Abolition Society was formed. The
first President was Rev. Dr. Stiles, President of Yale College, and the
Secretary, Simeon Baldwin, (the late Judge Baldwin of New Haven.) In
1791, this Society sent a memorial to Congress, from which the following
is an extract:
"From a sober conviction of the unrighteousness of slavery, your
petitioners have long beheld, with grief, our fellow men doomed
to perpetual bondage, in a country which boasts of her freedom.
Your petitioners are fully of opinion; that calm reflection will
at last convince the world, that the whole system of African
slavery IS unjust in its nature--impolitic in its
principles--and, in its consequences, ruinous to the industry
and enterprise of the citizens of these States. From a
conviction of those truths, your petitioners were led, by
motives, we conceive, of general philanthropy, to associate
ourselves for the protection and assistance of this unfortunate
part of our fellow men; and, though this Society has been
_lately_ established, it has now become _generally extensive_
through this state, and, we fully believe, _embraces, on this
subject, the sentiments of a large majority of its citizens._"
The same year the Virginia Abolition Society was formed. This Society,
and the Maryland Society, had auxiliaries in different parts of those
States. Both societies sent up memorials to Congress. The memorial of
the Virginia Society is headed--"The memorial of the _Virginia Society_,
for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, &c." The following is an
extract:
"Your memorialists, fully believing that slavery is not only an
odious degradation, but an _outrageous violation of one of the
most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to
the precepts of the gospel_, lament that a practice so
inconsistent with true policy and the inalienable rights of men,
should subsist in so enlightened an age, and among a people
professing, that all mankind are, by nature, equally entitled to
freedom."
About the same time a Society was formed in New Jersey. It had an acting
committee of five members in each county in the State. The following is
an extract from the preamble to its constitution:
"It is our boast, that we live under a government wherein
_life_, _liberty_, and the _pursuit of happiness_, are
recognized as the universal rights of men; and whilst we are
anxious to preserve these rights to ourselves, and transmit them
inviolate, to our posterity, we _abhor that inconsistent,
illiberal, and interested policy, which withholds those rights
from an unfortunate and degraded class of our fellow
creatures._"
Among other distinguished individuals who were efficient officers of
these Abolition Societies, and delegates from their respective state
societies, at the annual meetings of the American convention for
promoting the abolition of slavery, were Hon. Uriah Tracy, United
States' Senator, from Connecticut; Hon. Zephaniah Swift, Chief Justice
of the same State; Hon. Cesar A. Rodney, Attorney General of the United
States; Hon. James A. Bayard, United States' Senator, from Delaware;
Governor Bloomfield, of New-Jersey; Hon. Wm. Rawle, the late venerable
head of the Philadelphia bar; Dr. Caspar Wistar, of Philadelphia;
Messrs. Foster and Tillinghast, of Rhode Island; Messrs. Ridgely,
Buchanan, and Wilkinson, of Maryland; and Messrs. Pleasants, McLean, and
Anthony, of Virginia.
In July, 1787, the old Congress passed the celebrated ordinance
abolishing slavery in the northwestern territory, and declaring that it
should never thereafter exist there. This ordinance was passed while the
convention that formed the United States' constitution was in session.
At the first session of Congress under the constitution, this ordinance
was ratified by a special act. Washington, fresh from the discussions of
the convention, in which _more than forty days had been spent in
adjusting the question of slavery, gave it his approval._ The act passed
with only one dissenting voice, (that of Mr. Yates, of New York,) _the
South equally with the North avowing the fitness and expediency of the
measure on general considerations, and indicating thus early the line of
national policy, to be pursued by the United States' Government on the
subject of slavery_.
In the debates in the North Carolina Convention, Mr. Iredell, afterward
a Judge of the United States' Supreme Court, said, "_When the entire
abolition of slavery takes place_, it will be an event which must be
pleasing to every generous mind and every friend of human nature." Mr.
Galloway said, "I wish to see this abominable trade put an end to. I
apprehend the clause (touching the slave trade) means _to bring forward
manumission_." Luther Martin, of Maryland, a member of the convention
that formed the United States Constitution, said, "We ought to authorize
the General Government to make such regulations as shall be thought most
advantageous for _the gradual abolition of slavery_, and the
_emancipation of the slaves_ which are already in the States." Judge
Wilson, of Pennsylvania, one of the framers of the constitution, said,
in the Pennsylvania convention of '87, [Deb. Pa. Con. p. 303, 156:] "I
consider this (the clause relative to the slave trade) as laying the
foundation for _banishing slavery out of this country_. It will produce
the same kind of gradual change which was produced in Pennsylvania; the
new states which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress
in this particular, and _slaves will never be introduced_ among them. It
presents us with the pleasing prospect that the rights of mankind will
be acknowledged and established _throughout the Union_. Yet the lapse of
a few years, and Congress will have power to _exterminate slavery_
within our borders." In the Virginia convention of '87, Mr. Mason,
author of the Virginia constitution, said, "The augmentation of slaves
weakens the States, and such a trade is _diabolical_ in itself, and
disgraceful to mankind. As much as I value a union of all the states, I
would not admit the southern states, (i.e., South Carolina and Georgia,)
into the union, _unless they agree to a discontinuance of this
disgraceful trade_." Mr. Tyler opposed with great power the clause
prohibiting the abolition of the slave trade till 1808, and said, "My
earnest desire is, that it shall be handed down to posterity that I
oppose this wicked clause." Mr. Johnson said, "The principle of
emancipation _has begun since the revolution. Let us do what we will, it
will come round_."--[Deb. Va. Con. p. 463.] Patrick Henry, arguing the
power of Congress under the United States' constitution to abolish
slavery in the States, said, in the same convention, "Another thing will
contribute to bring this event (the abolition of slavery) about. Slavery
is _detested_. We feel its fatal effects; we deplore it with all the
pity of humanity."--[Deb. Va. Con. p. 431.] In the Mass. Con. of '88,
Judge Dawes said, "Although slavery is not smitten by an apoplexy, yet
_it has received a mortal wound_, and will die of consumption."--[Deb.
Mass. Con. p. 60.] General Heath said that, "Slavery was confined to the
States _now existing_, it _could not be extended_. By their ordinance,
Congress had declared that the new States should be republican States,
_and have no slavery_."--p. 147.
In the debate, in the first Congress, February 11th and 12th, 1789, on
the petitions of the Society of Friends, and the Pennsylvania Abolition
Society, Mr. Parker, of Virginia, said, "I cannot help expressing the
pleasure I feel in finding _so considerable a part_ of the community
attending to matters of such a momentous concern to the _future
prosperity_ and happiness of the people of America. I think it my duty,
as a citizen of the Union, _to espouse their cause_."
Mr. Page, of Virginia, (afterward Governor)--"Was _in favor_ of the
commitment; he hoped that the designs of the respectable memorialists
would not be stopped at the threshold, in order to preclude a fair
discussion of the prayer of the memorial. With respect to the alarm that
was apprehended, he conjectured there was none; but there might be just
cause, if the memorial was _not_ taken into consideration. He placed
himself in the case of a slave, and said, that on hearing that Congress
had refused to listen to the decent suggestions of a respectable part of
the community, he should infer, that the general government, _from which
was expected great good would result to_ EVERY CLASS _of citizens_, had
shut their ears against the voice of humanity, and he should despair of
any alleviation of the miseries he and his posterity had in prospect; if
any thing could induce him to rebel, it must be a stroke like this,
impressing on his mind all the horrors of despair. But if he was told,
that application was made in his behalf, and that Congress were willing
to hear what could be urged in favor of discouraging the practice of
importing his fellow-wretches, he would trust in their justice and
humanity, and _wait the decision patiently_."
Mr. Scott of Pennsylvania: "I cannot, for my part, conceive how any
person _can be said to acquire a property in another_. Let us argue on
principles countenanced by reason, and becoming humanity. _I do not know
how far I might go, if I was one of the judges of the United States, and
those people were to came before me and claim their emancipation, but I
am sure I would go as far as I could_."
Mr. Burke, of South Carolina, said, "He _saw the disposition of the
House_, and he feared it would he referred to a committee, maugre all
their opposition."
Mr. Smith of South Carolina, said, "That on entering into this
government, they (South Carolina and Georgia) apprehended that the other
states, * * _would, from motives of humanity and benevolence,
be led to vote for a general emancipation_."
In the debate, at the same session, May 13th, 1789, on the petition of
the Society of Friends respecting the slave trade, Mr. Parker, of
Virginia, said, "He hoped Congress would do all that lay in their power
_to restore to human nature its inherent privileges_. The inconsistency
in our principles, with which we are justly charged _should be done
away_."
Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, said, "IT WAS THE FASHION OF THE DAY TO FAVOR
THE LIBERTY OF THE SLAVES. * * * * Will Virginia
set her negroes free? _When this practice comes to be tried, then the
sound of liberty will lose those charms which make it grateful to the
ravished ear_."
Mr. Madison, of Virginia,--"The dictates of humanity, the principles of
the people, the national safety and happiness, and prudent policy,
require it of us. * * * * I conceive the
constitution in this particular was formed in order that the Government,
whilst it was restrained from laying a total prohibition, might be able
to _give some testimony of the sense of America_, with respect to the
African trade. * * * * It is to be hoped, that by
expressing a national disapprobation of this trade, we may destroy it,
and save ourselves from reproaches, AND OUR POSTERITY THE IMBECILITY
EVER ATTENDANT ON A COUNTRY FILLED WITH SLAVES. If there is any one
point in which it is clearly the policy of this nation, so far as we
constitutionally can, _to vary the practice_ obtaining under some of the
state governments, it is this. But it is _certain_ a majority of the
states are _opposed to this practice_."--Cong. Reg. v. 1, p. 308-12.
A writer in the "Gazette of the United States," Feb. 20th, 1790, (then
the government paper,) who opposes the abolition of slavery, and avows
himself a _slaveholder_, says, "I have seen in the papers accounts of
_large associations_, and applications to Government for _the abolition
of slavery_. Religion, humanity, and the generosity natural to a free
people, are the _noble principles which dictate those measures_. SUCH
MOTIVES COMMAND RESPECT, AND ARE ABOVE ANY EULOGIUM WORDS CAN BESTOW."
In the convention that formed the constitution of Kentucky in 1790, the
effort to prohibit slavery was nearly successful. A decided majority of
that body would undoubtedly have voted for its exclusion, but for the
great efforts and influence of two large slaveholders--men of commanding
talents and sway--Messrs. Breckenridge and Nicholas. The following
extract from a speech made in that convention by a member of it, Mr.
Rice a native Virginian, is a specimen of the _free discussion_ that
prevailed on that "delicate subject." Said Mr. Rice: "I do a man greater
injury, when I deprive him of his liberty, than when I deprive him of
his property. It is vain for me to plead that I have the sanction of
law; for this makes the injury the greater--it arms the community
against him, and makes his case desperate. The owners of such slaves
then are _licensed robbers_, and not the just proprietors of what they
claim. Freeing them is not depriving them of property, but _restoring it
to the right owner_. In America, a slave is a standing monument of the
tyranny and inconsistency of human governments. The master is the enemy
of the slave; he _has made open war upon him_, AND IS DAILY CARRYING IT
ON in unremitted efforts. Can any one imagine, then, that the slave is
indebted to his master, and _bound to serve him_? Whence can the
obligation arise? What is it founded upon? What is my duty to an enemy
that is carrying on war against me? I do not deny, but in some
circumstances, it is the duty of the slave to serve; but it is a duty he
owes himself, and not his master."
President Edwards, the younger, said, in a sermon preached before the
Connecticut Abolition Society, Sept. 15, 1791: "Thirty years ago,
scarcely a man in this country thought either the slave trade or the
slavery of negroes to be wrong; but now how many and able advocates in
private life, in our legislatures, in Congress, have appeared, and have
openly and irrefragably pleaded the rights of humanity in this as well
as other instances? And if we judge of the future by the past, _within
fifty years from this time, it will be as shameful for a man to hold a
negro slave, as to be guilty of common robbery or theft_."
In 1794, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church adopted its
"Scripture proofs," notes, comments, &c. Among these was the following:
"1 Tim. i. 10. The law is made for manstealers. This crime among
the Jews exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment.
Exodus xxi. 16. And the apostle here classes them with _sinners
of the first rank_. The word he uses, in its original import
comprehends all who are concerned in bringing any of the human
race into slavery, or in _retaining_ them in it. _Stealers of
men_ are all those who bring off slaves or freemen, and _keep_,
sell, or buy them."
In 1794, Dr. Rush declared: "Domestic slavery is repugnant to the
principles of Christianity. It prostrates every benevolent and just
principle of action in the human heart. It is rebellion against the
authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and
efficacy of the death of a common Savior. It is an usurpation of the
prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe, who has solemnly
claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men."
In 1790, Mr. Fiske, then an officer of Dartmouth College, afterward a
Judge in Tennessee, said, in an oration published that year, speaking of
slaves: "I steadfastly maintain, that we must bring them to _an equal
standing, in point of privileges, with the whites_! They must enjoy all
the rights belonging to human nature."
When the petition on the abolition of the slave trade was under
discussion in the Congress of '89, Mr. Brown, of North Carolina, said,
"The emancipation of the slaves _will be effected_ in time; it ought to
be a gradual business, but he hoped that Congress would not
_precipitate_ it to the great injury of the southern States." Mr.
Hartley, of Pennsylvania, said, in the same debate, "_He was not a
little surprised to hear the cause of slavery advocated in that house._"
WASHINGTON, in a letter to Sir John Sinclair, says, "There are, in
Pennsylvania, laws for the gradual abolition of slavery which neither
Maryland nor Virginia have at present, but which _nothing is more
certain_ than that they _must have_, and at a period NOT REMOTE." In
1782, Virginia passed her celebrated manumission act. Within nine years
from that time nearly eleven thousand slaves were voluntarily
emancipated by their masters. Judge Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery,"
p. 72. In 1787, Maryland passed an act legalizing manumission. Mr.
Dorsey, of Maryland, in a speech in Congress, December 27th, 1826,
speaking of manumissions under that act, said, that "_The progress of
emancipation was astonishing_, the State became crowded with a free
black population."
The celebrated William Pinkney, in a speech before the Maryland House of
Delegates, in 1789, on the emancipation of slaves, said, "Sir, by the
eternal principles of natural justice, _no master in the state has a
right to hold his slave in bondage for a single hour_.... I would as
soon believe the incoherent tale of a schoolboy, who should tell me he
had been frightened by a ghost, as that the grant of this permission (to
emancipate) ought in any degree to alarm us. Are we apprehensive that
these men will become more dangerous by becoming freemen? Are we
alarmed, lest by being admitted into the enjoyment of civil rights, they
will be inspired with a deadly enmity against the rights of others?
Strange, unaccountable paradox! How much more rational would it be, to
argue that the natural enemy of the privileges of a freeman, is he who
is robbed of them himself! Dishonorable to the species is the idea that
they would ever prove injurious to our interests--released from the
shackles of slavery, by the justice of government and the bounty of
individuals--the want of fidelity and attachment would be next to
impossible."
Hon. James Campbell, in an address before the Pennsylvania Society of
the Cincinnati, July 4, 1787, said, "Our separation from Great Britain
has extended the empire of humanity. The time _is not far distant_ when
our sister states, in imitation of our example, _shall turn their
vassals into freemen_." The Convention that formed the United States'
Constitution being then in session, attended at the delivery of this
oration with General Washington at their head.
A Baltimore paper of September 8th, 1780, contains the following notice
of Major General Gates: "A few days ago passed through this town the
Hon. General Gates and lady. The General, previous to leaving Virginia,
summoned his numerous family of slaves about him, and amidst their tears
of affection and gratitude, gave them their FREEDOM."
In 1791 the university of William and Mary, in Virginia, conferred upon
Granville Sharpe the degree of Doctor of Laws. Sharpe was at that time
the acknowledged head of British abolitionists. His indefatigable
exertions, prosecuted for years in the case of Somerset, procured that
memorable decision in the Court of King's Bench, which settled the
principle that no slave could be held in England. He was most
uncompromising in his opposition to slavery, and for twenty years
previous he had spoken, written, and accomplished more against it than
any man living.
In the "Memoirs of the Revolutionary War in the Southern Department," by
Gen. Lee, of Va., Commandant of the Partizan Legion, is the following:
"The Constitution of the United States, adopted lately with so much
difficulty, has effectually provided against this evil, (by importation)
after a few years. It is much to be lamented that having done so much in
this way, _a provision had not been made for the gradual abolition of
slavery_."--p. 233, 4.
Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, Judge of the Supreme Court of that state, and
professor of law in the University of William and Mary, addressed a
letter to the General Assembly of that state, in 1796, urging the
abolition of slavery; from which the following is an extract. Speaking
of the slaves in Virginia, he says: "Should we not, at the time of the
revolution, have loosed their chains and broken their fetters; or if the
difficulties and dangers of such an experiment prohibited the attempt,
during the convulsions of a revolution, is it not our duty, _to embrace
the first moment_ of constitutional health and vigor to effectuate so
desirable an object, and to remove from us a stigma with which our
enemies will never fail to upbraid us, nor our consciences to reproach
us?"
Mr. Faulkner, in a speech before the Virginia Legislature, Jan. 20,
1832, said--"The idea of a gradual emancipation and removal of the
slaves from this commonwealth, is coeval with the declaration of our
independence from the British yoke. It sprung into existence during the
first session of the General Assembly, subsequent to the formation of
your republican government. When Virginia stood sustained in her
legislation by the pure and philosophic intellect of Pendleton--by the
patriotism of Mason and Lee--by the searching vigor and sagacity of
Wythe, and by the all-embracing, all-comprehensive genius of Thomas
Jefferson! Sir, it was a committee composed of those five illustrious
men, who, in 1777, submitted to the general assembly of this state, then
in session, _a plan for the gradual emancipation of the slaves of this
commonwealth_."
Hon. Benjamin Watkins Leigh, late United States' senator from Virginia,
in his letters to the people of Virginia, in 1832, signed Appomattox, p.
43, says: "I thought, till very lately, that it was known to every body
that during the Revolution, _and for many years after, the abolition of
slavery was a favorite topic with many of our ablest statesmen_, who
entertained, with respect, all the schemes which wisdom or ingenuity
could suggest for accomplishing the object. Mr. Wythe, to the day of his
death, _was for a simple abolition, considering the objection to color
as founded in prejudice_. By degrees, all projects of the kind were
abandoned. Mr. Jefferson _retained_ his opinion, and now we have these
projects revived."
Governor Barbour, of Virginia, in his speech in the U.S. Senate, on the
Missouri question, Jan. 1820, said:--"We are asked why has Virginia
_changed her policy_ in reference to slavery? That the sentiments of
_our most distinguished men_, for thirty years _entirely corresponded_
with the course which the friends of the restriction (of slavery in
Missouri) now advocated; and that the Virginia delegation, one of whom
was the late President of the United States, voted for the restriction,
(of slavery) in the northwestern territory, and that Mr. Jefferson has
delineated a gloomy picture of the baneful effects of slavery. When it
is recollected that the Notes of Mr. Jefferson were written during the
progress of the revolution, it is no matter of surprise that the writer
should have imbibed a large portion of that enthusiasm which such an
occasion was so well calculated to produce. As to the consent of the
Virginia delegation to the restriction in question, whether the result
of a disposition to restrain the slave trade indirectly, or the
influence of that enthusiasm to which I have just alluded, * *
* * it is not now important to decide. We have witnessed its
effects. The liberality of Virginia, or, as the result may prove, her
folly, which submitted to, or, if you will, PROPOSED _this measure_,
(abolition of slavery in the N.W. territory) has eventuated in effects
which speak a monitory lesson. _How is the representation from this
quarter on the present question?_"
Mr. Imlay, in his early history of Kentucky, p. 185, says: "We have
disgraced the fair face of humanity, and trampled upon the sacred
privileges of man, at the very moment that we were exclaiming against
the tyranny of your (the English) ministry. But in contending for the
birthright of freedom, we have learned to feel _for the bondage of
others_, and in the libations we offer to the goddess of liberty, we
_contemplate an emancipation of the slaves of this country_, as
honorable to themselves as it will be glorious to us."
In the debate in Congress, Jan, 20, 1806, on Mr. Sloan's motion to lay a
tax on the importation of slaves, Mr. Clark of Va. said: "He was no
advocate for a system of slavery." Mr. Marion, of S. Carolina, said: "He
never had purchased, nor should he ever purchase a slave." Mr. Southard
said: "Not revenue, but an expression of the _national sentiment_ is the
principal object." Mr. Smilie--"I rejoice that the word (slave) is not
in the constitution; its not being there does honor to the worthies who
would not suffer it to become a _part_ of it." Mr. Alston, of N.
Carolina--"In two years we shall have the power to prohibit the trade
altogether. Then this House will be UNANIMOUS. No one will object to our
exercising our full constitutional powers." National Intelligencer, Jan.
24, 1806.
These witnesses need no vouchers to entitle them to credit; nor their
testimony comments to make it intelligible--their _names_ are their
_endorsers_ and their strong words their own interpreters. We wave all
comments. Our readers are of age. Whosoever hath ears to _hear_, let him
HEAR. And whosoever will not hear the fathers of the revolution, the
founders of the government, its chief magistrates, judges, legislators
and sages, who dared and periled all under the burdens, and in the heat
of the day that tried men's souls--then "neither will he be persuaded
though THEY rose from the dead."
Some of the points established by the testimony are--The universal
expectation that the _moral_ influence of Congress, of state
legislatures, of seminaries of learning, of churches, of the ministers
of religion, and of public sentiment widely embodied in abolition
societies, would be exerted against slavery, calling forth by argument
and appeal the moral sense of the nation, and creating a power of
opinion that would abolish the system throughout the union. In a word,
that free speech and a free press would be wielded against slavery
without ceasing and without restriction. Full well did the south know,
not only that the national government would probably legislate against
slavery wherever the constitution placed it within its reach, but she
knew also that Congress had already marked out the line of national
policy to be pursued on the subject--had committed itself before the
world to a course of action against slavery, wherever she could move
upon it without encountering a conflicting jurisdiction--that the nation
had established by solemn ordinance memorable precedent for subsequent
action, by abolishing slavery in the northwest territory, and by
declaring that it should never thenceforward exist there; and this too,
as soon as by cession of Virginia and other states, the territory came
under Congressional control. The south knew also that the sixth article
in the ordinance prohibiting slavery was first proposed by the largest
slaveholding state in the confederacy--that the chairman of the
committee that reported the ordinance was a slaveholder--that the
ordinance was enacted by Congress during the session of the convention
that formed the United States Constitution--that the provisions of the
ordinance were, both while in prospect, and when under discussion,
matters of universal notoriety and _approval_ with all parties, and when
finally passed, received the vote _of every member of Congress from each
of the slaveholding states_. The south also had every reason for
believing that the first Congress under the constitution would _ratify_
that ordinance--as it _did_ unanimously.
A crowd of reflections, suggested by the preceding testimony, press for
utterance. The right of petition ravished and trampled by its
constitutional guardians, and insult and defiance hurled in the faces of
the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE while calmly remonstrating _with their_ SERVANTS
for violence committed on the nation's charter and their own dearest
rights! Add to this "the right of peaceably assembling" violently
wrested--the rights of minorities, _rights_ no longer--free speech
struck dumb--free _men_ outlawed and murdered--free presses cast into
the streets and their fragments strewed with shoutings, or flourished in
triumph before the gaze of approving crowds as proud members of
prostrate law!
The spirit and power of our fathers, where are they? Their deep homage
always and every where rendered to FREE THOUGHT, with its _inseparable
signs--free speech and a free press_--their reverence for justice,
liberty, _rights_ and all-pervading law, where are they?
But we turn from these considerations--though the times on which we have
fallen, and those towards which we are borne with headlong haste, call
for their discussion as with the voices of departing life--and proceed
to topics relevant to the argument before us.
The seventh article of the amendments to the constitution is alleged to
withhold from Congress the power to abolish slavery in the District. "No
person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law." All the slaves in the District have been "deprived of
liberty" by legislative acts. Now, these legislative acts "depriving"
them "of liberty," were either "due process of law," or they were _not_.
If they _were_, then a legislative act, taking from the master that
"property" which is the identical "liberty" previously taken from the
slave, would be "due process of law" _also_, and of course a
_constitutional_ act; but if the legislative acts "depriving" them of
"liberty" were _not_ "due process of law," then the slaves were deprived
of liberty _unconstitutionally_, and these acts are _void_. In that case
the _constitution emancipates them_.
If the objector reply, by saying that the import of the phrase "due
process of law," is _judicial_ process solely, it is granted, and that
fact is our rejoinder; for no slave in the District _has_ been deprived
of his liberty by "a judicial process," or, in other words, by "due
process of law;" consequently, upon the objector's own admission, every
slave in the District has been deprived of liberty _unconstitutionally_,
and is therefore _free by the constitution_. This is asserted only of
the slaves under the "exclusive legislation" of Congress.
The last clause of the article under consideration is quoted for the
same purpose: "Nor shall private property be taken for public use
without just compensation." Each of the state constitutions has a clause
of similar purport. The abolition of slavery in the District by
Congress, would not, as we shall presently show, violate this clause
either directly or by implication. Granting for argument's sake, that
slaves are "private property," and that to emancipate them, would be to
"take private property" for "public use," the objector admits the power
of Congress to do _this_, provided it will do something _else_, that is,
_pay_ for them. Thus, instead of denying the _power_, the objector not
only admits, but _affirms_ it, as the ground of the inference that
compensation must accompany it. So far from disproving the existence of
_one_ power, the objector asserts the existence of _two_--one, the power
to take the slaves from their masters, the other, the power to take the
property of the United States to pay for them.
If Congress cannot constitutionally impair the right of private
property, or take it without compensation, it cannot constitutionally,
_legalise_ the perpetration of such acts, by _others_, nor _protect_
those who commit them. Does the power to rob a man of his earnings, rob
the earner of his right to them? Who has a better right to the _product_
than the producer?--to the _interest_, than the owner of the
_principal_?--to the hands and arms, than he from whose shoulders they
swing?--to the body and soul, than he whose they _are_? Congress not
only impairs but annihilates the right of private property, while it
withholds from the slaves of the District their title to _themselves_.
What! Congress powerless to protect a man's right to _himself_, when it
can make inviolable the right to a _dog_! But, waving this, I deny that
the abolition of slavery in the District would violate this clause. What
does the clause prohibit? The "taking" of "private property" for "public
use." Suppose Congress should emancipate the slaves in the District,
what would it "_take_?" Nothing. What would it _hold_? Nothing. What
would it put to "public use?" Nothing. Instead of _taking_ "private
property," Congress, by abolishing slavery, would say "_private
property_ shall not _be_ taken; and those who have been robbed of it
already, shall be kept out of it no longer; and since every man's right
to his own body is _paramount_, he shall be protected in it." True,
Congress may not arbitrarily take property, _as_ property, from one man
and give it to another--and in the abolition of slavery no such thing is
done. A legislative act changes the _condition_ of the slave--makes him
his own _proprietor_ instead of the property of another. It determines a
question of _original right_ between two classes of persons--doing an
act of justice to one, and restraining the other from acts of injustice;
or, in other words, preventing one from robbing the other, by granting
to the injured party the protection of just and equitable laws.
Congress, by an act of abolition, would change the condition of seven
thousand "persons" in the District, but would "take" nothing. To
construe this provision so as to enable the citizens of the District to
hold as property, and in perpetuity, whatever they please, or to hold it
as property in all circumstances--all necessity, public welfare, and the
will and power of the government to the contrary notwithstanding--is a
total perversion of its whole _intent_. The _design_ of the provision,
was to throw up a barrier against Governmental aggrandizement. The right
to "take property" for _State uses_ is one thing;--the right so to
adjust the _tenures_ by which property is held, that _each may have his
own secured to him_, is another thing, and clearly within the scope of
legislation. Besides, if Congress were to "take" the slaves in the
District, it would be _adopting_, not abolishing slavery--becoming a
slaveholder itself, instead of requiring others to be such no longer.
The clause in question, prohibits the "taking" of individual property
for public uses, to be employed or disposed of as property for
governmental purposes. Congress, by abolishing slavery in the District,
would do no such thing. It would merely change the _condition_ of that
which has been recognised as a qualified property by congressional acts,
though previously declared "persons" by the constitution. More than this
is done continually by Congress and every other Legislature. Property
the most absolute and unqualified, is annihilated by legislative acts.
The embargo and non-intercourse act, prostrated at a stroke, a forest of
shipping, and sunk millions of capital. To say nothing of the power of
Congress to take hundreds of millions from the people by direct
taxation, who doubts its power to abolish at once the whole tariff
system, change the seat of Government, arrest the progress of national
works, prohibit any branch of commerce with the Indian tribes or with
foreign nations, change the locality of forts, arsenals, magazines, dock
yards, &c., to abolish the Post Office system, the privilege of patents
and copyrights, &c. By such acts Congress might, in the exercise of its
acknowledged powers, annihilate property to an incalculable amount, and
that without becoming liable to claims for compensation.
Finally, this clause prohibits the taking for public use of
"_property_." The constitution of the United States does not recognise
slaves as "PROPERTY" any where, and it does not recognise them in _any
sense_ in the District of Columbia. All allusions to them in the
constitution recognise them as "persons." Every reference to them points
_solely_ to the element of _personality_; and thus, by the strongest
implication, declares that the constitution _knows_ them only as
"persons," and _will_ not recognise them in any other light. If they
escape into free States, the constitution authorizes their being taken
back. But how? Not as the property of an "owner," but as "persons;" and
the peculiarity of the expression is a marked recognition of their
_personality_--a refusal to recognise them as chattels--"persons _held_
to service." Are _oxen_ "_held_ to service?" That can be affirmed only
of _persons_. Again, slaves give political power as "persons." The
constitution, in settling the principle of representation, requires
their enumeration in the census. How? As property? Then why not include
race horses and game cocks? Slaves, like other inhabitants, are
enumerated as "persons." So by the constitution, the government was
pledged to non-interference with "the migration or importation of such
persons" as the States might think proper to admit until 1808, and
authorized the laying of a tax on each "person" so admitted. Further,
slaves are recognised as _persons_ by the exaction of their _allegiance_
to the government. For offences against the government slaves are tried
as _persons_; as persons they are entitled to counsel for their defence,
to the rules of evidence, and to "due process of law," and as _persons_
they are punished. True, they are loaded with cruel disabilities in
courts of law, such as greatly obstruct and often inevitably defeat the
ends of justice, yet they are still recognised as _persons_. Even in the
legislation of Congress, and in the diplomacy of the general government,
notwithstanding the frequent and wide departures from the integrity of
the constitution on this subject, slaves are not recognised as
_property_ without qualification. Congress has always refused to grant
compensation for slaves killed or taken by the enemy, even when these
slaves had been impressed into the United States' service. In half a
score of cases since the last war, Congress has rejected such
applications for compensation. Besides, both in Congressional acts, and
in our national diplomacy, slaves and property are not used as
convertible terms. When mentioned in treaties and state papers it is in
such a way as to distinguish them from mere property, and generally by a
recognition of their _personality_. In the invariable recognition of
slaves as _persons_, the United States' constitution caught the mantle
of the glorious Declaration, and most worthily wears it.--It recognizes
all human beings as "men," "persons," and thus as "equals." In the
original draft of the Declaration, as it came from the hand of
Jefferson, it is alleged that Great Britain had "waged a cruel war
against _human_ nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life
and liberty in the persons of a distant people, carrying them into
slavery, * * determined to keep up a market where MEN should be
bought and sold,"--thus disdaining to make the charter of freedom a
warrant for the arrest of _men_, that they might be shorn both of
liberty and humanity.
The celebrated Roger Sherman, one of the committee of five appointed to
draft the Declaration of Independence, and also a member of the
convention that formed the United States' constitution, said, in the
first Congress after its adoption: "The constitution _does not consider
these persons,_ (slaves,) _as a species of property._"--[Lloyd's Cong.
Reg. v. 1, p. 313.] That the United States' Constitution does not make
slaves "property," is shown in the fact that no person, either as a
citizen of the United States, or by having his domicile within the
United States' government, can hold slaves. He can hold them only by
deriving his power from _state_ laws, or from the laws of Congress, if
he hold slaves within the District. But no person resident within the
United States' jurisdiction, and not within the District, nor within a
state whose laws support slavery, nor "held to service" under the laws
of such state or district, having escaped therefrom, _can be held as a
slave_.
Men can hold _property_ under the United States' government though
residing beyond the bounds of any state, district, or territory. An
inhabitant of the Wisconsin Territory can hold property there under the
laws of the United States, but he cannot hold _slaves_ there under the
United States' laws, nor by virtue of the United States' Constitution,
nor upon the ground of his United States citizenship, nor by having his
domicile within the United States' jurisdiction. The constitution no
where recognizes the right to "slave property," _but merely the fact
that the states have jurisdiction each in its own limits, and that there
are certain "persons" within their jurisdictions "held to service" by
their own laws._
Finally, in the clause under consideration, "private property" is not to
be taken "without _just_ compensation." "JUST!" If justice is to be
appealed to in determining the amount of compensation, let her determine
the _grounds_ also. If it be her province to say _how much_ compensation
is "just," it is hers to say whether _any_ is "just,"--whether the slave
is "just" property _at all_, rather than a "_person_." Then, if justice
adjudges the slave to be "private property," it adjudges him to be _his
own_ property, since the right to one's _self_ is the first right--the
source of all others--the original stock by which they are
accumulated--the principal, of which they are the interest. And since
the slave's "private property" has been "taken," and since
"compensation" is impossible--there being no _equivalent_ for one's
self--the least that can be done is to restore to him his original
private property.
Having shown that in abolishing slavery, "property" would not be "taken
for public use," it may be added that, in those states where slavery has
been abolished by law, no claim for compensation has been allowed.
Indeed the manifest absurdity of demanding it, seems to have quite
forstalled the _setting up_ of such a claim.
The abolition of slavery in the District, instead of being a legislative
anomaly, would proceed upon the principles of every day legislation. It
has been shown already, that the United States' Constitution does not
recognize slaves as "property." Yet ordinary legislation is full of
precedents, showing that even _absolute_ property is in many respects
wholly subject to legislation. The repeal of the law of entailments--all
those acts that control the alienation of property, its disposal by
will, its passing to heirs by descent, with the question, who shall be
heirs, and what shall be the rule of distribution among them, or whether
property shall be transmitted at all by descent, rather than escheat to
the state--these, with statutes of limitation, and various other classes
of legislative acts, serve to illustrate the acknowledged scope of the
law-making power, even where property _is in every sense absolute_.
Persons whose property is thus affected by public laws, receive from the
government no compensation for their losses, unless the state has been
put in possession of the property taken from them.
The preamble of the United States' Constitution declares it to be a
fundamental object of the organization of the government "to ESTABLISH
JUSTICE." Has Congress _no power_ to do that for which it was made the
_depository of power_? CANNOT the United States' Government fulfil the
purpose _for which it was brought into being_?
To abolish slavery, is to take from no rightful owner his property; but
to "_establish justice_" between two parties. To emancipate the slave,
is to "_establish justice_" between him and his master--to throw around
the person, character, conscience, liberty, and domestic relations of
the one, _the same law_ that secures and blesses the other. In other
words, to prevent by _legal restraints_ one class of men from seizing
upon another class, and robbing them at pleasure of their earnings,
their time, their liberty, their kindred, and the very use and ownership
of their own persons. Finally, to abolish slavery is to proclaim and
_enact_ that innocence and helplessness--now _free plunder_--are
entitled to _legal protection_; and that power, avarice, and lust, shall
no longer gorge upon their spoils under the license, and by the
ministrations of _law_! Congress, by possessing "exclusive legislation
in all cases whatsoever," has a _general protective power_ for ALL the
inhabitants of the District. If it has no power to protect _one_ man, it
has none to protect another--none to protect _any_--and if it _can_
protect _one_ man and is _bound_ to protect him, it _can_ protect
_every_ man--all men--and is _bound_ to do it. All admit the power of
Congress to protect the masters in the District against their slaves.
What part of the constitution gives the power? The clause so often
quoted,--"power of legislation in all cases whatsoever," equally in the
"_case_" of defending the blacks against the whites, as in that of
defending the whites against the blacks. The power is given also by Art.
1, Sec. 8, clause 15--"Congress shall have power to suppress
insurrections"--a power to protect, as well blacks against whites, as
whites against blacks. If the constitution gives power to protect _one_
class against the other, it gives power to protect _either_ against the
other. Suppose the blacks in the District should seize the whites, drive
them into the fields and kitchens, force them to work without pay, flog
them, imprison them, and sell them at their pleasure, where would
Congress find power to restrain such acts? Answer; a _general_ power in
the clause so often cited, and an _express_ one in that cited
above--"Congress shall have power to suppress insurrections." So much
for a _supposed_ case. Here follows a _real_ one. The whites in the
District _are perpetrating these identical acts_ upon seven thousand
blacks daily. That Congress has power to restrain these acts in _one_
case, all assert, and in so doing they assert the power "in _all_ cases
whatsoever." For the grant of power to suppress insurrections, is an
_unconditional_ grant, not hampered by provisos as to the color, shape,
size, sex, language, creed, or condition of the insurgents. Congress
derives its power to suppress this _actual_ insurrection, from the same
source whence it derived its power to suppress the _same_ acts in the
case _supposed_. If one case is an insurrection, the other is. The
_acts_ in both are the same; the _actors_ only are different. In the one
case, ignorant and degraded--goaded by the memory of the past, stung by
the present, and driven to desperation by the fearful looking for of
wrongs for ever to come. In the other, enlightened into the nature of
_rights_, the principles of justice, and the dictates of the law of
love, unprovoked by wrongs, with cool deliberation, and by system, they
perpetrate these acts upon those to whom they owe unnumbered obligations
for _whole lives_ of unrequited service. On which side may palliation be
pleaded, and which party may most reasonably claim an abatement of the
rigors of law? If Congress has power to suppress such acts _at all_, it
has power to suppress them _in_ all.
It has been shown already that _allegiance_ is exacted of the slave. Is
the government of the United States unable to grant _protection_ where
it exacts _allegiance_? It is an axiom of the civilized world, and a
maxim even with savages, that allegiance and protection are reciprocal
and correlative. Are principles powerless with us which exact homage of
barbarians? _Protection is the_ CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT _of every human
being under the exclusive legislation of Congress who has not forfeited
it by crime._
In conclusion, I argue the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the
District, from Art. 1, sec, 8, clause 1, of the constitution; "Congress
shall have power to provide for the common defence and the general
welfare of the United States." Has the government of the United States
no power under this grant, to legislate within its own exclusive
jurisdiction on subjects that vitally affect its interests? Suppose the
slaves in the district should rise upon their masters, and the United
States' government, in quelling the insurrection, should kill any number
of them. Could their masters claim compensation of the government?
Manifestly not; even though no proof existed that the particular slaves
killed were insurgents. This was precisely the point at issue between
those masters, whose slaves were killed by the State troops at the time
of the Southampton insurrection, and the Virginia Legislature: no
evidence was brought to show that the slaves killed by the troops were
insurgents; yet the Virginia Legislature decided that their masters were
_not entitled to compensation_. They proceeded on the sound principle,
that a government may in self-protection destroy the claim of its
subjects even to that which has been recognized as property by its own
acts. If in providing for the common defence, the United States'
government, in the case supposed, would have power to destroy slaves
both as _property_ and _persons_, it surely might stop _half-way_,
destroy them _as property_ while it legalized their existence as
_persons_, and thus provided for the common defence by giving them a
personal and powerful interest in the government, and securing their
strength for its defence.
Like other Legislatures, Congress has power to abate nuisances--to
remove or tear down unsafe buildings--to destroy infected cargoes--to
lay injunctions upon manufactories injurious to the public health--and
thus to "provide for the common defence and general welfare" by
destroying individual property, when such property puts in jeopardy the
public weal.
Granting, for argument's sake, that slaves are "property" in the
District of Columbia--if Congress has a right to annihilate property in
the District when the public safety requires it, it may surely
annihilate its existence _as_ property when the public safety requires
it, especially if it transform into a _protection_ and _defence_ that
which as _property_ perilled the public interests. In the District of
Columbia there are, besides the United States' Capitol, the President's
house, the national offices, &c. of the Departments of State, Treasury,
War, and Navy, the General Post-office, and Patent Office. It is also
the residence of the President, all the highest officers of the
government, both houses of Congress, and all the foreign ambassadors. In
this same District there are also _seven thousand slaves_. Jefferson, in
his Notes on Va. p. 241, says of slavery, that "the State permitting one
half of its citizens to trample on the rights of the other, _transforms
them into enemies_;" and Richard Henry Lee, in the Va. house of
Burgesses in 1758, declared that to those who held them, "_slaves must
be natural enemies_." Is Congress so _impotent_ that it _cannot_
exercise that right pronounced both by municipal and national law, the
most sacred and universal--the right of self-preservation and defence?
Is it shut up to the _necessity_ of keeping seven thousand "enemies" in
the heart of the nation's citadel? Does the iron fiat of the
constitution doom it to such imbecility that it _cannot_ arrest the
process that _made_ them "enemies," and still goads to deadlier hate by
fiery trials, and day by day adds others to their number? Is _this_
providing for the common defence and general welfare? If to rob men of
rights excites their hate, freely to restore them and make amends, will
win their love.
By emancipating the slaves in the District, the government of the United
States would disband an army of "enemies," and enlist "for the common
defence and general welfare," a body guard of _friends_ seven thousand
strong. In the last year, a handful of British soldiers sacked
Washington city, burned the capitol, the President's house, and the
national offices and archives; and no marvel, for thousands of the
inhabitants of the District had been "TRANSFORMED INTO ENEMIES." Would
_they_ beat back invasion? If the national government had exercised its
constitutional "power to provide for the common defence and to promote
the general welfare," by turning those "enemies" into friends, then,
instead of a hostile ambush lurking in every thicket inviting assault,
and secret foes in every house paralyzing defence, an army of allies
would have rallied in the hour of her calamity, and shouted defiance
from their munitions of rocks; whilst the banner of the republic, then
trampled in dust, would have floated securely over FREEMEN exulting
amidst bulwarks of strength.
To show that Congress can abolish slavery in the District, under the
grant of power "to provide for the common defence and to promote the
general welfare," I quote an extract from a speech of Mr. Madison, of
Va., in the first Congress under the constitution, May 13, 1789.
Speaking of the abolition of the slave trade, Mr. Madison says: "I
should venture to say it is as much for the interests of Georgia and
South Carolina, as of any state in the union. Every addition they
receive to their number of slaves tends to _weaken_ them, and renders
them less capable of self-defence. In case of hostilities with foreign
nations, they will be the means of _inviting_ attack instead of
repelling invasion. It is a necessary duty of the general government to
protect every part of the empire against danger, as well _internal_ as
external. _Every thing, therefore, which tends to increase this danger,
though it may be a local affair, yet if it involves national expense or
safety, it becomes of concern to every part of the union, and is a
proper subject for the consideration of those charged with the general
administration of the government._" See Cong. Reg. vol. 1, p. 310, 11.
POSTSCRIPT
My apology for adding a _postscript_, to a discussion already perhaps
too protracted, is the fact that the preceding sheets were in the hands
of the printer, and all but the concluding pages had gone through the
press, before the passage of Mr. Calhoun's late resolutions in the
Senate of the United States. A proceeding so extraordinary,--if indeed
the time has not passed when _any_ acts of Congress in derogation of
freedom and in deference to slavery, can be deemed
extraordinary,--should not be suffered to pass in silence at such a
crisis as the present; especially as the passage of one of the
resolutions by a vote of 36 to 9, exhibits a shift of position on the
part of the South, as sudden as it is unaccountable, being nothing less
than the surrender of a fortress which until then they had defended with
the pertinacity of a blind and almost infuriated fatuity. Upon the
discussions during the pendency of the resolutions, and upon the vote,
by which they were carried, I make no comment, save only to record my
exultation in the fact there exhibited, that great emergencies are _true
touchstones_, and that henceforward, until this question is settled,
whoever holds a seat in Congress will find upon, and all around him, a
pressure strong enough to TEST him--a focal blaze that will find its way
through the carefully adjusted cloak of fair pretension, and the
sevenfold brass of two-faced political intrigue, and _no_-faced
_non-committalism_, piercing to the dividing asunder of joints and
marrow. Be it known to every northern man who aspires to a seat in
Congress, that hereafter it is the destiny of congressional action on
this subject, to be a MIGHTY REVELATOR--making secret thoughts public
property, and proclaiming on the house-tops what is whispered in the
ear--smiting off masks, and bursting open sepulchres beautiful
outwardly, and heaving up to the sun their dead men's bones. To such we
say,--_Remember the Missouri Question, and the fate of those who then
sold the North, and their own birthright_!
Passing by the resolutions generally without remark--the attention of
the reader is specially solicited to Mr. Clay's substitute for Mr.
Calhoun's fifth resolution.
"Resolved, That when the District of Columbia was ceded by the
states of Virginia and Maryland to the United States, domestic
slavery existed in both of these states, including the ceded
territory, and that, as it still continues in both of them, it
could not be abolished within the District without a violation
of that good faith, which was implied in the cession and in the
acceptance of the territory; nor, unless compensation were made
to the proprietors of slaves, without a manifest infringement of
an amendment to the constitution of the United States; nor
without exciting a degree of just alarm and apprehension in the
states recognizing slavery, far transcending in mischievous
tendency, any possible benefit which could be accomplished by
the abolition."
By voting for this resolution, the south, by a simultaneous movement,
shifted its mode of defense, not so much by taking a position entirely
new, as by attempting to refortify an old one--never much trusted in,
and abandoned mainly long ago, as being unable to hold out against
assault however unskilfully directed. In the debate on this resolution,
though the southern members of Congress did not _professedly_ retreat
from the ground hitherto maintained by them--that Congress has no power
by the constitution to abolish slavery in the District--yet in the main
they silently drew off from it.
The passage of this resolution--with the vote of every southern senator,
forms a new era in the discussion of this question.
We cannot join in the lamentations of those who bewail it. We hail it,
and rejoice in it. It was as we would have had it--offered by a southern
senator, advocated by southern senators, and on the ground that it "was
no compromise"--that it embodied the true southern principle--that "this
resolution stood on as high ground as Mr. Calhoun's"--(Mr.
Preston)--"that Mr. Clay's resolution was as strong as Mr.
Calhoun's"--(Mr. Rives)--that "the resolution he (Mr. Calhoun) now
refused to support, was as strong as his own, and that in supporting it,
there was no abandonment of principle by the south."--(Mr. Walker, of
Mi.)--further, that it was advocated by the southern senators generally
as an expression of their views, and as setting the question of slavery
in the District on its _true_ ground--that finally when the question was
taken, every slaveholding senator, including Mr. Calhoun himself, voted
for the resolution.
By passing this resolution, and with such avowals, the south has
surrendered irrevocably the whole question at issue between them and the
petitioners for abolition in the District. It has, unwittingly but
explicitly, conceded the main question argued in the preceding pages.
The _only_ ground taken against the right of Congress to abolish slavery
in the District is, that it existed in Maryland and Virginia when the
cession was made, and "_as it still continues in both of them_, it could
not be abolished without a violation of that good faith which was
implied in the cession." &c. The _sole argument_ is _not_ that exclusive
_sovereignty_ has no power to abolish slavery within its jurisdiction,
_nor_ that the powers of even _ordinary legislation_ cannot do
it,--_nor_ that the clause granting Congress "exclusive legislation in
all cases whatsoever over such District," gives no power to do it; but
that the _unexpressed expectation_ of one of the parties that the other
would not "in _all_ cases" _use_ the power which said party had
consented _might be used_ "_in all cases_," _prohibits_ the use of it.
The only cardinal point in the discussion, is here not only _yielded_,
but formally laid down by the South as the leading article in their
creed on the question of Congressional jurisdiction over slavery in the
District. The _sole reason_ given why Congress should not abolish, and
the sole evidence that if it did, such abolition would be a violation of
"good faith," is that "_slavery still continues in those states_,"--thus
explicitly admitting, that if slavery did _not_ "still continue" in
those States, Congress _could_ abolish it in the District. The same
admission is made also in the _premises_, which state that slavery
existed in those states _at the time of the cession_, &c. Admitting that
if it had _not_ existed there then, but had grown up in the District
under _United States' laws_, Congress might constitutionally abolish it.
Or that if the ceded parts of those states had been the _only_ parts in
which slaves were held under their laws, Congress might have abolished
in such a contingency also. The cession in that case leaving no slaves
in those states,--no "good faith," would be "implied" in it, nor any
"violated," by an act of abolition. The principle of the resolution
makes this further admission, that if Maryland and Virginia should at
once abolish their slavery, Congress might at once abolish it in the
District. The principle goes even further than this, and _requires_
Congress in such case to abolish slavery in the District "by the _good
faith implied_ in the cession and acceptance of the territory." Since,
according to the spirit and scope of the resolution, this "implied good
faith" of Maryland and Virginia in making the cession, was that Congress
would do nothing within the District which should go to counteract the
policy, or bring into disrepute the "institutions," or call in question
the usages, or even in any way ruffle the prejudices of those states, or
do what _they_ might think would unfavorably bear upon their interests;
_themselves_ of course being the judges.
But let us dissect another limb of the resolution. What is to be
understood by "that good faith which was IMPLIED?" It is of course an
admission that such a condition was not _expressed_ in the acts of
cession--that in their _terms_ there is nothing restricting the power of
Congress on the subject of slavery in the District--not a word alluding
to it, nor one inserted with such an _intent_. This "implied faith,"
then, rests on no clause or word in the United States' Constitution, or
in the acts of cession, or in the acts of Congress accepting the
cession, nor does it rest on any declarations of the legislatures of
Maryland and Virginia made at the time, or in that generation, nor on
any _act_ of theirs, nor on any declaration of the people of those
states, nor on the testimony of the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Madisons,
Chaces, Martins, and Jennifers, of those states and times. The assertion
rests _on itself alone_! Mr. Clay and the other senators who voted for
the resolution, _guess_ that Maryland and Virginia supposed that
Congress would by no means _use_ the power given them by the
constitution, except in such ways as would be well pleasing in the eyes
of those states; especially as one of them was the "Ancient Dominion!"
And now after the lapse of half a century, this _assumed expectation_ of
Maryland and Virginia, the existence of which is mere matter of
conjecture with the 36 senators, is conjured up and duly installed upon
the judgment-seat of final appeal, before whose nod constitutions are to
flee away, and with whom, solemn grants of power and explicit guaranties
are, when weighed in the balance, altogether lighter than vanity!
But let us survey it in another light. Why did Maryland and Virginia
leave so much to be "_implied_?" Why did they not in some way express
what lay so near their hearts? Had their vocabulary run so low that a
single word could not be eked out for the occasion? Or were those states
so bashful of a sudden that they dare not speak out and tell what they
wanted? Or did they take it for granted that Congress would always act
in the premises according to their wishes, and that too, without their
_making known_ their wishes? If, as honorable senators tell us, Maryland
and Virginia did verily travail with such abounding _faith_, why brought
they forth no _works_?
It is as true in _legislation_ as in religion, that the only _evidence_
of "faith" is _works_, and that "faith" _without_ works is _dead_, i.e.
has no _power_. But here, forsooth, a blind implication with nothing
_expressed_, an "implied" _faith_ without works, is _omnipotent_. Mr.
Clay is lawyer enough to know that even a _senatorial hypothesis_ as to
what must have been the _understanding_ of Maryland and Virginia about
congressional exercise of constitutional power, _abrogates no grant_,
and that to plead it in a court of law, would be of small service except
to jostle "their Honors'" gravity! He need not be told that the
constitution gives Congress "power to exercise exclusive legislation in
all cases whatsoever over such District." Nor that the legislatures of
Maryland and Virginia constructed their acts of cession with this clause
_before their eyes_, and that both of them declared those acts made "in
_pursuance_" of said clause. Those states were aware that the United
States in their constitution had left nothing to be "_implied_" as to
the power of Congress over the District;--an admonition quite sufficient
one would think to put them on their guard, and induce them to eschew
vague implications and resort to _stipulations_. Full well did they know
also that those were times when, in matters of high import, _nothing_
was left to be "implied." The colonies were then panting from a twenty
years' conflict with the mother country, about bills of rights,
charters, treaties, constitutions, grants, limitations, and _acts of
cession_. The severities of a long and terrible discipline had taught
them to guard at all points _legislative grants_, that their exact
import and limit might be self-evident--leaving no scope for a blind
"faith," that _somehow_ in the lottery of chances there would be no
blanks, but making all sure by the use of explicit terms, and wisely
chosen words, and _just enough_ of them. The Constitution of the United
States with its amendments, those of the individual states, the national
treaties, the public documents of the general and state governments at
that period, show the universal conviction of legislative bodies, that
when great public interest were at stake, nothing should be left to be
"implied."
Further: suppose Maryland and Virginia had expressed their "implied
faith" in _words_, and embodied it in their acts of cession as a
proviso, declaring that Congress should not "exercise exclusive
legislation in _all_ cases whatsoever over the District," but that the
"case" of _slavery_ should be an exception: who does not know that
Congress, if it had accepted the cession on those terms, would have
violated the Constitution; and who that has ever studied the free mood
of those times in its bearings on slavery--proofs of which are given in
scores on the preceding pages--can for an instant believe that the
people of the United States would have altered their Constitution for
the purpose of providing for slavery an inviolable sanctuary; that when
driven in from its outposts, and everywhere retreating discomfited
before the march of freedom, it might be received into everlasting
habitations on the common homestead and hearth-stone of this free
republic? Besides, who can believe that Virginia made such a condition,
or cherished such a purpose, when at that very moment, Washington,
Jefferson, Wythe, Patrick Henry, St. George Tucker, and almost all her
illustrious men, were advocating the abolition of slavery by law. When
Washington had said, two years before, Maryland and Virginia "must have
laws for the gradual abolition of slavery and at a period _not remote_;"
and when Jefferson in his letter to Price, three years before the
cession, had said, speaking of Virginia, "This is the next state to
which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in
conflict with avarice and oppression--a conflict in which THE SACRED
SIDE IS GAINING DAILY RECRUITS;" when voluntary emancipations on the
soil were then progressing at the rate of between one and two thousand
annually, (See Judge Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73;) when
the public sentiment of Virginia had undergone, and was undergoing so
mighty a revolution that the idea of the continuance of slavery as a
permanent system could not be _tolerated_, though she then contained
about half the slaves in the Union. Was this the time to stipulated for
the _perpetuity_ of slavery under the exclusive legislation of Congress?
and that too at the _same_ session of Congress when _every one_ of her
delegation voted for the abolition of slavery in the North West
Territory; a territory which she had herself ceded to Congress, and
along with it had surrendered her jurisdiction over many of her
citizens, inhabitants of that territory, who held slaves there--and
whose slaves were emancipated by that act of Congress, in which all her
delegation with one accord participated?
Now in view of the universal belief then prevalent, that slavery in this
country was doomed to short life, and especially that in Maryland and
Virginia it would be _speedily_ abolished--are we to be told that those
states _designed_ to bind Congress _never_ to terminate it? Are we to
adopt the monstrous conclusion that this was the intent of the Ancient
Dominion--thus to _bind_ the United States by an "implied faith," and
that when the United States _accepted_ the cession, she did solemnly
thus plight her troth, and that Virginia did then so _understand_ it?
Verily one would think that honorable senators supposed themselves
deputed to do our _thinking_ as well as our legislation, or rather, that
they themselves were absolved from such drudgery by virtue of their
office!
Another absurdity of this dogma about "implied faith" is, that where
there was no power to exact an _express_ pledge, there was none to
demand an _implied_ one, and where there was no power to _give_ the one,
there was none to give the _other_. We have shown already that Congress
could not have accepted the cession with such a condition. To have
signed away a part of its constitutional grant of power would have been
a _breach_ of the Constitution. Further, the Congress which accepted the
cession was competent to pass a resolution pledging itself not to _use
all_ the power over the District committed to it by the Constitution.
But here its power ended. Its resolution would only bind _itself_. Could
it bind the _next_ Congress by its authority? Could the members of one
Congress say to the members of another, because we do not choose to
exercise all the authority vested in us by the Constitution, therefore
you _shall_ not? This would have been a prohibition to do what the
Constitution gives power to do. Each successive Congress would still
have gone to the Constitution for its power, brushing away in its course
the cobwebs stretched across its path by the officiousness of an
impertinent predecessor. Again, the legislatures of Virginia and
Maryland, had no power to bind Congress, either by an express or an
implied pledge, never to abolish slavery in the District. Those
legislatures had no power to bind _themselves_ never to abolish slavery
within their own territories--the ceded parts included. Where then would
they get power to bind _another_ not to do what they had no power to
bind themselves not to do? If a legislature could not in this respect
control the successive legislatures of its own State, could it control
the successive Congresses of the United States?
But perhaps we shall be told, that the "implied faith" in the acts of
cession of Maryland and Virginia was _not_ that Congress should _never_
abolish slavery in the District, but that it should not do it until
_they_ had done it within their bounds! Verily this "faith" comes little
short of the faith of miracles! "A good rule that works both ways."
First, Maryland and Virginia have "good faith" that Congress will _not_
abolish until _they_ do; and then just as "good faith" that Congress
_will_ abolish _when_ they do! Excellently accommodated! Did those
States suppose that Congress would legislate over the national domain,
the common jurisdiction of _all_, for Maryland and Virginia alone? And
who, did they suppose, would be judges in the matter?--themselves
merely? or the whole Union?
This "good faith implied in the cession" is no longer of doubtful
interpretation. The principle at the bottom of it, when fairly stated,
is this:--That the Government of the United States are bound in "good
faith" to do in the District of Columbia, without demurring, just what
and when, Maryland and Virginia do in their own States. In short, that
the general government is eased of all the burdens of legislation within
its exclusive jurisdiction, save that of hiring a scrivener to copy off
the acts of the Maryland and Virginia legislatures as fast as they are
passed, and engross them, under the title of "Laws of the United States,
for the District of Columbia!" A slight additional expense would also be
incurred in keeping up an express between the capitols of those States
and Washington city, bringing Congress from time to time its
"_instructions_" from head quarters--instructions not to be disregarded
without a violation of that "good faith implied in the cession," &c.
This sets in strong light the advantages of "our glorious Union," if the
doctrine of Mr. Clay and the thirty-six Senators be orthodox. The people
of the United States have been permitted to set up at their own expense,
and on their own territory, two great _sounding boards_ called "Senate
Chamber" and "Representatives' Hall," for the purpose of sending abroad
"by authority" _national_ echoes of _state_ legislation!--permitted also
to keep in their pay a corps of pliant _national_ musicians, with
peremptory instructions to sound on any line of the staff according as
Virginia and Maryland may give the _sovereign_ key note!
Though this may have the seeming of mere raillery, yet an analysis of
the resolution and of the discussions upon it, will convince every fair
mind that it is but the legitimate carrying out of the _principle_
pervading both. They proceed virtually upon the hypothesis that the will
and pleasure of Virginia and Maryland are _paramount_ to those of the
_Union_. If the main design of setting apart a federal district had been
originally the accommodation of Maryland, Virginia, and the south, with
the United States as an _agent_ to consummate the object, there could
hardly have been higher assumption or louder vaunting. The sole object
of _having_ such a District was in effect totally perverted in the
resolution of Mr. Clay, and in the discussions of the entire southern
delegation, upon its passage. Instead of taking the ground, that the
benefit of the whole Union was the sole _object_ of a federal district,
that it was designed to guard and promote the interests of _all_ the
states, and that it was to be legislated over _for this end_--the
resolution proceeds upon an hypothesis _totally the reverse_. It takes a
single point of _state_ policy, and exalts it above NATIONAL interests,
utterly overshadowing them; abrogating national _rights_; making void a
clause of the Constitution; humbling the general government into a
subject--crouching for favors to a superior, and that too _on its own
exclusive jurisdiction_. All the attributes of sovereignty vested in
Congress by the Constitution it impales upon the point of an alleged
_implication_. And this is Mr. Clay's peace-offering, to appease the
lust of power and the ravenings of state encroachment! A "compromise,"
forsooth! that sinks the general Government on _its own territory_ into
a mere colony, with Virginia and Maryland for its "mother country!" It
is refreshing to turn from these shallow, distorted constructions and
servile cringings, to the high bearing of other southern men in other
times; men, who in their character of legislators and lawyers, disdained
to accommodate their interpretations of constitutions and charters to
geographical lines, or to bend them to the purposes of a political
canvass. In the celebrated case of Cohens vs. the State of Virginia,
Hon. William Pinkney, late of Baltimore, and Hon. Walter Jones, of
Washington city, with other eminent constitutional lawyers, prepared an
elaborate written opinion, from which the following is an extract: "Nor
is there any danger to be apprehended from allowing to Congressional
legislation with regard to the District of Columbia, its FULLEST EFFECT.
Congress is responsible to the States, and to the people for that
legislation. It is in truth the legislation of the states over a
district placed under their control for _their own benefit_, not for
that of the District, except as the prosperity of the District is
involved, and necessary to the _general advantage_."--[Life of Pinkney,
p. 612.]
The profound legal opinion, from which this is an extract, was
elaborated at great length many years since, by a number of the most
distinguished lawyers in the United States, whose signatures are
appended to it. It is specific and to the point. It asserts, 1st, that
Congressional legislation over the District, is "the legislation of the
_States_ and the _people_," (not of _two_ states, and a mere _fraction_
of the people;) 2d. "Over a District placed under _their_ control," i.e.
under the control of the _whole_ of the States, not under the control of
_two twenty-sixths_ of them. 3d. That it was thus put under their
Control "_for THEIR OWN benefit_," the benefit of all the States
_equally_; not to secure special benefits to Maryland and Virginia, (or
what it might be _conjectured_ they would regard as benefits.) 4th. It
concludes by asserting that the design of this exclusive control of
Congress over the District was "not for the benefit of the _District_,"
except as that is _connected_ with, and _a means of promoting_ the
_general_ advantage. If this is the case with the _District_, which is
_directly_ concerned, it is pre-eminently so with Maryland and Virginia,
who are but _indirectly_ interested, and would be but remotely affected
by it. The argument of Mr. Madison in the Congress of '89, an extract
from which has been given on a preceding page, lays down the same
principle; that though any matter "_may be a local affair, yet if it
involves national EXPENSE OR SAFETY, it becomes of concern to every part
of the union, and is a proper subject for the consideration of those
charged with the general administration of the government_." Cong. Reg.
vol. 1. p. 310, 11.
But these are only the initiatory absurdities of this "good faith
_implied_." The thirty-six senators aptly illustrate the principle, that
error not only conflicts with truth, but is generally at issue with
itself. For if it would be a violation of "good faith" to Maryland and
Virginia, for Congress to abolish slavery in the District, it would be
_equally_ a violation for Congress to do it _with the consent_, or even
at the earnest and unanimous petition of the people of the District: yet
for years it has been the southern doctrine, that if the people of the
District demand of Congress relief in this respect, it has power, as
their local legislature, to grant it, and by abolishing slavery there,
carry out the will of the citizens. But now new light has broken in! The
optics of the thirty-six have pierced the millstone with a deeper
insight, and discoveries thicken faster than they can be telegraphed!
Congress has no power, O no, not a modicum, to help the slaveholders of
the District, however loudly they may clamor for it. The southern
doctrine, that Congress is to the District a mere local Legislature to
do its pleasure, is tumbled from the genitive into the vocative! Hard
fate--and that too at the hands of those who begat it! The reasonings of
Messrs. Pinckney, Wise, and Leigh, are now found to be wholly at fault,
and the chanticleer rhetoric of Messrs. Glascock and Garland stalks
featherless and crest-fallen. For, Mr. Clay's resolution sweeps by the
board all those stereotyped common-places, as "Congress a local
Legislature," "consent of the District," "bound to consult the wishes of
the District," &c. &c., which for the last two sessions of Congress have
served to eke out scanty supplies. It declares, that _as slavery existed
in Maryland and Virginia at the time of the cession, and as it still
continues in both those states, it could not be abolished in the
District without a violation of 'that good faith_,' &c.
But let us see where this principle of the _thirty-six_ will lead us. If
"implied faith" to Maryland and Virginia _restrains_ Congress from the
abolition of slavery in the District, it _requires_ Congress to do in
the District what those states have done within their bounds, i.e.,
restrain _others_ from abolishing it. Upon the same principle Congress
is _bound_, by the doctrine of Mr. Clay's resolution, to _prohibit
emancipation_ within the District. There is no _stopping place_ for this
plighted "faith." Congress must not only refrain from laying violent
hands on slavery, _itself_, and see to it that the slaveholders
themselves do not, but it is bound to keep the system up to the Maryland
and Virginia standard of vigor!
Again, if the good faith of Congress to Virginia and Maryland requires
that slavery should exist in the District, while it exists in those
states, it requires that it should exist there _as_ it exists in those
states. If to abolish _every_ form of slavery in the District would
violate good faith, to abolish _the_ form existing in those states, and
to substitute a totally different one, would also violate it. The
Congressional "good faith" is to be kept not only with _slavery_, but
with the _Maryland and Virginia systems_ of slavery. The faith of those
states not being in the preservation of _a_ system, but of _their_
system; otherwise Congress, instead of _sustaining_, would counteract
their policy--principles would be brought into action there conflicting
with their system, and thus the true spirit of the "implied" pledge
would be violated. On this principle, so long as slaves are "chattels
personal" in Virginia and Maryland, Congress could not make them _real
estate_, inseparable from the soil, as in Louisiana; nor could it permit
slaves to read, nor to worship God according to conscience; nor could it
grant them trial by jury, nor legalize marriage; nor require the master
to give sufficient food and clothing; nor prohibit the violent sundering
of families--because such provisions would conflict with the existing
slave laws of Virginia and Maryland, and thus violate the "good faith
implied," &c. So the principle of the resolution binds Congress in all
these particulars: 1st. Not to abolish slavery in the District _until_
Virginia and Maryland abolish. 2d. Not to abolish any _part_ of it that
exists in those states. 3d. Not to abolish any _form_ or _appendage_ of
it still existing in those states. 4th. _To abolish_ when they do. 5th.
To increase or abate its rigors _when, how_, and _as_ the same are
modified by those states. In a word, Congressional action in the
District is to float passively in the wake of legislative action on the
subject in those states.
But here comes a dilemma. Suppose the legislation of those states should
steer different courses--then there would be _two_ wakes! Can Congress
float in both? Yea, verily! Nothing is too hard for it! Its
obsequiousness equals its "power of legislation in _all_ cases
whatsoever." It can float _up_ on the Virginia tide, and ebb down on the
Maryland at the same time. What Maryland does, Congress will do in the
Maryland part. What Virginia does, Congress will do in the Virginia
part. Though Congress might not always be able to run at the bidding of
both _at once_, especially in different directions, yet if it obeyed
orders cheerfully, and "kept in its place," according to its "good faith
implied," impossibilities might not be rigidly exacted. True, we have
the highest sanction for the maxim that no _man_ can serve two
masters--but if "corporations have _no_ souls," analogy would absolve
Congress on that score, or at most give it only _a very small soul_--not
large enough to be at all in the way, as an _exception_ to the universal
rule laid down in the maxim!
In following out the absurdities of this "_implied_ good faith," it will
be seen at once that the doctrine of Mr. Clay's Resolution extends to
_all the subjects_ of _legislation_ existing in Maryland and Virginia,
which exist also within the District. Every system, "institution," law,
and established usage there, is placed beyond Congressional control
equally with slavery, and by the same "implied faith." The abolition of
the lottery system in the District as an _immorality_, was a flagrant
breach of this "good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, as the system
"still continued in those states." So to abolish imprisonment for debt,
and capital punishment, to remodel the bank system, the power of
corporations, the militia law, laws of limitation, &c., in the District,
_unless Virginia and Maryland took the lead_, would violate the "good
faith implied in the cession," &c.
That in the acts of cession no such "good faith" was "implied by
Virginia and Maryland" as is claimed in the Resolution, we argue from
the fact, that in 1784 Virginia ceded to the United States all her
northwest territory, with the special proviso that her citizens
inhabiting that territory should "have their _possessions_ and _titles_
confirmed to them, and be _protected_ in the enjoyment of their _rights_
and liberties." (See Journals of Congress, vol. 9, p. 63.) The cession
was made in the form of a deed, and signed by Thomas Jefferson, Samuel
Hardy, Arthur Lee, and James Monroe. Many of these inhabitants _held
slaves_. Three years after the cession, the Virginia delegation in
Congress _proposed_ the passage of an ordinance which should abolish
slavery, in that territory, and declare that it should never thereafter
exist there. All the members of Congress from Virginia and Maryland
voted for this ordinance. Suppose some member of Congress had during the
passage of the ordinance introduced the following resolution: "Resolved,
That when the northwest territory was ceded by Virginia to the United
States, domestic slavery existed in that State, including the ceded
territory, and as it still continues in that State, it could not be
abolished within the territory without a violation of that good faith,
which was implied in the cession and in the acceptance of the
territory." What would have been the indignant response of Grayson,
Griffin, Madison, and the Lees, in the Congress of '87, to such a
resolution, and of Carrington, Chairman of the Committee, who reported
the ratification of the ordinance in the Congress of '89, and of Page
and Parker, who with every other member of the Virginia delegation
supported it!
But to enumerate all the absurdities into which the thirty-six Senators
have plunged themselves, would be to make a quarto inventory. We decline
the task; and in conclusion, merely add that Mr. Clay, in presenting
this resolution, and each of the thirty-six Senators who voted for it,
entered on the records of the Senate, and proclaimed to the world, a
most unworthy accusation against the MILLIONS of American citizens who
have during nearly half a century petitioned the national legislature to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,--charging them either with
the ignorance or the impiety of praying the nation to violate its
"PLIGHTED FAITH." The resolution virtually indicts at the bar of public
opinion, and brands with odium, all the Manumission Societies, the
_first_ petitioners for the abolition of slavery in the District, and
for a long time the only ones, petitioning from year to year through
evil report and good report, still petitioning, by individual societies
and in their national conventions.
But as if it were not enough to table the charge against such men as
Benjamin Rush, William Rawle, John Sergeant, Robert Vaux, Cadwallader
Colden, and Peter A. Jay,--to whom we may add Rufus King, James
Hillhouse, William Pinkney, Thomas Addis Emmett, Daniel D. Tompkins, De
Witt Clinton, James Kent, and Daniel Webster, besides eleven hundred
citizens of the District itself, headed by their Chief Justice and
judges--even the sovereign States of Pennsylvania, New-York,
Massachusetts, and Vermont, whose legislatures have either memorialized
Congress to abolish slavery in the District, or instructed their
Senators to move such a measure, must be gravely informed by Messrs.
Clay, Norvell, Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, Black, Tipton, and other
honorable Senators, either that their perception is so dull, they know
not what of they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunted they
can demand without compunction a violation of the nation's faith!
We have spoken already of the concessions unwittingly made in this
resolution to the true doctrine of Congressional power over the
District. For that concession, important as it is, we have small thanks
to render. That such a resolution, passed with such an _intent_, and
pressing at a thousand points on relations and interests vital to the
free states, should be hailed, as it has been, by a portion of the
northern press as a "compromise" originating in deference to northern
interests, and to be received by us as a free-will offering of
disinterested benevolence, demanding our gratitude to the mover,--may
well cover us with shame. We deserve the humiliation and have well
earned the mockery. Let it come!
If, after having been set up at auction in the public sales-room of the
nation, and for thirty years, and by each of a score of "compromises,"
treacherously knocked off to the lowest bidder, and that without money
and without price, the North, plundered and betrayed, _will not_, in
this her accepted time, consider the things that belong to her peace
before they are hidden from her eyes, then let her eat of the fruit of
her own way, and be filled with her own devices! Let the shorn and
blinded giant grind in the prison-house of the Philistines, till taught
the folly of intrusting to Delilahs the secret and the custody of his
strength.
Have the free States bound themselves by an oath never to profit by the
lessons of experience? If lost to _reason_, are they dead to _instinct_
also? Can nothing rouse them to cast about for self preservation? And
shall a life of tame surrenders be terminated by suicidal sacrifice?
A "COMPROMISE!" Bitter irony! Is the plucked and hood-winked North to be
wheedled by the sorcery of another Missouri compromise? A compromise in
which the South gained all, and the North lost all, and lost it for
ever. A compromise which embargoed the free laborer of the North and
West, and clutched at the staff he leaned upon, to turn it into a
bludgeon and fell him with its stroke. A compromise which wrested from
liberty her boundless birthright domain, stretching westward to the
sunset, while it gave to slavery loose reins and a free course, from the
Mississippi to the Pacific.
The resolution, as it finally passed, is here inserted. The original
Resolution, as moved by Mr. Clay, was inserted at the head of this
postscript with the impression that it was the _amended_ form. It will
be seen however, that it underwent no material modification.
"Resolved, That the interference by the citizens of any of the states,
with the view to the abolition of slavery in the District, is
endangering the rights and security of the people of the District; and
that any act or measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in the
District, would be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by
the states of Virginia and Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the people
of the slaveholding states, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to
disturb and endanger the Union."
The vote upon the Resolution stood as follows:
_Yeas_.--Messrs. Allen, Bayard, Benton, Black, Buchanan, Brown, Calhoun,
Clay, of Alabama, Clay, of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, Cuthbert,
Fulton, Grundy, Hubbard, King, Lumpkin, Lyon, Nicholas, Niles, Norvell,
Pierce, Preston, Rives, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smith, of Connecticut,
Strange, Tallmadge, Tipton, Walker, White, Williams, Wright, Young.
_Nays_.--Messrs. DAVIS, KNIGHT, McKEAN, MORRIS, PRENTISS, RUGGLES,
SMITH, of Indiana, SWIFT, WEBSTER.
NO. 5
THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER
* * * * *
THE
POWER OF CONGRESS
OVER THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
* * * * *
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW-YORK EVENING POST, UNDER THE SIGNATURE
OF "WYTHE."
* * * * *
WITH ADDITIONS BY THE AUTHOR.
FOURTH EDITION.
* * * * *
NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, No. 143 NASSAU
STREET. 1838.
* * * * *
This No. contains 3-1/2 sheets.--Postage, under 100 miles, 6 cts. over
100, 10 cts.
POWER OF CONGRESS OVER THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
A civilized community presupposes a government of law. If that
government be a republic, its citizens are the sole _sources_, as well
as the _subjects_ of its power. Its constitution is their bill of
directions to their own agents--a grant authorizing the exercise of
certain powers, and prohibiting that of others. In the Constitution of
the United States, whatever else may be obscure, the clause granting
power to Congress over the Federal District may well defy
misconstruction. Art. 1, Sec. 8, Clause 18: "The Congress shall have
power to exercise exclusive legislation, _in all cases whatsoever_, over
such District." Congress may make laws for the District "in all
_cases_," not of all _kinds_. The grant respects the _subjects_ of
legislation, _not_ the moral nature of the laws. The law-making power
every where, is subject to _moral_ restrictions, whether limited by
constitutions or not. No legislature can authorize murder, nor make
honesty penal, nor virtue a crime, nor exact impossibilities. In these
and similar respects, the power of Congress is held in check by
principles existing in the nature of things, not imposed by the
Constitution, but presupposed and assumed by it. The power of Congress
over the District is restricted only by those principles that limit
ordinary legislation, and, in some respects, it has even wider scope.
In common with the legislatures of the States, Congress cannot
constitutionally pass ex post facto laws in criminal cases, nor suspend
the writ of habeas corpus, nor pass a bill of attainder, nor abridge the
freedom of speech and of the press, nor invade the right of the people
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, nor enact
laws respecting an establishment of religion. These are general
limitations. Congress cannot do these things _any where_. The exact
import, therefore, of the clause "in all cases whatsoever," is, _on all
subjects within the appropriate sphere of legislation_. Some
legislatures are restrained by constitutions from the exercise of powers
strictly within the proper sphere of legislation. Congressional power
over the District has no such restraint. It traverses the whole field of
legitimate legislation. All the power which any legislature has within
its own jurisdiction, Congress holds over the District of Columbia.
It has been asserted that the clause in question respects merely police
regulations, and that its sole design was to enable Congress to protect
itself against popular tumults. But if the framers of the Constitution
aimed to provide for a _single_ case only, why did they provide for
"_all_ cases whatsoever?" Besides, this clause was opposed in many of
the state conventions, because the grant of power was not restricted to
police regulations _alone_. In the Virginia Convention, George Mason,
the father of the Virginia Constitution, said, "This clause gives an
unlimited authority in every possible case within the District. He would
willingly give them exclusive power as far as respected the police and
good government of the place, but he would give them no more." Mr.
Grayson said, that control over the _police_ was all-sufficient, and
that the "Continental Congress never had an idea of exclusive
legislation in all cases." Patrick Henry said. "Is it consistent with
any principle of prudence or good policy, to grant _unlimited, unbounded
authority?_" Mr. Madison said in reply: "I did conceive that the clause
under consideration was one of those parts which would speak its own
praise. When any power is given, its delegation necessarily involves
authority to make laws to execute it. * * * * The powers which are found
necessary to be given, are therefore delegated _generally_, and
particular and minute specification is left to the legislature. * * * It
is not within the limits of human capacity to delineate on paper all
those particular cases and circumstances, in which legislation by the
general legislature would be necessary." Governor Randolph said:
"Holland has no ten miles square, but she has the Hague where the
deputies of the States assemble. But the influence which it has given
the province of Holland, to have the seat of government within its
territory, subject in some respects to its control, has been injurious
to the other provinces. The wisdom of the Convention is therefore
manifest in granting to Congress exclusive jurisdiction over the place
of their session." [_Deb. Va. Con._, p. 320.] In the forty-third number
of the "Federalist," Mr. Madison says: "The indispensable necessity of
_complete_ authority at the seat of government, carries its own
evidence with it."
Finally, that the grant in question is to be interpreted according to
the obvious import of its _terms_, is proved by the fact, that Virginia
proposed an amendment to the United States' Constitution at the time of
its adoption, providing that this clause "should be so construed as to
give power only over the _police and good government_ of said District,"
_which amendment was rejected_.
The former part of the clause under consideration, "Congress shall have
power to exercise _exclusive_ legislation," gives _sole_ jurisdiction,
and the latter part, "in all cases whatsoever," defines the _extent_ of
it. Since, then, Congress is the _sole_ legislature within the District,
and since its power is limited only by the checks common to all
legislatures, it follows that what the law-making power is intrinsically
competent to do _any_ where, Congress is competent to do in the District
of Columbia. Having disposed of preliminaries, we proceed to state and
argue the _real_ question at issue.
IS THE LAW-MAKING POWER COMPETENT TO ABOLISH SLAVERY WHEN NOT RESTRICTED
IN THAT PARTICULAR BY CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS--or, IS THE ABOLITION OF
SLAVERY WITHIN THE APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF LEGISLATION?
1. In every government, absolute sovereignty exists _somewhere_. In the
United States it exists primarily with the _people_, and _ultimate_
sovereignty _always_ exists with them. In each of the States, the
legislature possesses a _representative_ sovereignty, delegated by the
people through the Constitution--the people thus committing to the
legislature a portion of their sovereignty, and specifying in their
constitutions the amount of the grant and its conditions. That the
_people_ in any state where slavery exists, have the power to abolish
it, none will deny. If the legislature have not the power, it is because
_the people_ have reserved it to themselves. Had they lodged with the
legislature "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever," they would have parted with their sovereignty over the
legislation of the State, and so far forth, the legislature would have
become _the people_, clothed with all their functions, and as such
competent, _during the continuance of the grant_, to do whatever the
people might have done before the surrender of their power:
consequently, they would have the power to abolish slavery. The
sovereignty of the District of Columbia exists _somewhere_--where is it
lodged? The citizens of the District have no legislature of their own,
no representation in Congress, and no political power whatever. Maryland
and Virginia have surrendered to the United States their "full and
absolute right and entire sovereignty," and the people of the United
States have committed to Congress by the Constitution, the power to
"exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such
District."
Thus, the sovereignty of the District of Columbia, is shown to reside
solely in the Congress of the United States; and since the power of the
people of a state to abolish slavery within their own limits, results
from their entire sovereignty within that state, so the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District, results from its entire
sovereignty within the District. If it be objected that Congress can
have no more power over the District, than was held by the legislatures
of Maryland and Virginia, we ask what clause of the constitution
graduates the power of Congress by the standard of those legislatures?
Was the United States' constitution worked into its present shape under
the measuring line and square of Virginia and Maryland? and is its power
to be bevelled down till it can run in the grooves of state legislation?
There is a deal of prating about constitutional power over the District,
as though Congress were indebted for it to Maryland and Virginia. The
powers of those states, whether prodigies or nullities, have nothing to
do with the question. As well thrust in the powers of the Grand Lama to
join issue upon, or twist papal bulls into constitutional tether, with
which to curb congressional action. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED
STATES gives power to Congress, and takes it away, and _it alone_.
Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution _before_ they ceded to
the United States the territory of the District. By their acts of
cession, they abdicated their own sovereignty over the District, and
thus made room for that provided by the United States' constitution,
which sovereignty was to commence as soon as a cession of territory by
states, and its acceptance by Congress, furnished a sphere for its
exercise. That the abolition of slavery is within the sphere of
legislation, I argue.
2. FROM THE FACT, THAT SLAVERY, AS A LEGAL SYSTEM, IS THE CREATURE OF
LEGISLATION. The law, by _creating_ slavery, not only affirmed its
_existence_ to be within the sphere and under the control of
legislation, but also, the conditions and terms of its existence, and
the _question_ whether or not it should exist. Of course legislation
would not travel _out_ of its sphere, in abolishing what is _within_ it,
and what had been recognized to be within it, by its own act. Cannot
legislatures repeal their own laws? If law can take from a man his
rights, it can give them back again. If it can say, "your body belongs
to your neighbor," it can say, "it belongs to _yourself_." If it can
annul a man's right to himself, held by express grant from his Maker,
and can create for another an _artificial_ title to him, can it not
annul the artificial title, and leave the original owner to hold himself
by his original title?
3. THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONSIDERED WITHIN THE
APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF LEGISLATION. Almost every civilized nation has
abolished slavery by law. The history of legislation since the revival
of letters, is a record crowded with testimony to the universally
admitted competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery. It is so
manifestly an attribute not merely of absolute sovereignty, but even of
ordinary legislation, that the competency of a legislature to exercise
it, may well nigh be reckoned among the legal axioms of the civilized
world. Even the night of the dark ages was not dark enough to make this
invisible.
The Abolition decree of the great council of England was passed in 1102.
The memorable Irish decree, "that all the English slaves in the whole of
Ireland, be immediately emancipated and restored to their former
liberty," was issued in 1171. Slavery in England was abolished by a
general charter of emancipation in 1381. Passing over many instances of
the abolition of slavery by law, both during the middle ages and since
the reformation, we find them multiplying as we approach our own times.
In 1776 slavery was abolished in Prussia by special edict. In St.
Domingo, Cayenne, Guadaloupe, and Martinique, in 1794, where more than
600,000 slaves were emancipated by the French government. In Java, 1811;
in Ceylon, 1815; in Buenos Ayres, 1816; in St. Helena, 1819; in
Colombia, 1821; by the Congress of Chili in 1821; in Cape Colony, 1823;
in Malacca, 1825; in the southern provinces of Birmah, 1826; in Bolivia,
1826; in Peru, Guatemala, and Monte Video, 1828; in Jamaica, Barbados,
the Bermudas, the Bahamas, Anguilla, Mauritius, St. Christopers, Nevis,
the Virgin Islands, (British), Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St.
Vincents, Grenada, Berbice, Tobago, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Honduras,
Demerara, Essequibo and the Cape of Good Hope, on the 1st of August,
1834. But waving details, suffice it to say, that England, France,
Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Germany, have
all and often given their testimony to the competency of the legislative
power to abolish slavery. In our own country, the Legislature of
Pennsylvania passed an act of abolition in 1780, Connecticut in 1784;
Rhode Island, 1784; New-York, 1799; New-Jersey, in 1804; Vermont, by
Constitution, in 1777; Massachusetts, in 1780; and New-Hampshire,
in 1784.
When the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery has thus
been recognized every where and for ages, when it has been embodied in
the highest precedents, and celebrated in the thousand jubilees of
regenerated liberty, is it an achievement of modern discovery, that such
a power is a nullity?--that all these acts of abolition are void, and
that the millions disenthralled by them, are, either themselves or their
posterity, still legally in bondage?
4. LEGISLATIVE POWER HAS ABOLISHED SLAVERS IN ITS PARTS. The law of
South Carolina prohibits the working of slaves more than fifteen hours
in the twenty-four. In other words, it takes from the slaveholder his
power over nine hours of the slave's time daily; and if it can take nine
hours it may take twenty-four. The laws of Georgia prohibit the working
of slaves on the first day of the week; and if they can do it for the
first, they can for the six following. The law of North Carolina
prohibits the "immoderate" correction of slaves. If it has power to
prohibit _immoderate_ correction, it can prohibit _moderate_
correction--_all_ correction, which would be virtual emancipation; for,
take from the master the power to inflict pain, and he is master no
longer. Cease to ply the slave with the stimulus of fear, and he
is free.
The Constitution of Mississippi gives the General Assembly power to make
laws "to oblige the owners of slaves to _treat them with humanity_." The
Constitution of Missouri has the same clause, and an additional one
making it the DUTY of the legislature to pass such laws as may be
necessary to secure the _humane_ treatment of the slaves. This grant to
those legislatures, empowers them to decide what _is_ and what is _not_
"humane treatment." Otherwise it gives no "power"--the clause is mere
waste paper, and flouts in the face of a befooled legislature. A clause
giving power to require "humane treatment" covers all the _particulars_
of such treatment--gives power to exact it in _all respects--requiring_
certain acts, and _prohibiting_ others--maiming, branding, chaining
together, separating families, floggings for learning the alphabet, for
reading the Bible, for worshiping God according to conscience--the
legislature has power to specify each of these acts--declare that it is
not "_humane_ treatment," and PROHIBIT it.--The legislature may also
believe that driving men and women into the field, and forcing them to
work without pay, is not "humane treatment," and being constitutionally
bound "to _oblige_" masters to practise "humane treatment"--they have
the _power_ to _prohibit such_ treatment, and are bound to do it.
The law of Louisiana makes slaves real estate, prohibiting the holder,
if he be also a _land_ holder, to separate them from the soil.[A] If it
has power to prohibit the sale _without_ the soil, it can prohibit the
sale _with_ it; and if it can prohibit the _sale_ as property, it can
prohibit the _holding_ as property. Similar laws exist in the French,
Spanish, and Portuguese colonies. The law of Louisiana requires the
master to give his slaves a certain amount of food and clothing. If it
can oblige the master to give the slave _one_ thing, it can oblige him
to give him another: if food and clothing, then wages, liberty, his own
body. By the laws of Connecticut, slaves may receive and hold property,
and prosecute suits in their own name as plaintiffs: [This last was also
the law of Virginia in 1795. See Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p.
73.] There were also laws making marriage contracts legal, in certain
contingencies, and punishing infringements of them, ["_Reeve's Law of
Baron and Femme_," p. 340-1.]
[Footnote A: Virginia made slaves real estate by a law passed in 1705.
(_Beverly's Hist. of Va._, p. 98.) I do not find the precise time when
this law was repealed, probably when Virginia became the chief slave
breeder for the cotton-growing and sugar-planting country, and made
young men and women "from fifteen to twenty-five" the main staple
production of the State.]
Each of the laws enumerated above, does, _in principle_, abolish
slavery; and all of them together abolish it _in fact_. True, not as a
_whole_, and at a _stroke_, nor all in one place; but in its _parts_, by
piecemeal, at divers times and places; thus showing that the abolition
of slavery is within the boundary of legislation.
In the "Washington (D.C.) City Laws," page 138, is "AN ACT to prevent
horses from being cruelly beaten or abused." Similar laws have been
passed by corporations in many of the slave states, and throughout the
civilized world, such acts are punishable either as violations of common
law or of legislative enactments. If a legislature can pass laws "to
prevent _horses_ from being cruelly abused," it can pass laws to prevent
_men_ from being cruelly abused, and if it can _prevent_ cruel abuse, it
can define _what it is_. It can declare that to make men _work without
pay_ is cruel abuse, and can PROHIBIT it.
5. THE COMPETENCY OF THE LAW-MAKING POWER TO ABOLISH SLAVERY, HAS BEEN
RECOGNIZED BY ALL THE SLAVEHOLDING STATES, EITHER DIRECTLY OR BY
IMPLICATION. Some States recognize it in their _Constitutions_, by
giving the legislature power to emancipate such slaves as may "have
rendered the state some distinguished service," and others by express
prohibitory restrictions. The Constitution of Mississippi, Arkansas, and
other States, restrict the power of the legislature in this respect. Why
this express prohibition, if the law-making power _cannot_ abolish
slavery? A stately farce indeed, with appropriate rites to induct into
the Constitution a special clause, for the express purpose of
restricting a nonentity!--to take from the law-making power what it
_never had_, and what _cannot_ pertain to it! The legislatures of those
States have no power to abolish slavery, simply because their
Constitutions have expressly _taken away_ that power. The people of
Arkansas, Mississippi, &c. well knew the competency of the law-making
power to abolish slavery, and hence their zeal to _restrict_ it.
The slaveholding States have recognised this power in their _laws_.
Virginia passed a law in 1786 to prevent the importation of Slaves, of
which the following is an extract: "And be it further enacted that every
slave imported into this commonwealth contrary to the true intent and
meaning of this act, shall upon such importation become _free_." By a
law of Virginia, passed Dec. 17, 1792, a slave brought into the state
and kept _there a year_, was _free_. The Maryland Court of Appeals,
Dec., 1813 [case of Stewart vs. Oakes,] decided that a slave owned in
Maryland, and sent by his master into Virginia to work at different
periods, making one year in the whole, became _free_, being
_emancipated_ by the above law. North Carolina and Georgia in their acts
of cession, transferring to the United States the territory now
constituting the States of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, made it a
condition of the grant, that the provisions of the ordinance of '87
should be secured to the inhabitants, _with the exception of the sixth
article which prohibits slavery_; thus conceding, both the competency of
law to abolish slavery, and the power of Congress to do it, within its
jurisdiction. (These acts show the prevalent belief at that time, in the
slaveholding States, that the general government had adopted a line of
policy aiming at the exclusion of slavery from the entire territory of
the United States, not included within the original States, and that
this policy would be pursued unless prevented by specific and formal
stipulation.)
Slaveholding States have asserted this power _in their judicial
decisions_. In numerous cases their highest courts have decided that if
the legal owner of slaves takes them into those States where slavery has
been abolished either by law or by the constitution, such removal
emancipates them, such law or constitution abolishing their slavery.
This principle is asserted in the decision of the Supreme Court of
Louisiana, Lunsford vs. Coquillon, 14 Martin's La. Reps. 401. Also by
the Supreme Court of Virginia, Hunter vs. Fulcher, 1 Leigh's Reps. 172.
The same doctrine was laid down by Judge Washington, of the U. S. Sup.
Court, Butler vs. Hopper, Washington's C. C. Reps. 508; also, by the
Court of Appeals in Kentucky, Rankin vs. Lydia, 2 Marshall's Reps. 407;
see also, Wilson vs. Isbell, 5 Call's Reps. 425, Spotts vs. Gillespie, 6
Randolph's Reps. 566. The State vs. Lasselle, 1 Blackford's Reps. 60,
Marie Louise vs. Mariot, 8 La. Reps. 475. In this case, which was tried
in 1836, the slave had been taken by her master to France and brought
back; Judge Matthews, of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, decided that
"residence for one moment" under the laws of France emancipated her.
6. EMINENT STATESMEN, THEMSELVES SLAVEHOLDERS, HAVE CONCEDED THIS POWER.
Washington, in a letter to Robert Morris, April 12, 1786, says: "There
is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan
adopted for the abolition of slavery; but there is only one proper and
effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by
_legislative_ authority." In a letter to Lafayette, May 10, 1786, he
says: "It (the abolition of slavery) certainly might, and assuredly
ought to be effected, and that too by _legislative_ authority." In a
letter to John Fenton Mercer, Sept. 9, 1786, he says: "It is among my
first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country
may be abolished by _law_." In a letter to Sir John Sinclair, he says:
"There are in Pennsylvania, _laws_ for the gradual abolition of slavery,
which neither Maryland nor Virginia have at present, but which nothing
is more certain than that they _must have_, and at a period not remote."
Jefferson, speaking of movements in the Virginia Legislature in 1777,
for the passage of a law emancipating the slaves, says: "The principles
of the amendment were agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born
after a certain day; but it was found that the public mind would not
bear the proposition, yet the day is not far distant when _it must bear
and adopt it_."--Jefferson's Memoirs, v. i. p. 35. It is well known that
Jefferson, Pendleton, Mason, Wythe and Lee, while acting as a committee
of the Virginia House of Delegates to revise the State Laws, prepared a
plan for the gradual emancipation of the slaves by law. These men were
the great lights of Virginia. Mason, the author of the Virginia
Constitution; Pendleton, the President of the memorable Virginia
Convention in 1787, and President of the Virginia Court of Appeals;
Wythe was the Blackstone of the Virginia bench, for a quarter of a
century Chancellor of the State, the professor of law in the University
of William and Mary, and the preceptor of Jefferson, Madison, and Chief
Justice Marshall. He was the author of the celebrated remonstrance to
the English House of Commons on the subject of the stamp act. As to
Jefferson, his _name_ is his biography.
Every slaveholding member of Congress from the States of Maryland,
Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, voted for the
celebrated ordinance of 1787, which abolished the slavery then existing
in the Northwest Territory. Patrick Henry, in his well known letter to
Robert Pleasants, of Virginia, January 18, 1773, says: "I believe a time
will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable
evil." William Pinkney, of Maryland, advocated the abolition of slavery
by law, in the legislature of that State, in 1789. Luther Martin urged
the same measure both in the Federal Convention, and in his report to
the Legislature of Maryland. In 1796, St. George Tucker, of Virginia,
professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and Judge of the
General Court, published a dissertation on slavery, urging the abolition
of slavery by _law_.
John Jay, while New-York was yet a slave State, and himself in law a
slaveholder, said in a letter from Spain, in 1786, "An excellent law
might be made out of the Pennsylvania one, for the gradual abolition of
slavery. Were I in your legislature, I would present a bill for the
purpose, and I would never cease moving it till it became a law, or I
ceased to be a member."
Governor Tompkins, in a message to the Legislature of New-York, January
8, 1812, said: "To devise the means for the gradual and ultimate
_extermination_ from amongst us of slavery, is a work worthy the
_representatives_ of a polished and enlightened nation."
The Virginia Legislature asserted this power in 1832. At the close of a
month's debate, the following proceedings were had. I extract from an
editorial article in the Richmond Whig, Jan. 26, 1832.
"The report of the Select Committee, adverse to legislation on the
subject of Abolition, was in these words: _Resolved_, as the opinion of
this Committee, that it is INEXPEDIENT FOR THE PRESENT, to make any
_legislative enactments for the abolition of slavery_." This Report Mr.
Preston moved to reverse, and thus to declare that it _was_ expedient,
_now_ to make legislative enactments for the abolition of slavery. This
was meeting the question in its strongest form. It demanded action, and
immediate action. On this proposition the vote was 58 to 73. Many of the
most decided friends of abolition voted against the amendment, because
they thought public opinion not sufficiently prepared for it, and that
it might prejudice the cause to move too rapidly. The vote on Mr.
Witcher's motion to postpone the whole subject indefinitely, indicates
the true state of opinion in the House. That was the test question, and
was so intended and proclaimed by its mover. That motion was
_negatived_, 71 to 60; showing a majority of 11, who by that vote,
declared their belief that at the proper time, and in the proper mode,
Virginia ought to commence a system of gradual abolition.
7. THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE ASSERTED THIS POWER. The
ordinance of '87, declaring that there should be "neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude," in the North Western Territory, abolished the
slavery then existing there. The Sup. Court of Mississippi, [Harvey vs.
Decker, Walker's Mi. Reps. 36,] declared that the ordinance of '87
emancipated the slaves then held there. In this decision the question is
argued ably and at great length. The Supreme Court of La. made the same
decision in the case of Forsyth vs. Nash, 4 Martin's La. Reps. 385. The
same doctrine was laid down by Judge Porter, (late United States Senator
from La.,) in his decision at the March term of the La. Supreme Court,
1830, Merry vs. Chexnaider, 20 Martin's Reps. 699.
That the ordinance abolished the slavery then existing there is also
shown by the fact, that persons holding slaves in the territory
petitioned for the repeal of the article abolishing slavery, assigning
_that_ as a reason. "The petition of the citizens of Randolph and St.
Clair counties in the Illinois country, stating that they were in
possession of slaves, and praying the repeal of that act (the 6th
article of the ordinance of '87) and the passage of a law legalizing
slavery there." [Am. State papers, Public Lands, v. 1. p. 69.] Congress
passed this ordinance before the United States' Constitution was
adopted, when it derived all its authority from the articles of
Confederation, which conferred powers of legislation far more restricted
than those committed to Congress over the District and Territories by
the United States' Constitution. Now, we ask, how does the Constitution
_abridge_ the powers which Congress possessed under the articles of
confederation?
The abolition of the slave trade by Congress, in 1808, is another
illustration of the competency of legislative power to abolish slavery.
The African slave trade has become such a mere _technic_, in common
parlance, that the fact of its being _proper slavery_ is overlooked. The
buying and selling, the transportation, and the horrors of the middle
passage, were mere _incidents_ of the slavery in which the victims were
held. Let things be called by their own names. When Congress abolished
the African slave trade, it abolished SLAVERY--supreme slavery--power
frantic with license, trampling a whole hemisphere scathed with its
fires, and running down with blood. True, Congress did not, in the
abolition of the slave trade, abolish all the slavery within its
jurisdiction, but it did abolish _all_ the slavery _in one_ part of its
jurisdiction. What has rifled it of power to abolish slavery in
_another_ part of its jurisdiction, especially in that part where it has
"exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever?"
8. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES RECOGNIZES THIS POWER BY THE
MOST CONCLUSIVE IMPLICATION. In Art. 1, sec. 3, clause 1, it prohibits
the abolition of the slave trade previous to 1808: thus implying the
power of Congress to do it at once, but for the restriction; and its
power to do it _unconditionally_, when that restriction ceased. Again;
In Art. 4, sec. 2, "No person held to service or labor in one state
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of
any law or regulation therein, be discharged from said service or
labor." This clause was inserted, as all admit, to prevent the runaway
slave from being emancipated by the _laws_ of the free states. If these
laws had _no power_ to emancipate, why this constitutional guard to
prevent it?
The insertion of the clause, was the testimony of the eminent jurists
that framed the Constitution, to the existence of the _power_, and their
public proclamation, that the abolition of slavery was within the
appropriate sphere of legislation. The right of the owner to that which
is rightfully property, is founded on a principle of _universal law_,
and is recognized and protected by all civilized nations; property in
slaves is, by general consent, an _exception_; hence slaveholders
insisted upon the insertion of this clause in the United States'
Constitution, that they might secure by an _express provision_, that
from which protection is withheld, by the acknowledged principles of
universal law.[A] By demanding this provision, slaveholders consented
that their slaves should not be recognized as property by the United
States' Constitution, and hence they found their claim, on the fact of
their being "_persons_, and _held_ to service."
[Footnote A: The fact, that under the articles of Confederation,
slaveholders, whose slaves had escaped into free states, had no legal
power to force them back,--that _now_ they have no power to recover, by
process of law, their slaves who escape to Canada, the South American
States, or to Europe--the case already cited, in which the Supreme Court
of Louisiana decided, that residence "_for one moment_," under the laws
of France emancipated an American slave--the case of Fulton, _vs._
Lewis, 3 Har. and John's Reps., 56, where the slave of a St. Domingo
slaveholder, who brought him to Maryland in '93, was pronounced free by
the Maryland Court of Appeals--are illustrations of the acknowledged
truth here asserted, that by the consent of the civilized world, and on
the principles of universal law, slaves are not "_property_," and that
whenever held as property under _law_, it is only by _positive
legislative acts_, forcibly setting aside the law of nature, the common
law, and the principles of universal justice and right between man and
man,--principles paramount to all law, and from which alone, law derives
its intrinsic authoritative sanction.]
9. CONGRESS HAS UNQUESTIONABLE POWER TO ADOPT THE COMMON LAW, AS THE
LEGAL SYSTEM, WITHIN ITS EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION.--This has been done,
with certain restrictions, in most of the States, either by legislative
acts or by constitutional implication. THE COMMON LAW KNOWS NO SLAVES.
Its principles annihilate slavery wherever they touch it. It is a
universal, unconditional, abolition act. Wherever slavery is a legal
system, it is so only by _statute_ law, and in violation of the common
law. The declaration of Lord Chief Justice Holt, that, "by the common
law, no man can have property in another," is an acknowledged axiom, and
based upon the well known common law definition of property. "The
subjects of dominion or property are _things_, as contra-distinguished
from _persons_." Let Congress adopt the common law in the District of
Columbia, and slavery there is abolished. Congress may well be at home
in common law legislation, for the common law is the grand element of
the United States' Constitution. All its _fundamental_ provisions are
instinct with its spirit; and its existence, principles, and paramount
authority, are presupposed and assumed throughout the whole. The
preamble of the Constitution plants the standard of the Common Law
immovably in its foreground. "We, the people of the United States, in
order to ESTABLISH JUSTICE, &c., do ordain and establish this
Constitution;" thus proclaiming _devotion_ to JUSTICE, as the
controlling motive in the organization of the Government, and its secure
establishment the chief object of its aims. By this most solemn
recognition, the common law, that grand legal embodyment of "justice"
and fundamental right--was made the groundwork of the Constitution, and
intrenched behind its strongest munitions. The second clause of Sec. 9,
Art. 1; Sec. 4, Art. 2, and the last clause of Sec. 2, Art. 3, with
Articles 7, 8, 9, and 13 of the Amendments, are also express
recognitions of the common law as the presiding Genius of the
Constitution.
By adopting the common law within its exclusive jurisdiction Congress
would carry out the principles of our glorious Declaration, and follow
the highest precedents in our national history and jurisprudence. It is
a political maxim as old as civil legislation, that laws should be
strictly homogeneous with the principles of the government whose will
they express, embodying and carrying them out--being indeed the
_principles themselves_, in preceptive form--representatives alike of
the nature and power of the Government--standing illustrations of its
genius and spirit, while they proclaim and enforce its authority. Who
needs be told that slavery makes war upon the principles of the
Declaration, and the spirit of the Constitution, and that these and the
principles of the common law gravitate towards each other with
irrepressible affinities, and mingle into one? The common law came
hither with our pilgrim fathers; it was their birthright, their panoply,
their glory, and their song of rejoicing in the house of their
pilgrimage. It covered them in the day of their calamity, and their
trust was under the shadow of its wings. From the first settlement of
the country, the genius of our institutions and our national spirit have
claimed it as a common possession, and exulted in it with a common
pride. A century ago, Governor Pownall, one of the most eminent
constitutional jurists of colonial times, said of the common law, "In
all the colonies the common law is received as the foundation and main
body of their law." In the Declaration of Rights, made by the
Continental Congress at its first session in '74, there was the
following resolution: "Resolved, That the respective colonies are
entitled to the common law of England, and especially to the great and
inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage
according to the course of that law." Soon after the organization of the
general government, Chief Justice Ellsworth, in one of his decisions on
the bench of the U. S. Sup. Court, said: "The common law of this country
remains the same as it was before the revolution." Chief Justice
Marshall, in his decision in the case of Livingston _vs._ Jefferson,
said: "When our ancestors migrated to America, they brought with them
the common law of their native country, so far as it was applicable to
their new situation, and I do not conceive that the revolution in any
degree changed the relations of man to man, or the law which regulates
them. In breaking our political connection with the parent state, we did
not break our connection with each other." [_Hall's Law Journal, new
series_.] Mr. Duponceau, in his "Dissertation on the Jurisdiction of
Courts in the United States," says, "I consider the common law of
England the _jus commune_ of the United States. I think I can lay it
down as a correct principle, that the common law of England, as it was
at the time of the Declaration of Independence, still continues to be
the national law of this country, so far as it is applicable to our
present state, and subject to the modifications it has received here in
the course of nearly half a century." Chief Justice Taylor of North
Carolina, in his decision in the case of the State _vs._ Reed, in 1823,
Hawkes' N.C. Reps. 454, says, "a law of _paramount, obligation to the
statute_, was violated by the offence--COMMON LAW, founded upon the law
of nature, and confirmed by revelation." The legislation of the United
States abounds in recognitions of the principles of the common law,
asserting their paramount binding power. Sparing details, of which our
national state papers are full, we illustrate by a single instance. It
was made a condition of the admission of Louisiana into the Union, that
the right of trial by jury should be secured to all her citizens,--the
United States government thus employing its power to enlarge the
jurisdiction of the common law in this its great representative.
Having shown that the abolition of slavery is within the competency of
the law-making power, when unrestricted by constitutional provisions,
and that the legislation of Congress over the District is thus
unrestricted, its power to abolish slavery there is established. We
argue it further, from the fact that,
10. SLAVERY NOW EXISTS IN THE DISTRICT BY AN ACT OF CONGRESS. In the act
of 16th July, 1790, Congress accepted portions of territory offered by
the states of Maryland and Virginia, and enacted that the laws, as they
then were, should continue in force, "until Congress shall otherwise by
law provide." Under these laws, adopted by Congress, and in effect
re-enacted and made laws of the District, the slaves there are now held.
Is Congress so impotent in its own "exclusive jurisdiction" that it
cannot "otherwise by law provide?" If it can say, what _shall_ be
considered property, it can say what shall _not_ be considered property.
Suppose a legislature should enact that marriage contracts should be
mere bills of sale, making a husband the proprietor of his wife, as his
_bona fide_ property; and suppose husbands should herd their wives in
droves for the market as beasts of burden, or for the brothel as victims
of lust, and then prate about their inviolable legal property, and deny
the power of the legislature, which stamped them "property," to undo its
own wrong, and secure to wives by law the rights of human beings. Would
such cant about "legal rights" be heeded where reason and justice held
sway, and where law, based upon fundamental morality, received homage?
If a frantic legislature pronounces woman a chattel, has it no power,
with returning reason, to take back the blasphemy? Is the impious edict
irrepealable? Be it, that with legal forms it has stamped wives "wares."
Can no legislation blot out the brand? Must the handwriting of Deity on
human nature be expunged for ever? Has LAW no power to stay the erasing
pen, and tear off the scrawled label that covers up the IMAGE OF GOD?
II. THE POWER OF CONGRESS TO ABOLISH SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT HAS BEEN,
TILL RECENTLY, UNIVERSALLY CONCEDED.
1. It has been assumed by Congress itself. The following record stands
on the journals of the House of Representatives for 1804, p. 225: "On
motion made and seconded that the House do come to the following
resolution: 'Resolved, That from and after the 4th day of July, 1805,
all blacks and people of color that shall be born within the District of
Columbia, or whose mothers shall be the property of any person residing
within the said District, shall be free, the males at the age of ----,
and the females at the age of ----. The main question being taken that
the House do agree to said motions as originally proposed, it was
negatived by a majority of 46.'" Though the motion was lost, it was on
the ground of its alleged _inexpediency_ alone. In the debate which
preceded the vote, the power of Congress was conceded. In March, 1816,
the House of Representatives passed the following resolution: "Resolved,
That a committee be appointed to inquire into the existence of an
inhuman and illegal traffic in slaves, carried on in and through the
District of Columbia, and to report whether any and what measures are
necessary for _putting a stop to the same_."
On the 9th of January, 1829, the House of Representatives passed the
following resolution by a vote of 114 to 66: "Resolved, That the
Committee on the District of Columbia, be instructed to inquire into the
_expediency_ of providing by _law_ for the gradual abolition of slavery
within the District, in such a manner that the interests of no
individual shall be injured thereby." Among those who voted in the
affirmative were Messrs. Barney of Md., Armstrong of Va., A.H. Shepperd
of N.C., Blair of Tenn., Chilton and Lyon of Ky., Johns of Del., and
others from slave states.
2. IT HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY COMMITTEES OF CONGRESS, ON THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA.--In a report of the committee on the District, Jan. 11, 1837,
by their chairman, Mr. Powell of Va., there is the following
declaration: "The Congress of the United States, has by the constitution
exclusive jurisdiction over the District, and has power upon this
subject (_slavery_,) as upon all other subjects of legislation, to
exercise _unlimited discretion_." Reports of Comms. 2d Sess. 19th Cong.
v. iv. No. 43. In December, 1831, the committee on the District, Mr.
Doddridge of Va., Chairman, reported, "That until the adjoining states
act on the subject, (_slavery_) it would be (not _unconstitutional_ but)
unwise and impolitic, if not unjust, for Congress to interfere." In
April, 1836, a special committee on abolition memorials reported the
following resolutions by their Chairman, Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina:
"Resolved, That Congress possesses no constitutional authority to
interfere in any way with the institution of slavery in any of the
states of this confederacy."
"Resolved, That Congress _ought not to interfere_ in any way with
slavery in the District of Columbia." "Ought not to interfere,"
carefully avoiding the phraseology of the first resolution, and thus in
effect conceding the constitutional power. In a widely circulated
"Address to the electors of the Charleston District," Mr. Pinkney is
thus denounced by his own constituents: "He has proposed a resolution
which is received by the plain common sense of the whole country as a
concession that Congress has authority to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia."
3. IT HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY THE CITIZENS OF THE DISTRICT. A petition for
the gradual abolition of slavery in the District, signed by nearly
eleven hundred of its citizens, was presented to Congress, March 24,
1827. Among the signers to this petition, were Chief Justice Cranch,
Judge Van Ness, Judge Morsel, Prof. J.M. Staughton, and a large number
of the most influential inhabitants of the District. Mr. Dickson, of New
York, asserted on the floor of Congress in 1835, that the signers to
this petition owned more than half the property in the District. The
accuracy of this statement has never been questioned.
THIS POWER HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY GRAND JURIES OF THE DISTRICT. The grand
jury of the county of Alexandria, at the March term, 1802, presented the
domestic slaves trade as a grievance, and said, "We consider these
grievances demanding _legislative_ redress." Jan. 19, 1829, Mr.
Alexander, of Virginia, presented a representation of the grand jury in
the city of Washington, remonstrating against "any measure for the
abolition of slavery within said District, unless accompanied by
measures for the removal of the emancipated from the same;" thus, not
only conceding the power to emancipate slaves, but affirming an
additional power, that of _excluding them when free_. Journal H. R.
1828-9, p. 174.
4. THIS POWER HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY STATE LEGISLATURES. In 1828 the
Legislature of Pennsylvania instructed their Senators in Congress "to
procure, if practicable, the passage of a law to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia." Jan. 28, 1829, the House of Assembly of New York
passed a resolution, that their "Senators in Congress be instructed to
make every possible exertion to effect the passage of a law for the
abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia." In February, 1837,
the Senate of Massachusetts "Resolved, That Congress having exclusive
legislation in the District of Columbia, possess the right to abolish
slavery and the slave trade therein." The House of Representatives
passed the following resolution at the same session: "Resolved, That
Congress having exclusive legislation in the District of Columbia,
possess the right to abolish slavery in said District." November 1,
1837, the Legislature of Vermont, "Resolved that Congress have the full
power by the constitution to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the
District of Columbia, and in the territories."
In May, 1838, the Legislature of Connecticut passed a resolution
asserting the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia.
In January, 1836, the Legislature of South Carolina "Resolved, That we
should consider the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia as
a violation of the rights of the citizens of that District derived from
the _implied_ conditions on which that territory was ceded to the
General Government." Instead of denying the constitutional power, they
virtually admit its existence, by striving to smother it under an
_implication_. In February, 1836, the Legislature of North Carolina
"Resolved, That, although by the Constitution _all legislative power_
over the District of Columbia is vested in the Congress of the United
States, yet we would deprecate any legislative action on the part of
that body towards liberating the slaves of that District, as a breach of
faith towards those States by whom the territory was originally ceded.
Here is a full concession of the _power_. February 2, 1836, the Virginia
Legislature passed unanimously the following resolution: "Resolved, by
the General Assembly of Virginia, that the following article be proposed
to the several states of this Union, and to Congress, as an amendment of
the Constitution of the United States:" "The powers of Congress shall not
be so construed as to authorize the passage of any law for the
emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia, without the consent
of the individual proprietors thereof, unless by the sanction of the
Legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, and under such conditions as they
shall by law prescribe."
Fifty years after the formation of the United States' constitution the
states are solemnly called upon by the Virginia Legislature, to amend
that instrument by a clause asserting that, in the grant to Congress of
"exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever" over the District, the
"case" of slavery is not included!! What could have dictated such a
resolution but the conviction that the power to abolish slavery is an
irresistible inference from the constitution _as it is?_ The fact that
the same legislature, passed afterward a resolution, though by no means
unanimously, that Congress does not possess the power, abates not a
title of the testimony in the first resolution. March 23d, 1824, "Mr.
Brown presented the resolutions of the General Assembly of Ohio,
recommending to Congress the consideration of a system for the gradual
emancipation of persons of color held in servitude in the United
States." On the same day, "Mr. Noble, of Indiana, communicated a
resolution from the legislature of that state, respecting the gradual
emancipation of slaves within the United States." Journal of the United
States' Senate, for 1824-5, p.231.
The Ohio and Indiana resolutions, by taking for granted the _general_
power of Congress over the subject of slavery, do virtually assert its
_special_ power within its _exclusive_ jurisdiction.
5. THIS POWER HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY BODIES OF CITIZENS IN THE SLAVE
STATES. The petition of eleven hundred citizens of the District, has
been already mentioned. "March 5,1830, Mr. Washington presented a
memorial of inhabitants of the county of Frederick, in the state of
Maryland, praying that provision be made for the gradual abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia." Journal H.R. 1829-30, p. 358.
March 30, 1828. Mr. A.H. Shepperd, of North Carolina, presented a
memorial of citizens of that state, "praying Congress to take measures
for the entire abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia."
Journal H.R. 1829-30, p. 379.
January 14, 1822. Mr. Rhea, of Tennessee, presented a memorial of
citizens of that state, praying that "provision may be made, whereby all
slaves that may hereafter be born in the District of Columbia, shall be
free at a certain period of their lives." Journal H.R. 1821-22, p.142.
December 13, 1824. Mr. Saunders of North Carolina, presented a memorial
of the citizens of that state, praying "that measures may be taken for
the gradual abolition of slavery in the United States." Journal H.R.
1824-25, p.27.
December 16, 1828. "Mr. Barnard presented the memorial of the American
Convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, held in Baltimore,
praying that slavery may be abolished in the District of Columbia."
Journal U.S. Senate, 1828-29, p.24.
6. DISTINGUISHED STATESMEN AND JURISTS IN THE SLAVEHOLDING STATES, HAVE
CONCEDED THIS POWER. The testimony Of Messrs. Doddridge, and Powell, of
Virginia, Chief Justice Cranch, and Judges Morsel and Van Ness, of the
District, has already been given. In the debate in Congress on the
memorial of the Society of Friends, in 1790, Mr. Madison, in speaking of
the territories of the United States, explicitly declared, from his own
knowledge of the views of the members of the convention that framed the
constitution, as well as from the obvious import of its terms, that in
the territories, "Congress have certainly the power to regulate the
subject of slavery." Congress can have no more power over the
territories than that of "exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever," consequently, according to Mr. Madison, "it has certainly
the power to regulate the subject of slavery in the" _District_. In
March, 1816, Mr. Randolph of Virginia, introduced a resolution for
putting a stop to the domestic slave trade within the District. December
12, 1827, Mr. Barney, of Maryland, presented a memorial for abolition in
the District, and moved that it be printed. Mr. McDuffie, of S.C.,
objected to the printing, but "expressly admitted the right of Congress
to grant to the people of the District any measure which they might deem
necessary to free themselves from the deplorable evil."--[See letter of
Mr. Claiborne of Miss. to his constituents published in the Washington
Globe, May 9, 1836.] The sentiments of Mr. Clay of Kentucky, on the
subject are well known. In a speech before the U.S. Senate, in 1836, he
declared the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District
"unquestionable." Messrs. Blair, of Tennessee, and Chilton, Lyon, and
R.M. Johnson, of Kentucky, A.H. Shepperd, of N.C., Messrs. Armstrong and
Smyth of Va., Messrs. Dorsey, Archer, and Barney, of Md., and Johns, of
Del., with numerous others from slave states have asserted the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District. In the speech of Mr. Smyth,
of Virginia, on the Missouri question, January 28, 1820, he says on this
point: "If the future freedom of the blacks is your real object, and not
a mere pretence, why do you begin _here_? Within the ten miles square,
you have _undoubted power_ to exercise exclusive legislation. _Produce a
bill to emancipate the slaves in the District of Columbia_, or, if you
prefer it, to emancipate those born hereafter."
To this may be added the testimony of the present Vice President of the
United States, Hon. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. In a speech before
the U.S. Senate, February 1, 1820, (National Intelligencer, April 29,
1829,) he says: "In the District of Columbia, containing a population of
30,000 souls, and probably as many slaves as the whole territory of
Missouri, THE POWER OF PROVIDING FOR THEIR EMANCIPATION RESTS WITH
CONGRESS ALONE. Why then, this heart-rending sympathy for the slaves of
Missouri, and this cold insensibility, this eternal apathy, towards the
slaves in the District of Columbia?"
It is quite unnecessary to add, that the most distinguished northern
statesmen of both political parties, have always affirmed the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District. President Van Buren in his
letter of March 6, 1836, to a committee of Gentlemen in North Carolina,
says, "I would not, from the light now before me, feel myself safe in
pronouncing that Congress does not possess the power of abolishing
slavery in the District of Columbia." This declaration of the President
is consistent with his avowed sentiments touching the Missouri question,
on which he coincided with such men as Daniel D. Thompkins, De Witt
Clinton, and others, whose names are a host.[A] It is consistent, also
with his recommendation in his last message, in which speaking of the
District, he strongly urges upon Congress "a thorough and careful
revision of its local government," speaks of the "entire independence"
of the people of the District "upon Congress," recommends that a
"uniform system of local government" be adopted, and adds, that
"although it was selected as the seat of the General Government, the
site of its public edifices, the depository of its archives, and the
residences of officers intrusted with large amounts of public property,
and the management of public business, yet it never has been subjected
to, or received, that _special_ and _comprehensive_ legislation which
these circumstances peculiarly demanded."
[Footnote A: Mr. Van Buren, when a member of the Senate of New-York,
voted for the following preamble and resolutions, which passed
unanimously:--Jan. 28th, 1820. "Whereas the inhibiting the further
extension of slavery in the United States, is a subject of deep concern
to the people of this state: and whereas, we consider slavery as an evil
much to be deplored, and that _every constitutional barrier should be
interposed to prevent its further extension_: and that the constitution
of the United States _clearly gives Congress the right_ to require new
states, not comprised within the original boundary of the United States,
to _make the prohibition of slavery_ a condition of their admission into
the Union: Therefore,
Resolved, That our Senators be instructed, and our members of
Congress be requested, to oppose the admission as a state into the
Union, of any territory not comprised as aforesaid, without making
_the prohibition of slavery_ therein an indispensible condition of
admission."
]
The tenor of Mr. Tallmadge's speech on the right of petition, and of Mr.
Webster's on the reception of abolition memorials, may be taken as
universal exponents of the sentiments of northern statesmen as to the
power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.
An explicit declaration, that an "_overwhelming majority_" of the
_present_ Congress concede the power to abolish slavery in the District
has just been made by Robert Barnwell Rhett, a member of Congress from
South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston Mercury of Dec.
27, 1837. The following is an extract:
"The time has arrived when we must have new guaranties under the
constitution, or the Union must be dissolved. _Our views of the
constitution are not those of the majority_. AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY
_think that by the constitution, Congress may abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia--may abolish the slave trade between the States;
that is, it may prohibit their being carried out of the State in which
they are--and prohibit it in all the territories, Florida among them.
They think_, NOT WITHOUT STRONG REASONS, _that the power of Congress
extends to all of these subjects_."
_Direct testimony_ to show that the power of Congress to abolish slavery
in the District, has always till recently been _universally conceded_,
is perhaps quite superfluous. We subjoin, however, the following:
The Vice-President of the United States in his speech on the Missouri
question, quoted above, after contending that the restriction of slavery
in Missouri would be unconstitutional, declares, that the power of
Congress over slavery in the District "COULD NOT BE QUESTIONED." In the
speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., also quoted above, he declares the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District to be "UNDOUBTED."
Mr. Sutherland, of Penn., in a speech in the House of Representatives,
on the motion to print Mr. Pinckney's Report, is thus reported in the
Washington Globe, of May 9th, '36. "He replied to the remark that the
report conceded that Congress had a right to legislate upon the subject
in the District of Columbia, and said that SUCH A RIGHT HAD NEVER BEEN,
TILL RECENTLY, DENIED."
The American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia, with a large
circulation and list of contributors in the slave states, holds the
following language in the September No. 1833, p. 55: "Under this
'exclusive jurisdiction,' granted by the constitution, Congress has
power to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of
Columbia. It would hardly be necessary to state this as a distinct
proposition, had it not been occasionally questioned. The truth of the
assertion, however, is too obvious to admit of argument--and we believe
has NEVER BEEN DISPUTED BY PERSONS WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE
CONSTITUTION."
OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING CONCLUSIONS CONSIDERED.
We now proceed to notice briefly the main arguments that have been
employed in Congress and elsewhere against the power of Congress to
abolish slavery in the District. One of the most plausible is, that "the
conditions on which Maryland and Virginia ceded the District to the
United States, would be violated, if Congress should abolish slavery
there." The reply to this is, that Congress had no power to _accept_ a
cession coupled with conditions restricting that "power of exclusive
legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District," which was
given it by the constitution.
To show the futility of the objection, we insert here the acts of
cession. The cession of Maryland was made in November, 1788, and is as
follows: "An act to cede to Congress a district of ten miles square in
this state for the seat of the government of the United States."
"Be it enacted, by the General Assembly of Maryland, that the
representatives of this state in the House of Representatives of the
Congress of the United States, appointed to assemble at New-York, on the
first Wednesday of March next, be, and they are; hereby authorized and
required on the behalf of this state, to cede to the Congress of the
United States, any district in this state, not exceeding ten miles
square, which the Congress may fix upon, and accept for the seat of
government of the United States." Laws of Md., v. 2., c. 46.
The cession of Virginia was made on the 3d of December, 1788, in the
following words:
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That a tract of country, not
exceeding ten miles square, or any lesser quantity, to be located within
the limits of the State, and in any part thereof; as Congress may, by
law, direct, shall be, and the same is hereby forever ceded and
relinquished to the Congress and Government of the United States, in
full and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil, as
of persons residing or to reside thereon, pursuant to the tenor and
effect of the eighth section of the first article of the government of
the constitution of the United States."
But were there no provisos to these acts? The Maryland act had _none_.
The Virginia act had this proviso: "Sect. 2. Provided, that nothing
herein contained, shall be construed to vest in the United States any
right of property in the soil, or to affect the rights of individuals
_therein_, otherwise than the same shall or may be transferred by such
individuals to the United States."
This specification touching the soil was merely definitive and
explanatory of that clause in the act of cession, "_full and absolute
right_." Instead of restraining the power of Congress on _slavery_ and
other subjects, it even gives it freer course; for exceptions to _parts_
of a rule, give double confirmation to those parts not embraced in the
exceptions. If it was the _design_ of the proviso to restrict
congressional action on the subject of _slavery_, why is the _soil
alone_ specified? As legal instruments are not paragons of economy in
words, might not "John Doe," out of his abundance, and without spoiling
his style, have afforded an additional word--at least a hint--that
slavery was _meant_, though nothing was said about it?
But again, Maryland and Virginia, in their acts of cession, declare them
to be made "in pursuance of" that clause of the constitution which gives
to Congress "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever" over the ten
miles square--thus, instead of _restricting_ that clause, both States
_confirm_ it. Now, their acts of cession either accorded with that
clause of the constitution, or they conflicted with it. If they
conflicted with it, _accepting_ the cessions was a violation of the
constitution. The fact that Congress accepted the cessions, proves that
in its views their _terms_ did not conflict with its constitutional
grant of power. The inquiry whether these acts of cession were
consistent or inconsistent with the United Status' constitution, is
totally irrelevant to the question at issue. What with the CONSTITUTION?
That is the question. Not, what with Virginia, or Maryland, or--equally
to the point--John Bull! If Maryland and Virginia had been the
authorized interpreters of the constitution for the Union, these acts of
cession could hardly have been more magnified than they have been
recently by the southern delegation in Congress. A true understanding of
the constitution can be had, forsooth, only by holding it up in the
light of Maryland and Virginia legislation!
We are told, again, that those States would not have ceded the District
if they had supposed the constitution gave Congress power to abolish
slavery in it.
This comes with an ill grace from Maryland and Virginia. They _knew_ the
constitution. They were parties to it. They had sifted it, clause by
clause, in their State conventions. They had weighed its words in the
balance--they had tested them as by fire; and, finally, after long
pondering, they adopted the constitution. And _afterward_, self-moved,
they ceded the ten miles square, and declared the cession made "in
pursuance of" that oft-cited clause, "Congress shall have power to
exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such
District." And now verily "they would not have ceded if they had
_supposed_!" &c. Cede it they _did_, and in "full and absolute right
both of soil and persons." Congress accepted the cession--state power
over the District ceased, and congressional power over it
commenced,--and now, the sole question to be settled is, the _amount of
power over the District lodged in Congress by the constitution_. The
constitution--THE CONSTITUTION--that is the point. Maryland and Virginia
"suppositions" must be potent suppositions to abrogate a clause of the
United States' Constitution! That clause either gives Congress power to
abolish slavery in the District, or it does _not_--and that point is to
be settled, not by state "suppositions," nor state usages, nor state
legislation, but _by the terms of the clause themselves_.
Southern members of Congress, in the recent discussions, have conceded
the power of a contingent abolition in the District, by suspending it
upon the _consent_ of the people. Such a doctrine from _declaimers_ like
Messrs. Alford, of Georgia, and Walker, of Mississippi, would excite no
surprise; but that it should be honored with the endorsement of such men
as Mr. Rives and Mr. Calhoun, is quite unaccountable. Are attributes of
sovereignty mere creatures of contingency? Is delegated authority mere
conditional permission? Is a constitutional power to be exercised by
those who hold it, only by popular sufferance? Must it lie helpless at
the pool of public sentiment, waiting the gracious troubling of its
waters? Is it a lifeless corpse, save only when popular "consent" deigns
to puff breath into its nostrils? Besides, if the consent of the people
of the District be necessary, the consent of the _whole_ people must be
had--not that of a majority, however large. Majorities, to be
authoritative, must be _legal_--and a legal majority without legislative
power, or right of representation, or even the electoral franchise,
would be truly an anomaly! In the District of Columbia, such a thing as
a majority in a legal sense is unknown to law. To talk of the power of a
majority, or the will of a majority there, is mere mouthing. A majority?
Then it has an authoritative will, and an organ to make it known, and an
executive to carry it into effect--Where are they? We repeat it--if the
consent of the people of the District be necessary, the consent of
_every one_ is necessary--and _universal_ consent will come only with
the Greek Kalends and a "perpetual motion." A single individual might
thus perpetuate slavery in defiance of the expressed will of a whole
people. The most common form of this fallacy is given by Mr. Wise, of
Virginia, in his speech, February 16, 1835, in which he denied the power
of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, unless the inhabitants
owning slaves petitioned for it!! Southern members of Congress at the
present session (1837-8) ring changes almost daily upon the same
fallacy. What! pray Congress _to use_ a power which it _has not_? "It is
required of a man according to what he _hath_," saith the Scripture. I
commend Mr. Wise to Paul for his ethics. Would that he had got his
_logic_ of him! If Congress does not possess the power, why taunt it
with its weakness, by asking its exercise? Petitioning, according to Mr.
Wise, is, in matters of legislation, omnipotence itself; the very
_source_ of all constitutional power; for, _asking_ Congress to do what
it _cannot_ do, gives it the power!--to pray the exercise of a power
that is _not, creates_ it! A beautiful theory! Let us work it both ways.
If to petition for the exercise of a power that is _not_, creates it--to
petition against the exercise of a power that _is_, annihilates it. As
southern gentlemen are partial to summary processes, pray, sirs, try the
virtue of your own recipe on "exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever;" a better subject for experiment and test of the
prescription could not be had. But if the petitions of the citizens of
the District give Congress the _right_ to abolish slavery, they impose
the _duty_; if they confer constitutional _authority_, they create
constitutional _obligation_. If Congress _may_ abolish because of an
expression of their will, it _must_ abolish at the bidding of that will.
If the people of the District are a _source of power_ to Congress, their
_expressed will_ has the force of a constitutional provision, and has
the same binding power upon the National Legislature. To make Congress
dependent on the District for authority, is to make it a _subject_ of
its authority, restraining the exercise of its own discretion, and
sinking it into a mere organ of the District's will. We proceed to
another objection.
"_The southern states would not have ratified the constitution, if they
had supposed that it gave this power_." It is a sufficient answer to
this objection, that the northern states would not have ratified it, if
they had supposed that it _withheld_ the power. If "suppositions" are to
take the place of the constitution--coming from both sides, they
neutralize each other. To argue a constitutional question by _guessing_
at the "suppositions" that might have been made by the parties to it
would find small favor in a court of law. But even a desperate shift is
some easement when sorely pushed. If this question is to be settled by
"suppositions," suppositions shall be forthcoming, and that
without stint.
First, then, I affirm that the North ratified the constitution,
"supposing" that slavery had begun to wax old, and would speedily vanish
away, and especially that the abolition of the slave trade, which by the
constitution was to be surrendered to Congress after twenty years, would
plunge it headlong.
Would the North have adopted the constitution, giving three-fifths of
the "slave property" a representation, if it had "supposed" that the
slaves would have increased from half a million to two millions and a
half by 1838--and that the census of 1840 would give to the slave states
thirty representatives of "slave property?"
If they had "supposed" that this representation would have controlled
the legislation of the government, and carried against the North every
question vital to its interests, would Hamilton, Franklin, Sherman,
Gerry, Livingston, Langdon, and Rufus King have been such madmen, as to
sign the constitution, and the Northern States such suicides as to
ratify it? Every self-preserving instinct would have shrieked at such an
infatuate immolation. At the adoption of the United States constitution,
slavery was regarded as a fast waning system. This conviction was
universal. Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Grayson, Tucker, Madison,
Wythe, Pendleton, Lee, Blair, Mason, Page, Parker, Randolph, Iredell,
Spaight, Ramsey, Pinkney, Martin, McHenry, Chase, and nearly all the
illustrious names south of the Potomac, proclaimed it before the sun. A
reason urged in the convention that formed the United States'
constitution, why the word slave should not be used in it, was, _that
when slavery should cease_ there might remain upon the National Charter
no record that it had ever been. (See speech of Mr. Burrill, of R.I., on
the Missouri question.)
I now proceed to show by testimony, that at the date of the United
States' constitution, and for several years before and after that
period, slavery was rapidly on the wane; that the American Revolution
with the great events preceding, accompanying, and following it, had
wrought an immense and almost universal change in the public sentiment
of the nation on the subject, powerfully impelling it toward the entire
abolition of the system--and that it was the _general belief_ that
measures for its abolition throughout the Union, would be commenced by
the States generally before the lapse of many years. A great mass of
testimony establishing this position might be presented, but narrow
space, and the importance of speedy publication, counsel brevity. Let
the following proofs suffice. First, a few dates as points of
observation.
In 1757, Commissioners from seven colonies met at Albany, resolved upon
a Union and proposed a plan of general government. In 1765, delegates
from nine colonies met at New York and sent forth a bill of rights. The
first _general_ Congress met in 1774. The first Congress of the
_thirteen_ colonies met in 1775. The revolutionary war commenced in '75.
Independence was declared in '76. The articles of confederation were
adopted by the thirteen states in '77 and '78. Independence acknowledged
in '83. The convention for forming the U.S. constitution was held in
'87, the state conventions for considering it in '87 and '88. The first
Congress under the constitution in '89.
Dr. Rush, of Pennsylvania, one of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence, in a letter to Granville Sharpe, May 1, 1773, says: "A
spirit of humanity and religion begins to awaken in several of the
colonies in favor of the poor negroes. Great events have been brought
about by small beginnings. _Anthony Bènèzet stood alone a few years_
_ago in opposing negro slavery in Philadelphia_, and NOW THREE-FOURTHS
OF THE PROVINCE AS WELL AS OF THE CITY CRY OUT AGAINST IT."--[Stuart's
Life of Granville Sharpe, p. 21.]
In the preamble to the act prohibiting the importation of slaves into
Rhode Island, June, 1774, is the following: "Whereas the inhabitants of
America are generally engaged in the preservation of their own rights
and liberties, among which that of personal freedom must be considered
the greatest, and as those who are desirous of enjoying all the
advantages of liberty themselves, _should be willing to extend personal
liberty to others_, therefore," &c.
October 20, 1774, the Continental Congress passed the following: "We,
for ourselves and the inhabitants of the several colonies whom we
represent, _firmly agree and associate under the sacred ties of virtue,
honor, and love of our country_, as follows:"
"2d Article. _We will neither import nor purchase any slaves imported_
after the first day of December next, after which time we will _wholly
discontinue_ the slave trade, and we will neither be concerned in it
ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels nor _sell our commodities or
manufactures_ to those who are concerned in it."
The Continental Congress, in 1775, setting forth the causes and the
necessity for taking up arms, say: "_If it were possible_ for men who
exercise their reason to believe that the divine Author of our existence
intended a part of the human race _to hold an absolute property in_, and
_unbounded power over others_," &c.
In 1776, Dr. Hopkins, then at the head of New England divines,
in "An Address to the owners of negro slaves in the American colonies,"
says: "The conviction of the unjustifiableness of this practice (slavery)
has been _increasing_, and _greatly spreading of late_, and _many_
who have had slaves, have found themselves so unable to justify their
own conduct in holding them in bondage, as to be induced to _set them
at liberty_. * * * * * Slavery is _in
every instance_, wrong, unrighteous, and oppressive--a very great and
crying sin--_there being nothing of the kind equal to it on the face of
the earth_."
The same year the American Congress issued a solemn MANIFESTO to the
world. These were its first words: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that _all_ men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." _Once_, these were words
of power; _now_, "a rhetorical flourish."
The Virginia Gazette of March 19, 1767, in an essay on slavery says:
"_There cannot be in nature, there is not in all history, an instance in
which every right of man is more flagrantly violated_. Enough I hope has
been effected to prove that slavery is a violation of justice and
religion."
The celebrated Patrick Henry of Virginia, in a letter, Jan. 18, 1773, to
Robert Pleasants, afterwards president of the Virginia Abolition
Society, says: "Believe me, I shall honor the Quakers for their noble
efforts to abolish slavery. It is a debt we owe to the purity of our
religion to show that it is at variance with that law that warrants
slavery. I exhort you to persevere in so worthy a resolution."
The Pennsylvania Chronicle of Nov. 21, 1768, says: "Let every black that
shall henceforth be born amongst us be deemed free. One step farther
would be to emancipate the whole race, restoring that liberty we have so
long unjustly detained from them. Till some step of this kind be taken
we shall justly be the derision of the whole world."
In 1779, the Continental Congress ordered a pamphlet to be published,
entitled, "Observations on the American Revolution," from which the
following is an extract: "The great principle (of government) is and
ever will remain in force, _that men are by Nature free_; and so long as
we have any idea of divine _justice_, we must associate that of _human
freedom_. It is _conceded on all hands, that the right to be free_ CAN
NEVER BE ALIENATED."
Extract from the Pennsylvania act for the abolition of slavery, passed
March 1, 1780: * * * "We conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice
that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others
which has been extended to us. Weaned by a long course of experience
from those narrow prejudices and partialities we had imbibed, we find
our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards men of all
conditions and nations: * * * Therefore be it enacted, that no child
born hereafter be a slave," &c.
Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, written just before the close of
the Revolutionary War, says: "I think a change already perceptible since
the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is
abating, that of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition
mollifying, _and the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of
heaven_, FOR A TOTAL EMANCIPATION."
In a letter to Dr. Price, of London, who had just published a pamphlet
in favor of the abolition of slavery, Mr. Jefferson, then minister at
Paris, (August 7, 1785,) says: "From the mouth to the head of the
Chesapeake, _the bulk of the people will approve of your pamphlet in
theory_, and it will find a respectable minority ready to _adopt it in
practice_--a minority which, for weight and worth of character,
_preponderates against the greater number_." Speaking of Virginia, he
says: "This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the
interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and
oppression,--a conflict in which the SACRED SIDE IS GAINING DAILY
RECRUITS. Be not, therefore, discouraged--what you have written will do
a _great deal of good_; and could you still trouble yourself with our
welfare, no man is more able to give aid to the laboring side. The
College of William and Mary, since the remodelling of its plan, is the
place where are collected together all the young men of Virginia, under
preparation for public life. They are there under the direction (most of
them) of a Mr. Wythe, one of the most virtuous of characters, and _whose
sentiments on the subject of slavery are unequivocal_. I am satisfied,
if you could resolve to address an exhortation to those young men with
all that eloquence of which you are master, that _its influence on the
future decision of this important question would be great, perhaps
decisive_. Thus. you see, that so far from thinking you have cause to
repent of what you have done, _I wish you to do more, and I wish it on
an assurance of its effect_."--Jefferson's Posthumous Works, vol. 1,
p. 268.
In 1786, John Jay drafted and signed a petition to the Legislature of
New York, on the subject of slavery, beginning with these words: "Your
memorialists being deeply affected by the situation of those, who,
although, FREE BY THE LAWS OF GOD, are held in slavery by the laws of
the State," &c. This memorial bore also the signatures of the celebrated
Alexander Hamilton; Robert R. Livingston, afterwards Secretary of
Foreign Affairs of the United States, and Chancellor of the State of New
York; James Duane, Mayor of the City of New York, and many others of the
most eminent individuals in the State.
In the preamble of an instrument, by which Mr. Jay emancipated a slave
in 1784, is the following passage:
"Whereas, the children of men are by nature equally free, and cannot,
without injustice, be either reduced to or HELD in slavery."
In his letter while Minister at Spain, in 1786, he says, speaking of the
abolition of slavery: "Till America comes into this measure, her prayers
to heaven will be IMPIOUS. I believe God governs the world; and I
believe it to be a maxim in his, as in our court, that those who ask for
equity _ought to do it_."
In 1785, the New York Manumission Society was formed. John Jay was
chosen its first President, and held the office five years. Alexander
Hamilton was its second President, and after holding the office one
year, resigned upon his removal to Philadelphia as Secretary of the
United States' Treasury. In 1787, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society was
formed. Benjamin Franklin, warm from the discussions of the convention
that formed the U.S. constitution, was chosen President, and Benjamin
Rush Secretary--both signers of the Declaration of Independence. In
1789, the Maryland Abolition Society was formed. Among its officers were
Samuel Chase, Judge of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Luther Martin, a
member of the convention that formed the U.S. constitution. In 1790, the
Connecticut Abolition Society was formed. The first President was Rev.
Dr. Stiles, President of Yale College, and the Secretary, Simeon
Baldwin, (late Judge Baldwin of New Haven.) In 1791, this Society sent a
memorial to Congress, from which the following is an extract:
"From a sober conviction of the unrighteousness of slavery, your
petitioners have long beheld, with grief, our fellow men doomed to
perpetual bondage, in a country which boasts of her freedom. Your
petitioners were led, by motives, we conceive, of general philanthropy,
to associate ourselves for the protection and assistance of this
unfortunate part of our fellow men; and, though this Society has been
_lately_ established, it has now become _generally extensive_ through
this state, and, we fully believe, _embraces, on this subject, the
sentiments of a large majority of its citizens_."
The same year the Virginia Abolition Society was formed. This Society,
and the Maryland Society, had auxiliaries in different parts of those
States. Both societies sent up memorials to Congress. The memorial of
the Virginia Society is headed--"The memorial of the _Virginia Society_,
for promoting the Abolition of Slavery," &c. The following is
an extract:
"Your memorialists, fully believing that slavery is not only an odious
degradation, but an _outrageous violation of one of the most essential
rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the
gospel_," &c.
About the same time a Society was formed in New-Jersey. It had an acting
committee of five members in each county in the State. The following is
an extract from the preamble to its constitution:
"It is our boast, that we live under a government, wherein _life,
liberty_, and the _pursuit of happiness_, are recognized as the
universal rights of men. We _abhor that inconsistent, illiberal, and
interested policy, which withholds those rights from an unfortunate and
degraded class of our fellow creatures_."
Among other distinguished individuals who were efficient officers of
these Abolition Societies, and delegates from their respective state
societies, at the annual meetings of the American convention for
promoting the abolition of slavery, were Hon. Uriah Tracy, United
States' Senator, from Connecticut; Hon. Zephaniah Swift, Chief Justice
of the same State; Hon. Cesar A. Rodney, Attorney General of the United
States; Hon. James A. Bayard, United States' Senator, from Delaware;
Governor Bloomfield, of New-Jersey; Hon. Wm. Rawle, the late venerable
head of the Philadelphia bar; Dr. Caspar Wistar, of Philadelphia;
Messrs. Foster and Tillinghast, of Rhode Island; Messrs. Ridgely,
Buchanan, and Wilkinson, of Maryland; and Messrs. Pleasants, McLean, and
Anthony, of Virginia.
In July, 1787, the old Congress passed the celebrated ordinance
abolishing slavery in the northwestern territory, and declaring that it
should never thereafter exist there. This ordinance was passed while the
convention that formed the United States' constitution was in session.
At the first session of Congress under the constitution, this ordinance
was ratified by a special act. Washington, fresh from the discussions of
the convention, in which _more than forty days had been spent in
adjusting the question of slavery, gave it his approval_. The act passed
with only one dissenting voice, (that of Mr. Yates, of New York,) _the
South equally with the North avowing the fitness and expediency of the
measure on general considerations, and indicating thus early the line of
national policy, to be pursued by the United States' Government on the
subject of slavery_.
In the debates in the North Carolina Convention, Mr. Iredell, afterward
a Judge of the United States' Supreme Court, said, "_When the entire
abolition of slavery takes place_, it will be an event which must be
pleasing to every generous mind and every friend of human nature." Mr.
Galloway said, "I wish to see this abominable trade put an end to. I
apprehend the clause (touching the slave trade) means _to bring forward
manumission_." Luther Martin, of Maryland, a member of the convention
that formed the United States' Constitution, said, "We ought to
authorize the General Government to make such regulations as shall be
thought most advantageous for _the gradual abolition of slavery_, and
the _emancipation of the slaves_ which are already in the States." Judge
Wilson, of Pennsylvania, one of the framers of the constitution, said,
in the Pennsylvania convention of '87, [Deb. Pa. Con. p. 303, 156:] "I
consider this (the clause relative to the slave trade) as laying the
foundation for _banishing slavery out of this country_. It will produce
the same kind of gradual change which was produced in Pennsylvania; the
new States which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress
in this particular, and _slaves will never be introduced_ among them. It
presents us with the pleasing prospect that the rights of mankind will
be acknowledged and established _throughout the Union_. Yet the lapse of
a few years, and Congress will have power to _exterminate slavery_
within our borders." In the Virginia convention of '87, Mr. Mason,
author of the Virginia constitution, said, "The augmentation of slaves
weakens the States, and such a trade is _diabolical_ in itself, and
disgraceful to mankind. As much as I value a union of all the States, I
would not admit the Southern States, (i.e., South Carolina and Georgia,)
into the union, _unless they agree to a discontinuance of this
disgraceful trade_." Mr. Tyler opposed with great power the clause
prohibiting the abolition of the slave trade till 1808, and said, "My
earnest desire is, that it shall be handed down to posterity that I
oppose this wicked clause." Mr. Johnson said, "The principle of
emancipation _has begun since the revolution. Let us do what we will, it
will come round_."--[Deb. Va. Con. p. 463.] Patrick Henry, arguing the
power of Congress under the United States' constitution to abolish
slavery in the States, said, in the same convention, "Another thing will
contribute to bring this event (the abolition of slavery) about. Slavery
is _detested_. We feel its fatal effects; we deplore it with all the
pity of humanity." Governor Randolph said: "They insist that the
_abolition of slavery will result from this Constitution_. I hope that
there is no one here, who will advance _an objection so dishonorable_ to
Virginia--I hope that at the moment they are securing the rights of
their citizens, an objection will not be started, that those unfortunate
men now held in bondage, _by the operation of the general government_
may be made free!" [_Deb. Va. Con._ p. 421.] In the Mass. Con. of '88,
Judge Dawes said, "Although slavery is not smitten by an apoplexy, yet
_it has received a mortal wound_, and will die of consumption."--[_Deb.
Mass. Con._ p. 60.] General Heath said that, "Slavery was confined to
the States _now existing_, it _could not be extended_. By their
ordinance, Congress had declared that the new States should be
republican States, _and have no slavery_."--p. 147.
In the debate, in the first Congress, February 11th and 12th, 1789, on
the petitions of the Society of Friends, and the Pennsylvania Abolition
Society, Mr. Parker, of Virginia, said, "I cannot help expressing the
pleasure I feel in finding _so considerable a part_ of the community
attending to matters of such a momentous concern to the _future
prosperity_ and happiness of the people of America. I think it my duty,
as a citizen of the Union, to _espouse their cause_."
Mr. Page, of Virginia, (afterwards Governor)--"Was _in favor_ of the
commitment: he hoped that the designs of the respectable memorialists
would not be stopped at the threshold, in order to preclude a fair
discussion of the prayer of the memorial. He placed himself in the case
of a slave, and said, that on hearing that Congress had refused to
listen to the decent suggestions of the respectable part of the
community, he should infer, that the general government, _from which was
expected great good would result to_ EVERY CLASS _of citizens_, had shut
their ears against the voice of humanity, and he should despair of any
alleviation of the miseries he and his posterity had in prospect; if any
thing could induce him to rebel, it must be a stroke like this,
impressing on his mind all the horrors of despair. But if he was told,
that application was made in his behalf, and that Congress were willing
to hear what could be urged in favor of discouraging the practice of
importing his fellow-wretches, he would trust in their justice and
humanity, and _wait the decision patiently_."
Mr. Scott of Pennsylvania: "I cannot, for my part, conceive how any
person _can be said to acquire a property in another. I do not know how
far I might go, if I was one of the judges of the United States, and
those people were to come before me and claim their emancipation, but I
am sure I would go as far as I could_."
Mr. Burke, of South Carolina, said, "He _saw the disposition of the
House_, and he feared it would be referred to a committee, maugre all
their opposition."
Mr. Baldwin of Georgia said that the clause in the U.S. Constitution
relating to direct taxes "was intended to prevent Congress from laying
any special tax upon negro slaves, _as they might, in this way, so
burthen the possessors of them, as to induce a_ GENERAL EMANCIPATION."
Mr. Smith of South Carolina, said, "That on entering into this
government, they (South Carolina and Georgia) apprehended that the other
states, * * * _would, from motives of humanity and benevolence, be led
to vote for a general emancipation_."
In the debate, at the same session, May 13th, 1789, on the petition of
the society of Friends respecting the slave trade, Mr. Parker, of
Virginia, said, "He hoped Congress would do all that lay in their power
_to restore to human nature its inherent privileges_. The inconsistency
in our principles, with which we are justly charged _should be
done away_."
Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, said, "IT WAS THE FASHION OF THE DAY
TO FAVOR THE LIBERTY OF THE SLAVES. * * * * * Will Virginia
set her negroes free? _When this practice comes to be tried, then
the sound of liberty will lose those charms which make it grateful to the
ravished ear_."
Mr. Madison of Virginia,--"The dictates of humanity, the principles
of the people, the national safety and happiness, and prudent policy,
require it of us. * * * * * * * I conceive the constitution
in this particular was formed in order that the Government, whilst it
was restrained from laying a total prohibition, might be able to _give
some testimony of the sense of America_, with respect to the African
trade. * * * * * * It is to be hoped, that by expressing a
national disapprobation of this trade, we may destroy it, and save
ourselves from reproaches, AND OUR PROSPERITY THE IMBECILITY EVER
ATTENDANT ON A COUNTRY FILLED WITH SLAVES."
Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, said, "he highly commended the part the
Society of Friends had taken; it was the cause of humanity they had
interested themselves in."--Cong. Reg. v. 1, p. 308-12.
A writer in the "Gazette of the Unites States," Feb. 20th, 1790, (then
the government paper,) who opposes the abolition of slavery, and avows
himself a _slaveholder_, says, "I have seen in the papers accounts of
_large associations_, and applications to Government for _the abolition
of slavery_. Religion, humanity, and the generosity natural to a free
people, are the _noble principles which dictate those measures_. SUCH
MOTIVES COMMAND RESPECT, AND ARE ABOVE ANY EULOGIUM WORDS CAN BESTOW."
In the convention that formed the constitution of Kentucky in 1790, the
effort to prohibit slavery was nearly successful. A decided majority of
that body would undoubtedly have voted for its exclusion, but for the
great efforts and influence of two large slaveholders--men of commanding
talents and sway--Messrs. Breckenridge and Nicholas. The following
extract from a speech made in that convention by a member of it, Mr.
Rice a native Virginian, is a specimen of the _free discussion_ that
prevailed on that "delicate subject." Said Mr. Rice: "I do a man greater
injury, when I deprive him of his liberty, than when I deprive him of
his property. It is vain for me to plead that I have the sanction of
law; for this makes the injury the greater--it arms the community
against him, and makes his case desperate. The owners of such slaves
then are _licensed robbers_, and not the just proprietors of what they
claim. Freeing them is not depriving them of property, but _restoring it
to the right owner_. The master is the enemy of the slave; he _has made
open war upon him_, AND IS DAILY CARRYING IT ON in unremitted efforts.
Can any one imagine, then, that the slave is indebted to his master, and
_bound to serve him?_ Whence can the obligation arise? What is it
founded upon? What is my duty to an enemy that is carrying on war
against me? I do not deny, but in some circumstances, it is the duty of
the slave to serve; but it is a duty he owes himself, and not
his master."
President Edwards, the younger, said, in a sermon preached before the
Connecticut Abolition Society, Sept. 15, 1791: "Thirty years ago,
scarcely a man in this country thought either the slave trade or the
slavery of negroes to be wrong; but now how many and able advocates in
private life, in our legislatures, in Congress, have appeared, and have
openly and irrefragably pleaded the rights of humanity in this as well
as other instances? And if we judge of the future by the past, _within
fifty years from this time, it will be as shameful for a man to hold a
negro slave, as to be guilty of common robbery or theft_."
In 1794, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church adopted its
"Scripture proofs," notes, and comments. Among these was the following:
"1 Tim. i. 10. The law is made for manstealers. This crime among the
Jews exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment. Exodus xxi.
16. And the apostle here classes them with _sinners of the first rank_.
The word he uses, in its original import comprehends all who are
concerned in bringing any of the human race into slavery, or in
_retaining_ them in it. _Stealers of men_ are all those who bring off
slaves or freemen, and _keep_, sell, or buy them."
In 1794, Dr. Rush declared: "Domestic slavery is repugnant to the
principles of Christianity. It prostrates every benevolent and just
principle of action in the human heart. It is rebellion against the
authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and
efficacy of the death of a common Saviour. It is an usurpation of the
prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe, who has solemnly
claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men."
In 1795, Mr. Fiske, then an officer of Dartmouth College, afterward a
Judge in Tennessee, said, in an oration published that year, speaking of
slaves: "I steadfastly maintain, that we must bring them to _an equal
standing, in point of privileges, with the whites!_ They must enjoy all
the rights belonging to human nature."
When the petition on the abolition of the slave trade was under
discussion in the Congress of '89, Mr. Brown, of North Carolina, said,
"The emancipation of the slaves _will be effected_ in time; it ought to
be a gradual business, but he hoped that Congress would not
_precipitate_ it to the great injury of the southern States." Mr.
Hartley, of Pennsylvania, said, in the same debate, "_He was not a
little surprised to hear the cause of slavery advocated in that house_."
WASHINGTON, in a letter to Sir John Sinclair, says, "There are, in
Pennsylvania, laws for the gradual abolition of slavery which neither
Maryland nor Virginia have at present, but which _nothing is more
certain_ than that they _must have_, and at a period NOT REMOTE." In
1782, Virginia passed her celebrated manumission act. Within nine years
from that time nearly eleven thousand slaves were voluntarily
emancipated by their masters. [Judge Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery,"
p. 72.] In 1787, Maryland passed an act legalizing manumission. Mr.
Dorsey, of Maryland, in a speech in Congress, December 27th, 1826,
speaking of manumissions under that act, said, that "_The progress of
emancipation was astonishing_, the State became crowded with a free
black population."
The celebrated William Pinkney, in a speech before the Maryland House of
Delegates, in 1789, on the emancipation of slaves, said, "Sir, by the
eternal principles of natural justice, _no master in the state has a
right to hold his slave in bandage for a single hour_... Are we
apprehensive that these men will become more dangerous by becoming
freemen? Are we alarmed, lest by being admitted into the enjoyment of
civil rights, they will be inspired with a deadly enmity against the
rights of others? Strange, unaccountable paradox! How much more rational
would it be, to argue that the natural enemy of the privileges of a
freeman, is he who is robbed of them himself!"
Hon. James Campbell, in an address before the Pennsylvania Society of
Cincinnati, July 4, 1787, said, "Our separation from Great Britain has
extended the empire of _humanity_. The time _is not far distant_ when
our sister states, in imitation of our example, _shall turn their
vassals into freemen_." The Convention that formed the United States'
constitution being then in session, attended on the delivery of this
oration with General Washington at their head.
A Baltimore paper of September 8th, 1780, contains the following notice
of Major General Gates: "A few days ago passed through this town the
Hon. General Gates and lady. The General, previous to leaving Virginia,
summoned his numerous family of slaves about him, and amidst their tears
of affection and gratitude, gave them their FREEDOM."
In 1791, the university of William and Mary, in Virginia, conferred upon
Granville Sharpe the degree of Doctor of Laws. Sharpe was at that time
the acknowledged head of British abolitionists. His indefatigable
exertions, prosecuted for years in the case of Somerset, procured that
memorable decision in the Court of King's Bench, which settled the
principle that no slave could be held in England. He was most
uncompromising in his opposition to slavery, and for twenty years
previous he had spoken, written, and accomplished more against it than
any man living.
In the "Memoirs of the Revolutionary War in the Southern Department," by
Gen. Lee, of Va., Commandant of the Partizan Legion, is the following:
"The Constitution of the United States, adopted lately with so much
difficulty, has effectually provided against this evil (by importation)
after a few years. It is much to be lamented that having done so much in
this way, _a provision had not been made for the gradual abolition of
slavery_."--pp. 233, 4.
Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, Judge of the Supreme Court of that state, and
professor of law in the University of William and Mary, addressed a
letter to the General Assembly of that state, in 1796, urging the
abolition of slavery, from which the following is an extract. Speaking
of the slaves in Virginia, he says: "Should we not, at the time of the
revolution, have broken their fetters? Is it not our duty _to embrace
the first moment_ of constitutional health and vigor to effectuate so
desirable an object, and to remove from us a stigma with which our
enemies will never fail to upbraid us, nor our consciences to
reproach us?"
Mr. Faulkner, in a speech before the Virginia House of Delegates, Jan.
20, 1832, said: "The idea of a gradual emancipation and removal of the
slaves from this commonwealth, is coeval with the declaration of our
independence from the British yoke. When Virginia stood sustained in her
legislation by the pure and philosophic intellect of Pendleton, by the
patriotism of Mason and Lee, by the searching vigor and sagacity of
Wythe, and by the all-embracing, all-comprehensive genius of Thomas
Jefferson! Sir, it was a committee composed of those five illustrious
men, who, in 1777, submitted to the general assembly of this state, then
in session, _a plan for the gradual emancipation of the slaves of this
commonwealth_."
Hon. Benjamin Watkins Leigh, late United States' senator from Virginia,
in his letters to the people of Virginia, in 1832, signed Appomattox, p.
43, says: "I thought, till very lately, that it was known to every body
that during the revolution, _and for many years after, the abolition of
slavery was a favorite topic with many of our ablest statesmen_, who
entertained, with respect, all the schemes which wisdom or ingenuity
could suggest for accomplishing the object. Mr. Wythe, to the day of his
death, _was for a simple abolition, considering the objection to color
as founded in prejudice_. By degrees, all projects of the kind were
abandoned. Mr. Jefferson _retained_ his opinion, and now we have these
projects revived."
Governor Barbour, of Virginia, in his speech in the U.S. Senate, on the
Missouri question, Jan. 1820, said: "We are asked why has Virginia
changed her policy in reference to slavery? That the sentiments of our
most distinguished men, for thirty years _entirely corresponded_ with
the course which the friends of the restriction (of slavery in Missouri)
now advocated; and that the Virginia delegation, one of whom was the
late President of the United States, voted for the restriction (of
slavery) in the northwestern territory, and that Mr. Jefferson has
delineated a gloomy picture of the baneful effects of slavery. When it
is recollected that the Notes of Mr. Jefferson were written during the
progress of the revolution, it is no matter of surprise that the writer
should have imbibed a large portion of that enthusiasm which such an
occasion was so well calculated to produce. As to the consent of the
Virginia delegation to the restriction in question, whether the result
of a disposition to restrain the slave-trade indirectly, or the
influence of that enthusiasm to which I have just alluded, * * * * it is
not now important to decide. We have witnessed its effects. The
liberality of Virginia, or, as the result may prove, her folly, which
submitted to, or, if you will, PROPOSED _this measure_ (abolition of
slavery in the N.W. territory) has eventuated in effects which speak a
monitory lesson. _How is the representation from this quarter on the
present question_?"
Mr. Imlay, in his early history of Kentucky, p. 185, says: "We have
disgraced the fair face of humanity, and trampled upon the sacred
privileges of man, at the very moment that we were exclaiming against
the tyranny of your (the English) ministry. But in contending for the
birthright of freedom, we have learned to feel _for the bondage of
others_, and in the libations we offer to the goddess of liberty, we
contemplate an _emancipation of the slaves of this country_, as
honorable to themselves as it will be glorious to us."
In the debate in Congress, Jan. 20, 1806, on Mr. Sloan's motion to lay a
tax on the importation of slaves, Mr. Clark of Va. said: "He was no
advocate for a system of slavery." Mr. Marion, of S. Carolina, said: "He
never had purchased, nor should he ever purchase a slave." Mr. Southard
said: "Not revenue, but an expression of the _national sentiment_ is the
principal object." Mr. Smilie--"I rejoice that the word (slave) is not
in the constitution; its not being there does honor to the worthies who
would not suffer it to become a _part_ of it." Mr. Alston, of N.
Carolina--"In two years we shall have the power to prohibit the trade
altogether. Then this House will be unanimous. No one will object to our
exercising our full constitutional powers." National Intelligencer,
Jan. 24, 1806.
These witnesses need no vouchers to entitle them to credit; nor their
testimony comments to make it intelligible--their _names_ are their
_endorsers_, and their strong words their own interpreters. We waive all
comments. Our readers are of age. Whosoever hath ears to _hear_, let him
HEAR. And whosoever will not hear the fathers of the revolution, the
founders of the government, its chief magistrates, judges, legislators
and sages, who dared and perilled all under the burdens, and in the heat
of the day that tried men's souls--then "neither will he be persuaded
though THEY rose from the dead."
Some of the points established by this testimony are--The universal
expectation that Congress, state legislatures, seminaries of learning,
churches, ministers of religion, and public sentiment widely embodied in
abolition societies, would act against slavery, calling forth the moral
sense of the nation, and creating a power of opinion that would abolish
the system throughout the Union. In a word, that free speech and a free
press would be wielded against it without ceasing and without
restriction. Full well did the South know, not only that the national
government would probably legislate against slavery wherever the
constitution placed it within its reach, but she knew also that Congress
had already marked out the line of national policy to be pursued on the
subject--had committed itself before the world to a course of action
against slavery, wherever she could move upon it without encountering a
conflicting jurisdiction--that the nation had established by solemn
ordinance a memorable precedent for subsequent action, by abolishing
slavery in the northwest territory, and by declaring that it should
never thenceforward exist there; and this too, as soon as by cession of
Virginia and other states, the territory came under congressional
control. The South knew also that the sixth article in the ordinance
prohibiting slavery, was first proposed by the largest slaveholding
state in the confederacy--that in the Congress of '84, Mr. Jefferson, as
chairman of the committee on the N.W. territory, reported a resolution
abolishing slavery there--that the chairman of the committee that
reported the ordinance of '87 was also a slaveholder--that the ordinance
was enacted by Congress during the session of the convention that formed
the United States' Constitution--that the provisions of the ordinance
were, both while in prospect and when under discussion, matters of
universal notoriety and _approval_ with all parties, and when finally
passed, received the vote of _every member of Congress from each of the
slaveholding states_. The South also had every reason for believing that
the first Congress under the constitution would _ratify_ that
ordinance--as it did unanimously.
A crowd of reflections, suggested by the preceding testimony, presses
for utterance. The right of petition ravished and trampled by its
constitutional guardians, and insult and defiance hurled in the faces of
the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE while calmly remonstrating _with their_ SERVANTS
for violence committed on the nation's charter and their own dearest
rights! Added to this "the right of peaceably assembling" violently
wrested--the rights of minorities, _rights_ no longer--free speech
struck dumb--free _men_ outlawed and murdered--free presses cast into
the streets and their fragments strewed with shoutings, or flourished in
triumph before the gaze of approving crowds as proud mementos of
prostrate law! The spirit and power of our fathers, where are they?
Their deep homage always and every where rendered to FREE THOUGHT, with
its _inseparable signs--free speech and a free press_--their reverence
for justice, liberty, _rights_ and all-pervading law, where are they?
But we turn from these considerations--though the times on which we have
fallen, and those toward which we are borne with headlong haste, call
for their discussion as with the voices of departing life--and proceed
to topics relevant to the argument before us.
The seventh article of the amendments to the constitution is alleged to
withhold from Congress the power to abolish slavery in the District. "No
person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law." All the slaves in the District have been "deprived of
liberty" by legislative acts. Now, these legislative acts "depriving"
them "of liberty," were either "due process of law," or they were _not_.
If they _were_, then a legislative act, taking from the master that
"property" which is the identical "liberty" previously taken from the
slave, would be "due process of law" _also_, and of course a
_constitutional_ act; but if the legislative acts "depriving" them of
"liberty" were _not_ "due process of law," then the slaves were deprived
of liberty _unconstitutionally_, and these acts are _void_. In that case
the _constitution emancipates them_.
If the objector reply, by saying that the import of the phrase "due
process of law," is _judicial_ process solely, it is granted, and that
fact is our rejoinder; for no slave in the District _has_ been deprived
of his liberty by "a judicial process," or, in other words, by "due
process of law;" consequently, upon the objector's own admission, every
slave in the District has been deprived of liberty _unconstitutionally_,
and is therefore _free by the constitution_. This is asserted only of
the slaves under the "exclusive legislation" of Congress.
The last clause of the article under consideration is quoted for the
same purpose: "Nor shall private property he taken for public use
without just compensation." Each of the state constitutions has a clause
of similar purport. The abolition of slavery in the District by
Congress, would not, as we shall presently show; violate this clause
either directly or by implication. Granting for argument's sake, that
slaves are "private property," and that to emancipate them, would be to
"take private property" for "public use," the objector admits the power
of Congress to do _this_, provided it will do something _else_, that is,
_pay_ for them. Thus, instead of denying the _power_, the objector not
only admits, but _affirms_ it, as the ground of the inference that
compensation must accompany it. So far from disproving the existence of
_one_ power, he asserts the existence of _two_--one, the power to take
the slaves from their masters, the other, the power to take the property
of the United States to pay for them.
If Congress cannot constitutionally impair the right of private
property, or take it without compensation, it cannot constitutionally,
_legalize_ the perpetration of such acts, by _others_, nor _protect_
those who commit them. Does the power to rob a man of his earnings, rob
the earner of his _right_ to them? Who has a better right to the
_product_ than the producer?--to the _interest_, than the owner of the
_principal_?--to the hands and arms, than he from whose shoulders they
swing?--to the body and soul, than he whose they are? Congress not only
impairs but annihilates the right of private property, while it
withholds from the slaves of the District their title to _themselves_.
What! Congress powerless to protect a man's right to _himself_, when it
can make inviolable the right to a _dog_! But, waiving this, I deny that
the abolition of slavery in the District would violate this clause. What
does the clause prohibit? The "taking" of "private property" for "public
use." Suppose Congress should emancipate the slaves in the District,
what would it "_take_?" Nothing. What would it _hold_? Nothing. What
would it put to "public use?" Nothing. Instead of _taking_ "private
property," Congress, by abolishing slavery, would say "_private
property_ shall not be taken; and those who have been robbed of it
already, shall be kept out of it no longer; and every man's right to his
own body shall be protected." True, Congress may not arbitrarily take
property, _as_ property, from one man and give it to another--and in the
abolition of slavery no such thing is done. A legislative act changes
the _condition_ of the slave--makes him his own _proprietor_, instead of
the property of another. It determines a question of _original right_
between two classes of persons--doing an act of justice to one, and
restraining the other from acts of injustice; or, in other words,
preventing one from robbing the other, by granting to the injured party
the protection of just and equitable laws.
Congress, by an act of abolition, would change the condition of seven
thousand "persons" in the District, but would "take" nothing. To
construe this provision so as to enable the citizens of the District to
hold as property, and in perpetuity, whatever they please, or to hold it
as property in all circumstances--all necessity, public welfare, and the
will and power of the government to the contrary notwithstanding--is a
total perversion of its whole _intent_. The _design_ of the provision,
was to throw up a barrier against Governmental aggrandizement. The right
to "take property" for _State uses_ is one thing;--the right so to
adjust the _tenures_ by which property is held, that _each may have his
own secured to him_, is another thing, and clearly within the scope of
legislation. Besides, if Congress were to "take" the slaves in the
District, it would be _adopting_, not abolishing slavery--becoming a
slaveholder itself, instead of requiring others to be such no longer.
The clause in question, prohibits the "taking" of individual property
for public use, to be employed or disposed of _as_ property for
governmental purposes. Congress, by abolishing slavery in the District,
would do no such thing. It would merely change the _condition_ of that
which has been recognized as a qualified property by congressional acts,
though previously declared "persons" by the constitution. More than this
is done continually by Congress and every other Legislature. Property
the most absolute and unqualified, is annihilated by legislative acts.
The embargo and non-intercourse act, levelled at a stroke a forest of
shipping, and sunk millions of capital. To say nothing of the power of
Congress to take hundreds of millions from the people by direct
taxation, who doubts its power to abolish at once the whole tariff
system, change the seat of Government, arrest the progress of national
works, prohibit any branch of commerce with the Indian tribes or with
foreign nations, change the locality of forts, arsenals, magazines and
dock yards; abolish the Post Office system, and the privilege of patents
and copyrights? By such acts Congress might, in the exercise of its
acknowledged powers, annihilate property to an incalculable amount, and
that without becoming liable to claims for compensation.
Finally, this clause prohibits the taking for public use of
"_property_." The constitution of the United States does not recognize
slaves as "PROPERTY" any where, and it does not recognize them in _any
sense_ in the District of Columbia. All allusions to them in the
constitution recognize them as "persons." Every reference to them points
_solely_ to the element of _personality_; and thus, by the strongest
implication, declares that the constitution _knows_ them only as
"persons," and _will_ not recognize them in any other light. If they
escape into free States, the constitution authorizes their being taken
back. But how? Not as the property of an "owner," but as "persons;" and
the peculiarity of the expression is a marked recognition of their
_personality_--a refusal to recognize them as chattels--"persons _held_
to service." Are _oxen "held_ to service?" That can be affirmed only of
_persons_. Again, slaves give political power as "persons." The
constitution, in settling the principle of representation, requires
their enumeration in the census. How? As property? Then why not include
race horses and game cocks? Slaves, like other inhabitants, are
enumerated as "persons." So by the constitution, the government was
pledged to non-interference with "the migration or importation of such
_persons_" as the States might think proper to admit until 1808, and
authorized the laying of a tax on each "person" so admitted. Further,
slaves are recognized as _persons_ by the exaction of their _allegiance_
to the government. For offences against the government slaves are tried
as _persons_; as persons they are entitled to counsel for their defence,
to the rules of evidence, and to "due process of law," and as _persons_
they are punished. True, they are loaded with cruel disabilities in
courts of law, such as greatly obstruct and often inevitably defeat the
ends of justice, yet they are still recognized as _persons_. Even in the
legislation of Congress, and in the diplomacy of the general government,
notwithstanding the frequent and wide departures from the integrity of
the constitution on this subject, slaves are not recognized as
_property_ without qualification. Congress has always refused to grant
compensation for slaves killed or taken by the enemy, even when these
slaves had been impressed into the United States' service. In half a
score of cases since the last war, Congress has rejected such
applications for compensation. Besides, both in Congressional acts, and
in our national diplomacy, slaves and property are not used as
convertible terms. When mentioned in treaties and state papers it is in
such a way as to distinguish them from mere property, and generally by a
recognition of their _personality_. In the invariable recognition of
slaves as _persons_, the United States' constitution caught the mantle
of the glorious Declaration, and most worthily wears it. It recognizes
all human beings as "men," "persons," and thus as "equals." In the
original draft of the Declaration, as it came from the hand of
Jefferson, it is alleged that Great Britain had "waged a cruel war
against _human_ nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life
and liberty in the persons of a distant people, carrying them into
slavery, * * determined to keep up a market where MEN should be bought
and sold,"--thus disdaining to make the charter of freedom a warrant for
the arrest of _men_, that they might be shorn both of liberty
and humanity.
The celebrated Roger Sherman, one of the committee of five appointed to
draft the Declaration of Independence, and a member of the convention
that formed the United States' constitution, said, in the first Congress
after its adoption: "The constitution _does not consider these persons,
(slaves,) as a species of property_."--[Lloyd's Cong. Reg. v. 1, p.
313.] That the United States' Constitution does not make slaves
"property," is shown in the fact, that no person, either as a citizen of
the United States, or by having his domicile within the United States'
government, can hold slaves. He can hold them only by deriving his power
from _state_ laws, or from the laws of Congress, if he hold slaves
within the District. But no person resident within the United States'
jurisdiction, and _not_ within the District, nor within a state whose
laws support slavery, nor "held to service" under the laws of such a
state or district, having escaped therefrom, _can be held as a slave_.
Men can hold _property_ under the United States' government though
residing beyond the bounds of any state, district, or territory. An
inhabitant of the Iowa Territory can hold property there under the laws
of the United States, but he cannot hold _slaves_ there under the United
States' laws, nor by virtue of the United States' Constitution, nor upon
the ground of his United States' citizenship, nor by having his domicile
within the United States' jurisdiction. The constitution no where
recognizes the right to "slave property," _but merely the fact that the
states have jurisdiction each in its own limits, and that there are
certain "persons" within their jurisdictions "held to service" by their
own laws_.
Finally, in the clause under consideration "private property" is not to
be taken "without just compensation." "JUST!" If justice is to be
appealed to in determining the _amount_ of compensation, let her
determine the _grounds_ also. If it be her province to say _how much_
compensation is "just," it is hers to say whether _any_ is
"just,"--whether the slave is "just" property _at all_, rather than a
"_person_". Then, if justice adjudges the slave to be "private
property," it adjudges him to be _his own_ property, since the right to
one's self is the first right--the source of all others--the original
stock by which they are accumulated--the principal, of which they are
the interest. And since the slave's "private property" has been "taken,"
and since "compensation" is impossible--there being no _equivalent_ for
one's self--the least that can be done is to restore to him his original
private property.
Having shown that in abolishing slavery, "property" would not be "taken
for public use," it may be added that, in those states where slavery has
been abolished by law, no claim for compensation has been allowed.
Indeed the manifest absurdity of demanding it seems to have quite
forestalled the _setting up_ of such a claim.
The abolition of slavery in the District instead of being a legislative
anomaly, would proceed upon the principles of every day legislation. It
has been shown already, that the United States' Constitution does not
recognize slaves as "property." Yet ordinary legislation is full of
precedents, showing that even _absolute_ property is in many respects
wholly subject to legislation. The repeal of the law of entailments--all
those acts that control the alienation of property, its disposal by
will, its passing to heirs by descent, with the question, who shall be
heirs, and what shall be the rule of distribution among them, or whether
property shall be transmitted at all by descent, rather than escheat to
the estate--these, with statutes of limitation, and various other
classes of legislative acts, serve to illustrate the acknowledged scope
of the law-making power, even where property _is in every sense
absolute_. Persons whose property is thus affected by public laws,
receive from the government no compensation for their losses; unless the
state has been put in possession of the property taken from them.
The preamble of the United States' Constitution declares it to be a
fundamental object of the organization of the government "to ESTABLISH
JUSTICE." Has Congress _no power_ to do that for which it was made the
depository of power? CANNOT the United States' Government fulfil the
purpose for which it was brought into being?
To abolish slavery, is to take from no rightful owner his property; but
to "establish justice" between two parties. To emancipate the slave, is
to "establish justice" between him and his master--to throw around the
person, character, conscience; liberty, and domestic relations of the
one, _the same law_ that secures and blesses the other. In other words,
to prevent by legal restraints one class of men from seizing upon
another class, and robbing them at pleasure of their earnings, their
time, their liberty, their kindred, and the very use and ownership of
their own persons. Finally, to abolish slavery is to proclaim and
_enact_ that innocence and helplessness--now _free plunder_--are
entitled to _legal protection_; and that power, avarice, and lust, shall
no longer revel upon their spoils under the license, and by the
ministration of _law_! Congress, by possessing "exclusive legislation in
all cases whatsoever," has a _general protective power for_ ALL the
inhabitants of the District. If it has no power to protect _one_ man in
the District it has none to protect another--none to protect _any_--and
if it _can_ protect one man and is _bound_ to do it, it _can_ protect
_every_ man--and is _bound_ to do it. All admit the power of Congress to
protect the masters in the District against their slaves. What part of
the constitution gives the power? The clause so often quoted,--"power of
legislation in all cases whatsoever," equally in the "_case_" of
defending blacks against whites, as in that of defending whites against
blacks. The power is also conferred by Art. 1, Sec. 8, clause
15--"Congress shall have power to suppress insurrections"--a power to
protect, as well blacks against whites, as whites against blacks. If the
constitution gives power to protect _one_ class against the other, it
gives power to protect _either_ against the other. Suppose the blacks in
the District should seize the whites, drive them into the fields and
kitchens, force them to work without pay, flog them, imprison them, and
sell them at their pleasure, where would Congress find power to restrain
such acts? Answer; a _general_ power in the clause so often cited, and
an _express_ one in that cited above--"Congress shall have power to
suppress insurrections." So much for a supposed case. Here follows a
real one. The whites in the District are _perpetrating these identical
acts_ upon seven thousand blacks daily. That Congress has power to
restrain these acts in _one_ case, all assert, and in so doing they
assert the power "in _all_ cases whatsoever." For the grant of power to
suppress insurrections, is an _unconditional_ grant, not hampered by
provisos as to the color, shape, size, sex, language, creed, or
condition of the insurgents. Congress derives its power to suppress this
_actual_ insurrection, from the same source whence it derived its power
to suppress the _same_ acts in the case supposed. If one case is an
insurrection, the other is. The _acts_ in both are the same; the
_actors_ only are different. In the one case, ignorant and
degraded--goaded by the memory of the past, stung by the present, and
driven to desperation by the fearful looking for of wrongs for ever to
come. In the other, enlightened into the nature of _rights_, the
principles of justice, and the dictates of the law of love, unprovoked
by wrongs, with cool deliberation, and by system, they perpetrate these
acts upon those to whom they owe unnumbered obligations for _whole
lives_ of unrequited service. On which side may palliation be pleaded,
and which party may most reasonably claim an abatement of the rigors of
law? If Congress has power to suppress such acts _at all_, it has power
to suppress them _in_ all.
It has been shown already that _allegiance_ is exacted of the slave. Is
the government of the United States unable to grant _protection_ where
it exacts _allegiance_? It is an axiom of the civilized world, and a
maxim even with savages, that allegiance and protection are reciprocal
and correlative. Are principles powerless with us which exact homage of
barbarians? _Protection is the_ CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT _of every human.
being under the exclusive legislation of Congress who has not forfeited
it by crime_.
In conclusion, I argue the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the
District, from Art. 1, sec. 8, clause 1, of the constitution; "Congress
shall have power to provide for the common defence and the general
welfare of the United States." Has the government of the United States
no power under this grant to legislate within its own exclusive
jurisdiction on subjects that vitally affect its interest? Suppose the
slaves in the district should rise upon their masters, and the United
States' government, in quelling the insurrection, should kill any number
of them. Could their masters claim compensation of the government?
Manifestly not; even though no proof existed that the particular slaves
killed were insurgents. This was precisely the point at issue between
those masters, whose slaves were killed by the State troops at the time
of the Southampton insurrection, and the Virginia Legislature: no
evidence was brought to show that the slaves killed by the troops were
insurgents; yet the Virginia Legislature decided that their masters were
_not entitled to compensation._ They proceeded on the sound principle,
that the government may in self-protection destroy the claim of its
subjects even to that which has been recognized as property by its own
acts. If in providing for the common defence, the United States'
government, in the case supposed, would have power to destroy slaves
both as _property_ and _persons_, it surely might stop _half-way_,
destroy them _as property_ while it legalized their existence as
_persons_, and thus provided for the common defence by giving them a
personal and powerful interest in the government, and securing their
strength for its defence.
Like other Legislatures, Congress has power to abate nuisances--to
remove or tear down unsafe buildings--to destroy infected cargoes--to
lay injunctions upon manufactories injurious to the public health--and
thus to "provide for the common defence and general welfare" by
destroying individual property, when such property puts in jeopardy the
public weal.
Granting, for argument's sake, that slaves are "property" in the
District of Columbia--if Congress has a right to annihilate property
there when the public safety requires it, it may annihilate its
existence _as_ property when the public safety requires it, especially
if it transform into a _protection_ and _defence_ that which as
_property_ perilled the public interests. In the District of Columbia
there are, besides the United States' Capitol, the President's house,
the national offices, and archives of the Departments of State,
Treasury, War, and Navy, the General Post-office, and Patent office. It
is also the residence of the President, of all the highest officers of
the government, of both houses of Congress, and of all the foreign
ambassadors. In this same District there are also seven thousand slaves.
Jefferson, in his Notes on Va. p. 241, says of slavery, that "the State
permitting one half of its citizens to trample on the rights of the
other, transforms them into _enemies_;" and Richard Henry Lee, in the
Va. House of Burgesses in 1758, declared that to those who held them,
"_slaves must be natural enemies_." Is Congress so impotent that it
_cannot_ exercise that right pronounced both by municipal and national
law, the most sacred and universal--the right of self-preservation and
defence? Is it shut up to the _necessity_ of keeping seven thousand
"enemies" in the heart of the nation's citadel? Does the iron fiat of
the constitution doom it to such imbecility that it _cannot_ arrest the
process that _made_ them "enemies," and still goads to deadlier hate by
fiery trials, and day by day adds others to their number? Is _this_
providing for the common defence and general welfare? If to rob men of
rights excites their hate, freely to restore them and make amends, will
win their love.
By emancipating the slaves in the District, the government of the United
States would disband an army of "enemies," and enlist "for the common
defence and general welfare," a body guard of _friends_ seven thousand
strong. In the last war, a handful of British soldiers sacked Washington
city, burned the capitol, the President's house, and the national
offices and archives; and no marvel, for thousands of the inhabitants of
the District had been "TRANSFORMED INTO ENEMIES." Would _they_ beat back
invasion? If the national government had exercised its constitutional
"power to provide for the common defence and to promote the general
welfare," by turning those "enemies" into friends, then, instead of a
hostile ambush lurking in every thicket inviting assault, and secret
foes in every house paralyzing defence, an army of allies would have
rallied in the hour of her calamity, and shouted defiance from their
munitions of rocks; whilst the banner of the republic, then trampled in
dust, would have floated securely over FREEMEN exulting amidst bulwarks
of strength.
To show that Congress can abolish slavery in the District, under the
grant of power "to provide for the common defence and to promote the
general welfare," I quote an extract from a speech of Mr. Madison, of
Va., in the first Congress under the constitution, May 13, 1789.
Speaking of the abolition of the slave trade, Mr. Madison says: "I
should venture to say it is as much for the interests of Georgia and
South Carolina, as of any state in the union. Every addition they
receive to their number of slaves tends to _weaken_ them, and renders
them less capable of self-defence. In case of hostilities with foreign
nations, they will be the means of _inviting_ attack instead of
repelling invasion. It is a necessary duty of the general government to
protect every part of the empire against danger, as well _internal_ as
external. _Every thing, therefore, which tends to increase this danger,
though it may be a local affair, yet if it involves national expense or
safety, it becomes of concern to every part of the union, and is a
proper subject for the consideration of those charged with the general
administration of the government._" Cong. Reg. vol. 1, p. 310, 11.
WYTHE.
POSTSCRIPT
My apology for adding a _postscript_, to a discussion already perhaps
too protracted, is the fact that the preceding sheets were in the hands
of the printer, and all but the concluding pages had gone through the
press, before the passage of Mr. Calhoun's late resolutions in the
Senate of the United States. A proceeding so extraordinary,--if indeed
henceforward _any_ act of Congress in derogation of freedom and in
deference to slavery, can be deemed extraordinary,--should not be passed
in silence at such a crisis as the present; especially as the passage of
one of the resolutions by a vote of 36 to 9, exhibits a shift of
position on the part of the South, as sudden as it is unaccountable,
being nothing less than the surrender of a fortress which until then,
they had defended with the pertinacity of a blind and almost infuriated
fatuity. Upon the discussions during the pendency of the resolutions,
and upon the vote, by which they were carried, I make no comment, save
only to record my exultation in the fact there exhibited, that great
emergencies are _true touchstones_, and that henceforward, until this
question is settled, whoever holds a seat in Congress will find upon,
and around him, a pressure strong enough to test him--a focal blaze that
will find its way through the carefully adjusted cloak of fair
pretension, and the sevenfold brass of two faced political intrigue, and
_no_-faced _non-committalism_, piercing to the dividing asunder of
joints and marrow. Be it known to every northern man who aspires to a
seat in our national councils, that hereafter congressional action on
this subject will be a MIGHTY REVELATOR--making secret thoughts public
property, and proclaiming on the house-tops what is whispered in the
ear--smiting off masks, and bursting open sepulchres beautiful
outwardly, and up-heaving to the sun their dead men's bones. To such we
say,--_Remember the Missouri Question, and the fate of those who then
sold the free states and their own birthright!_
Passing by the resolutions generally without remark--the attention of
the reader is specially solicited to Mr. Clay's substitute for Mr.
Calhoun's fifth resolution.
"Resolved, That when the District of Columbia was ceded by the states of
Virginia and Maryland to the United States, domestic slavery existed in
both of these states, including the ceded territory, and that, as it
still continues in both of them, it could not be abolished within the
District without a violation of that good faith, which was implied in
the cession and in the acceptance of the territory; nor, unless
compensation were made to the proprietors of slaves, without a manifest
infringement of an amendment to the constitution of the United States;
nor without exciting a degree of just alarm and apprehension in the
states recognizing slavery, far transcending in mischievous tendency,
any possible benefit which could be accomplished by the abolition."
By advocating this resolution, the south shifted its mode of defence,
not by taking a position entirely new, but by attempting to refortify an
old one--abandoned mainly long ago, as being unable to hold out against
assault however unskillfully directed. In the debate on this resolution,
the southern members of Congress silently drew off from the ground
hitherto maintained by them, viz.--that Congress has no power by the
constitution to abolish slavery in the District.
The passage of this resolution--with the vote of every southern senator,
forms a new era in the discussion of this question. We cannot join in
the lamentations of those who bewail it. We hail it, and rejoice in it.
It was as we would have had it--offered by a southern senator, advocated
by southern senators, and on the ground that it "was no
compromise"--that it embodied the true southern principle--that "this
resolution stood on as high ground as Mr. Calhoun's."--(Mr.
Preston)--"that Mr. Clay's resolution was as strong as Mr.
Calhoun's"--(Mr. Rives)--that "the resolution he (Mr. Calhoun) now
refused to support, was as strong as his own, and that in supporting it,
there was no abandonment of principle by the south."--(Mr. Walker, of
Mi.)--further, that it was advocated by the southern senators generally
as an expression of their views, and as setting the question of slavery
in the District on its _true_ ground--that finally, when the question
was taken, every slaveholding senator, including Mr. Calhoun himself,
voted for the resolution.
By passing this resolution, and with such avowals, the south has
unwittingly but explicitly, conceded the main point argued in the
preceding pages, and surrendered the whole question at issue between
them and the petitioners for abolition in the District.
The _only_ ground taken against the right of Congress to abolish slavery
in the District is, that it existed in Maryland and Virginia when the
cession was made, and "_as it still continues in both of them_, it could
not be abolished without a violation of that good faith which was
implied in the cession," &c. The argument is not that exclusive
_sovereignty_ has no power to abolish slavery within its jurisdiction,
nor that the powers of even ordinary legislation cannot do it, nor that
the clause granting Congress "exclusive legislation in all cases what
soever over such District," gives no power to do it; but that the
_unexpressed expectation_ of one of the parties that the other would not
"in all cases" use the power which said party had consented might be
used "_in all cases," prohibits_ the use of it. The only cardinal point
in the discussion, is here not only yielded, but formally laid down by
the South as the leading article in their creed on the question of
Congressional jurisdiction over slavery in the District. The reason
given why Congress should not abolish, and the sole evidence that if it
did, such abolition would be a violation of "good faith," is that
"_slavery still continues in those states_,"--thus admitting, that if
slavery did _not_ "still continue" in those States, Congress could
abolish it in the District. The same admission is made also in the
_premises_, which state that slavery existed in those states _at the
time of the cession_, &c. Admitting that if it had not existed there
then, but had grown up in the District under United States' laws,
Congress might constitutionally abolish it. Or that if the ceded parts
of those states had been the _only_ parts in which slaves were held
under their laws, Congress might have abolished in such a contingency
also. The cession in that case leaving no slaves in those states,--no
"good faith" would be "implied" in it, nor any "violated" by an act of
abolition. The resolution makes virtually this further admission, that
if Maryland and Virginia should at once abolish their slavery, Congress
might at once abolish it in the District. The principle goes even
further than this, and _requires_ Congress in such case to abolish
slavery in the District "by the _good faith implied_ in the cession and
acceptance of the territory." Since, according to the spirit and scope
of the resolution, this "implied good faith" of Maryland and Virginia
in making the cession, was, that Congress would do nothing within the
District which should counteract the policy, or discredit the
"institutions," or call in question the usages, or even in any way
ruffle the prejudices of those states, or do what _they_ might think
would unfavorably bear upon their interests; _themselves_ of course
being the judges.
But let us dissect another limb of the resolution. What is to be
understood by "that good faith which was IMPLIED?" It is of course an
admission that such a condition was not _expressed_ in the acts of
cession--that in their terms there is nothing restricting the power of
Congress on the subject of slavery in the District. This "implied
faith," then, rests on no clause or word in the United States'
Constitution, or in the acts of cession, or in the acts of Congress
accepting the cession, nor on any declarations of the legislatures of
Maryland and Virginia, nor on any _act_ of theirs, nor on any
declaration of the _people_ of those states, nor on the testimony of the
Washingtons, Jeffersons, Madisons, Chases, Martins, and Jennifers, of
those states and times. The assertion rests _on itself alone!_ Mr. Clay
_guesses_ that Maryland and Virginia _supposed_ that Congress would by
no means _use_ the power given them by the Constitution, except in such
ways as would be well pleasing in the eyes of those states; especially
as one of them was the "Ancient Dominion!" And now after half a century,
this _assumed expectation_ of Maryland and Virginia, the existence of
which is mere matter of conjecture with the 36 senators, is conjured up
and duly installed upon the judgment-seat of final appeal, before whose
nod constitutions are to flee away, and with whom, solemn grants of
power and explicit guaranties are, when weighed in the balance,
altogether lighter than vanity!
But survey it in another light. Why did Maryland and Virginia leave so
much to be "_implied?_?" Why did they not in some way _express_ what lay
so near their hearts? Had their vocabulary run so low that a single word
could not be eked out for the occasion? Or were those states so bashful
of a sudden that they dare not speak out and tell what they wanted? Or
did they take it for granted that Congress would always know their
wishes by intuition, and always take them for law? If, as honorable
senators tell us, Maryland and Virginia did verily travail with such
abounding _faith_, why brought they forth no _works_?
It is as true in legislation as in religion, that the only evidence of
"faith" is works, and that "faith" _without_ works is _dead_, i.e. has
no _power_. But here, forsooth, a blind implication with nothing
_expressed_, an "implied" faith without works, is omnipotent! Mr. Clay
is lawyer enough to know that Maryland and Virginia notions of
constitutional power, _abrogate no grant_, and that to plead them in a
court of law, would be of small service, except to jostle "their
Honors'" gravity! He need not be told that the Constitution gives
Congress "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever over such District;" nor that Maryland and Virginia
constructed their acts of cession with this clause _before their eyes_,
and declared those acts made "in _pursuance_" of it. Those states knew
that the U.S. Constitution had left nothing to be "_implied_" as to the
power of Congress over the District; an admonition quite sufficient, one
would think, to put them on their guard, and lead them to eschew vague
implications, and to resort to _stipulations_. They knew, moreover, that
those were times when, in matters of high import, _nothing_ was left to
be "implied." The colonies were then panting from a twenty years'
conflict with the mother country, about bills of rights, charters,
treaties, constitutions, grants, limitations, and _acts of cession_. The
severities of a long and terrible discipline had taught them to guard at
all points _legislative grants_, that their exact import and limit might
be self-evident--leaving no scope for a blind "faith" that _somehow_ in
the lottery of chances, every ticket would turn up a prize. Toil,
suffering, blood, and treasure outpoured like water over a whole
generation, counselled them to make all sure by the use of explicit
terms, and well chosen words, and just enough of them. The Constitution
of the United States, with its amendments, those of the individual
states, the national treaties, and the public documents of the general
and state governments at that period, show the universal conviction of
legislative bodies, that nothing should be left to be "implied," when
great public interests were at stake.
Further: suppose Maryland and Virginia had expressed their "implied
faith" in _words_, and embodied it in their acts of cession as a
proviso, declaring that Congress should not "exercise exclusive
legislation in _all_ cases whatsoever over the District," but that the
"case" of _slavery_ should be an exception: who does not know that
Congress, if it had accepted the cession on those terms, would have
violated the Constitution; and who that has studied the free mood of
those times in its bearings on slavery--proofs of which are given in
scores on the preceding pages--[See pp. 25-37.] can be made to believe
that the people of the United States would have re-modelled their
Constitution for the purpose of providing for slavery an inviolable
sanctuary; that when driven in from its outposts, and everywhere
retreating discomfited before the march of freedom, it might be received
into everlasting habitations on the common homestead and hearth-stone of
the republic? Who can believe that Virginia made such a condition, or
cherished such a purpose, when Washington, Jefferson, Wythe, Patrick
Henry, St. George Tucker, and all her most illustrious men, were at that
moment advocating the abolition of slavery by law; when Washington had
said, two years before, that Maryland and Virginia "must have laws for
the gradual abolition of slavery, and at a period _not remote_;" and when
Jefferson in his letter to Dr. Price, three years before the cession,
had said, speaking of Virginia, "This is the next state to which we may
turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with
avarice and oppression--a conflict in which THE SACRED SIDE IS GAINING
DAILY RECRUITS;" when voluntary emancipations on the soil were then
progressing at the rate of between one and two thousand annually, (See
Judge Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73;) when the public
sentiment of Virginia had undergone, so mighty a revolution that the
idea of the continuance of slavery as a permanent system could not be
tolerated, though she then contained about half the slaves in the Union.
Was this the time to stipulate for the _perpetuity_ of slavery under the
exclusive legislation of Congress? and that too when at the _same_
session _every one_ of her delegation voted for the abolition of slavery
in the North West Territory; a territory which she herself had ceded to
the Union, and surrendered along with it her jurisdiction over her
citizens, inhabitants of that territory, who held slaves there--and
whose slaves were emancipated by that act of Congress, in which all her
delegation with one accord participated?
Now in view of the universal belief then prevalent, that slavery in this
country was doomed to short life, and especially that in Maryland and
Virginia it would be _speedily_ abolished--must we adopt the monstrous
conclusion that those states _designed_ to bind Congress _never_ to
terminate it?--that it was the _intent_ of the Ancient Dominion thus to
_bind_ the United States by an "implied faith," and that when the
national government _accepted_ the cession, she did solemnly thus plight
her troth, and that Virginia did then so _understand_ it? Verily,
honorable senators must suppose themselves deputed to do our _thinking_
for us as well as our legislation, or rather, that they are themselves
absolved from such drudgery by virtue of their office!
Another absurdity of this "implied faith" dogma is, that where there was
no power to exact an _express_ pledge, there was none to demand an
_implied_ one, and where there was no power to give the one, there was
none to give the other. We have shown already that Congress could not
have accepted the cession with such a condition. To have signed away a
part of its constitutional grant of power would have been a _breach_ of
the Constitution. The Congress which accepted the cession was competent
to pass a resolution pledging itself not to _use all_ the power over the
District committed to it by the Constitution. But here its power ended.
Its resolution could only bind _itself_. It had no authority to bind a
subsequent Congress. Could the members of one Congress say to those of
another, because we do not choose to exercise all the authority vested
in us by the Constitution, therefore you _shall_ not? This would, have
been a prohibition to do what the Constitution gives power to do. Each
successive Congress would still have gone to THE CONSTITUTION for its
power, brushing away in its course the cobwebs stretched across its path
by the officiousness of an impertinent predecessor. Again, the
legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, had no power to bind Congress,
either by an express or an implied pledge, never to abolish slavery in
the District. Those legislatures had no power to bind _themselves_ never
to abolish slavery within their own territories--the ceded parts
included. Where then would they get power to bind _another_ not to do
what they had no power to bind _themselves_ not to do? If a legislature
could not in this respect control the successive legislatures of its own
State, could it control the successive Congresses of the United States?
But perhaps we shall be told, that the "implied faith" of Maryland and
Virginia was _not_ that Congress should _never_ abolish slavery in the
District, but that it should not do it until _they_ had done it within
their bounds! Verily this "faith" comes little short of the faith of
miracles! Maryland and Virginia have "good faith" that Congress will not
abolish until _they_ do; and then just as "good faith" that Congress
_will_ abolish _when_ they do! Excellently accommodated! Did those
states suppose that Congress would legislate over the national domain,
for Maryland and Virginia alone? And who, did they suppose, would be
judges in the matter?--themselves merely? or the whole Union?
This "good faith implied in the cession" is no longer of doubtful
interpretation. The principle at the bottom of it, when fairly stated,
is this:--That the Government of the United States are bound in "good
faith" to do in the District of Columbia, without demurring, just what
and when, Maryland and Virginia do within their own bounds. In short,
that the general government is eased of all the burdens of legislation
within its exclusive jurisdiction, save that of hiring a scrivener to
copy off the acts of the Maryland and Virginia legislatures as fast as
they are passed, and engross them, under the title of "Laws of the
United States for the District of Columbia!" A slight additional expense
would also be incurred in keeping up an express between the capitols of
those States and Washington city, bringing Congress from time to time
its "_instructions_" from head quarters!
What a "glorious Union" this doctrine of Mr. Clay bequeaths to the
people of the United States! We have been permitted to set up at our own
expense, and on our own territory, two great _sounding-boards_ called
"Senate Chamber" and "Representatives' Hall," for the purpose of sending
abroad "by authority" _national_ echoes of _state_ legislation!
--permitted also to keep in our pay a corps of pliant _national_
musicians, with peremptory instructions to sound on any line of the
staff according as Virginia and Maryland may give the sovereign
key note!
A careful analysis of Mr. Clay's resolution and of the discussions upon
it, will convince every fair mind that this is but the legitimate
carrying out of the _principle_ pervading both. They proceed virtually
upon the hypothesis that the will and pleasure of Virginia and Maryland
are paramount to those of the Union. If the original design of setting
apart a federal district had been for the sole accommodation of the
south, there could hardly have been higher assumption or louder
vaunting. The only object of _having_ such a District was in effect
totally perverted in the resolution of Mr. Clay, and in the discussions
of the entire southern delegation, upon its passage. Instead of taking
the ground, that the benefit of the whole Union was the sole _object_ of
a federal district, and that it was to be legislated over _for this
end_--the resolution proceeds upon an hypothesis totally the reverse. It
takes a single point of _state_ policy, and exalts it above NATIONAL
interests, utterly overshadowing them; abrogating national rights;
making void a clause of the Constitution; humbling the general
government into a subject crouching for favors to a superior, and that
too within its own exclusive jurisdiction. All the attributes of
sovereignty vested in Congress by the Constitution, it impales upon the
point of an alleged _implication_. And this is Mr. Clay's
peace-offering, to the lust of power and the ravenings of state
encroachment! A "compromise," forsooth! that sinks the general
government on _its own territory_, into a mere colony, with Virginia and
Maryland for its "mother country!" It is refreshing to turn from these
shallow, distorted constructions and servile cringings, to the high
bearing of other southern men in other times; men, who as legislators
and lawyers, scorned to accommodate their interpretations of
constitutions and charters to geographical lines, or to bend them to the
purposes of a political canvass. In the celebrated case of Cohens _vs._
the State of Virginia, Hon. William Pinkney, late of Baltimore, and Hon.
Walter Jones, of Washington city, with other eminent constitutional
lawyers, prepared an elaborate opinion, from which the following is an
extract: "Nor is there any danger to be apprehended from allowing to
Congressional legislation with regard to the District of Columbia, its
FULLEST EFFECT. Congress is responsible to the States, and to the people
for that legislation. It is in truth the legislation of the states over
a district placed under their control FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT, not for
that of the District, except as the prosperity of the District is
involved, and _necessary to the general advantage_."--[Life of
Pinkney, p. 612.]
This profound legal opinion asserts, 1st, that Congressional legislation
over the District, is "the legislation of the _states_ and the
_people_." (not of _two_ states, and a mere _fraction_ of the people;)
2d. "Over a District placed under _their_ control," i.e. under the
control of _all_ the States, not of _two twenty-sixths_ of them. 3d.
That it was thus put under their control "_for_ THEIR OWN _benefit_."
4th. It asserts that the design of this exclusive control of Congress
over the District was "not for the benefit of the _District_," except as
that is _connected_ with, and _a means of promoting_ the _general_
advantage. If this is the case with the _District_, which is _directly_
concerned, it is pre-eminently so with Maryland and Virginia, which are
but _indirectly_ interested. The argument of Mr. Madison in the Congress
of '89, an extract from which has been given on a preceding page, lays
down the same principle; that though any matter "_may be a local affair,
yet if it involves national_ EXPENSE or SAFETY, _it becomes of concern
to every part of the union, and is a proper subject for the
consideration of those charged with the general administration of the
government_."--Cong. Reg. vol. 1. p. 310.
But these are only the initiatory absurdities of this "good faith
_implied_." Mr. Clay's resolution aptly illustrates the principle, that
error not only conflicts with truth, but is generally at issue with
itself: For if it would be a violation of "good faith" to Maryland and
Virginia, for Congress to abolish slavery in the District, it would be
_equally_ a violation for Congress to do it _with the consent_, or even
at the unanimous petition of the people of the District: yet for years
it has been the southern doctrine, that if the people of the District
demand of Congress relief in this respect, it has power, as their local
legislature, to grant it, and by abolishing slavery there, carry out the
will of the citizens. But now new light has broken in! The optics of Mr.
Clay have pierced the millstone with a deeper insight, and discoveries
thicken faster than they can be telegraphed! Congress has no power, O
no, not a modicum! to help the slaveholders of the District, however
loudly they may clamor for it. The southern doctrine, that Congress is
to the District a mere local Legislature to do its pleasure, is tumbled
from the genitive into the vocative! Hard fate--and that too at the
hands of those who begat it! The reasonings of Messrs. Pinckney and
Wise, are now found to be wholly at fault, and the chanticleer rhetoric
of Messrs. Glascock and Garland stalks featherless and crest-fallen. For
the resolution sweeps by the board all those stereotyped common-places,
such as "Congress a local Legislature," "consent of the District,"
"bound to consult the wishes of the District," with other catch phrases,
which for the last two sessions of Congress have served to eke out
scanty supplies. It declares, that as slavery existed in _Maryland and
Virginia at the time of the cession, and as_ it still continues _in both
those states_, it could not be abolished in the District without a
violation of "that good faith," &c.
But let us see where this principle will lead us. If "implied faith" to
Maryland and Virginia _restrains_ Congress from the abolition of slavery
in the District, because those states have not abolished _their_
slavery, it _requires_ Congress to do in the District what those states
have done within their own limits, i.e., restrain _others_ from
abolishing it. Upon the same principle Congress is _bound_ to _prohibit
emancipation_ within the District. There is no _stopping place_ for this
plighted "faith." Congress must not only refrain from laying violent
hands on slavery, and see to it that the slaveholders themselves do not,
but it is bound to keep the system up to the Maryland and Virginia
standard of vigor!
Again, if the good faith of Congress to Virginia and Maryland requires
that slavery should exist in the District, while it exists in those
states, it requires that it should exist there as it exists in those
states. If to abolish _every_ form of slavery in the District would
violate good faith, to abolish _the_ form existing in those states, and
to substitute a different one, would also violate it. The Congressional
"good faith" is to be kept not only with _slavery_, but with the
_Maryland and Virginia systems_ of slavery. The faith of those states
being not that Congress would maintain a system, but _their_ system;
otherwise instead of _sustaining_, Congress would counteract their
policy--principles would be brought into action there conflicting with
their system, and thus the true sprit of the "implied" pledge would be
violated. On this principle, so long as slaves are "chattels personal"
in Virginia and Maryland, Congress could not make them _real estate_ in
the District, as they are in Louisiana; nor could it permit slaves to
read, nor to worship God according to conscience; nor could it grant
them trial by jury, nor legalize marriage; nor require the master to
give sufficient food and clothing; nor prohibit the violent sundering of
families--because such provisions would conflict with the existing
slave laws of Virginia and Maryland, and thus violate the "good faith
implied," &c. So the principle of the resolution binds Congress in all
these particulars: 1st. Not to abolish slavery in the District _until_
Virginia and Maryland abolish. 2d. Not to abolish any _part_ of it that
exists in those states. 3d. Not to abolish any _form_ or _appendage_ of
it still existing in those states. 4th. To _abolish_ when they do. 5th.
To increase or abate its rigors _when, how,_ and _as_ the same are
modified by those states. In a word, Congressional action in the
District is to float passively in the wake of legislative action on the
subject in those states.
But here comes a dilemma. Suppose the legislation of those states should
steer different courses--then there would be _two_ wakes! Can Congress
float in both? Yea, verily! Nothing is too hard for it! Its
obsequiousness equals its "power of legislation in _all_ cases
whatsoever." It can float _up_ on the Virginia tide, and ebb down on the
Maryland. What Maryland does, Congress will do in the Maryland part.
What Virginia does, Congress will do in the Virginia part. Though it
might not always be able to run at the bidding of both _at once_,
especially in different directions, yet if it obeyed orders cheerfully,
and "kept in its place," according to its "good faith implied,"
impossibilities might not be rigidly exacted. True, we have the highest
sanction for the maxim that no _man_ can serve two masters--but if
"corporations have no souls," analogy would absolve Congress on that
score, or at most give it only a _very small soul_--not large enough to
be at all in the way, as an exception to the universal rule laid down in
the maxim!
In following out the absurdities of this "implied good faith," it will
be seen at once that the doctrine of Mr. Clay's Resolution extends to
_all the subjects of legislation_ existing in Maryland and Virginia,
which exist also within the District. Every system, "institution," law,
and established usage there, is placed beyond Congressional control
equally with slavery, and by the same "implied faith." The abolition of
the lottery system in the District as an immorality, was a flagrant
breach of this "good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, as the system
"still continued in those states." So to abolish imprisonment for debt,
or capital punishment, to remodel the bank system, the power of
corporations, the militia law, laws of limitation, &c., in the District,
_unless Virginia and Maryland took the lead,_ would violate the "good
faith implied in the cession."
That in the acts of cession no such "good faith" was "implied" by
Virginia and Maryland as is claimed in the Resolution, we argue from the
fact, that in 1784 Virginia ceded to the United States all her
north-west territory, with the special proviso that her citizens
inhabiting that territory should "have their _possessions_ and _titles_
confirmed to them, and be _protected_ in the enjoyment of their _rights_
and liberties." (See Journals of Congress, vol. 9, p. 63.) The cession
was made in the form of a deed, and signed by Thomas Jefferson, Samuel
Hardy, Arthur Lee, and James Munroe. Many of these inhabitants _held
slaves._ Three years after the cession, the Virginia delegation in
Congress _proposed_ the passage of an ordinance which should abolish
slavery, in that territory, and declare that it should never thereafter
exist there. All the members of Congress from Virginia and Maryland
voted for this ordinance. Suppose some member of Congress had during the
passage of the ordinance introduced the following resolution: "Resolved,
that when the northwest territory was ceded by Virginia to the United
States, domestic slavery existed in that State, including the ceded
territory, and as it still continues in that State, it could not be
abolished within the territory without a violation of that good faith,
which was implied in the cession and in the acceptance of the
territory." What would have been the indignant response of Grayson,
Griffin, Madison, and the Lees, in the Congress of '87, to such a
resolution, and of Carrington, Chairman of the Committee, who reported
the ratification of the ordinance in the Congress of '89, and of Page
and Parker, who with every other member of the Virginia delegation
supported it?
But to enumerate all the absurdities into which those interested for
this resolution have plunged themselves, would be to make a quarto
inventory. We decline the task; and in conclusion merely add, that Mr.
Clay, in presenting it, and each of the thirty-six Senators who voted
for it, entered on the records of the Senate, and proclaimed to the
world, a most unworthy accusation against the millions of American
citizens who have during nearly half a century petitioned the national
legislature to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,--charging
them either with the ignorance or the impiety of praying the nation to
violate its "Plighted Faith." The resolution virtually indicts at the
bar of public opinion, and brands with odium, all the early Manumission
Societies, the _first_ petitioners for the abolition of slavery in the
District, and for a long time the only ones, petitioning from year to
year through evil report and good report, still petitioning, by
individual societies and in their national conventions.
But as if it were not enough to table the charge against such men as
Benjamin Rush, William Rawle, John Sergeant, Roberts Vaux, Cadwallader
Colden, and Peter A. Jay,--to whom we may add Rufus King, James
Hillhouse, William Pinkney, Thomas Addis Emmett, Daniel D. Tompkins, De
Witt Clinton, James Kent, and Daniel Webster, besides eleven hundred
citizens of the District itself, headed by their Chief Justice and
Judges--even the sovereign States of Pennsylvania, New-York,
Massachusetts, Vermont, and Connecticut, whose legislatures have either
memorialized Congress to abolish slavery in the District, or instructed
their Senators to move such a measure, must be gravely informed by
Messrs. Clay, Norvell, Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, Black, Tipton, and
other honorable Senators, either that their perception is so dull, they
know not whereof they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunted
they can demand without compunction a violation of the nation's faith!
We have spoken already of the concessions unwittingly made in this
resolution to the true doctrine of Congressional power over the
District. For that concession, important as it is; we have small thanks
to render. That such a resolution, passed with such an _intent_, and
pressing at a thousand points on relations and interests vital to the
free states, should be hailed, as it has been, by a portion of the
northern press as a "compromise" originating in deference to northern
interests, and to be received by us as a free-will offering of
disinterested benevolence, demanding our gratitude to the mover,--may
well cover us with shame. We deserve the humiliation and have well
earned the mockery. Let it come!
If, after having been set up at auction in the public sales-room of the
nation, and for thirty years, and by each of a score of "compromises,"
treacherously knocked off to the lowest bidder, and that without money
and without price, the North, plundered and betrayed, _will not_, in
this her accepted time, consider the things that belong to her peace
before they are hidden from her eyes, then let her eat of the fruit of
her own way, and be filled with her own devices! Let the shorn and
blinded giant grind in the prison-house of the Philistines, till taught
by weariness and pain the folly of entrusting to Delilahs the secret and
the custody of his strength.
Have the free States bound themselves by an oath never to profit by the
lessons of experience? If lost to reason, are they dead to _instinct_
also? Can nothing rouse them to cast about for self preservation? And
shall a life of tame surrenders be terminated by suicidal sacrifice?
A "COMPROMISE!" Bitter irony! Is the plucked and hoodwinked North to be
wheedled by the sorcery of another Missouri compromise? A compromise in
which the South gained all, and the North lost all, and lost it forever.
A compromise which embargoed the free laborer of the North and West,
and, clutched at the staff he leaned upon, to turn it into a bludgeon
and fell him with its stroke. A compromise which wrested from liberty
her boundless birthright domain, stretching westward to the sunset,
while it gave to slavery loose reins and a free coarse, from the
Mississippi to the Pacific.
The resolution, as it finally passed, is here inserted.
"Resolved, That the interference by the citizens of any of the states,
with the view to the abolition of slavery in the District, is
endangering the rights and security of the people of the District; and
that any act or measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in the
District, would be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by
the states of Virginia and Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the people
of the slaveholding states, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to
disturb and endanger the Union."
The vote upon the resolution stood as follows:
_Yeas_.--Messrs. Allen, Bayard, Benton, Black, Buchanan, Brown, Calhoun,
Clay of Alabama, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, Cuthbert,
Fulton, Grundy, Hubbard, King, Lumpkin, Lyon, Nicholas. Niles, Norvell,
Pierce, Preston, Rives, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smith, of Connecticut,
Strange, Tallmadge, Tipton, Walker, White, Williams, Wright, Young--36.
_Nays_.--Messrs. DAVIS, KNIGHT, McKEAN, MORRIS, PRENTISS, RUGGLES,
SMITH, of Indiana, SWIFT, WEBSTER--9.
* * * * *
ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. NO. 6.
NARRATIVE OF JAMES WILLIAMS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE.
ONE DOLLAR PER 100] [143 NASSAU ST. N.Y.
* * * * *
PREFACE.
"American Slavery," said the celebrated John Wesley, "is the _vilest_
beneath the sun!" Of the truth of this emphatic remark, no other proof
is required, than an examination of the statute books of the American
slave states. Tested by its own laws, in all that facilitates and
protects the hateful process of converting a man into a "_chattel
personal_;" in all that stamps the law-maker, and law-upholder with
meanness and hypocrisy, it certainly has no present rival of its "bad
eminence," and we may search in vain the history of a world's despotism
for a parallel. The civil code of Justinian never acknowledged, with
that of our democratic despotisms, the essential equality of man. The
dreamer in the gardens of Epicurus recognized neither in himself, nor in
the slave who ministered to his luxury, the immortality of the spiritual
nature. Neither Solon nor Lycurgus taught the inalienability of human
rights. The Barons of the Feudal System, whose maxim was emphatically
that of Wordsworth's robber,
"That he should take who had the power,
And he should keep who can."
while trampling on the necks of their vassals, and counting the life of
a man as of less value than that of a wild beast, never appealed to God
for the sincerity of their belief, that all men were created equal. It
was reserved for American slave-holders to present to the world the
hideous anomaly of a code of laws, beginning with the emphatic
declaration of the inalienable rights of all men to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness, and closing with a deliberate and systematic
denial of those rights, in respect to a large portion of their
countrymen; engrossing on the same parchment the antagonist laws of
liberty and tyranny. The very nature of this unnatural combination has
rendered it necessary that American slavery, in law and in practice,
should exceed every other in severity and cool atrocity. The masters of
Greece and Rome permitted their slaves to read and write and worship the
gods of paganism in peace and security, for there was nothing in the
laws, literature, or religion of the age to awaken in the soul of the
bondman a just sense of his rights as a man. But the American
slaveholder cannot be thus lenient. In the excess of his benevolence, as
a political propagandist, he has kindled a fire for the oppressed of the
old world to gaze at with hope, and for crowned heads and dynasties to
tremble at; but a due regard to the safety of his "peculiar
institution," compels him to put out the eyes of his own people, lest
they too should see it. Calling on all the world to shake off the
fetters of oppression, and wade through the blood of tyrants to freedom,
he has been compelled to smother, in darkness and silence, the minds of
his own bondmen, lest they too should hear and obey the summons, by
putting the knife to his own throat.--Proclaiming the truths of Divine
Revelation, and sending the Scriptures to the four quarters of the
earth, he has found it necessary to maintain heathenism at home by
special enactments; and to make the second offence of teaching his
slaves the message of salvation punishable with _death_!
What marvel then that American slavery even on the _statute book_
assumes the right to transform moral beings into brutes:[A] that it
legalizes man's usurpation of Divine authority; the substitution of the
will of the master, for the moral government of God: that it annihilates
the rights of conscience; debars from the enjoyment of religious rights
and privileges by specific enactments; and enjoins disobedience to the
Divine lawgiver: that it discourages purity and chastity, encourages
crime, legalizes concubinage; and, while it places the slave entirely in
the hands of his master, provides no real protection for his life or
his person.
[Footnote A: The _cardinal principle_ of slavery, that a slave is not to
be ranked among sentient beings, but among things, as an article of
property, a chattel personal, obtains as undoubted law, in all the slave
states. (Judge Stroud's Sketch of Slave Laws, p. 22.)]
But it may be said, that these laws afford no certain evidence of the
actual condition of the slaves: that, in judging the system by its code,
no allowance is made for the humanity of individual masters. It was a
just remark of the celebrated Priestley, that "_no people ever were
found to be better than their laws, though many have been known to be
worse._" All history and common experience confirm this. Besides,
admitting that the legal severity of a system may be softened in the
practice of the humane, may it not also be aggravated by that of the
avaricious and cruel?
But what are the testimony and admissions of slaveholders themselves on
this point? In an Essay published in Charleston, S.C., in 1822, and
entitled "A Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern
and Western States," by the late Edwin C. Holland, Esq., it is stated,
that "all slaveholders have laid down non-resistance, and perfect and
uniform _obedience_ to their orders as fundamental principles in the
government of their slaves:" that this is "a _necessary_ result of the
relation," and "_unavoidable_." Robert J. Turnbull, Esq., of South
Carolina, in remarking upon the management of slaves, says, "The only
principle upon which may authority over them, (the slaves,) can be
maintained is _fear_, and he who denies this has little knowledge of
them." To this may be added the testimony of Judge Ruffin, of North
Carolina, as quoted in Wheeler's Law of Slavery, p. 217. "The slave, to
remain a slave, must feel that there is _no appeal from his master_. No
man can anticipate the provocations which the slave would give, nor the
consequent wrath of the master, prompting him to BLOODY VENGEANCE on the
turbulent traitor, a vengeance _generally_ practised with impunity by
reason of its _privacy_."
In an Essay on the "improvement of negroes on plantations," by Rev.
Thomas S. Clay, a slaveholder of Bryan county, Georgia, and Printed at
the request of the Georgia Presbytery, in 1833, we are told "that the
present economy of the slave system is _to get all you can_ from the
slave, and give him in return _as little as will barely support him in a
working condition_!" Here, in a few words, the whole enormity of slavery
is exposed to view: "to _get all you can_ from the slave"--by means of
whips and forks and irons--by every device for torturing the body,
without destroying its capability of labor; and in return give him as
little of his coarse fare as will keep him, like a mere beast of burden,
in a "_working condition_;" this is slavery, as explained by the
slaveholder himself. Mr. Clay further says: "_Offences against the
master_ are more severely punished than violations of the law of God, a
fault which affects the slave's personal character a good deal. As
examples we may notice, that _running away_ is more severely punished
than adultery." "He (the slave) only knows his master as lawgiver and
executioner, and the _sole object of punishment_ held up to his view, is
to make him _a more obedient and profitable slave_."
Hon. W.B. Seabrook, in an address before the Agricultural Society of St.
John's, Colleton, published by order of the Society, at Charleston, in
1834, after stating that "as Slavery exists in South Carolina, the
action of the citizens should rigidly conform to that state of things:"
and, that "no _abstract opinions of the rights of man_ should be allowed
in any instance to modify the _police system of a plantation_," proceeds
as follows. "_He_ (the slave) _should be practically treated as a
slave_; and thoroughly taught the true cardinal principle on which our
peculiar institutions are founded, viz.; that to his owner he is bound
by the law of God and man; and that no human authority can sever the
link which unites them. The great aim of the slaveholder, then, should
be to keep his people in strict _subordination_. In this, it may in
truth be said, lies his _entire duty_." Again, in speaking of the
punishments of slaves, he remarks: "If to our army the disuse of THE
LASH has been prejudicial, to the slaveholder it would operate to
deprive him of the MAIN SUPPORT of his authority. For the first class of
offences, I consider imprisonment in THE STOCKS[A] at night, with or
without hard labor by day, as a powerful auxiliary in the cause of
_good_ government." "_Experience_ has convinced me that there is no
punishment to which the slave looks with more horror, than that upon
which I am commenting, (the stocks,) and none which has been attended
with happier results."
[Footnote A: Of the nature of this punishment in the stocks, something
may be learned by the following extract of a letter from a gentleman in
Tallahassee, Florida, to the editor of the Ohio Atlas, dated June 9,
1835: "A planter, a professer of religion, in conversing upon the
universality of whipping, remarked, that a planter in G____, who had
whipped a great deal, at length got tired of it, and invented the
following _excellent_ method of punishment, which I saw practised while
I was paying him a visit. The negro was placed in a sitting position,
with his hands made fast above his head, and his feet in the stocks, so
that he could not move any part of the body. The master retired,
intending to leave him till morning, but we were awakened in the night
by the groans of the negro, which were so doleful that we feared he was
dying. We went to him, and found him covered with a cold sweat, and
almost gone. He could not have lived an hour longer. Mr. ---- found the
'stocks' such an effective punishment, that it almost superseded
the whip."]
There is yet another class of testimony quite as pertinent as the
foregoing, which may at any time be gleaned from the newspapers of the
slave states--the advertisements of masters for their runaway slaves,
and casual paragraphs coldly relating cruelties, which would disgrace a
land of Heathenism. Let the following suffice for a specimen:
* * * * *
To the Editors of the Constitutionalist.
_Aiken, S.C., Dec._ 20, 1836.
I have just returned from an inquest I held over the dead body of a
negro man, a runaway, that was shot near the South Edisto, in this
district, (Barnwell,) on Saturday morning last. He came to his death by
his own recklessness. He refused to be taken alive; and said that other
attempts to take him had been made, and he was determined that he would
not be taken. When taken he was nearly naked--had a large dirk or knife
and a heavy club. He was at first, (when those who were in pursuit of
him found it absolutely necessary,) shot at with small shot, with the
intention of merely crippling him. He was shot at several times, and at
last he was so disabled as to be compelled to surrender. He kept in the
run of a creek in a very dense swamp all the time that the neighbors
were in pursuit of him. As soon as the negro was taken, the best medical
aid was procured, but he died on the same evening. One of the witnesses
at the inquisition stated that the negro boy said that he was from
Mississippi, and belonged to so many persons he did not know who his
master was; but again he said his master's name was _Brown_. He said his
own name was Sam; and when asked by another witness who his master was,
he muttered something like Augusta or Augustine. The boy was apparently
above 35 or 40 years of age--about six feet high--slightly yellow in the
face--very long beard or whiskers--and very stout built, and a stern
countenance; and appeared to have been run away a long time.
WILLIAM H. PRITCHARD,
_Coroner, (ex officio,) Barnwell Dist., S.C._
The Mississippi and other papers will please copy the above.--_Georgia
Constitutionalist_.
* * * * *
$100 REWARD.--Ran away from the subscriber, living on Herring Bay, Ann
Arundel county, Md., on Saturday, 28th January, negro man Elijah, who
calls himself Elijah Cook, is about 21 years of age, well made, of a
very dark complexion has an impediment in his speech, and _a scar on his
left cheek bone, apparently occasioned by a shot_.
J. SCRIVENER. Annapolis (Md.) Rep., Feb., 1837.
* * * * *
$40 REWARD.--Ran away from my residence near Mobile, two negro men,
Isaac and Tim. Isaac is from 25 to 30 years old, dark complexion, scar
on the right side of the head, and also one on the right side of the
body, occasioned by BUCK SHOT. Tim is 22 years old, dark complexion,
scar on the right cheek, as also another on the back of the neck.
Captains and owners of steamboats, vessels, and water crafts of every
description, are cautioned against taking them on board under the
penalty of the law; and all other persons against harboring or in any
manner favoring the escape of said negroes under like penalty.
_Mobile, Sept_. 1. SARAH WALSH. Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, Sept. 29,
1837.
* * * * *
$200 REWARD.--Ran away from the subscriber, about three years ago, a
certain negro man named Ben, (commonly known by the name of Ben Fox.) He
is about five feet five or six inches high, chunky made, yellow
complexion, and has but one eye. Also, one other negro, by the name of
Rigdon, who ran away on the 8th of this month. He is stout made, tall,
and very black, with large lips.
I will give the reward of one hundred dollars for each of the above
negroes, to be delivered to me or confined in the jail of Lenoir or
Jones county, or _for the killing of them so that I can see them_.
Masters of vessels and all others are cautioned against harboring,
employing, or carrying them away, under the penalty of the law.
W.D. COBB. _Lenoir county, N.C., Nov_. 12, 1836.
* * * * *
"A negro who had absconded from his master, and for who a reward was
offered of $100, has been apprehended and committed to prison in
Savannah, Georgia. The Editor who states the fact, adds, with as much
coolness as though there was no barbarity in the matter, that he did not
surrender until he was considerably _maimed by the dogs_[A] that had
been set on him,--desperately fighting them, one of which he cut badly
with a sword."
_New-York Commercial Advertiser, June_, 8, 1827.
[Footnote A: In regard to the use of bloodhounds, for the recapture of
runaway slaves, we insert the following from the New-York Evangelist,
being an extract of a letter from Natchez (Miss.) under date of January
31, 1835: "An instance was related to me in Claiborne County, in
Mississippi. A runaway was heard about the house in the night. The hound
was put upon his track, and in the morning was found watching the dead
body of the negro. The dogs are trained to this service when young. A
negro is directed to go into the woods and secure himself upon a tree.
When sufficient time has elapsed for doing this, the hound is put upon
his track. The blacks are compelled to worry them until they make them
their implacable enemies: and it is common to meet with dogs which will
take no notice of whites, though entire strangers, but will suffer no
blacks beside the house servants to enter the yard."]
* * * * *
From the foregoing evidence on the part of slaveholders themselves, we
gather the following facts:
1. That perfect obedience is required of the slave--that he is made to
feel that there is no appeal from his master.
2. That the authority of the master is only maintained by fear--a
"_reign of terror_."
3. That "the economy of slavery is to _get all you can_ from the slave,
and give him in return as little as will barely support him in a working
condition."
4. That runaway slaves may be shot down with impunity by any white
person.
5. That masters offer rewards for "_killing_" their slaves, "_so that
they may see them_!"
6. That slaves are branded with hot irons, and very much scarred with
the whip.
7. That _iron collars_, with projecting prongs, rendering it almost
impossible for the wearer to lie down, are fastened upon the _necks
of women_.
8. That the LASH is the MAIN SUPPORT of the slaveholder's authority:
but, that the _stocks_ are "a powerful auxiliary" to his government.
9. That runaway slaves are chased with dogs--men hunted like beasts of
prey.
Such is American Slavery in practice.
The testimony thus far adduced is only that of the slaveholder and
wrong-doer himself: the admission of men who have a direct interest in
keeping out of sight the horrors of their system. It is besides no
voluntary admission. Having "framed iniquity by law," it is out of their
power to hide it. For the recovery of their runaway property, they are
compelled to advertise in the public journals, and that it may be
identified, they are under the necessity of describing the marks of the
whip on the backs of women, the iron collars about the neck--the
gun-shot wounds, and the traces of the branding-iron. Such testimony
must, in the nature of things, be partial and incomplete. But for a full
revelation of the secrets of the prison-house, we must look to the slave
himself. The Inquisitors of Goa and Madrid never disclosed the peculiar
atrocities of their "hall of horrors." It was the escaping heretic, with
his swollen and disjointed limbs, and bearing about him the scars of
rack and fire, who exposed them to the gaze and abhorrence of
Christendom.
The following pages contain the simple and unvarnished story of an
AMERICAN SLAVE,--of one, whose situation, in the first place, as a
favorite servant in an aristocratic family in Virginia; and afterwards
as the sole and confidential driver on a large plantation in Alabama,
afforded him rare and peculiar advantages for accurate observation of
the practical workings of the system. His intelligence, evident candor,
and grateful remembrance of those kindnesses, which in a land of
Slavery, made his cup of suffering less bitter; the perfect accordance
of his statements, (made at different times, and to different
individuals),[B] one with another, as well as those statements
themselves, all afford strong confirmation of the truth and accuracy of
his story. There seems to have been no effort, on his part to make his
picture of Slavery one of entire darkness--he details every thing of a
mitigating character which fell under his observation; and even the
cruel deception of his master has not rendered him unmindful of his
early kindness.
[Footnote B: The reader is referred to JOHN G. WHITTIER, of
Philadelphia, or to the following gentlemen, who have heard the whole,
or a part of his story, from his own lips: Emmor Kimber, of Kimberton,
Pa., Lindley Coates, of Lancaster Co., do.; James Mott, of Philadelphia,
Lewis Tappan, Elizur Wright Jun., Rev. Dr. Follen, and James G. Birney,
of New York. The latter gentleman, who was a few years ago, a citizen of
Alabama, assures us that the statements made to him by James Williams,
were such as he had every reason to believe, from his own knowledge of
slavery in that State.]
The editor is fully aware that he has not been able to present this
affecting narrative in the simplicity and vivid freshness with which it
fell from the lips of the narrator. He has, however, as closely as
possible, copied his manner, and in many instances his precise language.
THE SLAVE HAS SPOKEN FOR HIMSELF. Acting merely as his amanuensis, he
has carefully abstained from comments of his own.[A]
[Footnote A: As the narrator was unable to read or write, it is quite
possible that the orthography of some of the names of individuals
mentioned in his story may not be entirely correct. For instance, the
name of his master may have been either Larrimer, or Larrrimore.]
The picture here presented to the people of the free states, is, in many
respects, a novel one. We all know something of Virginia and Kentucky
Slavery. We have heard of the internal slave trade--the pangs of
separation--the slave ship with its "cargo of despair" bound for the
New-Orleans market--the weary journey of the chained Coffle to the
cotton country. But here, in a great measure, we have lost sight of the
victims of avarice and lust. We have not studied the dreadful economy of
the cotton plantation, and know but little of the secrets of its
unlimited despotism.
But in this narrative the scenes of the plantation rise before us, with
a distinctness which approaches reality. We hear the sound of the horn
at daybreak, calling the sick and the weary to toil unrequited. Woman,
in her appealing delicacy and suffering, about to become a mother, is
fainting under the lash, or sinking exhausted beside her cotton row. We
hear the prayer for mercy answered with sneers and curses. We look on
the instruments of torture, and the corpses of murdered men. We see the
dogs, reeking hot from the chase, with their jaws foul with human blood.
We see the meek and aged Christian scarred with the lash, and bowed down
with toil, offering the supplication of a broken heart to his Father in
Heaven, for the forgiveness of his brutal enemy. We hear, and from our
inmost hearts repeat the affecting interrogatory of the aged slave,
_"How long, Oh Lord! how long!"_
The editor has written out the details of this painful narrative with
feelings of sorrow. If there be any who feel a morbid satisfaction in
dwelling upon the history of outrage and cruelty, he at least is not one
of them. His taste and habits incline him rather to look to the pure and
beautiful in our nature--the sunniest side of humanity--its kindly
sympathies--its holy affections--its charities and its love. But, it is
because he has seen that all which is thus beautiful and excellent in
mind and heart, perishes in the atmosphere of slavery: it is because
humanity in the slave sinks down to a level with the brute and in the
master gives place to the attributes of a fiend--that he has not felt at
liberty to decline the task. He cannot sympathize with that abstract and
delicate philanthropy, which hesitates to bring itself in contact with
the sufferer, and which shrinks from the effort of searching out the
extent of his afflictions. The emblem of Practical Philanthropy is the
Samaritan stooping over the wounded Jew. It must be no fastidious hand
which administers the oil and the wine, and binds up the
unsightly gashes.
Believing, as he does, that this narrative is one of truth; that it
presents an unexaggerated picture of Slavery as it exists on the cotton
plantations of the South and West, he would particularly invite to its
perusal, those individuals, and especially those professing Christians
at the North, who have ventured to claim for such a system, the sanction
and approval of the Religion of Jesus Christ. In view of the facts here
presented, let these men seriously inquire of themselves, whether in
advancing such a claim, they are not uttering a higher and more
audacious blasphemy than any which ever fell from the pens of Voltaire
and Paine. As if to cover them with confusion, and leave them utterly
without excuse for thus libelling the character of a just God, these
developments are making, and the veil rising, which for long years of
sinful apathy has rested upon the abominations of American Slavery.
Light is breaking into it's dungeons, disclosing the wreck of buried
intellect--of hearts broken--of human affections outraged--of souls
ruined. The world will see it as God has always seen it; and when He
shall at length make inquisition for blood, and His vengeance kindle
over the habitations of cruelty, with a destruction more terrible than
that of Sodom and Gomorrah, His righteous dealing will be justified of
man, and His name glorified among the nations, and there will be a voice
of rejoicing in Earth and in Heaven. ALLELUIA!--THE PROMISE IS
FULFILLED!--FOR THE SIGHING OF THE POOR AND THE OPPRESSION OF THE NEEDY,
GOD HATH RISEN!
It is the earnest desire of the Editor, that this narrative may be the
means, under God, of awakening in the hearts of all who read it, a
sympathy for the oppressed which shall manifest itself in immediate,
active, self-sacrificing exertion for their deliverance; and, while it
excites abhorrence of his crimes, call forth pity for the oppressor. May
it have the effect to prevent the avowed and associated friends of the
slave, from giving such an undue importance to their own trials and
grievances, as to forget in a great measure the sorrows of the slave.
Let its cry of wo, coming up from the plantations of the South, suppress
every feeling of selfishness in our hearts. Let our regret and
indignation at the denial of the right of petition, be felt only because
we are thereby prevented from pleading in the Halls of Congress for the
"suffering and the dumb." And let the fact, that we are shut out from
half the territory of our country, be lamented only because it prevents
us from bearing personally to the land of Slavery, the messages of hope
for the slave, and of rebuke and warning for the oppressor.
_New-York, 24th 1st mo._, 1838.
* * * * *
NARRATIVE
I was born in Powhatan County, Virginia, on the plantation of George
Larrimore. Sen., at a place called Mount Pleasant, on the 16th of May
1805. May father was the slave of an orphan family whose name I have
forgotten, and was under the care of a Mr. Brooks, guardian of the
family. He was a native of Africa, and was brought over when a mere
child, with his mother. My mother was the slave of George Larrimore,
Sen. She was nearly white, and is well known to have been the daughter
of Mr. Larrimore himself. She died when myself and my twin brother
Meshech were five years of age--I can scarcely remember her. She had in
all eight children, of whom only five are now living. One, a brother,
belongs to the heirs of the late Mr. Brockenbrough of Charlottesville;
of whom he hires his time, and pays annually $120 for it. He is a member
of the Baptist church, and used to preach occasionally. His wife is a
free woman from Philadelphia, and being able to read and write, taught
her husband. The whites do not know that he can write, and have often
wondered that he could preach so well without learning. It is the
practice when a church is crowded, to turn the blacks out of their
seats. My brother did not like this, and on one occasion preached a
sermon from a text, showing that all are of one blood. Some of the
whites who heard it, said that such preaching would raise an
insurrection among the negroes. Two of them told him that if he would
prove his doctrine by Scripture, they would let him go, but if he did
not, he should have nine and thirty lashes. He accordingly preached
another sermon and spoke with a great deal of boldness. The two men who
were in favor of having him whipped, left before the sermon was over;
those who remained, acknowledged that he had proved his doctrine, and
preached a good sermon, and many of them came up and shook hands with
him. The two opposers, Scott and Brockley, forbid my brother, after
this, to come upon their estates. They were both Baptists, and my
brother had before preached to their people. During the cholera at
Richmond, my brother preached a sermon, in which he compared the
pestilence to the plagues, which afflicted the Egyptian slaveholders,
because they would not let the people go. After the sermon some of the
whites threatened to whip him. Mr. Valentine, a merchant on Shocko Hill
prevented them; and a young lawyer named Brooks said it was wrong to
threaten a man for preaching the truth. Since the insurrection of Nat.
Turner he has not been allowed to preach much.
My twin brother was for some time the property of Mr. John Griggs, of
Richmond, who sold him about three years since, to an Alabama Cotton
Planter, with whom he staid one year, and then ran away and in all
probability escaped into the free states or Canada, as he was seen near
the Maryland line. My other brother lives in Fredericksburg, and belongs
to a Mr. Scott, a merchant formerly of Richmond. He was sold from Mr.
Larrimore's plantation because his wife was a slave of Mr. Scott. My
only sister is the slave of John Smith, of King William. Her husband was
the slave of Mr. Smith, when the latter lived in Powhatan county, and
when he removed to King William, she was taken with her husband.
My old master, George Larrimore, married Jane Roane, the sister of a
gentleman named John Roane, one of the most distinguished men in
Virginia, who in turn married a sister of my master. One of his sisters
married a Judge Scott, and another married Mr. Brockenbrough of
Charlottesville. Mr. Larrimore had three children; George, Jane, and
Elizabeth. The former was just ten days older than myself; and I was his
playmate and constant associate in childhood. I used to go with him to
his school, and carry his books for him as far as the door, and meet him
there when the school was dismissed. We were very fond of each other,
and frequently slept together. He taught me the letters of the alphabet,
and I should soon have acquired a knowledge of reading, had not George's
mother discovered her son in the act of teaching me. She took him aside
and severely reprimanded him. When I asked him, not long after, to tell
me more of what he had learned at school, he said that his mother had
forbidden him to do so any more, as her father had a slave, who was
instructed in reading and writing, and on that account proved very
troublesome. He could, they said, imitate the hand-writing of the
neighboring planters, and used to write passes and certificates of
freedom for the slaves, and finally wrote one for himself, and went off
to Philadelphia, from whence her father received from him a saucy
letter, thanking him for his education.
The early years of my life went by pleasantly. The bitterness of my lot
I had not yet realized. Comfortably clothed and fed, kindly treated by
my old master and mistress and the young ladies, and the playmate and
confidant of my young master, I did not dream of the dark reality of
evil before me.
When he was fourteen years of age, master George went to his uncle
Brockenbrough's at Charlottesville, as a student of the University.
After his return from College, he went to Paris and other parts of
Europe, and spent three or four years in study and travelling. In the
mean time I was a waiter in the house, dining-room servant, &c. My old
master visited and received visits from a great number of the principal
families in Virginia. Each summer, with his family, he visited the
Sulphur Springs and the mountains. While George was absent, I went with
him to New-Orleans, in the winter season, on account of his failing
health. We spent three days in Charleston, at Mr. McDuffie's, with whom
my master was on intimate terms. Mr. McDuffie spent several days on one
occasion at Mt. Pleasant. He took a fancy to me, and offered my master
the servant whom he brought with him and $500 beside, for me. My master
considered it almost an insult, and said after he was gone, that Mr.
McDuffie needed money to say the least, as much as he did.
He had a fine house in Richmond, and used to spend his winters there
with his family, taking me with him. He was not there much at other
times, except when the Convention of 1829 for amending the State
Constitution, was held in that city. He had a quarrel with Mr. Neal of
Richmond Co., in consequence of some remarks upon the subject of
Slavery. It came near terminating in a duel. I recollect that during the
sitting of the Convention, my master asked me before several other
gentlemen, if I wished to be free and go back to my own country. I
looked at him with surprise, and inquired what country?
"Africa, to be sure," said he, laughing.
I told him that was not my country--that I was born in Virginia.
"Oh yes," said he, "but your father was born in Africa." He then said
that there was a place on the African coast called Liberia where a great
many free blacks were going; and asked me to tell him honestly, whether
I would prefer to be set free on condition of going to Africa, or live
with him and remain a slave. I replied that I had rather be as I was.
I have frequently heard him speak against slavery to his visitors. I
heard him say on one occasion, when some gentlemen were arguing in favor
of sending the free colored people to Africa, that this was as really
the black man's country as the white's, and that it would be as humane
to knock the free negroes, at once, on the head, as to send them to
Liberia. He was a kind man to his slaves. He was proud of them, and of
the reputation he enjoyed of feeding and clothing them well. They were
as near as I can judge about 300 in number. He never to my knowledge
sold a slave, unless to go with a wife or husband, and at the slave's
own request. But all except the very wealthiest planters in his
neighborhood sold them frequently. John Smoot of Powhatan Co. has sold a
great number. Bacon Tait[A] used to be one of the principal purchasers.
He had a jail at Richmond where he kept them. There were many others who
made a business of buying and selling slaves. I saw on one occasion
while travelling with my master, a gang of nearly two hundred men
fastened with chains. The women followed unchained and the children in
wagons. It was a sorrowful sight. Some were praying, some crying, and
they all had a look of extreme wretchedness. It is an awful thing to a
Virginia slave to be sold for the Alabama and Mississippi country. I
have known some of them to die of grief, and others to commit suicide,
on account of it.
[Footnote A: Bacon Tait's advertisement of "new and commodious
buildings" for the keeping of negroes, situated at the corner of 15th
and Carey streets, appears in the Richmond Whig of Sept. 1896.--EDITOR.]
In my seventeenth year, I was married to a girl named Harriet, belonging
to John Gatewood, a planter living about four miles from Mr. Pleasant.
She was about a year younger than myself--was a tailoress, and used to
cut out clothes for the hands.
We were married by a white clergyman named Jones; and were allowed to or
three weeks to ourselves, which we spent in visiting and other
amusements.
The field hands are seldom married by a clergyman. They simply invite
their friends together, and have a wedding party.
Our two eldest children died in their infancy: two are now living. The
youngest was only two months old when I saw him for the last time. I
used to visit my wife on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
My young master came back from Europe in delicate health. He was advised
by his physicians to spend the winter in New-Orleans, whither he
accordingly went, taking me with him. Here he became acquainted with a
French lady of one of the first families in the city. The next winter he
also spent in New-Orleans, and on his third visit, three years after his
return from Europe, he was married to the lady above mentioned. In May
he returned to Mt. Pleasant, and found the elder Larrimore on his sick
bed, from which he never rose again. He died on the 14th of July. There
was a great and splendid funeral, as his relatives and friends
were numerous.
His large property was left principally in the hands of his widow until
her decease, after which it was to be divided among the three children.
In February Mrs. Larrimore also died. The administrators upon the estate
were John Green, Esq., and Benjamin Temple. My young master came back
from Europe in delicate health. He way advised by his physicians to
spend the winter in New-Orleans, whither he accordingly went, taking me
with him. Here he became acquainted with a French lady of one of the
first families in the city. The next winter he also spent in
New-Orleans, and on his third visit, three years after his return from
Europe, he was married to the lady above mentioned. In May he returned
to Mt. Pleasant, and found the elder Larrimore on his sick bed, from
which he never rose again. He died on the 14th of July. There was a
great and splendid funeral, as his relatives and friends were numerous.
His large property was left principally in the hands of his widow until
her decease, after which it was to be divided among the three children.
In February Mrs. Larrimore also died. The administrators upon the estate
were John Green, Esq., and Benjamin Temple.
My young mistresses, Jane and Elizabeth, were very kind to the servants.
They seemed to feel under obligations to afford them every comfort and
gratification, consistent with the dreadful relation of ownership which
they sustained towards them. Whipping was scarcely known on the estate;
and, whenever it did take place, it was invariably against the wishes of
the young ladies.
But the wife of master George was of a disposition entirely the reverse.
Feeble, languid, and inert, sitting motionless for hours at her window,
or moving her small fingers over the strings of her guitar, to some soft
and languishing air, she would have seemed to a stranger incapable of
rousing herself from that indolent repose, in which mind as well as body
participated. But, the slightest disregard of her commands--and
sometimes even the neglect to anticipate her wishes, on the part of the
servants; was sufficient to awake her. The inanimate and delicate beauty
then changed into a stormy virago. Her black eyes flawed and sparkled
with a snaky fierceness, her full lips compressed, and her brows bent
and darkened. Her very voice, soft and sweet when speaking to her
husband, and exquisitely fine and melodious, when accompanying her
guitar, was at such times, shrill, keen, and loud. She would order the
servants of my young mistresses upon her errands, and if they pleaded
their prior duty to obey the calls of another, would demand that they
should be forthwith whipped for their insolence. If the young ladies
remonstrated with her, she met them with a perfect torrent of invective
and abuse. In these paroxysms of fury she always spoke in French, with a
vehemence and volubility, which strongly contrasted with the calmness
and firmness of the young ladies. She would boast of what she had done
in New-Orleans, and of the excellent discipline of her father's slaves.
She said she had gone down in the night to the cell under her father's
house, and whipped the slaves confined there with her own hands. I had
heard the same thing from her father's servants at New-Orleans, when I
was there with my master. She brought with her from New-Orleans a girl
named Frances. I have seen her take her by the ear, lead her up to the
side of the room, and beat her head against it. At other times she would
snatch off her slipper and strike the girl on her face and head with it.
She seldom manifested her evil temper before master George. When she
did, he was greatly troubled, and he used to speak to his sisters about
it. Her manner towards him was almost invariably that of extreme
fondness. She was dark complexioned, but very beautiful; and the smile
of welcome with which she used to meet him was peculiarly fascinating. I
did not marvel that _he_ loved her; while at the same time, in common
with all the house servants, I regarded her as a being possessed with an
evil spirit,--half woman, and half fiend.
Soon after the settlement of the estate, I heard my master speak of
going out to Alabama. His wife had 1500 acres of wild land in Greene
County in that State: and he had been negociating for 500 more. Early in
the summer of 1833, he commenced making preparations for removing to
that place a sufficient number of hands to cultivate it. He took great
pains to buy up the wives and husbands of those of his own slaves who
had married out of the estate, in order, as he said, that his hands
might be contented in Alabama, and not need chaining together while on
their journey. It is always found necessary by the regular
slave-traders, in travelling with their slaves to the far South, to
handcuff and chain their wretched victims, who have been bought up as
the interest of the trader, and the luxury or necessities of the planter
may chance to require, without regard to the ties sundered or the
affections made desolate, by these infernal bargains. About the 1st of
September, after the slaves destined for Alabama had taken a final
farewell of their old home, and of the friends they were leaving behind,
our party started on their long journey. There were in all 214 slaves,
men, women and children. The men and women travelled on foot--the small
children in the wagons, containing the baggage, &c. Previous to my
departure, I visited my wife and children at Mr. Gatewood's. I took
leave of them with the belief that I should return with my master, as
soon as he had seen his hands established on his new plantation. I took
my children in my arms and embraced them; my wife, who was a member of
the Methodist church, implored the blessing of God upon me, during my
absence, and I turned away to follow my master.
Our journey was a long and tedious one, especially to those who were
compelled to walk the whole distance. My master rode in a sulky, and I,
as his body servant, on horseback: When we crossed over the Roanoke, and
were entering upon North Carolina, I remember with what sorrowful
countenances and language the poor slaves looked back for the last time
upon the land of their nativity. It was their last farewell to Old
Virginia. We passed through Georgia, and crossing the Chattahoochee,
entered Alabama. Our way for many days was through a sandy tract of
country, covered with pine woods, with here and there the plantation of
an Indian or a half-breed. After crossing what is called Line Creek, we
found large plantations along the road, at intervals of four or five
miles. The aspect of the whole country was wild and forbidding, save to
the eye of a cotton-planter. The clearings were all new, and the houses
rudely constructed of logs. The cotton fields, were skirted with an
enormous growth of oak, pine, and other wood. Charred stumps stood
thickly in the clearings, with here and there a large tree girdled by
the axe and left to decay. We reached at last the place of our
destination. It was a fine tract of land with a deep rich soil. We
halted on a small knoll, where the tents were pitched, and the wagons
unladen. I spent the night with my master at a neighboring plantation,
which was under the care of an overseer named Flincher.
The next morning my master received a visit from a man named Huckstep,
who had undertaken the management of his plantation as an overseer. He
had been an overseer on cotton plantations many years in Georgia and
North Carolina. He was apparently about forty years of age, with a
sunburnt and sallow countenance. His thick shock of black hair was
marked in several places with streaks of white, occasioned as he
afterwards told me by blows received from slaves whom he was chastising.
After remaining in the vicinity for about a week, my master took me
aside one morning--told me he was going to Selma in Dallas County, and
wished me to be in readiness on his return the next day, to start for
Virginia. This was to me cheering news. I spent that day and the next
among my old fellow servants who had lived with me in Virginia. Some of
them had messages to send by me to their friends and acquaintances. In
the afternoon of the second day after my master's departure, I
distributed, among them all the money which I had about me, viz.,
fifteen dollars. I noticed that the overseer Huckstep laughed at this
and called me a fool: and that whenever I spoke of going home with my
master, his countenance indicated something between a smile and a sneer.
Night came; but contrary to his promise, my master did not come. I still
however expected him the next day. But another night came, and he had
not returned. I grew uneasy, and inquired of Huckstep where be thought
my master was.
"On his way to Old Virginia," said he, with a malicious laugh.
"But," said I. "Master George told me that he should come back and take
me with him to Virginia."
"Well, boy," said the overseer, "I'll now tell ye what master George, as
you call him, told me. You are to stay here and act as driver of the
field hands. That was the order. So you may as well submit to it
at once."
I stood silent and horror-struck. Could it be that the man whom I had
served faithfully from our mutual boyhood, whose slightest wish had been
my law, to serve whom I would have laid down my life, while I had
confidence in his integrity--could it be that he had so cruelly and
wickedly deceived me? I looked at the overseer. He stood laughing at me
in my agony.
"Master George gave you no such orders," I exclaimed, maddened by the
overseer's look and manner.
The overseer looked at me with a fiendish grin. "None of your
insolence," said he, with a dreadful oath. "I never saw a Virginia
nigger that I couldn't manage, proud as they are. Your master has left
you in my hands, and you must obey my orders. If you don't, why I shall
have to make you '_hug the widow there_,'" pointing to a tree, to which I
afterwards found the slaves were tied when they were whipped.
That night was one of sleepless agony. Virginia--the hills and the
streams of my birth-place; the kind and hospitable home; the
gentle-hearted sisters, sweetening with their sympathy the sorrows of
the slave--my wife--my children--all that had thus far made up my
happiness, rose in contrast with my present condition. Deeply as he has
wronged me, may my master himself never endure such a night of misery!
At daybreak, Huckstep told me to dress myself, and attend to his
directions. I rose, subdued and wretched, and at his orders handed the
horn to the headmen of the gang, who summoned the hands to the field.
They were employed in clearing land for cultivation, cutting trees and
burning. I was with them through the day, and at night returned once
more to my lodgings to be laughed at by the overseer. He told me that I
should do well, he did not doubt, by and by, but that a Virginia driver
generally had to be whipped a few times himself before he could be
taught to do justice to the slaves under his charge. They were not equal
to those raised in North Carolina, for keeping the lazy hell-hounds, as
he called the slaves, at work.
And this was my condition!--a driver set over more than one hundred and
sixty of my kindred and friends, wish orders to apply the whip
unsparingly to every one, whether man or woman, who faltered in the
task, or was careless in the execution of it, myself subject at any
moment to feel the accursed lash upon my own back, if feelings of
humanity should perchance overcome the selfishness of misery, and induce
me to spare and pity.
I lived in the same house with Huckstep,--a large log house, roughly
finished; where we were waited upon by an old woman, whom we used to
call aunt Polly. Huckstep was, I soon found, inordinately fond of peach
brandy; and once or twice in the course of a month he had a drunken
debauch, which usually lasted from two to four days. He was then full of
talk, laughed immoderately at his own nonsense and would keep me up
until late at night listening to him. He was at these periods terribly
severe to his hands, and would order me to use up the cracker of my whip
every day upon the poor creatures, who were toiling in the field, and in
order to satisfy him, I used to tear it off when returning home at
night. He would then praise me for a good fellow, and invite me to
drink with him.
He used to tell me at such times, that if I would only drink as he did,
I should be worth a thousand dollars more for it. He would sit hours
with his peach brandy, cursing and swearing, laughing and telling
stories full of obscenity and blasphemy. He would sometimes start up,
take my whip, and rush out to the slave quarters, flourish it about and
frighten the inmates and often cruelly beat them. He would order the
women to pull up their clothes, in Alabama style, as he called it, and
then whip them for not complying. He would then come back roaring and
shouting to the house, and tell me what he had done; if I did not laugh
with him, he would get angry and demand what the matter was. Oh! how
often I have laughed, at such times, when my heart ached within me; and
how often, when permitted to retire to my bed, have I found relief
in tears!
He had no wife, but kept a colored mistress in a house situated on a
gore of land between the plantation and that of Mr. Goldsby. He brought
her with him from North Carolina, and had three children by her.
Sometimes in his fits of intoxication, he would come riding into the
field, swinging his whip, and crying out to the hands to strip off their
shirts, and be ready to take a whipping: and this too when they were all
busily at work. At another time, he would gather the hands around him
and fall to cursing and swearing about the neighboring overseers. They
were, he said, cruel to their hands, whipped them unmercifully, and in
addition starved them. As for himself, he was the kindest and best
fellow within forty miles; and the hands ought to be thankful that they
had such a good man for their overseer.
He would frequently be very familiar with me, and call me his child; he
would tell me that our people were going to get Texas, a fine cotton
country, and that he meant to go out there and have a plantation of his
own, and I should go with him and be his overseer.
The houses in the "_negro quarters_" were constructed of logs, and from
twelve to fifteen feet square; they had no glass, but there were holes
to let in the light and air. The furniture consisted of a table, a few
stools, and dishes made of wood, and an iron pot, and some other cooking
utensils. The houses were placed about three or four rods apart, with a
piece of ground attached to each of them for a garden, where the
occupant could raise a few vegetables. The "quarters" were about three
hundred yards from the dwelling of the overseer.
The hands were occupied in clearing land and burning brush, and in
constructing their houses, through the winter. In March we commenced
ploughing: and on the first of April began planting seed for cotton. The
hoeing season commenced about the last of May. At the earliest dawn of
day, and frequently before that time, the laborers were roused from
their sleep by the blowing of the horn. It was blown by the headman of
the gang who led the rest in the work and acted under my direction, as
my assistant.
Previous to the blowing of the horn the hands generally rose and eat
what was called the "morning's bit," consisting of ham and bread. If
exhaustion and fatigue prevented their rising before the dreaded sound
of the horn broke upon their slumbers, they had no time to snatch a
mouthful, but were harried out at once.
It was my business to give over to each of the hands his or her
appropriate implement of labor, from the toolhouse where they were
deposited at night. After all had been supplied, they were taken to the
field, and set at work as soon as it was sufficiently light to
distinguish the plants from the grass and weeds. I was employed in
passing from row to row, in order to see that the work was well done,
and to urge forward the laborers. At 12 o'clock, the horn was blown from
the overseer's house, calling the hands to dinner, each to his own
cabin. The intermission of labor was one hour and a half to hoers and
pickers, and two hours to the ploughmen. At the expiration of this
interval, the horn again summoned them to thus labor. They were kept in
the field until dark, when they were called home to supper.
There was little leisure for any of the hands on the plantation. In the
evenings, after it was too dark for work in the field, the men were
frequently employed in burning brush and in other labors until late at
night. The women after toiling in the field by day, were compelled to
card, spin, and weave cotton for their clothing, in the evening. Even on
Sundays there was little or no respite from toil. Those who had not been
able to work out all their tasks during the week were allowed by the
overseer to finish it on the Sabbath, and thus save themselves from a
whipping on Monday morning. Those whose tasks were finished frequently
employed most of that day in cultivating their gardens.
Many of the female hands were delicate young women, who in Virginia had
never been accustomed to field labor. They suffered greatly from the
extreme heat and the severity of the toil. Oh! how often have I seen
them dragging their weary limbs from the cotton field at nightfall,
faint and exhausted. The overseer used to laugh at their sufferings.
They were, he said, Virginia ladies, and altogether too delicate for
Alabama use: but they must be made to do their tasks notwithstanding.
The recollection of these things even now is dreadful. I used to tell
the poor creatures, when compelled by the overseer to urge them forward
with the whip, that I would much rather take their places, and endure
the stripes than inflict them.
When but three months old, the children born on the estate were given up
to the care of the old women who were not able to work out of doors.
Their mothers were kept at work in the field.
It was the object of the overseer to separate me in feeling and interest
as widely as possible from my suffering brethren and sisters. I had
relations among the field hands, and used to call them my cousins. He
forbid my doing so; and told me if I acknowledged relationship with any
of the hands I should be flogged for it. He used to speak of them as
devils and hell-hounds, and ridicule them in every possible way; and
endeavoured to make me speak of them and regard them in the same manner.
He would tell long stories about hunting and shooting "runaway niggers,"
and detail with great apparent satisfaction the cruel and horrid
punishments which he had inflicted. One thing he said troubled him. He
had once whipped a slave so severely that he died in consequence of it,
and it was soon after ascertained that he was wholly innocent of the
offence charged against him. That slave, he said, had haunted him
ever since.
Soon after we commenced weeding our cotton, some of the hands who were
threatened with a whipping for not finishing their tasks, ran away. The
overseer and myself went out after them, taking with us five
bloodhounds, which were kept on the Estate for the sole purpose of
catching runaways. There were no other hounds in the vicinity, and the
overseers of the neighboring plantations used to borrow them to hunt
their runaways. A Mr. Crop, who lived about ten miles distant, had two
packs, and made it his sole business to catch slaves with them. We used
to set the dogs upon the track of the fugitives, and they would follow
them until, to save themselves from being torn in pieces, they would
climb into a tree, where the dogs kept them until we came up and
secured them.
These hounds, when young, are taught to run after the negro boys; and
being always kept confined except when let out in pursuit of runaways,
they seldom fail of overtaking the fugitive, and seem to enjoy the sport
of hunting men as much as other dogs do that of chasing a fox or a deer.
My master gave a large sum for his five dogs,--a slut and her
four puppies.
While going over our cotton picking for the last time, one of our hands
named Little John, ran away. The next evening the dogs were started on
his track. We followed them awhile, until we knew by their ceasing to
bark that they had found him. We soon met the dogs returning. Their
jaws, heads, and feet, were bloody. The overseer looked at them and
said, "he was afraid the dogs had killed the nigger." It being dark, we
could not find him that night. Early the next morning, we started off
with our neighbors, Sturtivant and Flincher; and after searching about
for some time, we found the body of Little John lying in the midst of a
thicket of cane. It was nearly naked, and dreadfully mangled and gashed
by the teeth of the dogs. They had evidently dragged it some yards
through the thicket: blood, tatters of clothes, and even the entrails of
the unfortunate man, were clinging to the stubs of the old and broken
cane. Huckstep stooped over his saddle, looked at the body, and muttered
an oath. Sturtivant swore it was no more than the fellow deserved. We
dug a hole in the cane-brake, where he lay, buried him, and
returned home.
The murdered young man had a mother and two sisters on the plantation,
by whom he was dearly loved. When I told the old woman of what had
befallen her son, she only said that it was better for poor John than to
live in slavery.
Late in the fall of this year, a young man, who had already run away
several times, was missing from his task. It was four days before we
found him. The dogs drove him at last up a tree, where he was caught,
and brought home. He was then fastened down to the ground by means of
forked sticks of wood selected for the purpose, the longest fork being
driven into the ground until the other closed down upon the neck,
ancles, and wrists. The overseer then sent for two large cats belonging
to the house. These he placed upon the naked shoulders of his victim,
and dragged them suddenly by their tails downward. At first they did not
scratch deeply. He then ordered me to strike them with a small stick
after he had placed them once more upon the back of the sufferer. I did
so; and the enraged animals extended their claws, and tore his back
deeply and cruelly as they were dragged along it. He was then whipped
and placed in the stocks, where he was kept for three days. On the third
morning as I passed the stocks, I stopped to look at him. His head hung
down over the chain which supported his neck. I spoke, but he did not
answer. _He was dead in the stocks_! The overseer on seeing him seemed
surprised, and, I thought, manifested some remorse. Four of the field
hands took him out of the stocks and buried him: and every thing went
on as usual.
It is not in my power to give a narrative of the daily occurrences on
the plantation. The history of one day was that of all. The gloomy
monotony of our slavery, was only broken by the overseer's periodical
fits of drunkenness, at which times neither life nor limb on the estate
were secure from his caprice or violence.
In the spring of 1835, the overseer brought me a letter from my wife,
written for her by her young mistress, Mr. Gateweed's daughter. He read
it to me: it stated that herself and children were well--spoke of her
sad and heavy disappointment in consequence of my not returning with my
master; and of her having been told by him that I should come back the
next fall.
Hope for a moment lightened my heart; and I indulged the idea of once
more returning to the bosom of my family. But I recollected that my
master had already cruelly deceived me; and despair again took hold
on me.
Among our hands was one whom we used to call Big Harry. He was a stout,
athletic man--very intelligent, and an excellent workman; but he was of
a high and proud spirit, which the weary and crushing weight of a life
of slavery had not been able to subdue. On almost every plantation at
the South you may find one or more individuals, whose look and air show
that they have preserved their self-respect as _men_;--that with them
the power of the tyrant ends with the coercion of the body--that the
soul is free, and the inner man retaining the original uprightness of
the image of God. You may know them by the stern sobriety of their
countenances, and the contempt with which they regard the jests and
pastimes of their miserable and degraded companions, who, like Samson,
make sport for the keepers of their prison-house. These men are always
feared as well as hated by their task-masters. Harry had never been
whipped, and had always said that he would die rather than submit to it.
He made no secret of his detestation of the overseer. While most of the
slaves took off their hats, with cowering submission, in his presence,
Harry always refused to do so. He never spoke to him except in a brief
answer to his questions. Master George, who knew, and dreaded the
indomitable spirit of the man, told the overseer, before he left the
plantation, to beware how he attempted to punish him. But, the habits of
tyranny in which Huckstep had so long indulged, had accustomed him to
abject submission, on the part of his subjects; and he could not endure
this upright and unbroken manliness. He used frequently to curse and
swear about him, and devise plans for punishing him on account of his
impudence as he called it.
A pretext was at last afforded him. Sometime in August of this year,
there was a large quantity of yellow unpicked cotton lying in the gin
house. Harry was employed at night in removing the cotton see, which has
been thrown out by the gin. The rest of the male hands were engaged
during the day in weeding the cotton for the last time, and in the nigh,
in burning brush on the new lands clearing for the next year's crop.
Harry was told one evening to go with the others and assist in burning
the brush. He accordingly went and the next night a double quantity of
seed had accumulated in the gin house: and although he worked until
nearly 2 o'clock in the morning, he could not remove it all.
The next morning the overseer came into the field, and demanded of me
why I had not whipped Harry for not removing all the cotton seed. He
then called aloud to Harry to come forward and be whipped. Harry
answered somewhat sternly that he would neither be struck by overseer
nor driver; that he had worked nearly all night, and had scarcely fallen
asleep when the horn blew to summon him to his toil in the field. The
overseer raved and threatened, but Harry paid no farther attention to
him. He then turned to me and asked me for my pistols, with a pair of
which he had furnished me. I told him they were not with me. He growled
an oath, threw himself on his horse and left us. In the evening I found
him half drunk and raving like a madman. He said he would no longer bear
with that nigger's insolence; but would whip him if it cost him his
life. He at length fixed upon a plan for seizing him; and told me that
he would go out in the morning, ride along by the side of Harry and talk
pleasantly to him, and then, while Harry was attending to him, I was to
steal upon him and knock him down, by a blow on the head, from the
loaded and heavy handle of my whip. I was compelled to promise to obey
his directions.
The next morning when we got to the field I told Harry of the overseer's
plan, and advised him by all means to be on his guard and watch my
motions. His eye glistened with gratitude. "Thank you James", said he,
"I'll take care that you don't touch me."
Huckstep came into the field about 10 o'clock. He rode along by the side
of Harry talking and laughing. I was walking on the other side. When I
saw that Harry's eye was upon me I aimed a blow at him intending however
to miss him. He evaded the blow and turned fiercely round with his hoe
uplifted, threatening to cut down any one who again attempted to strike
him. Huckstep cursed my awkwardness, and told Harry to put down his hoe
and came to him. He refused to do so and swore he would kill the first
man who tried to lay hands on him. The cowardly tyrant shrank away from
his enraged bondman, and for two weeks Harry was not again molested.
About the first of September, the overseer had one of his drunken fits.
He made the house literally an earthly hell. He urged me to drink,
quarrelled and swore at me for declining, and chased the old woman round
the house, with his bottle of peach brandy. He then told me that Harry
had forgotten the attempt to seize him, and that is the morning we must
try our old game over again.
On the following morning, as I was handing to each of the hands their
hoes from the tool house, I caught Harry's eye. "Look out," said I to
him. "Huckstep will be after you again to day." He uttered a deep curse
against the overseer and passed on to his work. After breakfast Huckstep
came riding out to the cotton field. He tied his horse to a tree, and
came towards us. His sallow and haggard countenance was flushed, and his
step unsteady. He came up by the side of Harry and began talking about
the crops and the weather; I came at the same time on the other side,
and in striking at him, beat off his hat. He sprang aside and stepped
backwards. Huckstep with a dreadful oath commanded him to stop, saying
that he had determined to whip him, and neither earth nor hell should
prevent him. Harry defied him: and said he had always done the work
allotted to him and that was enough: he would sooner die than have the
accursed lash touch him. The overseer staggered to his horse, mounted
him and rode furiously to the house, and soon made his appearance,
returning, with his gun in his hand.
"Yonder comes the devil!" said one of the women whose row was near
Harry's.
"Yes," said another, "He's trying to scare Harry with his gun."
"Let him try as he pleases," said Harry, in his low, deep, determined
tones, "He may shoot me, but he can't whip me."
Huckstep came swearing on: when within a few yards of Harry he stopped,
looked at him with a stare of mingled rage and drunken imbecility; and
bid him throw down his hoe and come forward. The undaunted slave refused
to comply, and continuing his work told the drunken demon to shoot if he
pleased. Huckstep advanced within a few steps of him when Harry raised
his hoe and told him to stand back. He stepped back a few paces, leveled
his gun and fired. Harry received the charge in his breast, and fell
instantly across a cotton row. He threw up his hands wildly, and
groaned, "Oh, Lord!"
The hands instantly dropped their hoes. The women shrieked aloud. For my
own part I stood silent with horror. The cries of the women enraged the
overseer, he dropped his gun, and snatching the whip from my hand, with
horrid oaths, and imprecations fell to whipping them, laying about him
like a maniac. Upon Harry's sister he bestowed his blows without mercy,
commanding her to quit her screaming and go to work. The poor girl,
whose brother had thus been murdered before her eyes, could not wrestle
down the awful agony of her feelings, and the brutal tormentor left her
without effecting his object. He then, without going to look of his
victim, told four of the hands to carry him to the house, and taking up
his gun left the field. When we got to the poor fellow, he was alive,
and groaning faintly. The hands took him up, but before they reached the
house he was dead. Huckstep came out, and looked at him, and finding him
dead, ordered the hands to bury him. The burial of a slave in Alabama is
that of a brute. No coffin--no decent shroud--no prayer. A hole is dug,
and the body (sometimes enclosed in a rude box,) is thrown in without
further ceremony.
From this time the overseer was regarded by the whole gang with
detestation and fear--as a being to whose rage and cruelty there were no
limits. Yet he was constantly telling us that he was the kindest of
overseers--that he was formerly somewhat severe in managing his hands,
but that now he was, if any thing, too indulgent. Indeed he had the
reputation of being a good overseer, and an excellent manager, when
sober. The slaves on some of the neighboring plantations were certainly
worse clothed and fed, and more frequently and cruelly whipped than
ours. Whenever the saw them they complained of over working and short
feeding. One of Flincher's, and one of Sturtivant's hands ran away,
while I was in Alabama: and after remaining in the woods awhile, and
despairing of being able to effect their escape, resolved to put an end
to their existence and their slavery together. Each twisted himself a
vine of the muscadine grape, and fastened one end around the limb of an
oak, and made a noose in the other. Jacob, Flincher's man, swung himself
off first, and expired after a long struggle. The other, horrified by
the contortions and agony of his comrade, dropped his noose, and was
retaken. When discovered, two or three days afterwards, the body of
Jacob was dreadfully torn and mangled, by the buzzards, those winged
hyenas and goules of the Southwest.
Among the slaves who were brought from Virginia, were two young and
bright mulatto women, who were always understood throughout the
plantation to have been the daughters of the elder Larrimore, by one of
his slaves. One was named Sarah and the other Hannah. Sarah, being in a
state of pregnancy, failed of executing her daily allotted task of
hoeing cotton. I was ordered to whip her, and on my remonstrating with
the overseer, and representing the condition of the woman, I was told
that my business was to obey orders, and that if I was told "to whip a
dead nigger I must do it." I accordingly gave her fifty lashes. This was
on Thursday evening. On Friday she also failed through weakness, and was
compelled to lie down in the field. That night the overseer himself
whipped her. On Saturday the wretched woman dragged herself once more to
the cotton field. In the burning sun, and in a situation which would
have called forth pity in the bosom of any one save a cotton-growing
overseer, she struggled to finish her task. She failed--nature could do
no more--and sick and despairing, she sought her cabin. There the
overseer met her and inflicted fifty more lashes upon her already
lacerated back.
The next morning was the Sabbath. It brought no joy to that suffering
woman. Instead of the tones of the church bell summoning to the house of
prayer, she heard the dreadful sound of the lash falling upon the backs
of her brethren and sisters in bondage. For the voice of prayer she
heard curses. For the songs of Zion obscene and hateful blasphemies. No
bible was there with its consolations for the sick of heart. Faint and
fevered, scarred and smarting from the effects of her cruel punishment,
she lay upon her pallet of moss--dreading the coming of her relentless
persecutor,--who, in the madness of one of his periodical fits of
drunkenness, was now swearing and cursing through the quarters.
Some of the poor woman's friends on the evening before, had attempted to
relieve her of the task which had been assigned her, but exhausted
nature, and the selfishness induced by their own miserable situation,
did not permit them to finish it and the overseer, on examination, found
that the week's work of the woman, was still deficient. After breakfast,
he ordered her to be tied up to the limb of a tree, by means of a rope
fastened round her wrists, so as to leave her feet about six inches from
the ground. She begged him to let her down for she was very sick.
"Very well!" he exclaimed with a sneer and a laugh,--"I shall bleed you
then, and take out some of your Virginia blood. You are too proud a miss
for Alabama."
He struck her a few blows. Swinging thus by her arms, she succeeded in
placing one of her feet against the body of the tree, and thus partly
supported herself, and relieved in some degree the painful weight upon
her wrists. He threw down his whip--took a rail from the garden fence,
ordered her feet to be tied together, and thrust the rail between them.
He then ordered one of the hands to sit upon it. Her back at this time
was bare, but the strings of the only garment which she wore passed over
her shoulders and prevented the full force of the whip from acting on
her flesh. These he cut off with his pen-knife, and thus left her
entirely naked. He struck her only two blows, for the second one cut
open her side and abdomen with a frightful gash. Unable to look on any
longer in silence, I entreated him to stop, as I feared he had killed
her. The overseer looked at the wound--dropped his whip, and ordered her
to be untied. She was carried into the house in a state of
insensibility, and died in three days after.
During the whole season of picking cotton, the whip was frequently and
severely plied. In his seasons of intoxication, the overseer made no
distinction between the stout man and the feeble and delicate woman--the
sick and the well. Women in a far advanced state of pregnancy were
driven out to the cotton field. At other times he seemed to have some
consideration; and to manifest something like humanity. Our hands did
not suffer for food--they had a good supply of ham and corn-meal, while
on Flincher's plantation the slaves had meat but once a year, at
Christmas.
Near the commencement of the weeding season of 1835, I was ordered to
whip a young woman, a light mustee, for not performing her task. I told
the overseer that she was sick. He said he did not care for that, she
should be made to work. A day or two afterwards, I found him in the
house half intoxicated. He demanded of me why I had not whipped the
girl; and I gave the same reason as before. He flew into a dreadful
rage, but his miserable situation made him an object of contempt rather
than fear. He sat shaking his fist at me, and swearing for nearly half
an hour. He said he would teach the Virginia lady to sham sickness; and
that the only reason I did not whip her was, that she was a white woman,
and I did not like to cut up her delicate skin. Some time after I was
ordered to give two of our women, named Hannah and big Sarah, 150 lashes
each, for not performing their tasks. The overseer stood by until he saw
Hannah whipped, and until Sarah had been tied up to the tree. As soon as
his back was turned I struck the tree instead of the woman, who
understanding my object, shrieked as if the whip at every blow was
cutting into her flesh. The overseer heard the blows and the woman's
cries, and supposing that all was going on according to his mind, left
the field. Unfortunately the husband of Hannah stood looking on; and
indignant that his wife should be whipped and Sarah spared, determined
to revenge himself by informing against me.
Next morning Huckstep demanded of me whether I had whipped Sarah the day
before; I replied in the affirmative. Upon this he called Sarah forward
and made her show her back, which bore no traces of recent whipping. He
then turned upon me and told me that the blows intended for Sarah should
be laid on my back. That night the overseer, with the help of three of
the hands, tied me up to a large tree--my arms and legs being clasped
round it, and my body drawn up hard against it by two men pulling at my
arms and one pushing against my back. The agony occasioned by this alone
was almost intolerable. I felt a sense of painful suffocation, and could
scarcely catch my breath.
A moment after I felt the first blow of the overseer's whip across my
shoulders. It seemed to cut into my very heart. I felt the blood gush,
and run down my back. I fainted at length under the torture, and on
being taken down, my shoes contained blood which ran from the gashes in
my back. The skin was worn off from by breast, arms, and thighs, against
the rough bark of the tree. I was sick and feverish, and in great pain
for three weeks afterwards; most of which time I was obliged to lie with
my face downwards, in consequence of the extreme soreness of my sides
and back, Huckstep himself seemed concerned about me, and would come
frequently to see me, and tell me that he should not have touched me had
it not been for "the cursed peach brandy."
Almost the first person that I was compelled to whip after I recovered,
was the man who pushed at my back when I was tied up to the tree. The
hands who were looking on at that time, all thought he pushed me much
harder than was necessary: and they expected that I would retaliate upon
him the injury I had received. After he was tied up, the overseer told
me to give him a severe flogging, and left me. I struck the tree instead
of the man. His wife, who was looking on, almost overwhelmed me with her
gratitude.
At length one morning, late in the fall of 1835, I saw Huckstep, and a
gentleman ride out to the field. As they approached, I saw the latter
was my master. The hands all ceased their labor, and crowded around him,
inquiring about old Virginia. For my own part, I could not hasten to
greet him. He had too cruelly deceived me. He at length came towards me,
and seemed somewhat embarrassed. "Well James," said he, "how do you
stand it here?" "Badly enough," I replied. "I had no thought that you
could be so cruel as to go away and leave me as you did." "Well, well,
it was too bad, but it could not be helped--you must blame Huckstep for
it." "But," said I, "I was not his servant; I belonged to you, and you
could do as you pleased." "Well," said he, "we will talk about that by
and by." He then inquired of Huckstep where big Sarah was. "She was sick
and died," was the answer. He looked round amoung the slaves again, and
inquired for Harry. The overseer told him that Harry undertook to kill
him, and that, to save his life, he was obliged to fire upon him, and
that he died of the wound. After some further inquiries, he requested me
to go into the house with him. He then asked me to tell him how things
had been managed during his absence. I gave him a full account of the
overseer's cruelty. When he heard of the manner of Harry's death, he
seemed much affected and shed tears. He was a favorite servant of his
father's. I showed him the deep scars on my back occasioned by the
whipping I had received. He was, or professed to be, highly indignant
with Huckstep; and said he would see to it that he did not lay hands on
me again. He told me he should be glad to take me with him to Virginia,
but he did not know where he should find a driver who would be so kind
to the hands as I was. If I would stay ten years, he would give me a
thousand dollars, and a piece of land to plant on my own account. "But,"
said I, "my wife and children." "Well," said he, "I will do my best to
purchase them, and send them on to you." I now saw that my destiny was
fixed: and that I was to spend my days in Alabama, and I retired to my
bed that evening with a heavy heart.
My master staid only three or four days on the plantation. Before he
left, he cautioned Huckstep to be careful and not strike me again, as he
would on no account permit it. He told him to give the hands food
enough, and not over-work them, and, having thus satisfied his
conscience, left us to our fate.
Out of the two hundred and fourteen slaves who were brought out from
Virginia, at least one-third of them were members of the Methodist and
Baptist churches in that State. Of this number five or six could read.
Then had been torn away from the care and discipline of their respective
churches, and from the means of instruction, but they retained their
love for the exercises of religion; and felt a mournful pleasure in
speaking of the privileges and spiritual blessings which they enjoyed in
Old Virginia. Three of them had been preachers, or exhorters, viz.
Solomon, usually called Uncle Solomon, Richard and David. Uncle Solomon
was a grave, elderly man, mild and forgiving in his temper, and greatly
esteemed among the more serious portion of our hands. He used to snatch
every occasion to talk to the lewd and vicious about the concerns of
their souls, and to advise them to fix their minds upon the Savior, as
their only helper. Some I have heard curse and swear in answer, and
others would say that they could not keep their minds upon God and the
devil (meaning Huckstep) at the same time: that it was of no use to try
to be religious--they had no time--that the overseer wouldn't let them
meet to pray--and that even Uncle Solomon, when he prayed, had to keep
one eye open all the time, to see if Huckstep was coming. Uncle Solomon
could both read and write, and had brought out with him from Virginia a
Bible, a hymn-book, and some other religious books, which he carefully
concealed from the overseer, Huckstep was himself an open infidel as
well as blasphemer. He used to tell the hands that there was no hell
hereafter for white people, but that they had their punishment on earth
in being obliged to take care of the negroes. As for the blacks, he was
sure there was a hell for them. He used frequently to sit with his
bottle by his side, and a Bible in his hand; and read passages and
comment on them, and pronounce them lies. Any thing like religious
feeling among the slaves irritated him. He said that so much praying and
singing prevented the people from doing their tasks, as it kept them up
nights, when they should be asleep. He used to mock, and in every
possible way interrupt the poor slaves, who after the toil of the day,
knelt in their lowly cabins to offer their prayers and supplications to
Him whose ear is open to the sorrowful sighing of the prisoner, and who
hath promised in His own time to come down and deliver. In his drunken
seasons he would make excursions at night through the slave-quarters,
enter the cabins, and frighten the inmates, especially if engaged in
prayer or singing. On one of these occasions he came back rubbing his
hands and laughing. He said he had found Uncle Solomon in his garden,
down on his knees, praying like an old owl, and had tipped him over, and
frightened him half out of his wits. At another time he found Uncle
David sitting on his stool with his face thrust up the chimney, in order
that his voice might not be heard by his brutal persecutor. He was
praying, giving utterance to these words, probably in reference to his
bondage:--"_How long, oh, Lord, how long_?" "As long as my whip!" cried
the overseer, who had stolen behind him, giving him a blow. It was the
sport of a demon.
Not long after my master had left us, the overseer ascertained for the
first time that some of the hands could read, and that they had brought
books with them from Virginia. He compelled them to give up the keys of
their chests, and on searching found several Bibles and hymn-books.
Uncle Solomon's chest contained quite a library, which he could read at
night by the light of knots of the pitchpine. These books he collected
together, and in the evening called Uncle Solomon into the house. After
jeering him for some time, he gave him one of the Bibles and told him to
name his text and preach him a sermon. The old man was silent. He then
made him get up on the table, and ordered him to pray. Uncle Solomon
meekly replied, that "forced prayer was not good for soul or body." The
overseer then knelt down himself, and in a blasphemous manner, prayed
that the Lord would send his spirit into Uncle Solomon; or else let the
old man fall from the table and break his neck, and so have an end of
"nigger preaching." On getting up from his knees he went to the
cupboard, poured out a glass of brandy for himself, and brought another
to the table. "James," said he, addressing me, "Uncle Solomon stands
there, for all the world, like a Hickory Quaker. His spirit don't move.
I'll see if another spirit wont move it." He compelled the old preacher
to swallow the brandy; and then told him to preach and exhort, for the
spirit was in him. He set one of the Bibles on fire, and after it was
consumed, mixed up the ashes of it in a glass of water, and compelled
the old man to drink it, telling him that as the spirit and the word
were now both in him, there was no longer any excuse for not preaching.
After tormenting the wearied old man in this way until nearly midnight
he permitted him to go to his quarters.
The next day I saw Uncle Solomon, and talked with him about his
treatment. He said it would not always be so--that slavery was to come
to an end, for the Bible said so--that there would then be no more
whippings and fightings, but the lion the lamb would lie down together,
and all would be love. He said he prayed for Huckstep--that it was not
he but the devil in him who behaved so. At his request, I found means to
get him a Bible and a hymn-book from the overseer's room; and the old
man ever afterwards kept them concealed in the hen-house.
The weeding season of 1836, was marked by repeated acts of cruelty on
the part of Huckstep. One of the hands, Priscilla, was, owing to her
delicate situation, unable to perform her daily task. He ordered her to
be tied up against a tree, in the same manner that I had been. In this
situation she was whipped until _she was delivered of a dead infant, at
the foot of the tree_! Our men took her upon a sheet, and carried her to
the house, where she lay sick for several months, but finally recovered.
I have heard him repeatedly laugh at the circumstance.
Not long after this, we were surprised, one morning about ten o'clock,
by hearing the horn blown at the house. Presently Aunt Polly came
screaming into the field. "What is the matter, Aunty?" I inquired. "Oh
Lor!" said she, "Old Huckstep's pitched off his horse and broke his
head, and is e'en about dead."
"Thank God!" said little Simon, "The devil will have him at last."
"God-a-mighty be praised!" exclaimed half a dozen others.
The hands, with one accord dropped their hoes; and crowded round the old
woman, asking questions. "Is he dead?"--"Will he die?" "Did you feel of
him--was he cold?"
Aunt Polly explained as well as she could, that Huckstep, in a state of
partial intoxication, had attempted to leap his horse over a fence, had
fallen and cut a deep gash in his head, and that he was now lying
insensible.
It is impossible to describe the effect produced by this news among the
hands. Men, women and children shouted, clapped their hands, and laughed
aloud. Some cursed the overseer, and others thanked the Lord for taking
him away. Little Simon got down on his knees, and called loudly upon God
to finish his work, and never let the overseer again enter a cotton
field. "Let him die, Lord," said he, "let him. He's killed enough of us:
Oh, good Lord, let him die and not live."
"Peace, peace! it is a bad spirit," said Uncle Solomon, "God himself
willeth not the death of a sinner."
I followed the old woman to the house; and found Huckstep at the foot of
one of those trees, so common at the South, called the Pride of China.
His face was black, and there was a frightful contusion on the side of
his head. He was carried into the house, where, on my bleeding him, he
revived. He lay in great pain for several days, and it was nearly three
weeks before he was able to come out to the cotton fields.
On returning to the field after Huckstep had revived, I found the hands
sadly disappointed to hear that he was still living. Some of them fell
to cursing and swearing, and were enraged with me for trying to save his
life. Little Simon said I was a fool; if he had bled him he would have
done it to some purpose. He would at least, have so disable his arm that
he would never again try to swing a whip. Uncle Solomon remonstrated
with Simon, and told that I had done right.
The neighbouring overseers used frequently to visit Huckstep, and he, in
turn, visited them. I was sometimes present during their interviews, and
heard them tell each other stories of horse-racing, negro-huntings, &c.
Some time during this season, Ludlow, who was overseer of a plantation
about eight miles from ours, told of a slave of his named Thornton, who
had twice attempted to escape with his wife and one child. The first
time he was caught without much difficulty, chained to the overseer's
horse, and in that way brought back. The poor man, to save his wife from
a beating, laid all the blame upon himself; and said that his wife had
no wish to escape, and tried to prevent him from attempting it. He was
severely whipped; but soon ran away again, and was again arrested. The
overseer, Ludlow, said he was determined to put a stop to the runaway,
and accordingly had resort to a somewhat unusual method of punishment.
There is a great scarcity of good water in that section of Alabama; and
you will generally see a large cistern attached to the corners of the
houses to catch water for washing &c. Underneath this cistern is
frequently a tank from eight to ten feet deep, into which, when the
former is full the water is permitted to run. From this tank the water
is pumped out for use. Into one of these tanks the unfortunate slave was
placed, and confined by one of his ancles to the bottom of it; and the
water was suffered to flow in from above. He was compelled to pump out
the water as fast as it came in, by means of a long rod or handle
connected with the pump above ground. He was not allowed to begin until
the water had risen to his middle. Any pause or delay after this, from
weakness and exhaustion, would have been fatal, as the water would have
risen above his head. In this horrible dungeon, toiling for his life, he
was kept for twenty-four hours without any sustenance. Even Huckstep
said that this was too bad--that he had himself formerly punished
runaways in that way--but should not do it again.
I rejoice to be able to say that this sufferer has at last escaped with
his wife and child, into a free state. He was assisted by some white
men, but I do not know all the particulars of his escape.
Our overseer had not been long able to ride about the plantation after
his accident, before his life was again endangered. He found two of the
hands, Little Jarret and Simon, fighting with each other, and attempted
to chastise both of them. Jarret bore it patiently, but Simon turned
upon him, seized a stake or pin from a cart near by, and felled him to
the ground. The overseer got up--went to the house, and told aunt Polly
that he had nearly been killed by the 'niggers,' and requested her to
tie up his head, from which the blood was streaming. As soon as this was
done, he took down his gun, and went out in pursuit of Simon, who had
fled to his cabin, to get some things which he supposed necessary
previous to attempting his escape from the plantation. He was just
stepping out of the door when he met the enraged overseer with his gun
in his hand. Not a word was spoken by either. Huckstep raised his gun
and fired. The man fell without a groan across the door-sill. He rose up
twice on his hands and knees, but died in a few minutes. He was dragged
off and buried. The overseer told me that there was no other way to deal
with such a fellow. It was Alabama law, if a slave resisted to shoot him
at once. He told me of a case which occurred in 1834, on a plantation
about ten miles distant, and adjoining that where Crop, the negro
hunter, boarded with his hounds. The overseer had bought some slaves at
Selma, from a drove or coffle passing through the place. They proved
very refractory. He whipped three of them, and undertook to whip a
fourth who was from Maryland. The man raised his hoe in a threatening
manner, and the overseer fired upon him. The slave fell, but instantly
rose up on his hands and knees, and was beaten down again by the stock
of the overseer's gun. The wounded wretch raised himself once more, drew
a knife from the waistband of his pantaloons, and catching hold of the
overseer's coat, raised himself high enough to inflict a fatal wound
upon the latter. Both fell together, and died immediately after.
Nothing more of special importance occurred until July, of last year,
when one of our men named John, was whipped three times for not
performing his task. On the last day of the month, after his third
whipping, he ran away. On the following morning, I found that he was
missing at his row. The overseer said we must hunt him up; and he blew
the "nigger horn," as it is called, for the dogs. This horn was only
used when we went out in pursuit of fugitives. It is a cow's horn, and
makes a short, loud sound. We crossed Flincher's and Goldsby's
plantations, as the dogs had got upon John's track, and went of barking
in that direction, and the two overseers joined us in the chase. The
dogs soon caught sight of the runaway, and compelled him to climb a
tree. We came up; Huckstep ordered him down, and secured him upon my
horse by tying him to my back. On reaching home he was stripped entirely
naked and lashed up to a tree. Flincher then volunteered to whip him on
one side of his legs, and Goldsby on the other. I had, in the meantime,
been ordered to prepare a wash of salt and pepper, and wash his wounds
with it. The poor fellow groaned, and his flesh shrunk and quivered as
the burning solution was applied to it. This wash, while it adds to the
immediate torment of the sufferer, facilitates the cure of the wounded
parts. Huckstep then whipped him from his neck down to his thighs,
making the cuts lengthwise of his back. He was very expert with the
whip, and could strike, at any time, within an inch of his mark. He then
gave the whip to me and told me to strike directly across his back. When
I had finished, the miserable sufferer, from his neck to his heel, was
covered with blood and bruises. Goldsby and Flincher now turned to
Huckstep, and told him, that I deserved a whipping as much as John did:
that they had known me frequently disobey his orders, and that I was
partial to the "Virginia ladies," and didn't whip them as I did the men.
They said if I was a driver of theirs they would know what to do with
me. Huckstep agreed with them; and after directing me to go to the house
and prepare more of the wash for John's back, he called after me with an
oath, to see to it that I had some for myself, for he meant to give me,
at least, two hundred and fifty lashes. I returned to the house, and
scarcely conscious of what I was doing, filled an iron vessel with
water, put in the salt and pepper; and placed it over the embers.
As I stood by the fire watching the boiling of the mixture, and
reflecting upon the dreadful torture to which I was about to he
subjected, the thought of _escape_ flashed upon my mind. The chance was
a desperate one; but I resolved to attempt it. I ran up stairs, tied my
shirt in a handkerchief, and stepped out of the back door of the house,
telling Aunt Polly to take care of the wash at the fire until I
returned. The sun was about one hour high, but luckily for me the hands
as well as the three overseers, were on the other side of the house. I
kept the house between them and myself, and ran as fast as I could for
the woods. On reaching them I found myself obliged to proceed slowly as
there was a thick undergrowth of cane and reeds. Night came on. I
straggled forward by a dim star-light, amidst vines and reed beds. About
midnight the horizon began to be overcast; and the darkness increased
until in the thick forest, I could scarcely see a yard before me.
Fearing that I might lose my way and wander towards the plantation,
instead of from it, I resolved to wait until day. I laid down upon a
little hillock, and fell asleep.
When I awoke it was broad day. The clouds had vanished, and the hot
sunshine fell through the trees upon my face. I started up, realizing my
situation, and darted onward. My object was to reach the great road by
which we had travelled when we came out from Virginia. I had, however,
very little hope of escape. I knew that a hot pursuit would be made
after me, and what I most dreaded was, that the overseer would procure
Crop's bloodhounds to follow my track. If only the hounds of our
plantation were sent after me, I had hopes of being able to make friends
of them, as they were always good-natured and obedient to me. I
travelled until, as near as I could judge, about ten o'clock, when a
distant sound startled me. I stopped and listened. It was the deep bay
of the bloodhound, apparently at a great distance. I hurried on until I
came to a creek about fifteen yards wide, skirted by an almost
impenetrable growth of reeds and cane. Plunging into it, I swam across
and ran down by the side of it a short distance, and, in order to baffle
the dogs, swam back to the other side again. I stopped in the reed-bed
and listened. The dogs seemed close at hand, and by the loud barking I
felt persuaded that Crop's hounds were with them. I thought of the fate
of Little John, who had been torn in pieces by the hounds, and of the
scarcely less dreadful condition of those who had escaped the dogs only
to fall into the hands of the overseer. The yell of the dogs grew
louder. Escape seemed impossible. I ran down to the creek with a
determination to drown myself. I plunged into the water and went down to
the bottom; but the dreadful strangling sensation compelled me to
struggle up to the surface. Again I heard the yell of the bloodhounds;
and again desperately plunged down into the water. As I went down I
opened my mouth, and, choked and gasping, I found myself once more
struggling upward. As I rose to the top of the water and caught a
glimpse of the sunshine and the trees, the love of life revived in me. I
swam to the other side of the creek, and forced my way through the reeds
to a large tree, and stood under one of its lowest limbs, ready in case
of necessity, to spring up into it. Here panting and exhausted, I stood
waiting for the dogs. The woods seemed full of them. I heard a bell
tinkle, and, a moment after, our old hound Venus came bounding through
the cane, dripping wet from the creek. As the old hound came towards me,
I called to her as I used to do when out hunting with her. She stopped
suddenly, looked up at me, and then came wagging her tail and fawning
around me. A moment after the other dog came up hot in the chase, and
with their noses to the ground. I called to them, but they did not look
up, but came yelling on. I was just about to spring into the tree to
avoid them when Venus the old hound met them, and stopped them. They
then all came fawning and playing and jumping about me. The very
creatures whom a moment before I had feared would tear me limb from
limb, were now leaping and licking my hands, and rolling on the leaves
around me. I listened awhile in the fear of hearing the voices of men
following the dogs, but there was no sound in the forest save the
gurgling of the sluggish waters of the creek, and the chirp of black
squirrels in the trees. I took courage and started onward once more,
taking the dogs with me. The bell on the neck of the old dog, I feared
might betray me, and, unable to get it off her neck, I twisted some of
the long moss of the trees around it, so as to prevent its ringing. At
night I halted once more with the dogs by my side. Harassed with fear,
and tormented with hunger, I laid down and tried to sleep. But the dogs
were uneasy, and would start up and bark at the cries or the footsteps
of wild animals, and I was obliged, to use my utmost exertions to keep
them quiet, fearing that their barking would draw my pursuers upon me. I
slept but little; and as soon as daylight, started forward again. The
next day towards evening, I reached a great road which, I rejoiced to
find, was the same which my master and myself had travelled on our way
to Greene county. I now thought it best to get rid of the dogs, and
accordingly started them in pursuit of a deer. They went off, yelling on
the track, and I never saw them again. I remembered that my master told
me, near this place, that we were in the Creek country, and that there
were some Indian settlements not far distant. In the course of the
evening I crossed the road, and striking into a path through the woods,
soon came to a number of Indian cabins. I went into one of them and
begged for some food. The Indian women received me with a great deal of
kindness, and gave me a good supper of venison, corn bread, and stewed
pumpkin. I remained with them till the evening of the next day, when I
started afresh on my journey. I kept on the road leading to Georgia. In
the latter part of the night I entered into a long low bottom, heavily
timbered--sometimes called Wolf Valley. It was a dreary and frightful
place. As I walked on, I heard on all sides the howling of the wolves,
and the quick patter of their feet on the leaves and sticks, as they ran
through the woods. At daylight I laid down, but had scarcely closed my
eyes when I was roused up by the wolves snarling and howling around me.
I started on my feet, and saw several of them running by me. I did not
again close my eyes during the whole day. In the afternoon, a bear with
her two cubs came to a large chestnut tree near where I lay. She crept
up the tree, went out on one of the limbs, and broke off several twigs
in trying to shake down the nuts. They were not ripe enough to fall,
and, after several vain attempts to procure some of them, she crawled
down the tree again and went off with her young.
The day was long and tedious. As soon as it was dark, I once more
resumed my journey. But fatigue and the want of food and sleep rendered
me almost incapable of further effort. It was not long before I fell
asleep, while walking, and wandered out of the road. I was awakened by a
bunch of moss which hung down from the limb of a tree and met my face. I
looked up and saw, as I thought, a large man standing just before me. My
first idea was that some one had struck me over the face, and that I had
been at last overtaken by Huckstep. Rubbing my eyes once more, I saw the
figure before me sink down upon its hands and knees. Another glance
assured me that it was a bear and not a man. He passed across the road
and disappeared. This adventure kept me awake for the remainder of the
night. Towards morning I passed by a plantation, on which was a fine
growth of peach trees, full of ripe fruit. I took as many of them as I
could conveniently carry in my hands and pockets, and retiring a little
distance into the woods, laid down and slept till evening, when I again
went forward.
Sleeping thus by day and travelling by night, in a direction towards the
North Star, I entered Georgia. As I only travelled in the night time, I
was unable to recognize rivers and places which I had seen before until
I reached Columbus, where I recollected I had been with my master. From
this place I took the road leading to Washington, and passed directly
through that village. On leaving the village, I found myself contrary to
my expectation, in an open country with no woods in view. I walked on
until day broke in the east. At a considerable distance ahead, I saw a
group of trees, and hurried on towards it. Large and beautiful
plantations were on each side of me, from which I could hear dogs bark,
and the driver's horn sounding. On reaching the trees, I found that they
afforded but a poor place of concealment. On either hand, through its
openings, I could see the men turning out to the cotton fields. I found
a place to lie down between two oak stumps, around which the new shoots
had sprung up thickly, forming a comparatively close shelter. After
eating some peaches, which since leaving the Indian settlement had
constituted my sole food, I fell asleep. I was waked by the barking of a
dog. Raising my head and looking through the bushes, I found that the
dog was barking at a black squirrel who was chattering on a limb almost
directly above me. A moment after, I heard a voice speaking to the dog,
and soon saw a man with a gun in his hand, stealing through the wood. He
passed close to the stumps, where I lay trembling with terror lest he
should discover me. He kept his eye however upon the tree, and raising
his gun, fired. The squirrel dropped dead close by my side. I saw that
any further attempt at concealment would be in vain, and sprang upon my
feet. The man started forward on seeing me, struck at me with his gun
and beat my hat off. I leaped into the road; and he followed after,
swearing he would shoot me if I didn't stop. Knowing that his gun was
not loaded, I paid no attention to him, but ran across the road into a
cotton field where there was a great gang of slaves working. The man
with the gun followed, and called to the two colored drivers who were on
horseback, to ride after me and stop me. I saw a large piece of woodland
at some distance ahead, and directed my course towards it. Just as I
reached it, I looked back, and saw my pursuer far behind me; and found,
to my great joy, that the two drivers had not followed me. I got behind
a tree, and soon heard the man enter the woods and pass me. After all
had been still for more than an hour, I crept into a low place in the
depth of the woods and laid down amidst a bed of reeds, where I again
fell asleep. Towards evening, on awaking, I found the sky beginning to
be cloudy, and before night set in it was completely overcast. Having
lost my hat, I tied an old handkerchief over my head, and prepared to
resume my journey. It was foggy and very dark, and involved as I was in
the mazes of the forest, I did not know in what direction I was going. I
wandered on until I reached a road, which I supposed to be the same one
which I had left. The next day the weather was still dark and rainy, and
continued so for several days. During this time I slept only by leaning
against the body of a tree, as the ground was soaked with rain. On the
fifth night after my adventure near Washington, the clouds broke away,
and the clear moonlight and the stars shone down upon me.
I looked up to see the North Star, which I supposed still before me. But
I sought it in vain in all that quarter of the heavens. A dreadful
thought came over me that I had been travelling out of my way. I turned
round and saw the North Star, which had been shining directly upon my
back. I then knew that I had been travelling away from freedom, and
towards the place of my captivity ever since I left the woods into which
I had been pursued on the 21st, five days before. Oh, the keen and
bitter agony of that moment! I sat down on the decaying trunk of a
fallen tree, and wept like a child. Exhausted in mind and body, nature
came at last to my relief, and I fell asleep upon the log. When I awoke
it was still dark. I rose and nerved myself for another effort for
freedom. Taking the North Star for my guide, I turned upon my track, and
left once more the dreaded frontiers of Alabama behind me. The next
night, after crossing the one on which I travelled, and which seemed to
lead more directly towards the North. I took this road, and the next
night after, I came to a large village. Passing through the main street,
I saw a large hotel which I at once recollected. I was in Augusta, and
this was the hotel at which my master had spent several days when I was
with him, on one of his southern visits. I heard the guards patrolling
the town cry the hour of twelve; and fearful of being taken up, I turned
out of the main street, and got upon the road leading to Petersburg. On
reaching the latter place, I swam over the Savannah river into South
Carolina, and from thence passed into North Carolina.
Hitherto I had lived mainly upon peaches, which were plenty on almost
all the plantations in Alabama and Georgia; but the season was now too
far advanced for them, and I was obliged to resort to apples. These I
obtained without much difficulty until within two or three days journey
of the Virginia line. At this time I had had nothing to eat but two or
three small and sour apples for twenty-four hours, and I waited
impatiently for night, in the hope of obtaining fruit from the orchards
along the road. I passed by several plantations, but found no apples.
After midnight, I passed near a large house, with fruit trees around it.
I searched under, and climbed up and shook several of them to no
purpose. At last I found a tree on which there were a few apples. On
shaking it, half a dozen fell. I got down, and went groping and feeling
about for them in the grass, but could find only two, the rest were
devoured by several hogs who were there on the same errand with myself.
I pursued my way until day was about breaking, when I passed another
house. The feeling of extreme hunger was here so intense, that it
required all the resolution I was master of to keep myself from going,
up to the house and breaking into it in search of food. But the thought
of being again made a slave, and of suffering the horrible punishment of
a runaway restrained me. I lay in the worlds all that day without food.
The next evening, I soon found a large pile of excellent apples, from
which I supplied myself.
The next evening I reached Halifax Court House, and I then knew that I
was near Virginia. On the 7th of October, I came to the Roanoke, and
crossed it in the midst of a violent storm of rain and thunder. The
current ran so furiously that I was carried down with it, and with great
difficulty, and in a state of complete exhaustion, reached the
opposite shore.
At about 2 o'clock, on the night of the 15th, I approached Richmond, but
not daring to go into the city at that hour, on account of the patrols,
I lay in the woods near Manchester, until the next evening, when I
started in the twilight, in order to enter before the setting of the
watch. I passed over the bridge unmolested, although in great fear, as
my tattered clothes and naked head were well calculated to excite
suspicion; and being well acquainted with the localities of the city,
made my way to the house of a friend. I was received with the utmost
kindness, and welcomed as one risen from the dead. Oh, how inexpressibly
sweet were the tones of human sympathy, after the dreadful trials to
which I had been subjected--the wrongs and outrages which I witnessed
and suffered! For between two and three months I had not spoken with a
human being, and the sound even of my own voice now seemed strange to my
ears. During this time, save in two or three instances I had tasted of
no food except peaches and apples. I was supplied with some dried meat
and coffee, but the first mouthful occasioned nausea and faintness. I
was compelled to take my bed, and lay sick for several days. By the
assiduous attention and kindness of my friends, I was supplied with
every thing which was necessary during my sickness. I was detained in
Richmond nearly a month. As soon as I had sufficiently recovered to be
able to proceed on my journey, I bade my kind host and his wife an
affectionate farewell, and set forward once more towards a land of
freedom. I longed to visit my wife and children in Powhatan county, but
the dread of being discovered prevented me from attempting it. I had
learned from my friends in Richmond that they were living and in good
health, but greatly distressed on my account.
My friends had provided me with a fur cap, and with as much lean ham,
cake and biscuit, as I could conveniently carry. I proceeded in the same
way as before, travelling by night and lying close and sleeping by day.
About the last of November I reached the Shenandoah river. It was very
cold; ice had already formed along the margin, and in swimming the river
I was chilled through; and my clothes froze about me soon after I had
reached the opposite side. I passed into Maryland, and on the 5th of
December, stepped across the line which divided the free state of
Pennsylvania from the land of slavery.
I had a few shillings in money which were given me at Richmond, and
after travelling nearly twenty-four hours from the time I crossed the
line, I ventured to call at a tavern, and buy a dinner. On reaching
Carlisle, I enquired of the ostler in a stable if he knew of any one who
wished to hire a house servant or coachman. He said he did not. Some
more colored people came in, and taking me aside told me that they knew
that I was from Virginia, by my pronunciation of certain words--that I
was probably a runaway slave--but that I need not be alarmed, as they
were friends, and would do all in their power to protect me. I was taken
home by one of them, and treated with the utmost kindness; and at night
he took me in a wagon, and carried me some distance on my way to
Harrisburg, where he said I should meet with friends.
He told me that I had better go directly to Philadelphia, as there would
be less danger of my being discovered and retaken there than in the
country, and there were a great many persons there who would exert
themselves to secure me from the slaveholders. In parting he cautioned
me against conversing or stopping with any man on the road, unless he
wore a plain, straight collar on a round coat, and said, "thee," and
"thou." By following his directions I arrived safely in Philadelphia,
having been kindly entertained and assisted on my journey, by several
benevolent gentlemen and ladies, whose compassion for the wayworn and
hunted stranger I shall never forget, and whose names will always be
dear to me. On reaching Philadelphia, I was visited by a large number of
the Abolitionists, and friends of the colored people, who, after hearing
my story, thought it would not be safe for me to remain in any part of
the United States. I remained in Philadelphia a few days; and then a
gentleman came on to New-York with me, I being considered on board the
steam-boat, and in the cars, as his servant. I arrived at New-York, on
the 1st of January. The sympathy and kindness which I have every where
met with since leaving the slave states, has been the more grateful to
me because it was in a great measure unexpected. The slaves are always
told that if they escape into a free state, they will be seized and put
in prison, until their masters send for them. I had heard Huckstep and
the other overseers occasionally speak of the Abolitionists, but I did
not know or dream that they were the friends of the slave. Oh, if the
miserable men and women, now toiling on the plantations of Alabama,
could know that thousands in the free states are praying and striving
for their deliverance, how would the glad tidings be whispered from
cabin to cabin, and how would the slave-mother as she watches over her
infant, bless God, on her knees, for the hope that this child of her day
of sorrow, might never realize in stripes, and toil, and grief
unspeakable, what it is to be a slave?
* * * * *
This Narrative can he had at the Depository of the American Anti-Slavery
Society, No 143 Nassau Street, New York, in a neat volume, 108 pp.
12mo., embellished with an elegant and accurate steel engraved likeness
of James Williams, price 25 cts. single copy, $17 per hundred.
* * * * *
NO. 7
THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES.
A SIX MONTHS' TOUR IN ANTIGUA, BARBADOES, AND JAMAICA IN THE YEAR 1837.
BY JAS. A. THOME, AND J. HORACE KIMBALL.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, No. 143 NASSAU-STREET.
1838.
This periodical contains 4 sheets.--Postage under 100 miles, 6 cents;
over 100 miles, 10 cents.
ENTERED,
according to the act of Congress, in the year 1838, by
JOHN RANKIN,
Treasurer, of the American, Anti-Slavery Society,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States,
for the Southern District of New York.
Price $12 50 per hundred copies, 18-3/4 cents single copy, _in sheets_:
$13 25 per hundred, and 20 cents single, _if stitched_.
NOTE.--This work is published in this cheap form, to give it a wide
circulation. Please, _after perusal_, to send it to some friend.
This work, as originally published, can be had at the Depository of the
American Anti-Slavery Society, No. 143, Nassau Street, New York, on fine
paper, handsomely bound, in a volume of 489 pages, price one dollar per
copy, $75 per hundred.
CONTENTS.
* * * * *
ANTIGUA.--CHAPTER I.
Geography and Statistics of the Island,--Reflections on
arrival,--Interview with Clergymen,--with the Governor,--with a
member of Assembly,--Sabbath,--Service at the Moravian
Chapel,--Sabbath School,--Service at the Episcopal Church,--Service
at the Wesleyan Chapel,--Millar's Estate,--Cane-holing,--Colored
planter,--Fitch's Creek Estate,--Free Villages,--Dinner at the
Governor's,--Donovan's Estate,--Breakfast at Mr. Watkins,--Dr.
Ferguson,--Market,--Lockup house,--Christmas Holidays,--Colored
Population,--Thibou Jarvis's Estate,--Testimony of the
Manager,--Anniversary of the Friendly Society,--A negro
patriarch,--Green Castle Estate,--Testimony of the
Manager,--Anniversary of the Juvenile Association,--Wetherill
Estate,--Testimony of the Manager,--Conversation with a
boatman,--Moravian station at Newfield,--Testimony of the
Missionaries,--School for Adults,--Interview with the Speaker of the
Assembly,--Moravian "Speaking,"--Conversation with Emancipated
Slaves,--The Rector of St. Philip's,--Frey's Estate,--Interview with
the American Consul,--Sabbath at Millar's,--Breakfast at the Villa
Estate,--A Fair,--Breakfast at Mr. Cranstoun's,--His
Testimony,--Moravian Station at Cedar Hall,--Conversation with
Emancipated Slaves,--Moravian Station at Grace Bay,--Testimony of
the Missionaries,--Grandfather Jacob,--Mr. Scotland's Estate.--A day
at Fitch's Creek,--Views of the Manager,--A call from the
Archdeacon,--from Rev. Edward Fraser,--Wesleyan District
Meeting,--Social interviews with the Missionaries,--Their Views and
Testimony,--Religious Anniversaries,--Temperance Society,--Bible
Society,--Wesleyan Missionary Society.--Resolution of the
Meeting,--Laying the Corner Stone of a Wesleyan Chapel,--Resolutions
of the Missionaries.
ANTIGUA.--CHAPTER II.
GENERAL RESULTS.
Religion,--Statistics of Denominations,--Morality,--Reverence for
the Lord's Day,--Marriage,--Conjugal faithfulness,--Concubinage
decreasing,--Temperance,--Profane Language rare,--Statistics of the
Bible Society,--Missionary Associations,--Temperance
Societies,--Friendly Societies,--Daily Meal Society,--Distressed
Females' Friend Society,--Education,--Annual Examination of the
Parochial School,--Infant Schools in the Country,--Examination at
Parham,--at Willoughby Bay,--Mr. Thwaite's Replies to Queries on
Education,--Great Ignorance before Emancipation,--Aptness of the
Negroes to learn,--Civil and Political Condition of the Emancipated.
ANTIGUA.--CHAPTER III.
FACTS AND TESTIMONY.
IMMEDIATE ABOLITION--an immense change to the condition of the
Slave,--Adopted from Political and Pecuniary Considerations,--Went
into operation peaceably,--gave additional security to Persons and
Property,--Is regarded by all as a great blessing to the
Island,--Free, cheaper than Slave labor,--More work done, and better
done, since Emancipation,--Freemen more easily managed than
Slaves,--The Emancipated more Trustworthy than when Slaves,--They
appreciate and reverence Law,--They stay at home and mind their own
business,--Are less "insolent" than when Slaves,--Gratitude a strong
trait of their character,--Emancipation has elevated them,--It has
raised the price of Real Estate, given new life to Trade, and to all
kinds of business,--Wrought a total change in the views of the
Planters,--Weakened Prejudice against Color,--The Discussions
preceding Emancipation restrained Masters from
Cruelties,--Concluding Remarks.
BARBADOES.
Passage to Barbadoes,--Bridgetown,--Visit to the Governor,--To the
Archdeacon,--Lear's Estate,--Testimony of the Manager,--Dinner Party
at Lear's,--Ride to Scotland,--The Red Shanks,--Sabbath at Lear's;
Religious Service,--Tour to the Windward,--Breakfast Party at the
Colliton Estate,--Testimony to the Working of the
Apprenticeship,--The Working of it in Demerara,--The Codrington
Estate,--Codrington College,--The "Horse,"--An Estate on Fire,--The
Ridge Estate; Dinner with a Company of Planters,--A Day at Colonel
Ashby's; his Testimony to the Working of the
Apprenticeship,--Interviews with Planters; their Testimony,--The
Belle Estate,--Edgecombe Estate; Colonel Barrow,--Horton
Estate,--Drax Hall Estate,--Dinner Party at the
Governor's,--Testimony concerning the Apprenticeship,--Market
People,--Interview with Special Justice Hamilton; his
Testimony,--Station House, District A; Trials of Apprentices before
Special Magistrate Colthurst,--Testimony of the Superintendent of
the Rural Police,--Communication from Special Justice
Colthurst,--Communication from Special Justice Hamilton,--Testimony
of Clergymen and Missionaries,--Curate of St. Paul's,--A FREE
Church,--A Sabbath School Annual Examination,--Interview with
Episcopal Clergymen; their Testimony,--Visit to Schools,--Interview
with the Superintendent of the Wesleyan Mission,--Persecution of the
Methodists by Slaveholders,--The Moravian Mission,--Colored
Population,--Dinner Party at Mr. Harris's,--Testimony concerning the
objects of our Mission,--A New Englander,--History of an Emancipated
Slave,--Breakfast Party at Mr. Thorne's,--Facts and Testimony
concerning Slavery and the Apprenticeship,--History of an
Emancipated Slave,--Breakfast Party at Mr. Prescod's,--Character and
History of the late Editor of the New Times,--Breakfast Party at Mr.
Bourne's,--Prejudice,--History and Character of an Emancipated
Slave,--Prejudice, vincible,--Concubinage,--Barbadoes as it was;
"Reign of Terror;"--Testimony; Cruelties,--Insurrection of
1816,--Licentiousness,--Prejudice--Indolence and Inefficiency of the
Whites,--Hostility to Emancipation,--Barbadoes as it is,--The
Apprenticeship System; Provisions respecting the Special
Magistrates,--Provisions respecting the Master,--Provisions
respecting the Apprentice,--The Design of the
Apprenticeship,--Practical Operation of the
Apprenticeship,--Sympathy of the Special Magistrates with the
Masters,--Apprenticeship, modified Slavery,--Vexatious to the
Master,--No Preparation for Freedom,--Begets hostility between
Master and Apprentice,--Has illustrated the Forbearance of the
Negroes,--Its tendency to exasperate them,--Testimony to the Working
of the Apprenticeship in the Windward Islands generally.
JAMAICA.
Sketch of its Scenery,--Interview with the Attorney General,--The
Solicitor General; his Testimony,--The American Consul; his
Testimony,--The Superintendent of the Wesleyan Missions,--The
Baptist Missionaries; Sabbath; Service in a Baptist
Chapel,--Moravians; Episcopalians; Scotch Presbyterians,--Schools in
Kingston,--Communication from the Teacher of the Wolmer Free School;
Education; Statistics,--The Union School,--"Prejudice
Vincible,"--Disabilities and Persecutions of Colored People,--Edward
Jordan, Esq.,--Colored Members of Assembly,--Richard Hill,
Esq.,--Colored Artisans and Merchants in Kingston,--Police Court of
Kingston,--American Prejudice in the "limbos,"--"Amalgamation!"--St.
Andrew's House of Correction; Tread-mill,--Tour through "St. Thomas
in the East,"--Morant Bay; Local Magistrate; his lachrymal
forebodings,--Proprietor of Green Wall Estate; his
Testimony,--Testimony of a Wesleyan Missionary,--Belvidere Estate;
Testimony of the Manager,--Chapel built by Apprentices,--House of
Correction,--Chain-Gang,--A call from Special Justice Baines; his
Testimony,--Bath,--Special Justice's Office; his
Testimony,--"Alarming Rebellion,"--Testimony of a Wesleyan
Missionary,--Principal of the Mico Charity School; his
Testimony,--Noble instance of Filial Affection in a Negro
Girl,--Plantain Garden River Valley; Alexander Barclay,
Esq.,--Golden Grove Estate; Testimony of the Manager,--The Custos of
the Parish; his Testimony,--Amity Hall Estate; Testimony of the
Manager,--Lord Belmore's Prophecy,--Manchioneal; Special Magistrate
Chamberlain; his Testimony,--his Weekly Court,--Pro slavery
gnashings,--Visit with the Special Magistrate to the Williamsfield
Estate; Testimony of the Manager,--Oppression of
Book-keepers,--Sabbath; Service at a Baptist Chapel,--Interview with
Apprentices; their Testimony,--Tour through St. Andrew's and Port
Royal,--Visit to Estates in company with Special Justice
Bourne,--White Emigrants to Jamaica,--Dublin Castle Estate; Special
Justice Court,--A Despot in convulsions; arbitrary power dies
hard,--Encounter with Mules in a mountain pass,--Silver Hill Estate;
cases tried; Appraisement of an Apprentice,--Peter's Rock
Estate,--Hall's Prospect Estate,--Female Traveling Merchant,--Negro
Provision Grounds,--Apprentices eager to work for Money,--Jury of
Inquest,--Character of Overseers,--Conversation with Special Justice
Hamilton,--With a Proprietor of Estates and Local Magistrate;
Testimony,--Spanishtown,--Richard Hill, Esq., Secretary of the
Special Magistracy,--Testimony of Lord Sligo concerning him,--Lord
Sligo's Administration; its independence and
impartiality,--Statements of Mr. Hill,--Statements of Special
Justice Ramsey,--Special Justice's Court,--Baptist Missionary at
Spanishtown; his Testimony,--Actual Working of the Apprenticeship;
no Insurrection; no fear of it; no Increase of Crime; Negroes
improving; Marriage increased; Sabbath better kept; Religious
Worship better attended; Law obeyed,--Apprenticeship vexatious to
both parties,--Atrocities perpetrated by Masters and
Magistrates,--Causes of the ill-working of the
Apprenticeship--Provisions of the Emancipation Act defeated by
Planters and Magistrates,--The present Governor a favorite with the
Planters,--Special Justice Palmer suspended by him,--Persecution of
Special Justice Bourne,--Character of the Special
Magistrates,--Official Cruelty; Correspondence between a Missionary
and Special Magistrate,--Sir Lionel Smith's Message to the House of
Assembly,--Causes of the Diminished Crops since
Emancipation,--Anticipated Consequences of full Emancipation in
1840,--Examination of the grounds of such anticipations,--Views of
Missionaries and Colored People, Magistrates and
Planters;--Concluding Remarks.
APPENDIX.
Official Communication from Special Justice Lyon,--Communication
from the Solicitor General of Jamaica,--Communication from Special
Justice Colthurst,--Official Returns of the Imports and Exports of
Barbadoes,--Valuations of Apprentices in Jamaica,--Tabular View of
the Crops in Jamaica for fifty-three years preceding 1836; Comments
of the Jamaica Watchman on the foregoing Table,--Comments of the
Spanishtown Telegraph,--Brougham's Speech in Parliament.
INTRODUCTION.
It is hardly possible that the success of British West India
Emancipation should be more conclusively proved, than it has been by the
absence among us of the exultation which awaited its failure. So many
thousands of the citizens of the United States, without counting
slaveholders, would not have suffered their prophesyings to be
falsified, if they could have found whereof to manufacture fulfilment.
But it is remarkable that, even since the first of August, 1834, the
evils of West India emancipation on the lips of the advocates of
slavery, or, as the most of them nicely prefer to be termed, the
opponents of abolition, have remained in the future tense. The bad
reports of the newspapers, spiritless as they have been compared with
the predictions, have been traceable, on the slightest inspection, not
to emancipation, but to the illegal continuance of slavery, under the
cover of its legal substitute. Not the slightest reference to the rash
act, whereby the thirty thousand slaves of Antigua were immediately
"turned loose," now mingles with the croaking which strives to defend
our republican slavery against argument and common sense.
The Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, deemed it
important that the silence which the pro-slavery press of the United
States has seemed so desirous to maintain in regard to what is strangely
enough termed the "great experiment of freedom," should be thoroughly
broken up by a publication of facts and testimony collected on the spot.
To this end, REV. JAMES A. THOME, and JOSEPH H. KIMBALL, ESQ., were
deputed to the West Indies to make the proper investigations. Of their
qualifications for the task, the subsequent pages will furnish the best
evidence: it is proper, however, to remark, that Mr. Thome is thoroughly
acquainted with our own system of slavery, being a native and still a
resident of Kentucky, and the son of a slaveholder, (happily no longer
so,) and that Mr. Kimball is well known as the able editor of the Herald
of Freedom, published at Concord, New Hampshire.
They sailed from New York, the last of November, 1836, and returned
early in June, 1837. They improved a short stay at the Danish island of
St. Thomas, to give a description of slavery as it exists there, which,
as it appeared for the most part in the anti-slavery papers, and as it
is not directly connected with the great question at issue, has not been
inserted in the present volume. Hastily touching at some of the other
British islands, they made Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica, successively
the objects of their deliberate and laborious study--as fairly
presenting the three grand phases of the "experiment"--Antigua,
exemplifying immediate unrestricted abolition; Barbadoes, the best
working of the apprenticeship, and Jamaica the worst. Nine weeks were
spent in Antigua, and the remainder of their time was divided between
the other two islands.
The reception of the delegates was in the highest degree favorable to
the promotion of their object, and their work will show how well they
have used the extraordinary facilities afforded them. The committee
have, in some instances, restored testimonials which their modesty led
them to suppress, showing in what estimation they themselves, as well as
the object of their mission, were held by some of the most distinguished
persons in the islands which they visited.
So wide was the field before them, and so rich and various the fruit to
be gathered, that they were tempted to go far beyond the strength
supplied by the failing health they carried with them. Most nobly did
they postpone every personal consideration to the interests of the
cause, and the reader will, we think, agree with us, that they have
achieved a result which undiminished energies could not have been
expected to exceed--a result sufficient, if any thing could be, to
justify the sacrifice it cost them. We regret to add that the labors and
exposures of Mr. Kimball, so far prevented his recovery from the
disease[A] which obliged him to resort to a milder climate, or perhaps
we should say aggravated it, that he has been compelled to leave to his
colleague, aided by a friend, nearly the whole burden of preparing for
the press--which, together with the great labor of condensing from the
immense amount of collected materials, accounts for the delay of the
publication. As neither Mr. Thome nor Mr. Kimball were here while the
work was in the press, it is not improbable that trivial errors have
occurred, especially in the names of individuals.
[Footnote A: We learn that Mr. Kimball closed his mortal career at
Pembroke, N.H. April 12th, in the 25th year of his age. Very few men in
the Anti-Slavery cause have been more distinguished, than this lamented
brother, for the zeal, discretion and ability with which he has
advocated the cause of the oppressed. "Peace to the memory of a man
of worth!"]
It will be perceived that the delegates rest nothing of importance on
their own unattested observation. At every point they are fortified by
the statements of a multitude of responsible persons in the islands,
whose names, when not forbidden, they leave taken the liberty to use in
behalf of humanity. Many of these statements were given in the
handwriting of the parties, and are in the possession of the Executive
Committee. Most of these island authorities are as unchallengeable on
the score of previous leaning towards abolitionism, as Mr. McDuffie of
Mr. Calhoun would be two years hence, if slavery were to be abolished
throughout the United States tomorrow.
Among the points established in this work, beyond the power of dispute
or cavil, are the following:
1. That the act of IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION in Antigua, was not attended
with any disorder whatever.
2. That the emancipated slaves have readily, faithfully, and efficiently
worked for wages from the first.
3. That wherever there has been any disturbance in the working of the
apprenticeship, it has been invariably by the fault of the masters, or
of the officers charged with the execution of the "Abolition Act."
4. That the prejudice of caste is fast disappearing in the emancipated
islands.
5. That the apprenticeship was not sought for by the planters as a
_preparation for freedom_.
6. That no such preparation was needed.
7. That the planters who have fairly made the "experiment," now greatly
prefer the new system to the old.
8. That the emancipated people are perceptibly rising in the scale of
civilization, morals, and religion.
From these established facts, reason cannot fail to make its inferences
in favor of the two and a half millions of slaves in our republic. We
present the work to our countrymen who yet hold slaves, with the utmost
confidence that its perusal will not leave in their minds a doubt,
either of the duty or perfect safety of _immediate emancipation_,
however it may fail to persuade their hearts--which God grant it
may not!
By order of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery
Society.
New York, April 28th, 1838.
* * * * *
EXPLANATION OF TERMS USED IN THE NARRATIVE.
1. The words 'Clergy' and 'Missionary' are used to distinguish between
the ministers of the English or Scotch church, and those of all other
denominations.
2. The terms 'church' and 'chapel' denote a corresponding distinction in
the places of worship, though the English Church have what are
technically called 'chapels of ease!'
3. 'Manager' and 'overseer' are terms designating in different islands
the same station. In Antigua and Barbadoes, _manager_ is the word in
general use, in Jamaica it is _overseer_--both meaning the practical
conductor or immediate superintendent of an estate. In our own country,
a peculiar odium is attached to the latter term. In the West Indies, the
station of manager or overseer is an honorable one; proprietors of
estates, and even men of rank, do not hesitate to occupy it.
4. The terms 'colored' and 'black' or 'negro' indicate a distinction
long kept up in the West Indies between the mixed blood and the pure
negro. The former as a body were few previous to the abolition act; and
for this reason chiefly we presume the term of distinction was
originally applied to them. To have used these terms interchangeably in
accordance with the usage in the United States, would have occasioned
endless confusion in the narrative.
5. 'Praedial' and 'non-praedial' are terms used in the apprenticeship
colonies to mark the difference between the agricultural class and the
domestic; the former are called _praedials_, the latter _non-praedials_.
* * * * *
POPULATION OF THE BRITISH (FORMERLY SLAVE) COLONIES.
(_Compiled from recent authentic documents._)
British Colonies. White. Slave. F. Col'd. Total.
Anguilla 365 2,388 357 3,110
Antigua[A] 1,980 29,839 3,895 35,714
Bahamas 4,240 9,268 2,991 16,499
Barbadoes 15,000 82,000 5,100 102,100
Berbicel 550 21,300 1,150 23,000
Bermuda[A] 3,900 4,600 740 9,240
Cape of Good Hope[B] 43,000 35,500 29,000 107,500
Demerara[B] 3,000 70,000 6,400 79,400
Dominica 850 15,400 3,600 19,850
Grenada 800 24,000 2,800 27,600
Honduras[B] 250 2,100 2,300 4,650
Jamaica 37,000 323,000 55,000 415,000
Mauritius[B] 8,000 76,000 15,000 99,000
Montserrat 330 6,200 800 7,330
Nevis 700 6,600 2,000 9,300
St. Christophers,St. Kitts 1,612 19,310 3,000 23,922
St. Lucia[B] 980 13,600 3,700 18,280
St. Vincent 1,300 23,500 2,800 27,600
Tobago 320 12,500 1,200 14,020
Tortola 480 5,400 1,300 7,180
Trinidad[B] 4,200 24,000 16,000 44,200
Virgin Isles 800 5,400 600 6,800
Total 131,257 831,105 162,733 1,125,095
[Footnote A: These islands adopted immediate emancipation, Aug 1, 1834.]
[Footnote B: These are crown colonies, and have no local legislature.]
ANTIGUA.
CHAPTER I.
Antigua is about eighteen miles long and fifteen broad; the interior is
low and undulating, the coast mountainous. From the heights on the coast
the whole island may be taken in at one view, and in a clear day the
ocean can be seen entirely around the land, with the exception of a few
miles of cliff in one quarter. The population of Antigua is about
37,000, of whom 30,000 are negroes--lately slaves--4500 are free people
of color, and 2500 are whites.
The cultivation of the island is principally in sugar, of which the
average annual crop is 15,000 hogsheads. Antigua is one of the oldest of
the British West India colonies, and ranks high in importance and
influence. Owing to the proportion of proprietors resident in the
Island, there is an accumulation of talent, intelligence and refinement,
greater, perhaps, than in any English colony, excepting Jamaica.
Our solicitude on entering the Island of Antigua was intense. Charged
with a mission so nearly concerning the political and domestic
institutions of the colony, we might well be doubtful as to the manner
of our reception. We knew indeed that slavery was abolished, that
Antigua had rejected the apprenticeship, and adopted entire
emancipation. We knew also, that the free system had surpassed the hopes
of its advocates. But we were in the midst of those whose habits and
sentiments had been formed under the influences of slavery, whose
prejudices still clinging to it might lead them to regard our visit with
indifference at least, if not with jealousy. We dared not hope for aid
from men who, not three years before, were slaveholders, and who, as a
body, strenuously resisted the abolition measure, finally yielding to it
only because they found resistance vain.
Mingled with the depressing anxieties already referred to, were emotions
of pleasure and exultation, when we stepped upon the shores of an
unfettered isle. We trod a soil from which the last vestige of slavery
had been swept away! To us, accustomed as we were to infer the existence
of slavery from the presence of a particular hue, the numbers of negroes
passing to and fro, engaged in their several employments, denoted a land
of oppression; but the erect forms, the active movements, and the
sprightly countenances, bespoke that spirit of disinthrallment which had
gone abroad through Antigua.
On the day of our arrival we had an interview with the Rev. James Cox,
the superintendent of the Wesleyan mission in the island. He assured us
that we need apprehend no difficulty in procuring information, adding,
"We are all free here now; every man can speak his sentiments unawed. We
have nothing to conceal in our present system; had you come here as the
_advocates of slavery_ you might have met with a very different
reception."
At the same time we met the Rev. N. Gilbert, a clergyman of the English
Church, and proprietor of an estate. Mr. G. expressed the hope that we
might gather such facts during our stay in the island, as would tend
effectually to remove the curse of slavery from the United States. He
said that the failure of the crops, from the extraordinary drought which
was still prevailing, would, he feared, be charged by persons abroad to
the new system. "The enemies of freedom," said he, "will not ascribe the
failure to the proper cause. It will be in vain that we solemnly
declare, that for more than thirty years the island has not experienced
such a drought. Our enemies will persist in laying all to the charge of
our free system; men will look only at the amount of sugar exported,
which will be less than half the average. They will run away with this
fact, and triumph over it as the disastrous consequence of abolition."
On the same day we were introduced to the Rev. Bennet Harvey, the
principal of the Moravian mission, to a merchant, an agent for several
estates, and to an intelligent manager. Each of these gentlemen gave us
the most cordial welcome, and expressed a warm sympathy in the objects
of our visit. On the following day we dined, by invitation, with the
superintendent of the Wesleyan mission, in company with several
missionaries. _Freedom in Antigua_ was the engrossing and delightful
topic. They rejoiced in the change, not merely from sympathy with the
disinthralled negroes, but because it had emancipated them from a
disheartening surveillance, and opened new fields of usefulness. They
hailed the star of freedom "with exceeding great joy," because it
heralded the speedy dawning of the Sun of Righteousness.
We took an early opportunity to call on the Governor, whom we found
affable and courteous. On learning that we were from the United States,
he remarked, that he entertained a high respect for our country, but its
slavery was a stain upon the whole nation. He expressed his conviction
that the instigators of northern mobs must be implicated in some way,
pecuniary or otherwise, with slavery. The Governor stated various
particulars in which Antigua had been greatly improved by the abolition
of slavery. He said, the planters all conceded that emancipation had
been a great blessing to the island, and he did not know of a single
individual who wished to return to the old system.
His excellency proffered us every assistance in his power, and requested
his secretary--_a colored gentleman_--to furnish us with certain
documents which he thought would be of service to us. When we rose to
leave, the Governor followed us to the door, repeating the advice that
we should "see with our own eyes, and hear with our own ears." The
interest which his Excellency manifested in our enterprise, satisfied us
that the prevalent feeling in the island was opposed to slavery, since
it was a matter well understood that the Governor's partialities, if he
had any, were on the side of the planters rather than the people.
On the same day we were introduced to a barrister, a member of the
assembly and proprietor of an estate. He was in the assembly at the time
the abolition act was under discussion. He said that it was violently
opposed, until it was seen to be inevitable. Many were the predictions
made respecting the ruin which would be brought upon the colony; but
these predictions had failed, and abolition was now regarded as the
salvation of the island.
SABBATH.
The morning of our first Sabbath in Antigua came with that hushed
stillness which marks the Sabbath dawn in the retired villages of New
England. The arrangements of the family were conducted with a studied
silence that indicated habitual respect for the Lord's day. At 10
o'clock the streets were filled with the church-going throng. The rich
rolled along in their splendid vehicles with liveried outriders and
postillions. The poor moved in lowlier procession, yet in neat attire,
and with the serious air of Christian worshippers. We attended the
Moravian service. In going to the chapel, which is situated on the
border of the town, we passed through and across the most frequented
streets. No persons were to be seen, excepting those whose course was
toward some place of worship. The shops were all shut, and the voices of
business and amusement were hushed. The market place, which yesterday
was full of swarming life, and sent forth a confused uproar, was
deserted and dumb--not a straggler was to be seen of all the multitude.
On approaching the Moravian chapel we observed the negroes, wending
their way churchward, from the surrounding estates, along the roads
leading into town.
When we entered the chapel the service had begun, and the people were
standing, and repeating their liturgy. The house, which was capable of
holding about a thousand persons, was filled. The audience were all
black and colored, mostly of the deepest Ethiopian hue, and had come up
thither from the estates, where once they toiled as slaves, but now as
freemen, to present their thank-offerings unto Him whose truth and
Spirit had made them free. In the simplicity and tidiness of their
attire, in its uniformity and freedom from ornament, it resembled the
dress of the Friends. The females were clad in plain white gowns, with
neat turbans of cambric or muslin on their heads. The males were dressed
in spencers, vests, and pantaloons, all of white. All were serious in
their demeanor, and although the services continued more than two hours,
they gave a wakeful attention to the end. Their responses in the litany
were solemn and regular.
Great respect was paid to the aged and infirm. A poor blind man came
groping his way, and was kindly conducted to a seat in an airy place. A
lame man came wearily up to the door, when one within the house rose and
led him to the seat he himself had just occupied. As we sat facing the
congregation, we looked around upon the multitude to find the marks of
those demoniac passions which are to strew carnage through our own
country when its bondmen shall be made free. The countenances gathered
there, bore the traces of benevolence, of humility, of meekness, of
docility, and reverence; and we felt, while looking on them, that the
doers of justice to a wronged people "shall surely dwell in safety and
be quiet from fear of evil."
After the service, we visited the Sabbath school. The superintendent was
an interesting young colored man. We attended the recitation of a
Testament class of children of both sexes from eight to twelve. They
read, and answered numerous questions with great sprightliness.
In the afternoon we attended the Episcopal church, of which the Rev.
Robert Holberton is rector. We here saw a specimen of the aristocracy of
the island. A considerable number present were whites,--rich proprietors
with their families, managers of estates, officers of government, and
merchants. The greater proportion of the auditory, however, were colored
people and blacks. It might be expected that distinctions of color would
be found here, if any where;--however, the actual distinction, even in
this the most fashionable church in Antigua, amounted only to this, that
the body pews on each side of the broad aisle were occupied by the
whites, the side pews by the colored people, and the broad aisle in the
middle by the negroes. The gallery, on one side, was also appropriated
to the colored people, and on the other to the blacks. The finery of the
negroes was in sad contrast with the simplicity we had just seen at the
Moravian chapel. Their dresses were of every color and style; their hats
were of all shapes and sizes, and fillagreed with the most tawdry
superfluity of ribbons. Beneath these gaudy bonnets were glossy
ringlets, false and real, clustering in tropical luxuriance. This
fantastic display was evidently a rude attempt to follow the example set
them by the white aristocracy.
The choir was composed chiefly of colored boys, who were placed on the
right side of the organ, and about an equal number of colored girls on
the left. In front of the organ were eight or ten white children. The
music of this colored, or rather "amalgamated" choir, directed by a
colored chorister, and accompanied by a colored organist, was in
good taste.
In the evening, we accompanied a friend to the Wesleyan chapel, of which
the Rev. James Cox is pastor. The minister invited us to a seat within
the altar, where we could have a full view of the congregation. The
chapel was crowded. Nearly twelve hundred persons were present. All sat
promiscuously in respect of color. In one pew was a family of whites,
next a family of colored persons, and behind that perhaps might be seen,
side by side, the ebon hue of the negro, the mixed tint of the mulatto,
and the unblended whiteness of the European. Thus they sat in crowded
contact, seemingly unconscious that they were outraging good taste,
violating natural laws, and "confounding distinctions of divine
appointment!" In whatever direction we turned, there was the same
commixture of colors. What to one of our own countrymen whose contempt
for the oppressed has defended itself with the plea of _prejudice
against color_, would have been a combination absolutely shocking, was
to us a scene as gratifying as it was new.
On both sides, the gallery presented the same unconscious blending of
colors. The choir was composed of a large number, mostly colored, of all
ages. The front seats were filled by children of various ages--the rear,
of adults, rising above these tiny choristers, and softening the
shrillness of their notes by the deeper tones of mature age.
The style of the preaching which we heard on the different occasions
above described, so far as it is any index to the intelligence of the
several congregations, is certainly a high commendation. The language
used, would not offend the taste of any congregation, however refined.
On the other hand, the fixed attention of the people showed that the
truths delivered were understood and appreciated.
We observed, that in the last two services the subject of the present
drought was particularly noticed in prayer.
The account here given is but a fair specimen of the solemnity and
decorum of an Antigua sabbath.
VISIT TO MILLAR'S ESTATE.
Early in the week after our arrival, by the special invitation of the
manager, we visited this estate. It is situated about four miles from
the town of St. John's.
The smooth MacAdamized road extending across the rolling plains and
gently sloping hill sides, covered with waving cane, and interspersed
with provision grounds, contributed with the fresh bracing air of the
morning to make the drive pleasant and animating.
At short intervals were seen the buildings of the different estates
thrown together in small groups, consisting of the manager's mansion and
out-houses, negro huts, boiling house, cooling houses, distillery, and
windmill. The mansion is generally on an elevated spot, commanding a
view of the estate and surrounding country. The cane fields presented a
novel appearance--being without fences of any description. Even those
fields which lie bordering on the highways, are wholly unprotected by
hedge, ditch, or rails. This is from necessity. Wooden fences they
cannot have, for lack of timber. Hedges are not used, because they are
found to withdraw the moisture from the canes. To prevent depredations,
there are watchmen on every estate employed both day and night. There
are also stock keepers employed by day in keeping the cattle within
proper grazing limits. As each estate guards its own stock by day and
folds them by night, the fields are in little danger.
We passed great numbers of negroes on the road, loaded with every kind
of commodity for the town market. _The head is the beast of burthen_
among the negroes throughout the West Indies. Whatever the load, whether
it be trifling or valuable, strong or frail, it is consigned to the
head, both for safe keeping and for transportation. While the head is
thus taxed, the hands hang useless by the side, or are busied in
gesticulating, as the people chat together along the way. The negroes we
passed were all decently clad. They uniformly stopped as they came
opposite to us, to pay the usual civilities. This the men did by
touching their hats and bowing, and the women, by making a low courtesy,
and adding, sometimes, "howdy, massa," or "mornin', massa." We passed
several loaded wagons, drawn by three, four, or five yoke of oxen, and
in every instance the driver, so far from manifesting any disposition
"insolently" to crowd us off the road, or to contend for his part of it,
turned his team aside, leaving us double room to go by, and sometimes
stopping until we had passed.
We were kindly received at Millar's by Mr. Bourne, the manager. Millar's
is one of the first estates in Antigua. The last year it made the
largest sugar crop on the island. Mr. B. took us before breakfast to
view the estate. On the way, he remarked that we had visited the island
at a very unfavorable time for seeing the cultivation of it, as every
thing was suffering greatly from the drought. There had not been a
single copious rain, such as would "make the water run," since the first
of March previous. As we approached the laborers, the manager pointed
out one company of ten, who were at work with their hoes by the side of
the road, while a larger one of thirty were in the middle of the field.
They greeted us in the most friendly manner. The manager spoke kindly to
them, encouraging them to be industrious He stopped a moment to explain
to us the process of cane-holing. The field is first ploughed[A] in one
direction, and the ground thrown up in ridges of about a foot high. Then
similar ridges are formed crosswise, with the hoe, making regular
squares of two-feet-sides over the field. By raising the soil, a clear
space of six inches square is left at the bottom. In this space the
_plant_ is placed horizontally, and slightly covered with earth. The
ridges are left about it, for the purpose of conducting the rain to the
roots, and also to retain the moisture. When we came up to the large
company, they paused a moment, and with a hearty salutation, which ran
all along the line, bade us "good mornin'," and immediately resumed
their labor. The men and women were intermingled; the latter kept pace
with the former, wielding their hoes with energy and effect. The manager
addressed them for a few moments, telling them who we were, and the
object of our visit. He told them of the great number of slaves in
America, and appealed to them to know whether they would not be sober,
industrious, and diligent, so as to prove to American slaveholders the
benefit of freeing all their slaves. At the close of each sentence, they
all responded, "Yes, massa," or "God bless de massas," and at the
conclusion, they answered the appeal, with much feeling, "Yes, massa;
please God massa, we will all do so." When we turned to leave, they
wished to know what we thought of their industry. We assured them that
we were much pleased, for which they returned their "thankee, massa."
They were working at a _job_. The manager had given them a piece of
ground "to hole," engaging to pay them sixteen dollars when they had
finished it. He remarked that he had found it a good plan to give
_jobs_. He obtained more work in this way than he did by giving the
ordinary wages, which is about eleven cents per day. It looked very much
like slavery to see the females working in the field; but the manager
said they chose it generally "_for the sake of the wages_." Mr. B.
returned with us to the house, leaving the gangs in the field, with only
an aged negro in charge of the work, as _superintendent._ Such now is
the name of the overseer. The very _terms_, _driver_ and _overseer_, are
banished from Antigua; and the _whip_ is buried beneath the soil
of freedom.
[Footnote A: In those cases where the plough is used at all. It is not
yet generally introduced throughout the West Indies. Where the plough is
not used, the whole process of holing is done with the hoe, and is
extremely laborious]
When we reached the house we were introduced to Mr. Watkins, a _colored_
planter, whom Mr. B. had invited to breakfast with us. Mr. Watkins was
very communicative, and from him and Mr. B., who was equally free, we
obtained information on a great variety of points, which we reserve for
the different heads to which they appropriately belong.
FITCH'S CREEK ESTATE.
From Millar's we proceeded to Fitch's Creek Estate, where we had been
invited to dine by the intelligent manager, Mr. H. Armstrong. We three
met several Wesleyan missionaries. Mr. A. is himself a local preacher in
the Wesleyan connection. When a stranger visits an estate in the West
Indies, almost the first thing is an offer from the manager to accompany
him through the sugar works. Mr. A. conducted us first to a new boiling
house, which he was building after a plan of his own devising. The house
is of brick, on a very extensive scale. It has been built entirely by
negroes--chiefly those belonging to the estate who were emancipated in
1834. Fitch's Creek Estate is one of the largest on the Island,
consisting of 500 acres, of which 300 are under cultivation. The number
of people employed and living on the property is 260. This estate
indicates any thing else than an apprehension of approaching ruin. It
presents the appearance, far more, of a _resurrection_, from the grave.
In addition to his improved sugar and boiling establishment, he has
projected a plan for a new village, (as the collection of negro houses
is called,) and has already selected the ground and begun to build. The
houses are to be larger than those at present in use, they are to be
built of stone instead of mud and sticks, and to be neatly roofed.
Instead of being huddled together in a bye place, as has mostly been the
case, they are to be built on an elevated site, and ranged at regular
intervals around three sides of a large square, in the centre of which a
building for a chapel and school house is to be erected. Each house is
to have a garden. This and similar improvements are now in progress,
with the view of adding to the comforts of the laborers, and attaching
them to the estate. It has become the interest of the planter to make it
for the _interest of the people_ to remain on his estate. This _mutual
interest_ is the only sure basis of prosperity on the one hand and of
industry on the other.
The whole company heartily joined in assuring us that a knowledge of the
actual working of abolition in Antigua, would be altogether favorable to
the cause of freedom, _and that the more thorough our knowledge of the
facts in the case, the more perfect would be our confidence in the
safety of_ IMMEDIATE _emancipation_.
Mr. A. said that the spirit of enterprise, before dormant, had been
roused since emancipation, and planters were now beginning to inquire as
to the best modes of cultivation, and to propose measures of general
improvement. One of these measures was the establishing of _free
villages_, in which the laborers might dwell by paying a small rent.
When the adjacent planters needed help they could here find a supply for
the occasion. This plan would relieve the laborers from some of that
dependence which they must feel so long as they live on the estate and
in the houses of the planters. Many advantages of such a system were
specified. We allude to it here only as an illustration of that spirit
of inquiry, which freedom has kindled in the minds of the planters.
No little desire was manifested by the company to know the state of the
slavery question in this country. They all, planters and missionaries,
spoke in terms of abhorrence of our slavery, our snobs, our prejudice,
and our Christianity. One of the missionaries said it would never do for
him to go to America, for he should certainly be excommunicated by his
Methodist brethren, and Lynched by the advocates of slaver. He insisted
that slaveholding professors and ministers should be cut off from the
communion of the Church.
As we were about to take leave, the _proprietor_ of the estate rode up,
accompanied by the governor, who he had brought to see the new
boiling-house, and the other improvements which were in progress. The
proprietor reside in St. John's, is a gentleman of large fortune, and a
member of the assembly. He said he would be happy to aid us in any
way--but added, that in all details of a practical kind, and in all
matters of fact, the planters were the best witnesses, for they were the
conductors of the present system. We were glad to obtain the endorsement
of an influential proprietor to the testimony of practical planters.
DINNER AT THE GOVERNOR'S.
On the following day having received a very courteous invitation[A] from
the governor, to dine at the government house, we made our arrangements
to do so. The Hon. Paul Horsford, a member of the council, called during
the day, to say, that he expected to dine with us at the government
house and that he would be happy to call for us at the appointed hour,
and conduct us thither. At six o'clock Mr. H.'s carriage drove up to our
door, and we accompanied him to the governor's, where we were introduced
to Col. Jarvis, a member of the privy council, and proprietor of several
estates in the island, Col. Edwards, a member of the assembly and a
barrister, Dr. Musgrave, a member of the assembly, and Mr. Shiel,
attorney general. A dinner of state, at a Governor's house, attended by
a company of high-toned politicians, professional gentlemen, and
proprietors, could hardly be expected to furnish large accessions to our
stock of information, relating to the object of our visit. Dinner being
announced, we were hardly seated at the table when his excellency
politely offered to drink a glass of Madeira with us. We begged leave to
decline the honor. In a short time he proposed a glass of
Champaign--again we declined. "Why, surely, gentlemen," exclaimed the
Governor, "you must belong to the temperance society." "Yes, sir, we
do." "Is it possible? but you will surely take a glass of liqueur?"
"Your excellency must pardon us if we again decline the honor; we drink
no wines." This announcement of ultra temperance principles excited no
little surprise. Finding that our allegiance to cold water was not to be
shaken, the governor condescended at last to meet us on middle ground,
and drink his wine to our water.
[Footnote A: We venture to publish the note in which the governor
conveyed his invitation, simply because, though a trifle in itself, it
will serve to show the estimation in which our mission was held.
"If Messrs. Kimball and Thome are not engaged Tuesday next, the
Lieut. Governor will be happy to see them at dinner, at six o'clock,
when he will endeavor to facilitate their philanthropic inquiries,
by inviting two or three proprietors to met them."
"_Government House, St. John's, Dec. 18th_, 1836."
]
The conversation on the subject of emancipation served to show that the
prevailing sentiment was decidedly favorable to the free system. Col.
Jarvis, who is the proprietor of three estates, said that he was in
England at the time the bill for immediate emancipation passed the
legislature. Had he been in the island he should have opposed it; but
_now_ he was glad it had prevailed. The evil consequences which he
apprehended had not been realized, and he was now confident that they
never would be.
As to prejudice against the black and colored people, all thought it was
rapidly decreasing--indeed, they could scarcely say there was now any
such thing. To be sure, there was an aversion among the higher classes
of the whites, and especially among _females_, to associating in parties
with colored people; but it was not on account of their _color_, but
chiefly because of their _illegitimacy_. This was to us a new _source_
of prejudice: but subsequent information fully explained its bearings.
The whites of the West Indies are themselves the authors of that
_illegitimacy_, out of which their aversion springs. It is not to be
wondered at that they should be unwilling to invite the colored people
to their social parties, seeing they might not unfrequently be subjected
to the embarrassment of introducing to their white wives a colored
mistress or an _illegitimate_ daughter. This also explains the special
prejudice which the _ladies_ of the higher classes feel toward those
among whom are their guilty rivals in a husband's affections, and those
whose every feature tells the story of a husband's unfaithfulness!
A few days after our dinner with the governor and his friends, we took
breakfast, by invitation, with Mr. Watkins, the _colored_ planter whom
we had the pleasure of meeting at Millar's, on a previous occasion. Mr.
W. politely sent in his chaise for us, a distance of five miles, At an
early hour we reached Donovan's, the estate of which he is manager. We
found the sugar works in active operation: the broad wings of the
windmill were wheeling their stately revolutions, and the smoke was
issuing in dense volumes from the chimney of the boiling house. Some of
the negroes were employed in carrying cane to the mill, others in
carrying away the _trash_ or _megass_, as the cane is called after the
juice is expressed from it. Others, chiefly the old men and women, were
tearing the megass apart, and strewing it on the ground to dry. It is
the only fuel used for boiling the sugar.
On entering the house we found three planters whom Mr. W. had invited to
breakfast with us. The meeting of a number of intelligent practical
planters afforded a good opportunity for comparing their views. On all
the main points, touching the working of freedom, there was a strong
coincidence.
When breakfast was ready, Mrs. W. entered the room, and after our
introduction to her, took her place at the head of the table. Her
conversation was intelligent, her manners highly polished, and she
presided at the table with admirable grace and dignity.
On the following day, Dr. Ferguson, of St. John's, called on us. Dr.
Ferguson is a member of the assembly, and one of the first physicians in
the island. The Doctor said that freedom had wrought like a magician,
and had it not been for the unprecedented drought, the island would now
be in a state of prosperity unequalled in any period of its history. Dr.
F. remarked that a general spirit of improvement was pervading the
island. The moral condition of the whites was rapidly brightening;
formerly concubinage was _respectable_; it had been customary for
married men--those of the highest standing--to keep one or two colored
mistresses. This practice was now becoming disreputable. There had been
a great alteration as to the observance of the Sabbath; formerly more
business was done in St. John's on Sunday, by the merchants, than on all
the other days of the week together. The mercantile business of the town
had increased astonishingly; he thought that the stores and shops had
multiplied in a _ratio of ten to one_. Mechanical pursuits were likewise
in a flourishing condition. Dr. F. said that a greater number of
buildings had been erected since emancipation, than had been put up for
twenty years before. Great improvements had also been made in the
streets and roads in town and country.
MARKET.
SATURDAY.--This is the regular market-day here. The negroes come from all
parts of the island; walking sometimes ten or fifteen miles to attend
the St. John's market. We pressed our way through the dense mass of all
hues, which crowded the market. The ground was covered with wooden trays
filled with all kinds of fruits, grain, vegetables, fowls, fish, and
flesh. Each one, as we passed, called attention to his or her little
stock. We passed up to the head of the avenue, where men and women were
employed in cutting up the light fire-wood which they had brought from
the country on their heads, and in binding it into small bundles for
sale. Here we paused a moment and looked down upon the busy multitude
below. The whole street was a moving mass. There were broad Panama hats,
and gaudy turbans, and uncovered heads, and heads laden with water pots,
and boxes, and baskets, and trays--all moving and mingling in seemingly
inextricable confusion. There could not have been less than fifteen
hundred people congregated in that street--all, or nearly all,
emancipated slaves. Yet, amidst all the excitements and competitions of
trade, their conduct toward each other was polite and kind. Not a word,
or look, or gesture of insolence or indecency did we observe. Smiling
countenances and friendly voices greeted us on every side, and we felt
no fears either of having our pockets picked or our throats cut!
At the other end of the market-place stood the _Lock-up House_, the
_Cage_, and the _Whipping Post_, with stocks for feet and wrists. These
are almost the sole relics of slavery which still linger in the town.
The Lock-up House is a sort of jail, built of stone--about fifteen feet
square, and originally designed as a place of confinement for slaves
taken up by the patrol. The Cage is a smaller building, adjoining the
former, the sides of which are composed of strong iron bars--fitly
called a _cage!_ The prisoner was exposed to the gaze and insult of
every passer by, without the possibility of concealment. The Whipping
Post is hard by, but its occupation is gone. Indeed, all these
appendages of slavery have gone into entire disuse, and Time is doing
his work of dilapidation upon them. We fancied we could see in the
marketers, as they walked in and out at the doorless entrance of the
Lock-up House, or leaned against the Whipping Post, in careless chat,
that harmless defiance which would prompt one to beard the dead lion.
Returning from the market we observed a negro woman passing through the
street, with several large hat boxes strung on her arm. She accidentally
let one of them fall. The box had hardly reached the ground, when a
little boy sprang from the back of a carriage rolling by, handed the
woman the box, and hastened to remount the carriage.
CHRISTMAS.
During the reign of slavery, the Christmas holidays brought with them
general alarm. To prevent insurrections, the militia was uniformly
called out, and an array made of all that was formidable in military
enginery. This custom was dispensed with at once, after emancipation. As
Christmas came on the Sabbath, it tested the respect for that day. The
morning was similar, in all respects, to the morning of the Sabbath
described above; the same serenity reigning everywhere--the same quiet
in the household movements, and the same tranquillity prevailing through
the streets. We attended morning service at the Moravian chapel.
Notwithstanding the descriptions we had heard of the great change which
emancipation had wrought in the observance of Christmas, we were quite
unprepared for the delightful reality around us. Though thirty thousand
slaves had but lately been "turned loose" upon a white population of
less than three thousand! instead of meeting with scenes of disorder,
what were the sights which greeted our eyes? The neat attire, the
serious demeanor, and the thronged procession to the place of worship.
In every direction the roads leading into town were lined with happy
beings--attired for the house of God. When groups coming from different
quarters met at the corners, they stopped a moment to exchange
salutations and shake hands, and then proceeded on together.
The Moravian chapel was slightly decorated with green branches. They
were the only adorning which marked the plain sanctuary of a plain
people. It was crowded with black and colored people, and very many
stood without, who could not get in. After the close of the service in
the chapel, the minister proceeded to the adjacent school room, and
preached to another crowded audience. In the evening the Wesleyan chapel
was crowded to overflowing. The aisles and communion place were full. On
all festivals and holidays, which occur on the Sabbath, the churches and
chapels are more thronged than on any other Lord's day.
It is hardly necessary to state that there was no instance of a dance or
drunken riot, nor wild shouts of mirth during the day. The Christmas,
instead of breaking in upon the repose of the Sabbath, seemed only to
enhance the usual solemnity of the day.
The holidays continued until the next Wednesday morning, and the same
order prevailed to the close of them. On Monday there were religious
services in most of the churches and chapels, where sabbath-school
addresses, discourses on the relative duties of husband and wife, and on
kindred subjects, were delivered.
An intelligent gentleman informed us that the negroes, while slaves,
used to spend during the Christmas holidays, the extra money which they
got during the year. Now they save it--_to buy small tracts of land for
their own cultivation_.
The Governor informed us that the police returns did not report a single
case of arrest during the holidays. He said he had been well acquainted
with the country districts of England, he had also travelled extensively
in Europe, yet he had never found such a _peaceable, orderly, and
law-abiding people as those of Antigua_.
An acquaintance of nine weeks with the colored population of St. John's,
meeting them by the wayside, in their shops, in their parlors, and
elsewhere, enables us to pronounce them a people of general
intelligence, refinement of manners, personal accomplishments, and true
politeness. As to their style of dress and mode of living, were we
disposed to make any criticism, we should say that they were
extravagant. In refined and elevated conversation, they would certainly
bear a comparison with the white families of the island.
VISIT TO THIBOU JARVIS'S ESTATE.
After the Christmas holidays were over, we resumed our visits to the
country. Being provided with a letter to the manager of Thibou Jarvis's
estate, Mr. James Howell, we embraced the earliest opportunity to call
on him. Mr. H. has been in Antigua for thirty-six years, and has been a
practical planter during the whole of that time. He has the management
of two estates, on which there are more than five hundred people. The
principal items of Mr. Howell's testimony will be found in another
place. In this connection we shall record only miscellaneous statements
of a local nature.
1. The severity of the drought. He had been in Antigua since the year
1800, and he had never known so long a continuance of dry weather,
although the island is subject to severe droughts. He stated that a
field of yams, which in ordinary seasons yielded ten cart-loads to the
acre, would not produce this year more than _three_. The failure in the
crops was not in the least degree chargeable upon the laborers, for in
the first place, the cane plants for the present crop were put in
earlier and in greater quantities than usual, and _until_ the drought
commenced, the fields promised a large return.
2. _The religious condition_ of the negroes, during slavery, was
extremely low. It seemed almost impossible to teach them any higher
_religion_ than _obedience to their masters_. Their highest notion of
God was that he was a _little above_ their owner. He mentioned, by way
of illustration, that the slaves of a certain large proprietor used to
have this saying, "Massa only want he little finger to touch God!" that
is, _their master was lower than God only by the length of his little
finger_. But now the religious and moral condition of the people was
fast improving.
3. A great change in the use of _rum_ had been effected on the estates
under his management since emancipation. He formerly, in accordance with
the prevalent custom, gave his people a weekly allowance of rum, and
this was regarded as essential to their health and effectiveness. But he
has lately discontinued this altogether, and his people had not suffered
any inconvenience from it. He gave them in lieu of the rum, an allowance
of molasses, with which they appeared to be entirely satisfied. When Mr.
H. informed the people of his intention to discontinue the spirits, he
told them that he should _set them the example_ of total abstinence, by
abandoning wine and malt liquor also, which he accordingly did.
4. There had been much less _pretended sickness_ among the negroes since
freedom. They had now a strong aversion to going to the sick house[A],
so much so that on many estates it had been put to some other use.
[Footnote A: The _estate hospital_, in which, during slavery, all sick
persons were placed for medical attendance and nursing. There was one on
every estate.]
We were taken through the negro village, and shown the interior of
several houses. One of the finest looking huts was decorated with
pictures, printed cards, and booksellers' advertisements in large
letters. Amongst many ornaments of this kind, was an advertisement not
unfamiliar to our eyes--"THE GIRL'S OWN BOOK. BY MRS. CHILD."
We generally found the women at home. Some of them had been informed of
our intention to visit them, and took pains to have every thing in the
best order for our reception. The negro village on this estate contains
one hundred houses, each of which is occupied by a separate family. Mr.
H. next conducted us to a neighboring field, where the _great gang_[B]
were at work. There were about fifty persons in the gang--the majority
females--under two inspectors or superintendents, men who take the place
of the _quondam drivers_, though their province is totally different.
They merely direct the laborers in their work, employing with the
loiterers the stimulus of persuasion, or at farthest, no more than the
violence of the tongue.
[Footnote B: The people on most estates are divided into three gangs;
first, the great gang, composed of the principal effective men and
women; second, the weeding gang, consisting of younger and weekly
persons; and third, the grass gang, which embraces all the children
able to work.]
Mr. H. requested them to stop their work, and told them who we were, and
as we bowed, the men took off their hats and the women made a low
courtesy. Mr. Howell then informed them that we had come from America,
where there were a great many slaves: that we had visited Antigua to see
how freedom was working, and whether the people who were made free on
the first of August were doing well--and added, that he "hoped these
gentlemen might be able to carry back such a report as would induce the
masters in America to set their slaves free." They unanimously replied,
"Yes, massa, we hope dem will gib um free." We spoke a few words: told
them of the condition of the slaves in America, urged them to pray for
them that they might be patient under their sufferings, and that they
might soon be made free. They repeatedly promised to pray for the poor
slaves in America. We then received their hearty "Good bye, massa," and
returned to the house, while they resumed their work.
We took leave of Mr. Howell, grateful for his kind offices in
furtherance of the objects of our mission.
We had not been long in Antigua before we perceived the distress of the
poor from the scarcity of water. As there are but few springs in the
island, the sole reliance is upon rain water. Wealthy families have
cisterns or tanks in their yards, to receive the rain from the roofs.
There are also a few public cisterns in St. John's. These ordinarily
supply the whole population. During the present season many of these
cisterns have been dry, and the supply of water has been entirely
inadequate to the wants of the people. There are several large open
ponds in the vicinity of St. John's, which are commonly used to water
"stock." There are one or more on every estate, for the same purpose.
The poor people were obliged to use the water from these ponds both for
drinking and cooking while we were in Antigua. In taking our morning
walks, we uniformly met the negroes either going to, or returning from
the ponds, with their large pails balanced on their heads, happy
apparently in being able to get even such foul water.
Attended the anniversary of the "Friendly Society," connected with the
church in St. John's. Many of the most respectable citizens, including
the Governor, were present. After the services in the church, the
society moved in procession to the Rectory school-room. We counted one
hundred males and two hundred and sixty females in the procession.
Having been kindly invited by the Rector to attend at the school-room,
we followed the procession. We found the house crowded with women, many
others, besides those in the procession, having convened. The men were
seated without under a canvass, extended along one side of the house.
The whole number present was supposed to be nine hundred. Short
addresses were made by the Rector, the Archdeacon, and the Governor.
The Seventh Annual Report of the Society, drawn up by the secretary, a
colored man, was read. It was creditable to the author. The Rector in
his address affectionally warned the society, especially the female
members, against extravagance in dress.
The Archdeacon exhorted them to domestic and conjugal faithfulness. He
alluded to the prevalence of inconstancy during past years, and to the
great improvement in this particular lately; and concluded by wishing
them all "a happy new-year and _many_ of them, and a blessed immortality
in the end." For this kind wish they returned a loud and general
"thankee, massa."
The Governor then said, that he rose merely to remark, that this society
might aid in the emancipation of millions of slaves, now in bondage in
other countries. A people who are capable of forming such societies as
this among themselves, deserve to be free, and ought no longer to be
held in bondage. You, said he, are showing to the world what the negro
race are capable of doing. The Governor's remarks were received with
applause. After the addresses the audience were served with
refreshments, previous to which the Rector read the following lines,
which were sung to the tune of Old Hundred, the whole congregation
standing.
"Lord at our table now appear
And bless us here, as every where;
Let manna to our souls be given,
The bread of life sent down from heaven."
The simple refreshment was then handed round. It consisted merely of
buns and lemonade. The Governor and the Rector, each drank to the health
and happiness of the members. The loud response came up from all within
and all around the house--"thankee--thankee--thankee--massa--thankee
_good_ massa." A scene of animation ensued. The whole concourse of
black, colored and white, from the humblest to the highest, from the
unlettered apprentice to the Archdeacon and the Governor of the island,
joined in a common festivity.
After the repast was concluded, thanks were returned in the following
verse, also sung to Old Hundred.
"We thank thee, Lord, for this our food,
But bless thee more for Jesus' blood;
Let manna to our souls be given,
The bread of life sent down from heaven."
The benediction was pronounced, and the assembly retired.
There was an aged negro man present, who was noticed with marked
attention by the Archdeacon, the Rector and other clergymen. He is
sometimes called the African Bishop. He was evidently used to
familiarity with the clergy, and laid his hand on their shoulders as he
spoke to them. The old patriarch was highly delighted with the scene. He
said, when he was young he "never saw nothing, but sin and Satan. _Now I
just begin to live_."
On the same occasion the Governor remarked to us that the first thing to
be done in our country, toward the removal of slavery, was to discard
the absurd notion that _color_ made any difference, intellectually or
morally, among men. "All distinctions," said he, "founded in color, must
be abolished everywhere. We should learn to talk of men not as _colored_
men, but as MEN _as fellow citizens and fellow subjects_." His
Excellency certainly showed on this occasion a disposition to put in
practice his doctrine. He spoke affectionately to the children, and
conversed freely with the adults.
VISIT TO GREEN CASTLE.
According to a previous engagement, a member of the assembly called and
took us in his carriage to Green Castle estate.
Green Castle lies about three miles south-east from St. John's, and
contains 940 acres. The mansion stands on a rocky cliff; overlooking the
estate, and commanding a wide view of the island. In one direction
spreads a valley, interspersed with fields of sugar-cane and provisions.
In another stretches a range of hills, with their sides clad in culture,
and their tops covered with clouds. At the base of the rock are the
sugar Houses. On a neighboring upland lies the negro village, in the
rear of which are the provision grounds. Samuel Bernard, Esq., the
manager, received us kindly. He said, he had been on the island
forty-four years, most of the time engaged in the management of estates.
He is now the manager of two estates, and the attorney for six, and has
lately purchased an estate himself. Mr. B. is now an aged man, grown old
in the practice of slave holding. He has survived the wreck of slavery,
and now stripped of a tyrant's power, he still lives among the people,
who were lately his slaves, and manages an estate which was once his
empire. The testimony of such a man is invaluable. Hear him.
1. Mr. B. said, that the negroes throughout the island were very
peaceable when they received their freedom.
2. He said he had found no difficulty in getting his people to work
after they had received their freedom. Some estates had suffered for a
short time; there was a pretty general fluctuation for a month or two,
the people leaving one estate and going to another. But this, said Mr.
B., was chargeable to the _folly_ of the planters, who _overbid_ each
other in order to secure the best hands and enough of them. The negroes
had a _strong attachment to their homes_, and they would rarely abandon
them unless harshly treated.
3. He thought that the assembly acted very wisely in rejecting the
apprenticeship. He considered it absurd. It took the chains partly from
off the slave, and fastened them on the master, _and enslaved them
both_. It withdrew from the latter the power of compelling labor, and it
supplied to the former no incentive to industry.
He was opposed to the measures which many had adopted for further
securing the benefits of emancipation.--He referred particularly to the
system of education which now prevailed. He thought that the education
of the emancipated negroes should combine industry with study even in
childhood, so as not to disqualify the taught for cultivating the
ground. It will be readily seen that this prejudice against education,
evidently the remains of his attachment to slavery, gives additional
weight to his testimony.
The Mansion on the Rock (which from its elevated and almost inaccessible
position, and from the rich shrubbery in perpetual foliage surrounding
it, very fitly takes the name of Green Castle) is memorable as the scene
of the murder of the present proprietor's grandfather. He refused to
give his slaves holiday on a particular occasion. They came several
times in a body and asked for the holiday, but he obstinately refused to
grant it. They rushed into his bedroom, fell upon him with their hoes,
and killed him.
On our return to St. John's, we received a polite note from a colored
lady, inviting us to attend the anniversary of the "Juvenile
Association," at eleven o'clock. We found about forty children
assembled, the greater part of them colored girls, but some were white.
The ages of these juvenile philanthropists varied from four to fourteen.
After singing and prayer, the object of the association was stated,
which was to raise money by sewing, soliciting contributions, and
otherwise, for charitable purposes.
From the annual report it appeared that this was the _twenty-first
anniversary_ of the society. The treasurer reported nearly £60 currency
(or about $150) received and disbursed during the year. More than one
hundred dollars had been given towards the erection of the new Wesleyan
chapel in St. John's. Several resolutions were presented by little
misses, expressive of gratitude to God for continued blessings, which
were adopted unanimously--every child holding up its right hand in token
of assent.
After the resolutions and other business were despatched, the children
listened to several addresses from the gentlemen present. The last
speaker was a member of the assembly. He said that his presence there
was quite accidental; but that he had been amply repaid for coming by
witnessing the goodly work to which this juvenile society was engaged.
As there was a male branch association about to be organized, he begged
the privilege of enrolling his name as an honorary member, and promised
to be a constant contributor to its funds. He concluded by saying, that
though he had not before enjoyed the happiness of attending their
anniversaries, he should never again fail to be present (with the
permission of their worthy patroness) at the future meetings of this
most interesting society. We give the substance of this address, as one
of the signs of the times. The speaker was a wealthy merchant of
St. John's.
This society was organized in 1815. The _first proposal_ came from a few
_little colored girls_, who, after hearing a sermon on the blessedness
of doing good, wanted to know whether they might not have a society for
raising money to give to the poor.
This Juvenile Association has, since its organization, raised the sum of
_fourteen hundred dollars_! Even this little association has experienced
a great impulse from the free system. From a table of the annual
receipts since 1815, we found that the amount raised the two last years,
is nearly equal to that received during any three years before.
DR. DANIELL--WEATHERILL ESTATE.
On our return from Thibou Jarvis's estate, we called at Weatherill's;
but the manager, Dr. Daniell, not being at home, we left our names, with
an intimation of the object of our visit. Dr. D. called soon after at
our lodgings. As authority, he is unquestionable. Before retiring from
the practice of medicine, he stood at the head of his profession in the
island. He is now a member of the council, is proprietor of an estate,
manager of another, and attorney for six.
The fact that such men as Dr. D., but yesterday large slaveholders, and
still holding high civil and political stations, should most cheerfully
facilitate our anti-slavery investigations, manifesting a solicitude to
furnish us with all the information in their power, is of itself the
highest eulogy of the new system. The testimony of Dr. D. will be found
mainly in a subsequent part of the work. We state, in passing, a few
incidentals. He was satisfied that immediate emancipation was better
policy than a temporary apprenticeship. The apprenticeship was a middle
state--kept the negroes in suspense--vexed and harrassed them--_fed them
on a starved hope_; and therefore they would not be so likely, when they
ultimately obtained freedom, to feel grateful, and conduct themselves
properly. The reflection that they had been cheated out of their liberty
for six years would _sour their minds_. The planters in Antigua, by
giving immediate freedom, had secured the attachment of their people.
The Doctor said he did not expect to make more than two thirds of his
average crop; but he assured us that this was owing solely to the want
of rain. There had been no deficiency of labor. The crops were _in_, in
season, throughout the island, and the estates were never under better
cultivation than at the present time. Nothing was wanting but
RAIN--RAIN.
He said that the West India planters were very anxious to _retain_ the
services of the negro population.
Dr. D. made some inquiries as to the extent of slavery in the United
States, and what was doing for its abolition. He thought that
emancipation in our country would not be the result of a slow process.
The anti-slavery feeling of the civilized world had become too strong to
wait for a long course of "preparations" and "ameliorations." And
besides, continued he, "the arbitrary control of a master can never be a
preparation for freedom;--_sound and wholesome legal restraints are the
only preparative_."
The Doctor also spoke of the absurdity and wickedness of the caste of
color which prevailed in the United States. It was the offspring of
slavery, and it must disappear when slavery is abolished.
CONVERSATION WITH A NEGRO.
We had a conversation one morning with a boatman, while he was rowing us
across the harbor of St. John's. He was a young negro man. Said he was a
slave until emancipation. We inquired whether he heard any thing about
emancipation before it took place. He said, yes--the slaves heard of it,
but it was talked about so long that many of them lost all _believement_
in it, got tired waiting, and bought their freedom; but he had more
patience, and got his for nothing. We inquired of him, what the negroes
did on the first of August, 1834. He said they all went to church and
chapel. "Dare was more _religious_ on dat day dan you could tire of."
Speaking of the _law_, he said it was his _friend_. If there was no law
to take his part, a man, who was stronger than he, might step up and
knock him down. But now no one dare do so; all were afraid of the
_law_,--the law would never hurt any body who behaved well; but a master
would _slash a fellow, let him do his best_.
VISIT TO NEWFIELD.
Drove out to Newfield, a Moravian station, about eight miles from St.
John's. The Rev. Mr. Morrish, the missionary at that station, has under
his charge two thousand people. Connected with the station is a day
school for children, and a night school for adults twice in each week.
We looked in upon the day school, and found one hundred and fifteen
children. The teacher and assistant were colored persons. Mr. M.
superintends. He was just dismissing the school, by singing and prayer,
and the children marched out to the music of one of their little songs.
During the afternoon, Mr. Favey, manager of a neighboring estate,
(Lavicount's,) called on us.
He spoke of the tranquillity of the late Christmas holidays. They ended
Tuesday evening, and his people were all in the field at work on
Wednesday morning--there were no stragglers. Being asked to specify the
chief advantages of the new system over slavery, he stated at once the
following things: 1st. It (free labor) is less _expensive_. 2d. It costs
a planter far less _trouble_ to manage free laborers, than it did to
manage slaves. 3d. It had _removed all danger of insurrection,
conflagration, and conspiracies_.
ADULT SCHOOL.
In the evening, Mr. Morrish's adult school for women was held. About
thirty women assembled from different estates--some walking several
miles. Most of them were just beginning to read. They had just begun to
learn something about figures, and it was no small effort to add 4 and 2
together. They were incredibly ignorant about the simplest matters. When
they first came to the school, they could not tell which was their right
arm or their right side, and they had scarcely mastered that secret,
after repeated showing. We were astonished to observe that when Mr. M.
asked them to point to their cheeks, they laid their finger upon their
chins. They were much pleased with the evolutions of a dumb clock, which
Mr. M. exhibited, but none of them could tell the time of day by it.
Such is a specimen of the intelligence of the Antigua negroes. Mr. M.
told us that they were a pretty fair sample of the country negroes
generally. It surely cannot be said that they were uncommonly well
prepared for freedom; yet with all their ignorance, and with the merest
infantile state of intellect, they prove the peaceable subjects of law.
That they have a great desire to learn, is manifest from their coming
such distances, after working in the field all day. The school which
they attend has been established since the abolition of slavery.
The next morning, we visited the day school. It was opened with singing
and prayer. The children knelt and repeated the Lord's Prayer after Mr.
M. They then formed into a line and marched around the room, singing and
keeping the step. A tiny little one, just beginning to walk,
occasionally straggled out of the line. The next child, not a little
displeased with such disorderly movements, repeatedly seized the
straggler by the frock, and pulled her into the ranks; but finally
despaired of reducing her to subordination. When the children had taken
their seats, Mr. M., at our request, asked all those who were free
before August, 1834, to rise. Only one girl arose, and she was in no way
distinguishable from a white child. The first exercise, was an
examination of a passage of scripture. The children were then questioned
on the simple rules of addition and subtraction, and their answers were
prompt and accurate.
DR. NUGENT.
The hour having arrived when we were to visit a neighboring estate, Mr.
M. kindly accompanied us to Lyon's, the estate upon which Dr. Nugent
resides. In respect to general intelligence, scientific acquirements,
and agricultural knowledge, no man in Antigua stands higher than Dr.
Nugent. He has long been speaker of the house of assembly, and is
favorably known in Europe as a geologist and man of science. He is
manager of the estate on which he resides, and proprietor of another.
The Doctor informed us that the crop on his estate had almost totally
failed, on account of the drought--being reduced from one hundred and
fifty hogsheads, the average crop, to _fifteen_! His provision grounds
had yielded almost nothing. The same soil which ordinarily produced ten
cart-loads of yams to the acre--the present season barely averaged _one
load to ten acres_! Yams were reduced from the dimensions of a man's
head, to the size of a radish. The _cattle were dying_ from want of
water and grass. He had himself lost _five oxen_ within the past week.