The second objection to our conclusion is grounded upon the Ordinance

of the Confederation, in 1787, by which slavery was prohibited in the

North-western Territory ceded to the United States by Virginia. This

magnificent domain, including the present States of Ohio, Indiana and

Illinois, was conquered from the public enemy in the years 1778-9, by

the Commonwealth of Virginia. She sent out her own troops, at her own

charges, without either authority or assistance from the

Confederation, then also engaged in a war with Great Britain, under

her own commission to her heroick son, General George Rogers Clarke.

Upon the conquest of the country, she disposed by her own State action

of the prisoners of war captured, and annexed the territory to the

State of Virginia, which then also included Kentucky. The other

States, and the Confederation, uniformly recognized this region as

legitimately a part of Virginia. But during and after the war, the

States which owned no unsettled territory grew exceedingly jealous of

those which possessed such regions, and especially of Virginia. They

feared her ulterior grandeur and power. But their expressed plea was,

that she, and other States possessed of vacant lands, could pay their

share of the common war debt, without taxation, by the sale of these

lands, which, as they claimed, were the fruits of the common exertions

of the States, while the others would be subjected to an onerous

taxation. The North-west Territory had, in fact, been won by Virginia,

with her own bow and spear; but at the request of the Congress of the

Confederation, she magnanimously laid the splendid prize upon the

altar of the common cause, ceding it in 1784 to Congress, for the

common behoof of the United States. The Congress of the Confederation

passed a long enactment, known as the Ordinance of 1787, providing, in

many articles, for its settlement, for its government while a

territory, and for the sale of lands. Among these was a clause

prohibiting slavery in it. But meantime, the Confederation was

superseded by the general government organized under the new

constitution of 1787. The first Congress during the administration of

General Washington, acting under the article of the constitution

already cited for taking and managing the "territory and other

property" of the Confederation, passed an act, (August 7th, 1789,) for

putting in effect the Ordinance of the Congress of the Confederation,

now extinct.

Such is the history of the case. The inference of the objector is,

that because the Congress of 1789, acting under the late constitution,

claimed power to execute the ordinance of 1787, (passed by the

previous and different general government,) with its anti-slavery

clause included, therefore that constitution gave it power to exclude

slavery from any other territory. But the inference is worthless. For,

first, the Congress of the old Confederation had not a particle of

constitutional power to adopt such an anti-slavery clause. So declared

Mr. Madison emphatically:[66] and so has decided the Supreme Court of

the United States.[67] Both these high authorities declare, that if

the clause had any validity, it derived it only from the assent of

Virginia, who had full sovereignty over the territory, and who

accepted and ratified the exclusion by act of her General Assembly, as

well as by the mouths of her representatives in the Confederation. And

the Congress of 1789, in accepting the conditions imposed by the

Ordinance of 1787 on the territory, as valid and abiding, undertook to

change nothing, because it regarded that validity as the result of

treaty stipulations between Virginia and the other twelve States

represented by the old Congress. It conceived itself as having

inherited from a previous and different government powers over this

particular territory, which it could by no means have originated by

its own constitutional authority.[68] Second: The government framed

under the new constitution was one of limited powers; and Congress was

expressly inhibited, by the instrument which created it, from

exercising any authority not granted. But such a power as that to

exclude citizens of any of the United States from the common

territory, because they proposed to carry there property legalized

both by the Constitution of the United States and of their own State,

was not granted to Congress. That a government whose very foundation

was the equality of the States, should thus attempt to disfranchise

some States of a part of their rights, was a solecism too monstrous

for these able and enlightened men. Third: When similar cessions of

territory were afterwards made by North Carolina and Georgia, these

States refused to Congress the privilege of appending to their laws

touching these lands, the exclusion of slavery; and Congress obeyed,

so framing their enactments as to admit and protect slave-owners. This

proves that the exclusion derived its force from the consent of the

Sovereign State, and not from the power of Congress.

[Footnote 66: Federalist, No. 38. Letter to Walsh, 1819.]

[Footnote 67: 19th Howard, pp. 40, 41.]

[Footnote 68: 19th Howard, pp. 44, 45.]

The third ground of objection which has been advanced against our main

proposition, is the doctrine said to have been decided by the Supreme

Court of the United States, (as in the case of Prigg against the State

of Pennsylvania,) that according to recognized international laws, a

nation which does not hold slaves itself is not bound to recognize

property in slaves in neighbouring nations, when those slaves come

into its borders; and that if a rendition is claimed, it must be asked

of comity, or of special stipulation, and not as of international

right. The answer is clear and facile. The States of the American

Union were, initially, as independent nations to each other; and then

they were all slaveholding. Each one of them recognized in its own

citizens the right of property in slaves; and therefore, if the above

doctrine be granted, they could not then, by international law, refuse

to recognize it in nations living at amity with them. Again: When they

passed out of this condition of absolute independence, into that of

federal union, their relations, so far as they ceased to be

international, were regulated exclusively by the constitution; and by

this constitution the property in slaves was expressly recognized, the

rendition of fugitive slaves was expressly required of all the States,

whether themselves holding slaves or not; and all the common territory

of the Union was originally slave territory until it became free

territory by sovereign State action. Plainly, in such a case as this,

the international law of Europe has no application, against historical

facts and actual constitutional enactments. The sophism of this plea

in the mouths of anti-slavery men, the uniform assertors of

consolidation doctrines, would make the States, in the same breath,

independent nations, in order that the international law of a

different hemisphere may be applied against them, and also subject

provinces of an anti-slavery nation, in order that they may be

stripped of that equality of rights, belonging to sovereign

constituent parties in a confederation.

CHAPTER IV.

HISTORY OF EMANCIPATION.

The motive for introducing the historical facts contained in this

chapter is the following: That the credit of Virginia as a

slaveholding State is relatively illustrated by the conduct of her

partners in the confederation touching the same matter. Virginia never

passed a general act of emancipation; on the contrary, she forbade

masters to free their slaves within her borders, unless they also

provided for their removal to new homes. But what was it which the

Northern States actually did? The general answer to this question

cannot be better given than in the words of the Hon. A. H. H. Stuart

of Virginia, in his Report to the General Assembly, as chairman of its

joint committee on the Harper's Ferry outrages. He says:

"At the date of the declaration of our national independence, slavery

existed in every colony of the Confederation....

"Shortly after the Declaration of Independence, the Northern States

adopted prospective measures to relieve themselves of the African

population. But it is a great mistake to suppose that their policy in

this particular was prompted by any spirit of philanthropy or tender

regard for the welfare of the negro race. On the contrary, it was

dictated by an enlightened self-interest, yielding obedience to

overruling laws of social economy. Experience had shown that the

African race were not adapted to high northern latitudes, and that

slave labour could not compete successfully with free white labour in

those pursuits to which the industry of the North was directed. This

discovery having been made, the people of the North, at an early day,

began to dispose of their slaves by sale to citizens of the Southern

States, whose soil, climate, and productions were better adapted to

their habits and capacities; and the legislation of the Northern

States, following the course of publick opinion, was directed, not to

emancipation, but to the removal of the slave population beyond their

limits. To effect this object, they adopted a system of laws which

provided, prospectively, that all slaves born of female slaves, within

their jurisdiction, after certain specified dates, should be held free

when they attained a given age. No law can be found on the

statute-book of any Northern State, which conferred the boon of

freedom on a single slave in being. All who were slaves remained

slaves. Freedom was secured only to the children of slaves, born after

the days designated in the laws; and it was secured to them only in

the contingency that the owner of the female slave should retain her

within the jurisdiction of the State until after the child was born.

To secure freedom to the afterborn child, therefore, it was necessary

that the consent of the master, indicated by his permitting the mother

to remain in the State, should be superadded to the provisions of the

law. Without such consent, the law would have been inoperative,

because the mother, before the birth of the child, might, at the will

of the master, be removed beyond the jurisdiction of the law. There

was no legal prohibition of such removal, for such a prohibition would

have been at war with the policy of the law, which was obviously

removal, and not emancipation. The effect of this legislation was, as

might have readily been foreseen, to induce the owners of female

slaves to sell them to the planters of the South, before the time

arrived when the forfeiture of the offspring would accrue. By these

laws, a wholesale slave trade was inaugurated, under which a large

proportion of the slaves of the Northern States were sold to persons

residing south of Pennsylvania; and it is an unquestionable fact that

a large number of the slaves of the Southern States are the

descendants of those sold by Northern men to citizens of the South,

with covenants of general warranty of title to them and to their

increase."

Thus wrote Mr. Stuart, after thorough research. A brief recital of the

enactments of the Northern slaveholding States will show that his

general representation is correct. We begin with Massachusetts. No law

against slavery, (which had been long legally established in the

colony,) was ever passed by her legislature;[69] and in that sense,

the right to hold slaves may be said to have formally existed, until

it was extinguished by her adoption of the "constitutional amendment,"

in 1866! Practically, slavery was gradually removed after 1780, by the

current of the legal decisions against it, grounded upon a clause in

the new bill of rights, adopted by the State in that year. This

clause asserted, nearly in the words of the Declaration of

Independence, the native equality and liberty of men. In 1781 a slave

of N. Jennison, of Worcester County, recovered damages of his master

for beating.[70] This decision, if sustained, of course implied the

cessation of slavery. Although the Legislature of the State was moved

in 1783, by this Jennison and others, to declare that slavery did not

exist legally, so that the doubt might be ended, that body refused to

act; nor did it ever after abolish slavery.[71] But judicial decisions

after the example of the Jennison case were made from time to time,

until, in 1796, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in the case of

Littleton _v._ Tuttle,[72] gave its countenance to the doctrine, that

the bill of rights virtually made slavery illegal. That all this was a

glaring instance of the judicial abuse, _ampliandi jurisdictionem_, is

manifest from many facts: That the Massachusetts statesmen who adopted

the same proposition in the Declaration of Independence, never dreamed

of its possessing any force to abolish slavery in the United States

which set it forth: That the convention which drew up the bill of

rights for Massachusetts did not think of such an application; That

this document declared "no part of any citizen's property could be

taken from him without his own consent:" That slaves continued to be

bought and sold, and advertised as before; And that the abolitionists,

still in the minority, continued after 1780 to remonstrate against

slavery as a sin still legalized. But such a mode of determining the

question was well adapted to the meddlesome and crooked temper of that

people. By this judicial trick the envious non-slaveholders were

enabled to attack their richer slaveholding neighbours, and render

them so uneasy as to insure their disposing of their slaves; while

still there was neither law nor publick opinion prevalent enough to

procure a legal act of emancipation.

[Footnote 69: Moore, Slavery in Mass., p. 242.]

[Footnote 70: Moore, Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 212.]

[Footnote 71: Ibid., p. 216, etc.]

[Footnote 72: Chief Justice Parsons, Mass. Rep., 4, Winchedon _v._

Hatfield.]

New Hampshire and Vermont embodied the principle of prospective

emancipation in their new constitutions. In 1790 there were 158 slaves

in New Hampshire. In 1840 there was still _one_! Rhode Island passed a

law in 1784, that no person born after that year should continue a

slave. Connecticut embodied in the revision of her laws, in 1784, a

law providing that all children born of slave parents after March 1st

of that year, should be free at twenty-five years of age. In 1797 the

term of servitude was reduced to twenty-one years for all born after

August 1st of that year. Slavery was not actually abolished by law

until June 12th, 1848; when the census shows there were no fewer than

seventeen slaves in the State; and how old and worthless they must

have been, appears from the fact that the youngest of them must have

been born before March 1st, 1784.[73]

[Footnote 73: Rep. of C. J. Hoadly, State Librarian of Connecticut.]

In New York, the laws for slaves were more severe than in the Southern

States, and the African slave trade was zealously encouraged during

the whole colonial period. The slave could not testify, even to

exculpate a slave. Three justices, with a sort of jury of five

freeholders, could try capitally, and inflict any sentence, _inclusive

of burning alive_.[74] It was not until 1799 that the State commenced

a system of laws for the gradual abolition of slavery. Every slave

child born after July 4th of that year was to be free, the males after

twenty-eight, and the females after twenty-five years. In 1810, the

benefit of freedom was also extended to those born before July 4th,

1799, to take effect July 4th, 1827, the date at which the earliest

born of those freed by previous law reached their majority of

twenty-eight years.[75] Still the census of 1830 found 75 slaves! The

Revised Statutes of New York, after 1817, provided a penalty for those

carrying them out of the State for sale; showing that the tendency to

do so existed.

[Footnote 74: Chancellor Kent.]

[Footnote 75: Idem.]

In New Jersey, the first act looking towards prospective emancipation

was adopted in 1784. By it all born after 1804 were to be free in

1820. It was not until 1820 that action was taken to give effect to

this promise; and then the nature of the law was such as to postpone

the hopes of the slaves. The first section of the law of February

24th, 1820, says: "Every child born of a slave within this State since

the 4th day of July 1804, or which shall hereafter be born as

aforesaid, shall be free; but shall remain the servant of the owner of

his or her mother, and the executors, administrators and assigns of

such owners, in the same manner as if such child had been bound to

service by the Trustees or Overseers of the poor, and shall continue

in such service, if a male until the age of twenty-five years, and if

a female until the age of twenty-one years." It was within the scope

of possibility that slave women whom this law left slaves for life

might bear children as late as the year 1848: whence bondage would not

have been terminated wholly by it until 1873. New Jersey had 236

slaves for life in 1850. It is stated by one of the best informed of

her old citizens, that the prospective effect of these enactments was

to cause a considerable _exodus_ to Southern markets; and that when a

boy, he heard much talk of the sale of negroes, and the sending of

them to "the Natchez," and was cognizant of the continual apprehension

of the negroes concerning the danger.

In Pennsylvania, emancipation was also prospective and gradual. Her

first act was passed March 1st, 1780. The rate at which it operated

may be seen from these figures: In 1776 she had about 10,000 slaves;

in 1790, (ten years after her first act,) she had 3,737; in 1800,

1,706; in 1810, 795; in 1820, 211; in 1830, 403; and in 1840, 64

slaves.

Thus, the emancipation legislation of the Northern States has been

reviewed, and the assertions of the Hon. Mr. Stuart substantially

sustained. That Northern emancipation was prompted by no consideration

for the supposed rights of Africans, but by regard to their own

interests, is evinced by many facts. Of these, perhaps the most

general and striking is the persistent neglect of the welfare of their

emancipated slaves; the refusal to give them equal civic rights, until

they found a motive for doing so in malice against the South; and the

shocking decadence, vice and misery to which a nominal liberty,

according to the testimony of Northern writers, has consigned their

wretched free blacks. Another proof is found in the current language

of the men of the generation which effected the change. That language,

as is well remembered by elderly persons still living, was usually

such as this: that now that the population had filled up the country,

the question of emancipation was simply one of choice between their

own children and the negro--whether their sons should emigrate, or the

negro be gotten rid of, as there was no longer room for both. Another

conclusive proof is in the fact that while these States were getting

rid of their own negroes, they were deliberately voting

(Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, in the Convention of

1787,) to prolong the introduction of slaves into the Carolinas

nineteen years more. Still another evidence is found in the repugnance

of those States to the influx of free blacks, and the stringent laws

of some of them to prevent it. Thus, Massachusetts, in March, 1788,

(eight years after the pretended extinction of human bondage,) passed

a law ordering every black, mulatto or Indian who came into the State

and remained two months to be publickly whipped; and this punishment

was to be repeated "if he or she shall not depart _toties

quoties_."[76] _This law remained in force until 1834!_ as is shown by

its appearance in the Revised Laws of Massachusetts, 1823. It is also

to be noted that the scheme of gradual emancipation, upon which the

whole North acted, obviously recognizes the property of the master in

his slave as legitimate in itself. It only touches it, (because

private rights are here required to give place to publick interest,)

in the case of those born after a certain day. The slavery of the

others is left as perpetual and legal as ever. And even as to the

later born, the right of the master receives a certain recognition, in

that he is allowed twenty-five years' service as a partial

compensation for the surrender of the remainder.

[Footnote 76: Moore, Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 229.]

But how different is the summary abolition forced upon Virginia and

the South! Here, the general legislation of the State was steadily

multiplying, elevating and blessing the black race, which in the North

was so rapidly dying out under its pretended liberty. And private

beneficence of Virginians, without any legal compulsion, had actually

given the boon of freedom to at least one hundred thousand blacks;

which is more than all the citizens of the New England States, New

York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania together, ever did, under the force

of all their laws.[77] In this wise and beneficent career Virginia has

been violently interrupted, against her recognized and guaranteed

rights, by instant and violent abolition. The motive of the North, as

a whole, has manifestly been, not love for the negro, but hatred of

the white man, and lust of domination. This abolition is purely the

result of a supposed military necessity, because the North believed

that otherwise she could not overthrow the South in an unjust war. But

for this single fact, the Africans would still be in bondage, so far

as the Yankee was concerned. The proof is, that the Chicago platform

of the Black Republican party in 1860, expressly repudiated the

purpose ever to meddle with slavery in the States. Mr. Lincoln, the

chosen man of the North, solemnly asserted the same thing in his

letter to A. H. Stephens of Georgia, in his publick inaugural, and in

his messages. The Congress, after the beginning of the war, solemnly

declared to the world by a joint resolution, that the purpose of the

war was only to restore the Union, and not to restrict or change State

institutions. Mr. Lincoln constantly declared to the Abolitionists,

that if the perpetuation of slavery tended to restore the Union, it

should be perpetuated. His standing invitation to the States in arms

against him was: "If you wish to keep your slaves, come back into the

Union." Can the North be believed in her own declarations? Then, the

charge made is true--that abolition in the South was prompted by

ambition and hatred, not by philanthropy.

[Footnote 77: The negroes freed by Virginians, with their increase in

Ohio, Pennsylvania, Liberia, etc., are 100,000 at least. The maximum

number of slaves freed by the above States was, New Hampshire 629,

Massachusetts 6,000, Rhode Island 4,370, Connecticut 6,000, New York

20,000, New Jersey 12,422, Pennsylvania 10,000. Total, 59,421. Such

was the largest number of original freedmen made by those States of

their own slaves. When we remember that the census has proved that in

the Northern States their natural increase has almost ceased for

several decades, and in some there has been an actual diminution, it

appears very plain that they and their progeny do not now number

100,000. Meantime, the votes of the New England States assisted to add

more than 600,000 to the number of slaves in Carolina!]

Nor has this act been less wicked in its effects than in its motive.

To the white race it was the most violent, convulsive, reckless and

mischievous act ever perpetrated by a civilized government. As a war

measure, it was calculated and expected to evoke all the savage

horrors of servile war, neighbourhood massacre and butchery of

non-combatants. Only the kindly relations which the benevolence and

justice of the people of Virginia had established between themselves

and their slaves, and the good character which we had given to these

former savages, disappointed this desired result. As an economic

measure, it was the most violent ever attempted in modern history;

being a sudden confiscation of half, (and in some of the counties

two-thirds) the existing property of the country; and a dislocation of

its whole labour system, just when the people were bowed under the

burden of a gigantic war, and a collapsed currency. That it did not

then again result in a total paralysis of industry, in famine and

anarchy, (which was probably intended), is only to be explained by the

exercise of an energy, versatility, good sense, and industry in the

Southern people, which are almost miraculous. By annihilating at one

blow so much of the property on which the indebtedness of the country

was based, it insured a financial confusion and general bankruptcy

which are destined to plunge hundreds of thousands of innocent persons

(innocent even from Yankee points of view) into destitution and

domestic distress, which three generations will not heal. It

confiscated the property of "loyal Union men," of helpless minors and

lunatics, of venerable and infirm widows, without compensation, just

as it did the possessions of the Confederate leader most obnoxious to

the Yankee wrath. And what was the species of possession? Was it some

foul lucre, like the spoils of an Achan, so unrighteous that it must

be instantly plucked away, regardless of consequences? No; it was a

species of property legalized by Moses and Christ, owned for ages by

the boasted ancestors of the despoilers, now owned by themselves in

the form of its fruits and increase, guaranteed by the Constitution

which alone gave them any right to govern us, legalized by all our

State laws, which were of earlier and superior authority to that

Constitution, and recognized by the sacred pledges of the North

itself, even so late as the beginning of this war.

But the step has been far more mischievous and unjust to the poor

blacks, its pretended beneficiaries. It did not tarry to inquire

whether they were fit for the change. It has resulted in the outbreak

of a flood of vice, before repressed; of drunkenness, of illicit lust,

of infanticide, of theft; and above all, of idleness, the least

flagrant, but most truly mischievous fault of the African. It has

suddenly and greatly diminished their share of the material goods they

before enjoyed. The supplies of clothing and shoes now acquired by

them do not reach a third of what they received before the war.

Immediately on their emancipation, all the rural mill-owners testified

that their grists _fell off one-half_, and have remained at that grade

since. In those neighbourhoods where the blacks did not emigrate,

(which was true of many neighbourhoods,) this showed that the

consumption of bread was reduced one-half; for although the large

proprietors now had no occasion to send their large grists, yet,

unless there were less consumed, the aggregate of the little grists of

the freedmen's families should have made good that decrease. Every

statesman knows that any burden or disaster imposed upon the

industrial pursuits of a country, is transmitted down by the property

classes to the destitute class, and presses there with its whole

force; just as inevitably as the weight of a statue placed upon the

top of a column, is ultimately delivered upon the lowest _stratum_ of

foundation-stones. For the great law of self-preservation prompts each

man, who has any property, to employ it in evading that pressure for

himself and his family. Thus the actual _onus_ is handed down, until

it reaches that class who have no property, and must therefore bear

it, because they have nothing wherewith to pay for the shifting of it.

Thus, all the malice of the conqueror, aimed at the hated white man,

while it crowds us down, also crowds down equally the labourer beneath

us; and the blow alights ultimately on him.

The famine which is now preying upon some parts of the South

illustrates the mischief done by the disorganization of labour, and

the comparative excellence of the old system. Such was its

beneficence, that it carried the Southern country through all the

exhausting trials of the war, without actual dearth in any part of the

Confederacy. Hundreds of thousands of our most vigorous men were

wholly withdrawn from productive pursuits; our own armies were to be

sustained; great hosts of enemies were continually tearing the vitals

of the country; the year 1864 brought a drought so severe that in some

parts of the country the crops of grain were reduced to one-tenth of

the usual harvests; and yet, such was the happiness of our system,

that it endured all these enormous trials, and met the wants of all.

But after the new _régime_ was well established, there came in 1866

such a drought as the South had several times experienced before,

without inconvenience; and although all was peace, there were no

armies to support, and no labouring man was called from the farm to

the unproductive toils of the camp and the intrenchment, famine

immediately resulted. Here is a fair comparison of the system of free

African labour, with the old one. Indolence is the parent of crime.

While the smaller misdemeanours are more frequent, there has been an

alarming increase of felonies. In the orderly little county of Prince

Edward, the criminal convictions of black persons averaged only one

per year before the war. The last year they numbered twelve! An

inquiry into the statistics of crime in our cities would reveal a yet

larger increase.[78]

[Footnote 78: From April 31st, 1860, to May 31st, 1862, two years and

one month, there were _two_ criminal convictions of negroes by Prince

Edward Court. From April 31st, 1865, to April 31st, 1867, a less

period by one month, there were, in the same court, thirty-five

criminal indictments of negroes, and fifteen convictions, leaving

thirteen cases over to be tried at subsequent terms. And this

aggregate of crime has already accumulated in our once peaceful little

community, notwithstanding that the jurisdiction of our courts over

negroes was totally suspended by our conquerors for a number of months

after April 31st, 1865.]

Last, facts already evince, that the doom of ultimate extermination

which Southern philanthropists have ever predicted as the result of

premature emancipation, is already overtaking the negro with giant

strides. About the end of 1866 the officers of the State revenue made

their returns, which showed that there were then about 275,650 negro

males over 21 years within the present limits of Virginia. Repeated

calculations made from previous returns show that there are usually

four and a half times as many souls among the blacks of Virginia as

there are males over 21 years. The entire black population of the

State then, at the end of the last year, was 340,500. The census of

1860 returned 531,000 blacks within the present limits of the State.

The diminution is therefore 190,500; or nearly two-fifths, in less

than two years. Some may suppose that more negro men have left the

State since the war than women and children. If this is true, the

number of males is now relatively smaller, and should be multiplied by

a larger ratio than 4-1/2 to find the correct total. But, on the other

hand, it is certain that the neglect and mortality have been much

larger among the aged and little children than among the robust men.

This fact, therefore, reduces the ratio of the total to the males over

21 years, and renders it certain that 340,500 is a large estimate. The

same officers brought in returns which show that the white population

of Virginia, although decimated by a terrible war, has actually

increased since 1860. But we exposed no negro to the dangers of the

battle. Thus it is made manifest that the philanthropy of Yankees has

been to the poor negro an infinitely more desolating scourge than a

tremendous war has been to the race against which the sword was openly

wielded. And it requires little arithmetic to discover how long it

will be, at this rate, before the monstrous consummation will be

reached of the extinction of a whole nation of people by their

professed friends.

CHAPTER V.

THE OLD TESTAMENT ARGUMENT.

§ 1. Let us appeal, then, to the Bible, to learn the moral character

of Domestic Slavery. It will be well for both writer and readers, if

they recall the reverence and honesty with which such a book should be

approached; if the one is cautious to permit no party zeal, pride of

opinion, or love of hypothesis, to tempt him to warp the sacred text

to any thing inconsistent with its own truth and purity; and if the

others are equally careful to receive its teachings with impartiality

and docility.

That no misunderstanding may attend the discussion, we must define at

the outset, what we mean by that domestic slavery which we defend. By

this relation we understand _the obligations of the slave to labour

for life, without his own consent, for the master_. The thing,

therefore, in which the master has property or ownership, is the

involuntary labour of the slave, and not his personality, or his soul.

A certain right of control over the person of the slave is

incidentally given to the master by his property in the bondsman's

labour; that is, so much control as is necessary to enable him to

secure the labour which belongs to him. But we repeat, it is not the

person, but the labour of the slave, which is the master's property.

This is substantially the definition of Paley, an enemy of slavery;

and it is obviously correct; it expresses the general result of the

laws of all modern nations which have had slaves, touching that

relation.

The abolitionists clamorously insist upon a different definition,

which makes the master claim property in the very personality of the

slave, in his soul, in the highest capacities which connect him with

his God, and in his very being. According to this description, slavery

converts the responsible, rational being, into a mere thing, a

chattel, a commodity, by converting him into mere property of another

man. The motive of this preposterous definition is obvious enough. One

of the most astute of American Abolitionists has been candid enough to

avow it, saying that if our definition be adopted, there is an end of

the discussion; for every logician must see that it is absurd to

declare the mere ownership of one man's labour by another, an

essential and necessary moral wrong; which is the character it suits

them to ascribe to slavery. Their object is so to represent it, that

it shall appear a self-evident injustice, and the apologist shall be

overwhelmed and silenced by a foregone prejudice. For, if it gave a

literal ownership in the person and being of the slave, which can

belong to none but the Creator; if it made not only his labour, but

his conscience, the property of the master, destroying his moral

responsibility, it would indeed dehumanize him, and would be an

iniquity indefensible by any fair mind. The trick of securing the

victory before the contest begins, by raising a false issue, is not

very novel. The utter absurdity of applying such a definition to

African slavery in America, appears from this: that it is contrary to

the whole tenour of the legislation which establishes and regulates

the institution among us. These laws, first, legislate for the slave,

as to his own conduct, as a responsible human being, govern him by

precepts sanctioned by rewards and punishments, and require of him

intelligent obedience to the same moral rules which are enforced on

his master. Second, the laws assign to the master precisely that

amount of control over his slave's person which they suppose (whether

correctly or not is no concern to us in this argument) to be

incidental to his property in the servant's labour; and no more.

Third, they protect the person, being, and moral responsibility of the

slave against his own master. If the master kills him, it is murder,

by the law. The slave's Sabbath is secured to him by the law. If the

master force him to commit a crime, the former is held by the law

guilty therefor, as accessory before the fact: and the latter is also

held to his personal responsibility for it. And last, the law treats

the slave so fully as a rational and responsible human, that it even

bestows on him the right of litigation against his own master, in one

case. Any African setting up a plea of unlawful detention in bondage,

against his master, is allowed to sue _in forma pauperis_, in the

courts of law. How could the fact be more clearly defined, that the

institution of slavery treats the slave as a rational human being, and

gives the master property in nothing but his labour?

Yet Senator Sumner points triumphantly to the words of the South

Carolina statute as proving that slavery makes the servant a mere

thing; and all smaller Abolitionists have caught up his special

pleading. The cane of Mr. Brooks having given him, as it seems, a

special taste for things South Carolinian, he hunted up a clause where

the law of that State declares, that slaves and their children shall

be held in every respect as "chattels personal." This proves beyond a

peradventure, he says, that the law reduces the slave to a mere thing,

as though he were an _ox_ or _bureau_. Yet, a hundred other laws of

South Carolina treat him as a responsible man! Any honest mind will

perceive the explanation, at once; which is, that the lawyers of South

Carolina were not aiming, in this law, to settle the question of the

moral nature of slavery; but to decide whether property in a slave

should be regarded as pertaining to the _real_, or to the _personal_

estate of a citizen; and in deciding it, they very properly had more

regard to legal perspicuity than to ethical accuracy of definition.

Let us suppose that among the statutes of the British Parliament,

there should be one (as there very probably is) declaring that when a

master mechanic dies, having an indentured apprentice, the unfinished

term of service of this apprentice should be held as belonging to his

personal effects, and should be so used for the benefit of his heirs

or creditors. And let us suppose, farther, that in defining this fact,

some such words as these should be used: that said apprentice should

be held in every respect, as pertaining unto the personal estate of

the deceased. Then, the same logic would prove that the British laws

reduce an apprentice to a mere chattel! But we have a better

illustration of its folly. God says, Genesis xxvi. 14: "Isaac had

_possessions_ of flocks, and herds, and servants." Leviticus, xxv. 45:

"Of the children of strangers that do sojourn among you, of them

shall you buy: ... and they shall be your _possession_." Exodus, xxi.

20, 21: "And 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_." Does God's law dehumanize the slave, and reduce him to a mere

chattel? We repeat, then, that, according to the slave institutions of

the Southern States, it is only the labour of the servant which

belongs to the master, and is treated as property.

Let it be understood, then, from the beginning, that we are not

inquiring into the moral character of that thing which Abolitionists

paint as domestic slavery; a something horrid with the groans of

oppressed innocence and the clang of unrighteous stripes; a something

which aims to reduce a man to a brute, and denies him his natural

right to serve his Creator and save his soul. We begin by asserting

that these things, if they ever exist in fact, are not domestic

slavery, but the abuses of it. We are not the apologists of them: we

no more defend them than do the Abolitionists. In this discussion we

have nothing more to do with them, except to express, once for all,

our strong abhorrence and reprobation of all such unlawful abuses of a

lawful institution. It has been a favourite trick of our opponents, to

represent the abuses of the relation so prominently and odiously, that

the defender of slavery shall be held up to the abhorrence of the

publick as the defender of the abuses. Especially if he is a

clergyman, (and necessity has thrown our side of this discussion very

much into the hands of Southern clergymen,) do they raise a holy

clamour, representing the unnatural wickedness of a desecrating of the

sacred office to apologize for such iniquities. Their object is to

raise a prejudice against us in advance, which will deprive us of a

dispassionate and just hearing. With all dispassionate and just

readers, for whom alone we write, it should be enough for us to repeat

emphatically, that it is only the relation of domestic slavery as

authorized by God, that we defend; and not the abuses it has received

at the hands of wicked men. The parental authority, and civil

government, and the operations of God's own church, are often abused

also. The intelligent reader, and especially the intelligent

Englishman, will remember how triumphantly this shallow sophism of

arguing against a thing from its abuses, is exposed by Burke, in his

reply to Bolingbroke's posthumous assault on Christianity, the

ironical "Defence of Natural Society." Such argument from abuses can

only be just when it is shown that the wrongs pointed out are not

incidental abuses, but legitimate, and necessary, and uniform

consequences of the institution itself. But that the incidental evils

of African slavery among us are not such, is abundantly proved by the

simple fact, that thousands of masters held slaves among us, and yet

perpetrated none of these abuses. About the relative frequency of such

abuses, we shall have something to say at a subsequent place. Enough

now to point to the fact, that by the vast majority of our servants

they were unfelt, so that they cannot be necessary parts of the

system.

We conclude these preliminary definitions by requesting the reader to

note well what is the moral character which we understand the Bible

to assign to slavery. We do not admit that it is a thing in itself

evil, but yet attended with such circumstances, in the eyes of many

merciful and humane masters who have found themselves by inheritance

unwilling slaveholders, that a change would be attended with still

greater mischiefs: so that they are excusable for its continuance for

a time. This is the view of many moderate and kind anti-slavery men;

it is not ours. We do not hold that slaveholding is only justified as

belonging to that class of wrongs, to which the laws of Moses assigned

polygamy, which ought not to have been done, but which, when done,

cannot be undone, except by the perpetrating of a greater wrong. We

assert that _the Bible teaches that the relation of master and slave

is perfectly lawful and right, provided only its duties be lawfully

fulfilled_. When we say this, we shall not be understood as saying

that all men ought to live in this relation, notwithstanding the wide

diversities of their condition and characters, or that it would be

politic, or even right, for all. But we say that the relation is not

sin in itself; but may be perfectly righteous and innocent, and not

merely excusable. And we are free to confess that unless the Bible

taught us this truth, we should be obliged to hold with the decided

Abolitionists. We could never be of the number of those, who attempt

to transmute the essential traits of moral right and wrong, at the

demand of expediency, and to excuse the continuance of a radical

injustice, by the inconvenience of repairing it. Duty belongs to man;

consequences to God.

§ 2. _The Curse upon Canaan._

The student of history perceives that, whatever may be the moral

character of domestic slavery, it is one of the most hoary

institutions of the human race. It has prevailed in every age and

continent, and under patriarchal, monarchical, despotic, aristocratic,

republican and democratic governments; while secular history gives us

no account of its origin. But Sacred Writ informs us, and traces it to

the earlier generations of the human family as refounded after the

flood. In Genesis, ix. 20 to 27, we have the following brief

narrative: "And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a

vineyard: and he drank of the wine and was drunken: and he was

uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the

nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem

and Japhet took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and

went backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their

faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And

Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto

him; and he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be

unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and

Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japhet and he shall

dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant."

In explanation of it, the following remarks may be made; on which the

majority of sound expositors are agreed. In this transaction, Noah

acts as an inspired prophet, and also as the divinely chosen,

patriarchal head of church and state, which were then confined to his

one family. God's approbation attended his verdict, as is proved by

the fact that the divine Providence has been executing it for many

ages since Noah's death. Canaan probably concurred in the indecent and

unnatural sin of Ham. As these early men were extremely ambitious of a

numerous and prosperous posterity, Ham's punishment, and Canaan's,

consisted in the mortification of hearing their descendants doomed to

a degraded lot. These descendants were included in the punishment of

their wicked progenitors on that well-known principle of God's

providence, which "visits the sin of the fathers upon the children,"

and this again is explained by the fact, that depraved parents will

naturally rear depraved children, unless God interfere by a grace to

which they have no claim; so that not only punishment, but the

sinfulness, becomes hereditary. Doubtless God's sentence, here

pronounced by Noah, was based on his foresight of the fact, that Ham's

posterity, like their father, would be peculiarly degraded in morals;

as actual history testifies of them, so far as its voice extends.

Some have been weak enough to draw a justification of slavery from the

fact, that the bondage of Canaan's posterity is predicted. This logic

the Abolitionists have, of course, delighted to expose; it was easy to

show, by sundry biblical instances, like that of the Assyrian employed

to chastise Israel, and then punished by God for his own rapacity,

that it is no justification of one's acts to find that God, in his

inscrutable and holy workings, has overruled them to the effectuation

of his own righteous, secret purposes. And our opponents, with a

treachery fully equal to the folly of our unwise advocates, usually

represent this as nearly the whole amount, and the fair exemplar, of

our biblical argument. Such is not the use we design to make of this

important piece of history.

It does in the first place, what all secular history and speculations

fail to do: it gives us the origin of domestic slavery. And we find

that it was appointed by God as the punishment of, and remedy for

(nearly all God's providential chastisements are also remedial) the

peculiar moral degradation of a part of the race. God here ordains

that this depravity shall find its necessary restraints, and the

welfare of the more virtuous its safeguard against the depraved, by

the bondage of the latter. He introduces that feature of political

society, for the justice of which we shall have occasion to contend;

that although men have all this trait of natural equality that they

are children of a common father, and sharers of a common humanity, and

subjects of the same law of love; yet, in practice, they shall be

subject to social inequalities determined by their own characters, and

their fitness or unfitness to use privileges for their own and their

neighbours' good.

But second: this narrative gives us more than a prediction. The words

of Noah are not a mere prophecy; they are a verdict, a moral sentence

pronounced upon conduct, by competent authority; that verdict

sanctioned by God. Now if the verdict is righteous, and the execution

blessed by God, it can hardly be, that the executioners of it are

guilty for putting it in effect. Can one believe that the descendants

of Shem and Japhet, with this sentence in their hands, and the divine

commendation just bestowed on them for acting unlike Ham, could have

reasonably felt guilty for accepting that control over their guilty

fellow-men which God himself had assigned? For the vital difference

between the case of the Assyrians, when their guilty ambition was

permissively employed by God to punish the back-slidings of his own

people, and the case of Shem and Japhet, is this: The Assyrians were

cursed by God for doing their predicted work, in the very sentence;

Shem and Japhet were blessed by Him in the very verdict which assigns

Canaan as their servant.

It may be that we should find little difficulty in tracing the lineage

of the present Africans to Ham. But this inquiry is not essential to

our argument. If one case is found where God has authorized domestic

slavery, the principle is settled, that it cannot necessarily be sin

in itself. It is proper that we should say, in conclusion, that this

passage of Scripture is not regarded, nor advanced, as of prime force

and importance in this argument. Others more decisive will follow.

§ 3. _Abraham a Slaveholder._

The references to the bondsmen of Abraham and his son Isaac are the

following: Genesis xiv., 14, "And when Abram heard that his brother,"

(or relative, viz.: Lot,) "was taken captive, he armed his trained

servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and

pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his

servants, by night," etc. Genesis xvii., 10, etc., "This is my

covenant which ye shall keep, between me and you, and thy seed after

thee; every man-child among you shall be circumcised," ... v. 12, "And

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. He that is born

in thy house and he that is bought with thy money must needs be

circumcised," and v. 26, 27, "In the self-same day was Abraham

circumcised, and Ishmael his son; and all the men of his house, born

in the house and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised

with him." Genesis xviii. 17 to 19, "And the _Lord_ said, Shall I hide

from Abraham that thing which I do: seeing that Abraham shall surely

become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth

shall be blessed in him? 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: that the Lord may bring upon

Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." Genesis xx. 14, "And

Abimelech" (seeking reconciliation with Abraham for the wrong intended

to Sarah his wife, at God's command,) "took sheep and oxen, and

men-servants and women-servants, and gave them unto Abraham, and

restored him Sarah his wife." Genesis xxiv. 35, Eliezer, when seeking

a wife for Isaac, says: "And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly,

and he is become great; and he hath given him flocks, and herds, and

silver, and gold, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and camels and

asses." And Genesis, xxvi. 12, 14, it is said of Isaac: "And the LORD

blessed him. 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."

It appears then, that Abraham, "the friend of God," and Isaac, the

most holy and spotless of the Patriarchs, were great slaveholders. But

before pursuing the argument farther, it may be prudent to remove the

quibble that these servants were not slaves, in the sense of our

African slaves, but only humble clansmen, retainers, or hirelings. At

least one writer would prove this by the fact that Abraham did not

fear to arm three hundred and eighteen of them. For had they been real

slaves, says he, they would not have continued so one day after

getting arms in their hands. The retort most appropriate would be,

that Abraham was not afraid to arm his slaves, though actual slaves,

because there were no saucy, meddling, Yankee Abolitionists in those

days to preach insubordination and make ill blood between masters and

servants. But, more seriously, what shall we say of the professed

reasoning which assumes the very point in debate? viz.: that slavery

is an evil; and thence infers the conclusion that these could not be

slaves, because they did not seize the power to burst the bonds of

such an evil when placed in their reach? If their bondage was not

evil, which is the question _sub judice_ in this debate, then they

would not necessarily desire to burst from it. And that these were

actual slaves is clear, because the words for bondsman and bondsmaid

here used are, in every case, _ebed_ and _shippheh_, which are defined

by every honest lexicon to mean actual slaves, which are used in that

sense alone everywhere else in the Hebrew Scriptures, which are

contrasted in the book of Leviticus with the "hired servant," or

_sasir_. A part of these servants were bought from foreigners with

Abraham's money. They are represented along with his very sheep and

oxen as his property.

Abraham and Isaac then, were all their lives literal slaveholders, on

a large scale. Now we do not argue that this fact alone, coupled with

the other, that they were good men, proves that slaveholding is

innocent. The Abolitionists, fond of an easy victory on a false issue,

always hasten to represent this as the amount of the argument; and

then, their reply is obvious--that the example of truly good men is no

rule of ethics for us, unless supported by the expressed or implied

approval of God; for good men are imperfect, and many of their errors

are recorded, by the honesty of the sacred writers, for our

warning--that Abraham himself was guilty of falsehood to Abimelech,

King of Gerar, and especially that he was betrayed into the gross sin

of concubinage. Hence they say, Abraham's example no more proves

slaveholding innocent than concubinage. We reply, that all these

remarks, except the last, are perfectly just; but they have no

application to the case, because God's sanction of Abraham's example

as a slaveholder is expressly found in the narrative. The cases of

slaveholding and concubinage are totally different. First, because the

origin of the latter sin in the accursed lineage of Cain, and the act

of the murderer Lamech, is impliedly stamped with God's condemnation,

(Genesis iv. 19,) whereas the origin of domestic slavery is given us

in the righteous sentence of God for depraved conduct. Second, Abraham

fell into the sins of falsehood and concubinage but once, under

violent temptation. There is no evidence that either he or Isaac ever

practised them again, but both lived and died without one recorded

qualm of conscience, in the practice of slaveholding, and made it one

of their last acts, before passing to the judgment-seat of God, to

bequeath their slaves, as property, to their heirs. Third, in Genesis

xxiv. 35, and xxvi. 12, 14, it is represented that the bestowal of a

multitude of slaves on Abraham and Isaac was a mark of the divine

favour. In the first passage, it is indeed only the pious Eliezer who

states this; but in the second, it is stated of Isaac by the sacred

narrative itself. Now to represent God as blessing a favoured saint by

bestowing providentially gifts which it is a sin to have, implicates

God in the sin. Fourth, in Genesis xviii. 17 to 19, Jehovah expresses

his love for Abraham, approbation for his character, and purpose to

exalt him as a blessing to all nations, because "He knew him that he

would command his children and his household after him, that they

shall keep the way of the _Lord_ to do justice and judgment." What was

this "household," distinct from his children? Hebrew usage and the

context answer with one voice, his slaves. Then, God's high favour to

Abraham was explained by the fact that he foresaw the patriarch would

govern his children and slaves religiously and righteously. Now we ask

emphatically, does a holy God bless a misguided and sinning man for

the manner in which he perseveres in the sinful practice, be that

manner what it may? If the relation of master and slave were sinful,

would not the virtue of terminating the relation at once, so far

transcend the questionable credit of using it to make the wronged and

oppressed victim live piously, that it would be impossible for God to

bestow his peculiar praise on the latter, where the former was

lacking? There is no righteous way to perpetuate an unrighteous

relation. Therefore God's blessing Abraham for his good government of

his slaves, is proof that it is not a sin to have slaves to govern.

But, last and chiefly, we have a still stronger fact to present. When

Abraham was directed in Genesis xvii., 10, etc., to circumcise himself

as a sign of the covenant between God and him, he was also directed to

circumcise all his male children. The parental relationship was made

the ground of their inclusion in the same covenant. And God directed

his slaves also, "born in his house, or bought with his money of any

foreigner," to be circumcised along with him. The parental tie brought

his children under the religious rite of circumcision; the bond of

master and servant brought his servants under it. Here then, we have

the relationship of domestic slavery sanctioned, along with the

parental and filial, by God's own injunction, by a participation in

the holiest sacrament of the ancient church. Would a holy God thus

baptize an unholy relation? Would he make it the ground of admission

to a religious ordinance? To see a feeble illustration of the

absurdity of such a conclusion, consider what would be thought of a

minister of the New Testament, in which our Saviour has forbidden a

plurality of wives, if that minister should desecrate the marriage

ceremonial of his church, knowingly, to sanctify the union of the

felon in the act of bigamy? Such a desecration would surely be not

less shocking in the Author, than in a minister of religion.

And here, the favourite plea of the anti-slavery men fails

entirely--that Abraham lived in the dawn of religious light; that the

revelation given him was only partial, and that while he possessed the

rectitude of conscience which would have made him relinquish all

sinful relations, if enlightened as to their true character, the

customs of his age misled him to commit things which Christians

afterwards taught to be sinful, and that therefore, these things,

excusable in him because of his ignorance, would be wickedness in us.

There is some truth in these statements, but they have nothing on

earth to do with this example; because the circumcision of the slaves

was God's act, and not Abraham's. God knows all things. He is

perfectly holy and unchangeable. If he had seen that slavery is

intrinsically wrong, and had intended at some future day to declare it

so, would he at this time have sanctioned it by making it the ground

of a solemn ordinance of religion? As we shall see, this cry of the

imperfection of the Old Testament revelation is of Socinian origin,

and is essentially false, in the sense in which it is uttered. But be

it as just as any statement could be, it has no application here;

because our whole inference is drawn from the acts of God himself, and

not of an Old Testament Saint.

§ 4. _Hagar remanded to Slavery by God._

Sarah, in a season of desperation at her childless condition, seems to

have been tempted to imitate the corrupt expedient which was prevalent

among the Canaanites around her, and which still prevails in the East.

According to this usage, the chief wife, or wife proper, gives to her

husband a concubine from among her slaves, as a sort of substitute for

herself; and the offspring of the connexion is regarded as her own

child. Abram, misled by evil example, and by the solicitations of his

wife--the person who would have had the best right to complain of his

act--concurred temporarily in the arrangement, and received his

Egyptian slave Hagar as an inferior wife. The favour of her master,

and the prospective honour of being the mother of offspring, which has

always been exceedingly prized by Oriental women, so inflated the

servant with impudence, that she no longer treated her mistress with

decent respect. When Sarah bitterly complained of this, Abram replied

by reminding her that Hagar was still her slave; and that she was

entitled, as a mistress, to compel her to observe a suitable

demeanour. When Sarah proceeded to exert this authority, probably

administering corporal punishment to Hagar for some instance of

impertinence, the latter ran away, and pursued the direction which led

to her native country, Egypt. It was then that the angel of the LORD

found her "by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar,

Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she

said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of the

LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under

her hands." Genesis xvi., 7 to 9. He then proceeded to unfold the

future of her unborn son, and Hagar obeyed his commands. From verses

10th and 13th, we learn certainly that this angel was a Divine Person.

For, in the first place, he promises Hagar, "I will multiply thy seed

exceedingly;" but none but the Almighty could truthfully make such a

promise in his own name, as it is here made. In the latter place we

are informed that it was the LORD (in Hebrew, _Jehovah_; the most

characteristic and incommendable name of God) that spake unto her; and

Hagar called his name: "Thou God, seest me." We remark again, that

Hagar was certainly in the relation of domestic slavery, and not of a

hired servant, to Abraham and Sarai. She is called _Shiphheh_, which

is the regular word for female slave in the Old Testament. Had she not

been an actual slave, Sarai would never have presumed, according to

Oriental usage, to dispose of her person in the manner related. Here,

then, we have God, himself, the Angel Jehovah, who can be no other

than the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ, commanding this

fugitive to return into the relation of domestic slavery, and submit

to it. Can that relation be in itself sinful? To assert this, would

make our adorable Saviour _particeps criminis_. He cannot have

required a soul to return into a sinful state. He never requires of

his servants more than their duty; so that if Sarai had possessed no

real and just title to Hagar's services as a slave--if the claim had

been a mere imposition and injustice, she would not have been required

to submit to it. Abolitionists attempt to evade this by saying that

Hagar was instructed to return and submit to bondage on the same

principle on which Christ instructs us, when wrongfully smitten on one

cheek to turn the other likewise. This, say they, by no means implies

that the smiting was just. We reply, that the parallel cannot be

drawn. Had Hagar been in the hand of an unjust mistress, it would have

been her duty in Christian forbearance to "take it patiently, though

buffeted wrongfully." But she was not now in Sarai's hand. She had

successfully escaped it, and was far advanced in her' journey to her

native Egypt, where she evidently expected to find friends and

shelter. Under these circumstances, it is preposterous to say that the

grace of Christian forbearance required of her to return voluntarily

whither no claim of right drew her, and subject herself to unjust and

unauthorized persecution again. We ask, Does Christ so press the duty

of peaceableness, as to sacrifice to it the whole personal well-being

and rightful interests of the innocent victim of unjust aggression? Is

his chief object, in these lessons of forbearance, to gratify and

pamper the lust of persecution in the aggressor? Is there no right of

just self-defence left? Surely he teaches us that we owe a duty to our

own life and well-being, as well as to our fellow-men's. When we are

wronged, we are to defend this right only in such ways as become a son

of peace--a man of forgiveness. But the same Saviour who taught his

disciples to render good for evil when injured, also commanded them:

"When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another." When a

peaceable escape can be secured from injustice, it is both the

privilege and duty of the most forgiving Christian on earth to use it.

Now Hagar was in such a condition; had her subjection to Sarai been,

as the Abolitionists say slavery is, a condition of unjust

persecution, the Saviour's instructions to her would doubtless have

been: "Now that you have escaped the injustice of her that wronged

you, flee to another city." His remanding her to Sarai shows that the

subjection was lawful and right.

It has been objected again, that we cannot argue this, unless we are

willing to argue the lawfulness of concubinage; because to send Hagar

back to her bondage was to resign her again to this relation. We

utterly deny it. The LORD only says to her: "Return to thy mistress

and submit thyself under her hands;" not "Return to thy master's bed."

There is not one particle of proof that Abram continued his improper

connexion with her after these transactions. Nor is there more worth

in the remark, that subsequently, the same divine Being met Hagar

wandering in the same wilderness, and did not require her to return,

but assisted her journey. The answer is, that she was then under no

obligation to return; because her master had fully manumitted her, and

bestowed her freedom on her.

§ 5. _Slavery in the Laws of Moses._

God, in accordance with his covenant with Abraham, set apart Israel,

through the ministry of Moses, to be his peculiar and holy people, his

witness in the midst of an apostate world, to keep alive the services

and precepts of true morality and true religion, till, in the fulness

of time, Jesus Christ should come in the flesh, and begin the

Christianizing of all nations. To effect these objects, He renewed his

revelation of the eternal and unchangeable moral law, from Sinai, in

the Decalogue; and he also gave, by the intervention of Moses, various

religious and civil laws, which were peculiar to the Jews, and were

never intended to be observed after the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The great object of all this legislation, was to set apart the Jewish

nation as a holy people, peculiarly dedicated to purity of moral

life, and the maintenance of true religion, amidst corrupt and

idolatrous generations. To effect this, God found it necessary to

raise a barrier to familiar social intercourse between the Israelites

and their corrupting heathen neighbours; and sundry of the expedients

by which this barrier was raised, were prohibitions of usages which

would have been, in themselves, neither right nor wrong, but morally

indifferent, as the eating of pork. Some of those laws having the same

object in view, required acts in their original nature indifferent;

such as circumcision and eating the Passover. But it is totally

inconsistent with the holiness of God, and with his purpose of setting

Israel apart to a holy life, that any of those peculiar laws should

require acts in themselves wicked, or forbid things in themselves

morally binding. It would be impiety to represent God as capable of

commanding what is wrong; and to enjoin sin in order to make people

holy, would be a folly and a contradiction. God's revealed will, so

far as it is revealed for a rule of life, either permanent or

temporary, can contain nothing but what is right, and pure, and just.

If it had been a positive moral duty to eat pork, this holy God would

never have made the prohibition to eat it a part even of the

temporary, ceremonial laws of his servants. Had it been morally wrong

to kill, roast, and eat a lamb, God would never have enjoined on them

the institution of the Passover. These conclusions are as plain as the

alphabet.

Now then, if we find any particular thing either sanctioned or

enjoined, in the peculiar ceremonial or civil institutions of Moses,

it does not prove that thing to be morally binding on us, in this

century, or necessarily politic and proper for us; but it does prove

it to be, in its essential moral character, innocent. That thing

cannot be sin in itself. So, Jno. David Michaelis, in his

_Commentaries on the Laws of Moses_, Book 1, Art. 1. This is the

important and just distinction. The fact that animal sacrifices were

required in the ceremonial laws of Moses, does not prove that it is

our duty, under the Christian dispensation, to offer sacrifices, or

that it is appropriate for us to do so; but it does prove that the act

would be in itself innocent (though useless) for us, and for every

one, if it had not been forbidden in subsequent revelation. Otherwise,

a holy God would never have enjoined or sanctioned it at all.

Therefore, the fact that God expressly authorized domestic slavery,

among the peculiar and temporary civil laws of the Jews, while it does

not prove that it is our positive duty to hold slaves, does prove that

it is innocent to hold them, unless it has been subsequently forbidden

by God. Now then, let us see what God authorized by Moses. Exodus xxi.

2 to 6: "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, (Ebed,) six years he shall

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

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; he

shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his

master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him

forever," (that is, probably, until the year of Jubilee, which came

once in fifty years. See Leviticus xxv. 41.)

This, cries the anti-slavery man, was only temporary servitude. We

reply: but it was involuntary servitude, though temporary. It gave to

the master the right to compel the labour of the servant without his

consent; and this is a sanction of the principle of our institution.

What will be said then to the following? Leviticus xxv. 44 to 46:

"Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of

the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and

bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of 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," (your property.) "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; but over your

brethren, the children of Israel, ye shall not rule over one another

with rigour."

The antithesis in the position of the two laws shows that these

heathen slaves were not to go free at the year of Jubilee, like Hebrew

slaves. They are to be bondmen forever. They and their children,

slaves by birth, are to descend from father to son, as heritable

property. There was to be "no seventh year freedom here; there is no

Jubilee liberation." So says the learned divine, Moses Stuart, of

Andover, himself an anti-slavery man. And so say all respectable

Hebrew antiquaries. Indeed it would be hard to construct language

defining more strongly and fully all those features of domestic

slavery most contradictory to the theory of Abolitionists. They were

to be bought and sold. They were heritable property: (Mr. Sumner would

prove hence, "mere chattels.") Here is involuntary slavery for life,

expressly authorized to God's own peculiar and holy people, in the

strongest and most careful terms. The relation, then, must be innocent

in itself. With what show of candour can men say, in the face of a

sanction so full, so emphatic, so hearty, that Moses, finding the

hoary institution of domestic slavery so deeply rooted that it would

be impossible then to abolish it, _tolerated_ it, and limited it by

all the restrictions which he could apply, calculated to cut off its

worst horrors? We ask, was Moses the author of these laws, or God?

Does the Almighty, the Unchangeable, the Holy, connive at moral

abuses, like a puny human magistrate, and content himself, where he

dare not denounce a sin, with pruning its growth a little? We ask

again: Is this gloss borne out by the facts? Was Moses, in fact, timid

in assailing old and deeply-rooted vices, and in demanding that they

should be eradicated wholly? Let his uncompromising legislation

against Idolatry and Adultery answer. The truth is, such writers as

use the above language know nothing about the true nature of domestic

slavery, and draw their inferences only from their prejudices. God and

Moses knew it well. They knew that it was an institution which, when

not abused, was suitable to the character of the depraved persons for

whom it was designed, and wholesome and benign. Hence, they prohibit

all inhuman abuses of it; and then they do not tolerate it merely as

an unavoidable wrong; but they expressly legalize it, as right. An

honest mind can make nothing less of their words. But in Numbers xxxi.

25 to 30, and Joshua ix. 20 to 27, we have instances which are, if

possible, still stronger. In the former passage the people of Midian

had been conquered by God's command, and the captives and spoils

brought home; the captives to be slaves for life according to the law

of Leviticus, ch. xxv. The book of Numbers then proceeds: "And the

Lord spake unto Moses saying, Take the sum of prey that was taken both

of man and of beast, thou and Eleazer the priest and the chief fathers

of the congregation; and divide the prey into two parts; between them

that took the war upon them who went out to battle, and between all

the congregation. And levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war

which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the

persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses and of the sheep: Take it

of their half, and give it unto Eleazer the priest, for an

heave-offering of the _Lord_. And of the children of Israel's half

thou shalt take one portion of fifty, of the persons, of the beeves,

of the asses and of the flocks, of all manner of beasts, and give them

unto the Levites which keep the charge of the tabernacle of the Lord."

In verses 40th and 46th, we read farther that the "_Lord's_ tribute of

the persons" of the first half, "was thirty and two persons," and of

the second half, "three hundred and twenty." Here God commands a

portion of these slaves to be set apart to a sacred use, and dedicated

to himself, that they might become the property of the ministers of

religion. The second instance is not contained in the books of Moses,

but in the history of his successor Joshua: we group it with the

former, for its similarity. In Joshua, ch. ix., we are told that while

he was triumphantly engaged in the destruction of the condemned

heathen tribes of Palestine, according to God's command, the people of

Gibeon, a part of the doomed race, despairing of a successful defence,

adopted this stratagem to save themselves. Under pretence that they

were not of Palestine at all, but from a very distant place, their

ambassadors obtained from the leaders of the Israelites a very

stringent oath of amity. This pledge the elders incautiously gave,

without seeking the divine direction. In a very few days they learned

to their astonishment, that these Gibeonites lived in the very heart

of Palestine, close to the spot where they were encamped, and that

they were of the very race which they were appointed to destroy. But

they had sworn in the name of Jehovah not to destroy them. In this

state of things, the princes and Joshua determined to punish them for

their falsehood, and at the same time substantially observe their

oath, by leaving them unhurt, but reducing them to slavery as the

serfs of the Tabernacle and its ministers. In verses 23d and 27th,

Joshua told them: "Now, therefore, ye are cursed, and there shall none

of you be freed from being bondmen," (Ebed, i. e., slaves,) "and hewers

of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God." "And Joshua

made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the

congregation and for the altar of the _Lord_, even unto this day, in

that place which he should choose." This compact the Gibeonites seem

gladly to have accepted. In 2d Samuel, ch. xxi., we find this same

race of serfs still living among the Israelites, under the same

compact. King Saul, David's predecessor, having broken it by killing

many of them, God himself interposed, and required a satisfaction for

the breach. Here we have evidence that the slaves of heathen origin

were not freed by the Jubilee, for centuries had now elapsed and they

were still slaves. We also see evidence that the contract made by

Joshua was not regarded by God as unlawful. In this case, also, we

find God accepting a religious offering of slaves for the service of

his sanctuary. And these, while real slaves, did not belong each to an

individual master, but were slaves to an institution and a caste, a

form of bondage always justly regarded as less benevolent than the

former.

Yet men say slavery is a wicked relation, which God only tolerated and

curbed in the Old Testament. The _Lord's_ claiming his tythe of slaves

(as of cattle and wheat) seems to the candid man a strange way of

expressing bare tolerance! Was it not enough to leave the laity of the

"holy people" polluted with the sin of slaveholding, without

proceeding by his own express injunction to introduce the "taint" into

the still more sacred caste of the priesthood? Did the God of all

holiness direct a part of the wages of iniquity to be set apart for

his holy uses? Perhaps it may be said that He regarded the holy use as

sanctifying the unholy source of the offering. The surmise is

blasphemous. But see Deuteronomy xxiii. 18: "Thou shalt not bring the

hire of a whore or the price of a dog into the house of the _Lord_ thy

God for any vow: for even both these are abomination to the _Lord_ thy

God." To set apart to God's use property wickedly acquired was an

insult to his holiness: and to offer Him even what was acquired by

the sale of an animal ceremonially unclean, was resented as a type of

the same sin. The consecration of these slaves to sacred uses is

therefore the strongest possible proof that slaves are lawful

property. To sum up: The divine permission and sanction of slavery to

the very people whom God was setting apart to a holy life, the

consecration of slaves as property to a sacred purpose, the regulating

by law of the duties flowing from the relation, all prove that it was

then a lawful and innocent one. Otherwise, we should have the holy God

teaching sin. If it was innocent once in its intrinsic nature, it is

innocent now, unless it has been subsequently prohibited by God. But

no such prohibition can be shown.

§ 6. _Slavery in the Decalogue._

Although the Ten Commandments were given along with the civil and

ceremonial laws of the Hebrews, we do not include them along with the

latter, because the Decalogue was, unlike them, given for all men and

all dispensations. It is a solemn repetition of the sum of those

duties founded on the natures of man and of God, and on their

relations, enjoined on all ages alike. It contains nothing ceremonial,

or of merely temporary obligation; (which is binding merely because it

is commanded;) but all is of perpetual, moral obligation. It claims to

be, rightly explained, a perfect and complete rule. Our Saviour

repeatedly adopts it as the eternal sum of all duty, on which hang all

the law and the prophets, that is, all Scripture. Accordingly, we find

that the mode of its republication gave to this Decalogue a grandeur

and weight shared by no secular or ceremonial precepts. Deuteronomy

v. informs us that it was delivered first, thus receiving the

precedence, that it was spoken by God himself in articulate words,

heard by all the quaking multitude, in tones of thunder, from the

smoking summit of Sinai, with the terrible concomitants of angelic

hosts, devouring fire, lightnings and earthquakes; that God added no

more, thus refusing to all the subsequent precepts the honour of such

a publication, and that He himself then engraved it on stone,

signifying by the imperishable material, the perpetuity of this law.

Hence, all the principles of right stated or implied in this

Decalogue, are valid, not for Hebrews only, but for all men and ages.

They rise wholly above the temporary and positive precepts, which were

only binding while they were expressly enjoined. They have not been,

because they cannot be, repealed or modified; they are as immutable as

God's perfections. In our Saviour's words, "Till heaven and earth

pass, one jot or one tittle of this law shall not pass away."

Now, our argument is, that in this short summary, the relation of

master and slave is mentioned twice; and that in modes which are a

recognition of its lawfulness. It is introduced as a basis of duties

and rights founded upon it, and those rights are defended, and those

duties enjoined. But if it were an unlawful relation, what rights

could grow out of it except the slave's right to have it broken? And

what duties of the master could be founded on it, except the duties of

discontinuing, repenting of, and repairing its wrongs? In the 4th

Commandment, Exod. xx. 10, it is made the master's duty to cause the

slave to observe the Sabbath day. After the 8th Commandment had

forbidden injury to our fellow-man's property in act, by overt theft,

the 10th, (v. 17,) prohibits its injury even in thought by corrupt

coveting. And in the enumeration of possessions thus carefully covered

from assault, are men-servants (_ebed_) and maid-servants, along with

real estate and cattle. If the reader would feel the strength of the

argument implied in these facts, let him ask himself what would have

been his amazement, if, after the description which God's word gives

of the authority, righteousness, purity, and perpetuity of this

Decalogue, he had read in it, that highwaymen and pirates are

commanded to enforce Sabbath observance on their injured victims, and

that we must not covet our neighbour's concubine, or the stolen goods

in his possession? And this, without hint of the guilt of violence,

concubinage, and theft. It would be impossible for either

understanding or conscience to reconcile itself to the anomaly; he

would feel, inevitably, that God was incapable of such implied

sanction of sin.

§ 7. _Objections to the Old Testament Argument._

To state the arguments from the laws of Moses and the Decalogue has

not required a large space, because those conclusions are so plain and

sound, that many words were not needed. But the cavils, objections and

special pleadings of the Abolitionists teem like the frogs of Egypt,

engendered in the mire of ignorance and prejudice, so numerous because

so worthless. And when it is seen that we perhaps expend more space in

their refutation than we did in the direct argument, the heedless

reader may possibly be inclined to say to himself, that there must be

something wrong in an argument to which so much can be objected. We

beg him to observe then, that we pause to explode these objections,

not because they are of any weight, but because we purpose to make

thorough work with our opponents. When we have finished these

rejoinders, we shall take the impartial reader to witness, that not

only the weight, but the least appearance of plausibility in these

cavils has been blown into thin air. And then we shall have the right

to infer that their number indicates, not the questionable character

of our positions, but only a fixed and blind prejudice against the

truth in our adversaries.

It is objected that domestic slavery among the Hebrews was a much

milder institution than in Virginia, and that, therefore, we have no

right to argue from the one to the other. If it were true that Hebrew

slavery was milder, it might show that we were wrong in the way in

which we treated our slaves; but it could not prove that slaveholding

was wrong. The principle would still be established, for the

lawfulness of the relation. But let it be noted that the peculiar

mitigations of slavery affected only slaves of Hebrew blood, not

Gentiles. Whatever may have been the leniency of the system, the state

of the Gentile slaves showed the essential features of slavery among

us, the right to the slave's labour for life without his consent,

property in that labour, the right to buy, sell and bequeath it; the

right to enforce it on the slave by corporal punishments, which might

have any degree of severity short of death. (See Exod. xxi. 20, 21.)

Virginians had no interest to contend for any stricter form of

slavery than this.

Second. It is said that the permission to buy, possess, and bequeath

slaves of heathen origin, which we have cited, related only to the

seven condemned tribes of Canaan, and was part of the divinely

appointed penalty for their wickedness. Even such a man as Dr.

Wayland, of Brown University, Rhode Island, has adopted this plea,

thus justifying in a prominent instance the assertion that

Abolitionism is grounded in a shameful ignorance of facts. The answer

to the plea is, that it is expressly contrary to fact. The Hebrews

were positively prohibited to reserve any of the seven condemned

nations for slaves, and were enjoined to exterminate them all, lest

the contagion of their vile morals should corrupt Israel. On the other

hand, they were told that they might buy them slaves of any of the

other Gentile nations around them, with whom they were to live on

terms of national amity. (See Deuteronomy, xx. 10 to 18.) After

directing the policy of the Hebrews towards conquered enemies from

these nations, and permitting the enslaving of the captives, Moses

proceeds: (v. 15.) "Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are

very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.

But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give

thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save nothing alive that breatheth;

but thou shalt utterly destroy them, namely, the Hittites and the

Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the

Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that they teach

you not to do after all their abominations," etc. (See also, Josh. vi.

17 to 21; viii. 26; x. 28 to 32, etc., etc.)

Third. It is objected from these very injunctions, that the examples

of the commands given to the Israelites are no rules for us; that God

commanded them to exterminate the seven nations of Canaan; but if we

should therefore proceed to attack and destroy a neighbouring nation

which had not assailed us, it would be a horrible wickedness. It is

asked: Were the fanatics of the English Commonwealth in the 17th

century correct when they justified their barbarities upon royalists

by the examples of Joshua's slaughter of the Amorites, and Samuel's of

Amalek? And we are told that our argument from Hebrew slavery is of

the same absurd kind.

We reply: We willingly accept the instances. God's command to Joshua

and Samuel to exterminate the Canaanites and Amalek, does prove that

killing is not necessarily murder. This very instance gives us an

unanswerable argument against those who oppose all capital punishments

as wrong. And just so we employ the other instance, which our

assailants say is parallel--Hebrew slavery--to prove that slaveholding

is not necessarily sinful. But the instances are not parallel. The

sanction of domestic slavery was a statute law for all generations of

Hebrews; the command to exterminate the seven tribes imposed a

specific task on certain individuals. It is absurd to confound an

executive command, given to particular men for the once, under

particular circumstances, with the sanctions of a permanent

institution, designed to descend from generation to generation. The

command to exterminate the seven guilty tribes was the former, the

permission to hold slaves the latter. True, the example of Joshua in

blotting these tribes from existence, is no authority for us to do

likewise, unless we also can show a direct divine commission

authorizing us for a special case. But neither was that example

authority to any subsequent generation of Hebrews, after Joshua, to

exterminate any other pagan tribe. Will any one say that the authority

given by Moses to his fellow-citizens to hold slaves was not just as

good to enable subsequent generations of Hebrews to hold slaves?

Prejudice cannot carry sophistry so far. There is, therefore, no

analogy between the two cases, in the point necessary for grounding

the objection to our argument.

Fourth. It is said that Moses himself commanded that a runaway slave

should not be surrendered to his master; thereby plainly teaching that

slaves had a right to their liberty, if they could escape. This, it is

urged, proves that there must be some mistake in our conclusions. Of

course, this passage is quoted triumphantly as settling the question

against the fugitive slave-law, required by the late Constitution of

the United States. It is found in Deuteronomy 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."

We need no better answer to this citation, than that given by a

Northern divine already named, who is no friend to slavery, Rev. Moses

Stuart. He says: "The first inquiry of course is: Where does his

master live? Among the Hebrews or among foreigners? The language of

the passage fully developes this, and answers the question. He has

'escaped from his master unto the Hebrews.' (The text says, unto

_thee_, i. e., Israel.) 'He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in

one of thy gates.' Of course then, he is an immigrant, and did not

dwell among them before his flight. If he had been a Hebrew servant,

belonging to a Hebrew, the whole face of the thing would be changed.

Restoration or restitution, if we may judge by the tenour of other

property laws among the Hebrews, would have surely been enjoined. But,

be that as it may, the language of the text puts it beyond a doubt,

that the servant is a foreigner and has fled from a heathen master."

Mr. Stuart then proceeds to assign obvious reasons why a foreign

servant escaping from a heathen master was not to be restored: that

the bondage from which he escaped was inordinately cruel, including

the power of murder for any caprice; and that to force him back was to

remand him to the darkness of heathenism, and to rob him of the light

of true religion, which shone in the land of the Hebrews alone. He

adds: "But if we put now the other case, viz.: that of escape from a

Hebrew master, who claimed and enjoyed Hebrew rights, is not the case

greatly changed? Who could take from him the property which the Mosaic

law gave him a right to hold? Neither the bondsman himself, nor the

neighbours of the master to whom the fugitive might come. Reclamation

of him could be lawfully made, and therefore must be enforced." This

explanation forces itself upon our common sense. To suppose that Moses

could so formally authorize and define slavery among the Hebrews, and

then enact that every slave might gain his liberty by merely stepping

over the brook or imaginary line which separated the little cantons

of the tribes from each other, or even by going to the next house of

his master's neighbours, and claiming protection, whenever petulance,

or caprice, or laziness should move him thereto; this is absurd; it is

trivial child's play. It takes away with one hand what it professed to

give with the other. The fact that slavery continued to exist from age

to age, is proof enough that the Hebrews did not put the Abolitionist

construction on the law. To this agree the respectable Hebrew

antiquarians, as Horne, etc.

Fifth. It is urged that Revelation was in its plan progressive, like

the morning twilight; that the Mosaic code was the early dawn; that

God, for wise reasons, left many points in darkness, which the full

daylight of the Gospel has since shown to be sin. And, therefore,

several practices, which we are now taught to be sinful, may have been

ignorantly followed by good men, and tolerated by this imperfect

legislation of God's law. Yet if we, who enjoy a fuller revelation,

should indulge in these practices, we should be guilty and

disobedient.

Grant this, for the present. Grant, for argument's sake, that it may

have been consistent with the plan of revelation to make known at

first only a partial rule of duty, leaving some sins unmentioned. Yet

surely it was not consistent with the truth and holiness of God, to

throw a false light in that partial revelation, on those parts of

man's duty which he professed to reveal! So far as any revelation from

God goes, it must be a true and righteous one. If it undertook to fix

a point of duty, it must fix it correctly, whatever else it might

omit. Otherwise; we should have a holy, true, and good Creator, while

professing to guide man to duty and life, misleading him to sin and

death. Let now the reader note that the lawfulness of slavery was not

one of the points omitted. God spake expressly upon it; and what he

said was to authorize it.

But we do not admit that Moses' was an incomplete revelation in the

sense of the Abolitionists. They are fond of representing the New

Testament revelation as completing, amending, and correcting that of

the Old. Its details the New Testament does complete; but if it were

amended or corrected by any subsequent standard of infallible truth,

this would prove it not truly inspired. Indeed, the history of

theological opinion shows plainly enough that this anti-slavery view

of Old Testament revelation is Socinian and Rationalistic. Modern

Abolitionism in America had, in fact, a Socinian birth, in the great

apostasy of the Puritans of New England to that benumbing heresy, and

in the pharisaism, shallow scholarship, affectation, conceit and

infidelity of the Unitarian clique in the self-styled American Athens,

Boston. It is lamentable to see how men professing to be evangelical

are driven by blind prejudices against Southern men and things, to

adopt this skeptical tone towards God's own word. The ruinous issue

has been seen in the case of a minister of the Gospel, who, after

floundering through a volume of confused and impotent sophisms,

roundly declares that if compelled to admit that the Bible treated

slavery as not a sin in itself, he would repudiate the Bible rather

than his opinions.

But we point these objectors to that Saviour who said, in the full

meridian of revealed light of this Old Testament law: "Whosoever

shall keep these commandments shall enter into eternal life;" and to

the fact that the Decalogue itself twice recognizes the right of the

master. Will they say that this too was an old, partial, and imperfect

revelation? Not so says the sweet Psalmist of Israel: "The law of the

Lord is perfect." Psalms, xix. 7. Whatever Abolitionists may cavil,

Jesus Christ acknowledged no more perfect rule of morals than the Ten

Commandments, as expounded by the "law and the prophets."

Sixth. An objection has been raised against the Old Testament

argument, from the supposed permission of, or connivance at, polygamy

and causeless divorce in the laws of Moses. This objection has been

urged by Dr. Channing, the celebrated Unitarian, and since, in a more

exact form, by Dr. Wayland. In substance it is this: That polygamy was

allowed by the Old Testament law, and divorce for a less cause than

conjugal infidelity was expressly permitted by Moses. But both these

are as expressly forbidden as sinful by our Saviour. Matthew xix. 3 to

9. Therefore the main assertion in defence of slavery, on which the

argument rested, does not hold: for these two instances show that a

thing is not intrinsically innocent because it was permitted for a

time to the Jews.

Our reply is, that both the premises of the objection are absolutely

false. Polygamy and capricious divorce never were authorized by Old

Testament law, in the sense in which domestic slavery was; and,

second, the latter was never prohibited in the New Testament, as

polygamy and such divorces expressly are. Either of these facts,

without the other, makes the objection invalid, as we shall show; but

we shall establish both. Before doing this, however, we would ask:

Suppose these assertions of Drs. Wayland and Channing proved that God

expressly permitted polygamy and causeless divorce to his own chosen

and holy people, and that Jesus Christ yet denounced these things as

sins; what is gained? Not only is this part of our defence of slavery

overthrown, but the holiness of God is also overthrown; or else the

inspiration of the Scriptures. (The latter would be a result evidently

not very repugnant to Socinians and their sympathizers.) For then

these Scriptures would make Him the teacher of sin to the very persons

whom he was setting apart to peculiar holiness. If God did indeed

authorize polygamy and causeless divorce in the Old Testament law,

then the only inference for the devout mind is, that those things were

then innocent, and would still be so, had not Christ afterwards

forbidden them. Now, when we pass into the New Testament, and find

that domestic slavery (which these objectors would make the parallel

of polygamy and divorce without just cause) is not forbidden there, as

the latter two were, but is again permitted, authorized and regulated,

we must conclude that it is still innocent, as it must have been when

a holy God allowed it to his holy people.

But the first part of the objectors' premise is also false; polygamy

and causeless divorce never were sanctioned by Moses as domestic

slavery was. Even admitting the more ignorant rendering of the matter,

how wide is the difference in God's treatment of the two subjects!

Slaves are mentioned as lawful property, not only in the biographies

of God's erring and fallible servants, but in his own legislation;

the acquisition of them is a blessing from him; their connexion with

their masters is made the basis of religious sacraments; property in

slaves is protected by laws of divine enactment; and the rights and

duties of them and their masters defined. But when we pass to the

subjects of plurality and change of wives, while we see the lives of

imperfect, though good men, candidly disclosing these abuses, no

legislative act recognizes them, except in the single case of divorce.

In all God's laws and precepts, He always says _wife_, not _wives_, so

carefully does He avoid a seeming allowance of a plurality. The

Decalogue throws no protection around concubines, against the coveting

of others. The rights and duties of polygamists are never defined by

divine law, save in seeming exceptions which will be explained. How

unlike is all this to the legislation upon slavery!

What has been already said leaves our argument impregnable. But so

much misapprehension exists about the two cases, that the general

interests of truth prompt a little farther separate discussion of

each. The two enactments touching divorce which present the supposed

contradiction in the strongest form, are those of Moses in Deuteronomy

xxiv. 1 to 4, and Matthew xix. 3 to 9. These the reader is requested

to have under his eye. The form of the Pharisees' question to Christ,

("Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife _for every cause_?")

concurs with the testimony of Josephus, in teaching us that a

monstrous perversion of Moses' statute then prevailed. The licentious,

and yet self-righteous Pharisee claimed, as one of his most

unquestioned privileges, the right to repudiate a wife, after the

lapse of years, and birth of children, for any caprice whatsoever.

The trap which they now laid for Christ was designed to compel him

either to incur the _odium_ of attacking this usage, guarded by a

jealous anger, or to connive at their interpretation of the statute.

Manifestly Christ does not concede that they interpreted Moses

rightly; but indignantly clears the legislation of that holy man from

their licentious perversions, and then, because of their abuse of it,

repeals it by his plenary authority. He refers to that constitution of

the marriage tie which was original, which preceded Moses, and was

therefore binding when Moses wrote, to show that it was impossible he

could have enacted what they claimed. What then did Moses enact? Let

us explain it. In the ancient society of the East, females being

reared in comparative seclusion, and marriages negotiated by

intermediaries, the bridegroom had little opportunity for a familiar

acquaintance even with the person of the bride. When she was brought

to him at the nuptials, if he found her disfigured with some personal

deformity or disease, (the undoubted meaning of the phrase "some

uncleanness,") which effectually changed desire into disgust, he was

likely to regard himself as swindled in the treaty, and to send the

rejected bride back with indignity to her father's house. There she

was reluctantly received, and in the anomalous position of one in name

a wife, yet without a husband, she dragged out a wretched existence,

incapable of marriage, and regarded by her parents and brothers as a

disgraceful incumbrance. It was to relieve the wretched fate of such a

woman, that Moses' law was framed. She was empowered to exact of her

proposed husband a formal annulment of the unconsummated contract,

and to resume the _status_ of a single woman, eligible for another

marriage. It is plain that Moses' law contemplates the case, only, in

which no consummation of marriage takes place. She finds _no favour_

in the eyes "of the bridegroom." He is so indignant and disgusted,

that desire is put to flight by repugnance. The same fact appears from

the condition of the law, that she shall in no case return to this

man, "after she is defiled," i. e., after actual cohabitation with

another man had made her unapproachable (without moral defilement) by

the first. Such was the narrow extent of this law. The act for which

it provided was divorce only in name, where that _consensus, qui

matrimonium facit_, (in the words of the law maxim,) had never been

perfected. The state of social usages among the Hebrews, with parental

and fraternal severity towards the unfortunate daughter and sister,

rendered the legislation of Moses necessary, and righteous at the

time; but "a greater than Moses" was now here; and he, after defending

the inspired law-giver from their vile misrepresentation, proceeded to

repeal the law, because it had been so perverted, and because the

social changes of the age had removed its righteous grounds. Let the

Abolitionists show us a similar change in the law of domestic slavery,

made by Christ, and we will admit that the moral conditions of the

relation have changed since Moses' day.

The case of the polygamist is still clearer; for we assert that the

whole legislation of the Pentateuch and of all the Old Testament is

only adverse to polygamy. As some Christian divines have taught

otherwise, we must ask the reader's attention and patience for a

brief statement. Polygamy is recorded of Abraham, Jacob, Gideon,

Elkanah, David, Solomon; but so are other sins of several of these;

and, as every intelligent reader knows, the truthful narrative of holy

writ as often discloses the sins of good men--for our warning, as

their virtues for our imitation. And he who notes how, in every Bible

instance, polygamy appears as the cause of domestic feuds, sin, and

disaster, will have little doubt that the Holy Spirit tacitly holds

all these cases up for our caution, and not our approval. But, then,

God made Adam one wife only, and taught him the great law of the

perpetual unity of the twain, just as it is now expounded by Jesus

Christ. (Genesis ii. 23, 24, with Matthew xix. 4 to 6.) God preserved

but one wife each to Noah and his sons. In every statute and

preceptive word of the Holy Spirit, it is always _wife_, and not

_wives_. The prophets everywhere teach how to treat a _wife_, and not

_wives_. Moses, Leviticus xviii. 18, in the code regulating marriage,

expressly prohibits the marriage of a second wife in the life of the

first, thus enjoining monogamy in terms as clear as Christ's. Our

English version hath it: "Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister

to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, besides the other, in her

lifetime." Some have been preposterous enough to take the word

_sister_ here in its literal sense, and thus to force on the law the

meaning that the man desiring to practise polygamy may do so provided

he does not marry two daughters of the same parents; for if he did

this, the two sisters sharing his bed would, like Rachel and Leah,

quarrel more fiercely than two strangers. But the word "_sister_"

must undoubtedly be taken in the sense of _mates_, _fellows_, (which

it bears in a multitude of places,) and this for two controlling

reasons. The other sense makes Moses talk nonsense and folly, in the

supposed reason for his prohibition; in that it makes him argue that

two sisters sharing one man's bed will quarrel, but two women having

no kindred blood will not. It is false to fact and to nature. Did Leah

and Rachel show more jealousy than Sarah and Hagar, Hannah and

Peninnah? But when we understand the law in its obvious sense, that

the husband shall not divide his bed with a second mate, the first

still living, because such a wrong ever harrows and outrages the great

instincts placed in woman's heart by her Creator, we make Moses talk

truth and logick worthy of a profound legislator. The other reason for

this construction is, that the other sense places the 18th verse in

irreconcilable contradiction to the 16th verse. This forbids the

marriage of a woman to the husband of her deceased sister; while the

18th verse, with this false reading, would authorize it.

Once more: Malachi, (chapter ii. 14, 15.) rebuking the various

corruptions of the Jews, evidently includes polygamy; for he argues in

favour of monogamy, (and also against causeless divorce,) from the

fact that God, "who had the residue of the Spirit," and could as

easily have created a thousand women for each man as a single one,

made the numbers of the sexes equal from the beginning. He states this

as the motive, "that he might seek a godly seed;" that is to say, that

the object of God in the marriage relation was the right rearing of

children, which polygamy notoriously hinders. Now the commission of an

Old Testament prophet was not to legislate a new dispensation; for

the laws of Moses were in full force; the prophets' business was to

expound them. Hence, we infer that the laws of the Mosaic dispensation

on the subject of polygamy had always been such as Malachi declared

them. He was but applying Moses' principles.

To the assertion that the law of the Old Testament discountenanced

polygamy as really as the New Testament, it has been objected that the

practice was maintained by men too pious towards God to be capable of

continuing in it against express precept; as, for instance, by the

"king after God's own heart," David. Did not he also commit murder and

adultery? Surely there is no question whether Moses forbids these! The

history of good men, alas, shows us too plainly the power of general

evil example, custom, temptation, and self-love, in blinding the

honest conscience. It has been objected that polygamy was so

universally practised, and so prized, that Moses would never have

dared to attempt its extinction. When will men learn that the author

of the Old Testament law was not Moses, but God? Is God timid? Does he

fear to deal firmly with his creatures? But it is denied that there is

any evidence that polygamy was greatly prevalent among the Hebrews.

And nothing is easier than to show, that if it had been, Moses was a

legislator bold enough to grapple with it. What more hardy than his

dealing with the sabbatical year, with idolatry? It is objected that

the marriage of the widow who was childless to the brother of the

deceased, to raise up seed to the dead, presents a case of polygamy

actually commanded. We reply, no one can show that the next of kin

was permitted or required to form such marriage when he already had a

wife. The celebrated J. D. Michaelis, a witness learned and not too

favourable, says, in his Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, of this

law, "Nor did it affect a brother having already a wife of his own."

Book III., ch. vi., § 98. It is objected that polygamy is recognized

as a permitted relation in Deuteronomy xxi. 15-17, where the husband

of a polygamous marriage is forbidden to transfer the birthright from

the eldest son to a younger, the child of a more favoured wife; and in

Exodus xxi. 9, 10, where the husband is forbidden to deprive a less

favoured wife of her marital rights and maintenance. Both these cases

are explained by the admitted principle, that there may be relations

which it was sin to form, and which yet it is sinful to break when

formed. No one doubts whether the New Testament makes polygamy

unlawful; yet it seems very clear that the apostles gave the same

instructions to the husbands of a plurality of wives entering the

Christian church. There appears, then, no evidence that polygamy was

allowed in the laws of Moses.

We have thus shown that the objection of Dr. Channing to our Old

Testament argument for the lawfulness of domestic slavery, is false in

both its premises. First, it is not true that Moses sanctioned

polygamy and causeless divorce in the sense in which he sanctioned

slavery. And second, if he did, it would prove that those practices

were lawful until they were prohibited by our Redeemer; but domestic

slavery has met no such prohibition from him, and is therefore lawful

still. If not, why did the divine Reformer strike down the two

"sister sins," and leave the third, the giant evil, untouched? There

is but one answer: He did not regard it as a sin.

If too much space has been devoted to this objection, the apology is,

that it is a subject much misunderstood by Christian divines. The

explanation is, that the study of Hebrew antiquities has, in our day,

been left so much to German rationalists and secret Socinians; the

late essays of British and Yankee scholars being to so great a degree

servile imitations of theirs. But these skeptical _literati_ of

Germany, while wearing the clergyman's frock for the sake of the

emoluments of an established church, have usually been unsanctified

men, harbouring the most contemptuous views of Old Testament

inspiration. The reader will bear in mind that, whether he is

convinced, with us, that Moses actually prohibited polygamy, or not,

the refutation of the Abolitionist objection is still perfectly valid.

The seventh and last objection against our Old Testament argument

consists of various passages from the Hebrew prophets, which denounce

the oppression of the poor, and the withholding of the labouring man's

wages. Every phrase which sounds at all like their purpose is

violently seized by the Abolitionists, and pressed incontinently into

the service of condemning slavery, without regard to the sacred

writer's intention or meaning. Were all the texts thus wrested

discussed here, this section would be swelled into a book. A few

passages which our opponents regard as their strongest will be cited,

therefore; and the reply to these will be an answer to all. One such

is Isaiah, lviii. 6: "Is not this the fast which I have chosen, to

loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let

the oppressed go free; and that ye break every yoke?" Another is

found in Jeremiah xx. 13: "Woe unto him that buildeth his house by

unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's

services without wages, and giveth him not for his work." Another is

in Jeremiah xxxiv. 17: "Therefore, thus saith the Lord: Ye have not

hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty every man to his brother, and

every man to his neighbour." And to find a scriptural stone to pelt

the fugitive slave-law, they quote Isaiah xvi. 3: "Hide the outcasts;

betray not him that wandereth."

Now, one would think that it should have given some pause to these

perversions of Scripture, to remember that these same prophets were

undoubtedly slaveholders. Witness, for instance, Elisha, who was so

large a slaveholder as to have eleven ploughmen at once, and who,

after he devoted himself exclusively to his prophetic ministry, still

had his servants, Gehazi and others. (2 Kings, v. 20, and vi. 15.) How

could they have aimed such denunciations at slave-owners, and escaped

the sarcasm, "Physician, heal thyself?" It should have been remembered

again, that Moses' laws, in which slaveholding was expressly

sanctioned, were enacted by authority just as divine as that by which

Isaiah and Jeremiah preached; that Moses was more a prophet than even

they--"the greatest of the prophets;" that his laws were still in full

force; that they bore to these prophets' instructions the relation of

text to exposition; and that always the great burden of their

accusations against their guilty countrymen was, that they had

forsaken Moses' statutes. Were the guardians and expounders of the

Constitution armed with power not only to repeal, but to vilify, the

very law which they were appointed to expound? May the sermon

contradict its own text?

Before these rebukes of oppression can be applied, then, as God's

condemnation of domestic slavery, it must be proved that in His view

slavery is oppression. To take this for granted is a begging of the

whole question in debate. But not only is it not proved by any such

texts; it is obvious from the above remarks, that it cannot be proved

by them, unless God can be made to contradict himself. But when we

examine a little the connected words of these prophets themselves, we

learn from them what they do mean; and we see an instance, ludicrous

if it were not too painful, of the heedless folly with which the Word

of God is abused. Thus, in Isaiah, lviii. 6, 7, we proceed to the very

next words, and learn that the duty in hand consists in "bringing to

their homes the poor that are cast out," and being charitable to

"their own flesh." Were the Gentile slaves of the Hebrews "their own

flesh" in the sense of the Old Testament, i. e., their kindred by

blood? Manifestly, the phrase intends their fellow-citizens of Hebrew

blood in distress. Are slaveholders in danger of sinning by driving

away from their houses their domestic slaves; and do they need

objurgation to make them receive them back? Such is the "infinite

nonsense" forced upon Isaiah's words by Abolitionists. There is, then,

no reference here to the emancipation of Gentile slaves; but to the

duties of charity, justice and hospitality towards the oppressed of

their fellow-citizens. And if the passage has any reference to

servants, it is only to the sin of detaining Hebrew servants beyond

the Sabbatical year's release.

When we turn to Jeremiah xxii. 13, a glance at the connexion shows us

that the woe against using a neighbour's services without wages, is

denounced against Shallum, the wicked king of Judah, who built his

palaces, not by his domestic servants, but by unlawfully impressing

his political subjects. Such is the marvellous accuracy of

Abolitionist exposition! So in Jeremiah xxxiv. 17, which rebukes the

Jews for not "proclaiming every man liberty to his brother," one

little question should have staggered our zealous accusers: Were

Gentile slaves "brethren" to Jews, in the sense of the prophet? And we

have only to carry the eye back to verse 14, to see him explaining

himself, that they did not comply with the Mosaic law, "at the end of

seven years to let go every man his brother a Hebrew, which hath been

sold unto thee." From the obligation of that law, the masters of

Gentiles were expressly excepted.

But the illustration of crowning folly is Isaiah xvi. 3, which is so

boldly wrested to countenance the harbouring of runaway slaves. The

words are not the language of the prophet at all! The chapter is a

dramatic picture of the distress of the pagan nations near Judea, and

especially of Moab, one among them, in a time of invasion which Isaiah

denounces upon them in punishment for their sin; and this verse

represents the fugitive Moabites as entreating Jews for concealment

and protection when pursued by their enemies. So that there is no

slave nor slave-owner in the case at all; nor does the prophet's

language contain any thing to imply whether it was righteous or not

for the Jews to grant the request of these affrighted sinners in the

hour of their retribution.

We have now reviewed, perhaps at too much length, the various impotent

attempts made to escape from the meshes of our inexorable Old

Testament argument. It is an argument short, plain, convincing.

Although every thing enjoined on the Hebrews is not necessarily

enjoined on us, (because it may have been of temporary obligation,)

yet every such thing must be innocent in its nature, because a holy

God would not sanction sin to his holy people, in the very act of

separating them to holiness. But slaveholding was expressly sanctioned

as a permanent institution; the duties of masters and slaves are

defined; the rights of masters protected, not only in the civic but

the eternal moral law of God; and He himself became a slave-owner, by

claiming an oblation of slaves for his sanctuary and priests. Hence,

while we do not say that modern Christian nations are bound to hold

slaves, we do assert that no people sin by merely holding slaves,

unless the place can be shown where God has uttered a subsequent

prohibition. But there is no such place, as the next chapter will

show. While we well know that to secret infidels and rationalists, as

all Abolitionists are, this has no weight, to every mind which

reverences the inspiration of the Old Testament it is conclusive. And

let every Christian note, that with the inspiration of the Old

Testament stands or falls that of Christ and the apostles, because

they commit themselves irretrievably to the support of the former.

CHAPTER VI.

THE NEW TESTAMENT ARGUMENT.