Such being, as we conceive, the true doctrine concerning the nature of

the state, it is well to inquire into the necessary deductions from this

doctrine. If government be a divine institution, and obedience to the

laws a matter resting on the authority of God, it might seem to follow

that in no case could human laws be disregarded with a good conscience.

This, as we have seen, is in fact the conclusion drawn from these

premises by the advocates of the doctrine "of passive obedience." The

command, however, to be subject to the higher powers is not more

unlimited in its statement than the command, "children obey your parents

in all things." From this latter command no one draws the conclusion

that unlimited obedience is due from children to their parents. The true

inference doubtless is, in both cases, that obedience is the rule, and

disobedience the exception. If in any instance a child refuse compliance

with the requisition of the parent, or a citizen with the law of the

land, he must be prepared to justify such disobedience at the bar of

God. Even divine laws may in some cases be dispensed with. Those which

indeed are founded on the nature of God, such as the command to love Him

and our neighbor, are necessarily immutable. But those which are founded

on the present constitution of things, though permanent as general rules

of action, may on adequate grounds, be violated without sin. The

commands, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Remember the

sabbath day to keep it holy, are all of permanent authority; and yet

there may be justifiable homicide, and men may profane the sabbath and

be blameless. In like manner the command to obey the laws, is a divine

injunction, and yet there are cases in which disobedience is a duty. It

becomes then of importance to determine what these cases are; or to

ascertain the principles which limit the obedience which we owe to the

state. It follows from the divine institution of government that its

power is limited by the design of God in its institution, and by the

moral law. The family, the church and the state are all divine

institutions, designed for specific purposes. Each has its own sphere,

and the authority belonging to each is necessarily confined within its

own province. The father appears in his household as its divinely

appointed head. By the command of God all the members of that household

are required to yield him reverence and obedience. But he can not carry

his parental authority into the church or the state; nor can he appear

in his family as a magistrate or church officer. The obedience due to

him is that which belongs to a father, and not to a civil or

ecclesiastical officer, and his children are not required to obey him

in either of those capacities. In like manner the officers of the

church have within their sphere a divine right to rule, but they can not

claim civil authority on the ground of the general command to the people

to obey those who have the care of souls. Heb. xiii: 17. As the church

officer loses his power when he enters the forum; so does the civil

magistrate when he enters the church. His right to rule is a right which

belongs to him as representing God in the state--he has no commission to

represent God either in the family or the church; and therefore, he is

entitled to no obedience if he claims an authority which does not belong

to him. This is a very obvious principle, and is of wide application. It

not only limits the authority of civil officers to civil affairs, but

limits the extent due to the obedience to be rendered even in civil

matters to the officers of the state. A justice of the peace has no

claim to the obedience due to a governor of a state; nor a governor of a

state to that which belongs to the President of the Union; nor the

President of the Union to that which may be rightfully claimed by an

absolute sovereign. A military commander has no authority over the

community as a civil magistrate, nor can he exercise such authority even

over his subordinates. This principle applies in all its force to the

law-making power. The legislature can not exercise any power which does

not belong to them. They can not act as judges or magistrates unless

such authority has been actually committed to them. They are to be

obeyed as legislators; and in any other capacity their decisions or

commands do not bind the conscience. And still further, their

legislative enactments have authority only when made in the exercise of

their legitimate powers. In other words, an unconstitutional law is no

law. If our Congress, for example, were to pass a bill creating an order

of nobility, or an established church, or to change the religion of the

land, or to enforce a sumptuary code, it would have no more virtue and

be entitled to no more deference than a similar enactment intended to

bind the whole country passed by a town council. This we presume will

not be denied. God has committed unlimited power to no man and to no set

of men, and the limitation which he has assigned to the power conferred,

is to be found in the design for which it was given. That design is

determined in the case of the family, the church and the state, by the

nature of these institutions, by the general precepts of the Bible, or

by the providence of God determining the peculiar constitution under

which these organizations are called to act. The power of a parent was

greater under the old dispensation than it is now; the legitimate

authority of the church is greater under some modes of organization than

under others; and the power of the state as represented in its

constituted authorities is far more extensive in some countries than in

others. The theory of the British government is that the parliament is

the whole state in convention, and therefore it exercises powers which

do not belong to our Congress, which represents the state only for

certain specified purposes. These diversities, however, do not alter the

general principle, which is, that rulers are to be obeyed in the

exercise of their legitimate authority; that their commmands or

requirements beyond their appropriate spheres are void of all binding

force. This is a principle which no one can dispute.

A second principle is no less plain. No human authority can make it

obligatory on us to commit sin. If all power is of God it can not be

legitimately used against God. This is a dictate of natural conscience,

and is authenticated by the clearest teachings of the word of God. The

apostles when commanded to abstain from preaching Christ refused to

obey, and said: "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto

you more than unto God, judge ye." No human law could make it binding on

the ministers of the gospel, in our day, to withhold the message of

salvation from their fellow-men. It requires no argument to prove that

men can not make it right to worship idols, to blaspheme God, to deny

Christ. It is sheer fanaticism thus to exalt the power of the government

above the authority of God. This would be to bring back upon us some of

the worst doctrines of the middle ages as to the power of the pope and

of earthly sovereigns. Good men in all ages of the world have always

acted on the principle that human laws can not bind the conscience when

they are in conflict with the law of God. Daniel openly, in the sight of

his enemies, prayed to the God of heaven in despite of the prohibition

of his sovereign. Shadrach, Mesheck and Abednego refused to bow down, at

the command of the king, to the golden image. The early Christians

disregarded all those laws of Pagan Rome requiring them to do homage to

false gods. Protestants with equal unanimity refused to submit to the

laws of their papal sovereigns enjoining the profession of Romish

errors. That these men were right no man, with an enlightened

conscience, can deny; but they were right only on the principle that the

power of the state and of the magistrate is limited by the law of God.

It follows then from the divine institution of government, that its

power to bind the conscience to obedience is limited by the design of

its appointment and the moral law. All its power being from God, it must

be subordinate to him. This is a doctrine which, however, for a time and

in words, it may be denied, is too plain and too important not to be

generally recognized. It is a principle too which should at all times be

publicly avowed. The very sanctity of human laws requires it. Their real

power and authority lie in their having a divine sanction. To claim for

them binding force when destitute of such sanction, is to set up a mere

semblance for a reality, a suit of armor with no living man within. The

stability of human government and the authority of civil laws require

that they should be kept within the sphere where they repose on God, and

are pervaded by his presence and power. Without him nothing human can

stand. All power is of God; and if of God, divine; and if divine, in

accordance with his holy law.

But who are the judges of the application of these principles? Who is to

determine whether a particular law is unconstitutional or immoral? So

far as the mere constitutionality of a law is concerned, it may be

remarked, that there is in most states, as in our own, for example, a

regular judicial tribunal to which every legislative enactment can be

submitted, and the question of its conformity to the constitution

authoritatively decided. In all ordinary cases, that is, in all cases

not involving some great principle or some question of conscience, such

decisions must be held to be final, and to bind all concerned not only

to submission but obedience. A law thus sanctioned becomes instinct with

all the power of the state, and further opposition brings the recusants

into conflict with the government; a conflict in which no man for light

reasons can with a good conscience engage. Still it can not be denied,

and ought not to be concealed, that the ultimate decision must be

referred to his own judgment. This is a necessary deduction from the

doctrine that obedience to law is a religious duty. It is a primary

principle that the right of private judgment extends over all questions

of faith and morals. No human power can come between God and the

conscience. Every man must answer for his own sins, and therefore every

man must have the right to determine for himself what is sin. As he can

not transfer his responsibility, he can not transfer his right of

judgment. This principle has received the sanction of good men in every

age of the world. Daniel judged for himself of the binding force of the

command not to worship the true God. So did the apostles when they

continued to preach Christ, in opposition to all the constituted

authorities. The laws passed by Pagan Rome requiring the worship of

idols had the sanction of all the authorities of the empire, yet on the

ground of their private judgment the Christians refused to obey them.

Protestants in like manner refused to obey the laws of Papal Rome,

though sustained by all the authority both of the church and state. In

all these cases the right of private judgment can not be disputed. Even

where no question of religion or morality is directly concerned, this

right is undeniable. Does any one now condemn Hampden for refusing to

pay "ship-money?" Does any American condemn our ancestors for resisting

the stamp-act, though the authorities of St. Stephen's and Westminster

united in pronouncing the imposition constitutional? However this

principle may be regarded when stated in the abstract, every individual

instinctively acts upon it in his own case. Whenever a command is issued

by one in authority over us, we immediately and almost unconsciously

determine for ourselves, first, whether he had a right to give the

order; and secondly, whether it can with a good conscience be obeyed. If

this decision is clearly in the negative, we at once determine to refuse

obedience on our own responsibility. Let any man test this point by an

appeal to his own consciousness. Let him suppose the President of the

United States to order him to turn Romanist or Pagan; or Congress to

pass a bill requiring him to blaspheme God; or a military superior to

command him to commit treason or murder--does not his conscience tell

him he would on the instant refuse? Would he, or could he wait until the

constitutionality of such requisitions had been submitted to the courts?

or if the courts should decide against him, would that at all alter the

case? Men must be strangely oblivious of the relation of the soul to

God, the instinctive sense which we possess of our allegiance to him,

and of the self-evidencing power with which his voice reaches the reason

and the conscience, to question the necessity which every man is under

to decide all questions touching his duty to God for himself.

It may indeed be thought that this doctrine is subversive of the

authority of government. A moment's reflection is sufficient to dispel

this apprehension. The power of laws rests on two foundations, fear and

conscience. Both are left by this doctrine in their integrity. The

former, because the man refuses obedience at his peril. His private

conviction that the law is unconstitutional or immoral does not abrogate

it, or impede its operation. If arraigned for its violation, he may

plead in his justification his objections to the authority of the law.

If these objections are found valid by the competent authorities, he is

acquitted; if otherwise, he suffers the penalty. What more can the state

ask? All the power the state, as such, can give its laws, lies in their

penalty. A single decision by the ultimate authority in favor of a law,

is a revelation to the whole body of the people that it can not be

violated with impunity. The sword of justice hangs over every

transgressor. The motive of fear in securing obedience, is therefore, as

operative under this view of the subject, as it can be under any other.

What, however, is of far more consequence, the power of conscience is

left in full force. Obedience to the law is a religious duty, enjoined

by the word of God and enforced by conscience. If, in any case, it be

withheld, it is under a sense of responsibility to God; and under the

conviction that if this conscientious objection be feigned, it

aggravates the guilt of disobedience as a sin against God an hundred

fold; and if it be mistaken, it affords no palliation of the offense.

Paul was guilty in persecuting the church, though he thought he was

doing God service. And the man, who by a perverted conscience, is led to

refuse obedience to a righteous law, stands without excuse at the bar of

God. The moral sanction of civil laws, which gives them their chief

power, and without which they must ultimately become inoperative, cannot

possibly extend further than this. For what is that moral sanction? It

is a conviction that our duty to God requires our obedience; but how can

we feel that duty to God requires us to do what God forbids? In other

words, a law which we regard as immoral, can not present itself to the

conscience as having divine authority. Conscience, therefore, is on the

side of the law wherever and whenever this is possible from the nature

of the case. It is a contradiction to say that conscience enforces what

conscience condemns. This then is all the support which the laws of the

land can possibly derive from our moral convictions. The allegiance of

conscience is to God. It enforces obedience to all human laws consistent

with that allegiance; further than this it can not by possibility go.

And as the decisions of conscience are, by the constitution of our

nature, determined by our own apprehensions of the moral law, and not by

authority, it follows of necessity that every man must judge for

himself, and on his own responsibility, whether any given law of man

conflicts with the law of God or not.

We would further remark on this point that the lives and property of men

have no greater protection than that which, on this theory, is secured

for the laws of the state. The law of God says: Thou shalt not kill. Yet

every man does, and must judge when and how far this law binds his

conscience. It is admitted, on all hands, that there are cases in which

its obligation ceases. What those cases are each man determines for

himself, but under his two fold responsibility to his country and to

God. If, through passion or any other cause, he errs as to what

constitutes justifiable homicide, he must bear the penalty attached to

murder, by the law of God and man. It is precisely so in the case before

us. God has commanded us to obey the magistrate as his minister and

representative. If we err in our judgment as to the cases in which the

command ceases to be binding, we fall into the hands of justice, both

human and divine. Can more than this be necessary? Can any thing be

gained by trying to make God require us to break his own commands? Can

conscience be made to sanction the violation of the moral law? Is not

this the way to destroy all moral distinctions, and to prostrate the

authority of conscience, and with it the very foundation of civil

government? Is not all history full of the dreadful consequences of the

doctrine that human laws can make sin obligatory, and that those in

authority can judge for the people what is sin? What more than this is

needed to justify all the persecutions for righteousness' sake since the

world began? What hope could there be, on this ground, for the

preservation of religion or virtue, in any nation on the earth? If the

principle be once established, that the people are bound to obey all

human laws, or that they are not to judge for themselves when their duty

to God requires them to refuse such obedience, then there is not only an

end of all civil and religious liberty, but the very nature of civil

government, as a divine institution, is destroyed. It becomes first

atheistical, and then diabolical. Then the massacre of St.

Bartholomew's, the decrees of the French National Assembly, and the laws

of Pagan Rome against Christians, and of its Papal successor against

Protestants, were entitled to reverent obedience. Then, too, may any

infidel party which gains the ascendency in a state, as has happened of

late in Switzerland, render it morally obligatory upon all ministers to

close their churches, and on the people to renounce the gospel. This is

not an age or state of the world in which to advance such doctrines.

There are too many evidences of the gathering powers of evil, to render

it expedient to exalt the authority of man above that of God, or

emancipate men from subjection to their Master in heaven, that they may

become more obedient to their masters on earth. We are advocating the

cause of civil government, of the stability and authority of human laws,

when we make every thing rest on the authority of God, and when we limit

every human power by subordinating it to him. We hold, therefore, that

it is not only one of the plainest principles of morals, that no immoral

law can bind the conscience, and that every man must judge of its

character for himself, and on his own responsibility; but that this

doctrine is essential to all religious liberty, and to the religious

sanction of civil government. If you deny this principle, you thereby

deny that government is a divine institution, and denying that, you

deprive it of its vital energy, and send it tottering to a dishonored

grave.

But here the great practical question arises, What is to be done when

the law of the land comes into conflict with the law of God--or, which

is to us the same thing, with our convictions of what that law demands?

In answer to this question we would remark, in the first place, that in

most cases, the majority of the people have nothing to do, except

peaceably to use their influence to have the law repealed. The mass of

the people have nothing actively to do with the laws. Very few

enactments of the government touch one in a thousand in the population.

We may think a protective tariff not only inexpedient, but unequal and

therefore unjust. But we have nothing to do with it. We are not

responsible for it, and are not called upon to enforce it. The remark

applies even to laws of a higher character, such, _e. g._ as a law

proclaiming an unjust war; forbidding the introduction of the Bible into

public schools; requiring homage or sanction to be given to idolatrous

services by public officers, etc., etc. Such laws do not touch the mass

of the people. They do not require them either to do or abstain from

doing, any thing which conscience forbids or enjoins; and therefore

their duty in the premises may be limited to the use of legitimate means

to have laws of which they disapprove repealed.

In the second place, those executive officers who are called upon to

carry into effect a law which requires them to do what their conscience

condemns, must resign their office, if they would do their duty to God.

Some years since, General Maitland (if we remember the name correctly)

of the Madras Presidency, in India, resigned a lucrative and honorable

post, because he could not conscientiously give the sanction to the

Hindoo idolatry required by the British authorities. And within the last

few months, we have seen hundreds of Hessian officers throw up their

commissions rather than trample on the constitution of their country. On

the same principles the non-conformists in the time of Charles II. and

the ministers of the Free Church of Scotland, in our day, gave up their

stipends and their positions, because they could not with a good

conscience carry into effect the law of the land. It is not intended

that an executive officer should, in all cases, resign his post rather

than execute a law which in his private judgment he may regard as

unconstitutional or unjust. The responsibility attaches to those who

make, and not to those who execute the laws. It is only when the act,

which the officer is called upon to perform, involves personal

criminality, that he is called upon to decline its execution. Thus in

the case of war; a military officer is not the proper judge of its

justice. That is not a question between him and the enemy, but between

his government and the hostile nation. On the supposition that war

itself is not sinful, the act which the military officer is called upon

to perform is not criminal, and he may with a good conscience carry out

the commands of his government, whatever may be his private opinion of

the justice of the war. All such cases no doubt are more or less

complicated, and must be decided each on its own merits. The general

principle, however, appears plain, that it is only when the act required

of an executive officer involves personal criminality, that he is called

upon to resign. This is a case that often occurs. In Romish countries,

as Malta, for example, British officers have been required to do homage

to the host, and on their refusal have been cashiered. An instance of

this kind occurred a few years ago, and produced a profound sensation in

England. This was clearly a case of great injustice. The command was an

unrighteous one. The duty of the officer was to resign rather than obey.

Had the military authorities taken a fair view of the question, they

must have decided that the command to bow to the host, was not

obligatory, because _ultra vires_. But if such an order was insisted

upon, the conscientious Protestant must resign his commission.

The next question is, What is the duty of private citizens in the case

supposed, _i. e._, when the civil law either forbids them to do what God

commands, or commands them to do what God forbids? We answer, their duty

is not obedience, but submission. These are different things. A law

consists of two parts, the precept and the penalty. We obey the one, and

submit to the other. When we are required by the law to do what our

conscience pronounces to be sinful, we can not obey the precept, but we

are bound to submit without resistance to the penalty. We are not

authorized to abrogate the law, nor forcibly to resist its execution, no

matter how great its injustice or cruelty. On this principle holy men

have acted in all ages. The apostles did not obey the precept of the

Jewish laws forbidding them to preach Christ, but neither did they

resist the execution of the penalty attached to the violation of those

laws. Thus it was with all the martyrs; they would not offer incense to

idols, but refused not to be led to the stake. Had Cranmer, on the

ground of the iniquity of the law condemning him to death, killed the

officers who came to carry it into effect, he would have been guilty of

murder. Here is the great difference which is often overlooked. The

right of self-defense is appealed to as justifying resistance even to

death, against all attempts to deprive us of our liberty. We have this

right in reference to unauthorized individuals, but not in reference to

the officers of the law. Had men without authority entered Cranmer's

house, and attempted to take his life, his resistance, even if attended

with the loss of life, would have been justifiable. But no man has the

right to resist the execution of the law. What could be more iniquitous

than the laws condemning men to death for the worship of God. Yet to

these laws Christians and Protestants yielded unresisting submission.

This is an obvious duty, flowing from the divine institution of

government. There is no power but of God, and the powers that be are

ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power resisteth the

ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves

damnation. Thus Paul reasoned. If the power is of God, it can not be

rightfully resisted; it must be obeyed or submitted to. Are wicked,

tyrannical, Pagan powers of God? Certainly they are. Does not he order

all things? Does any man become a king without God's permission granted

in mercy or in judgment? Was not Nero to be recognized as emperor? Would

it not be a sin to refuse submission to Nicholas of Russia, or to the

Sultan of Turkey? Are rulers to be obeyed only for their goodness? Is it

only kind and reasonable masters, parents, or husbands, who are to be

recognized as such? It is no doubt true, that in no case is unlimited

authority granted to men; and that obedience to the precepts of our

superiors is limited by the nature of their office, and by the moral

law; but this leaves their authority untouched, and the obligation to

submission where we can not obey, unimpaired.

Have we then got back to the old doctrine of "passive obedience" by

another route? Not at all. The scriptural rule above recited relates to

individuals. It prescribes the duty of submission even to unjust and

wicked laws, on the part of men in their separate capacity; but it does

not deny the right of revolution as existing in the community. What the

Scriptures forbid, is that any man should undertake to resist the law.

They do not forbid either change in the laws or change in the

government. There is an obvious difference between these two things,

viz: the right of resistance on the part of individuals, and the right

of revolution on the part of the people. This latter right we argue from

the divine institution of government itself. God has revealed his will

that government should exist, but he has not prescribed the form which

it shall assume. In other words, he has commanded men to organize such

government, but has left the form to be determined by themselves. This

is a necessary inference. It follows from the mere silence of Scripture

and nature on this subject, that it is left free to the determination of

those to whom the general command is given. In the next place, this

right is to be inferred from the design of civil government. That design

is the welfare of the people. It is the promotion of their physical and

moral improvement; the security of life and property; the punishment of

evil doers, and the praise of those who do well. If such is the end

which God designs government to answer, it must be his will that it

should be made to accomplish that purpose, and consequently that it may

be changed from time to time, so as to secure that end. No one form of

government is adapted to all states of society, any more than one suit

of clothes is proper to all stages of life. The end for which clothing

is designed, supposes the right to adapt it to that end. In like manner

the end government is intended to answer, supposes the right to modify

it whenever such modification is necessary. If God commands men to

accomplish certain ends, and does not prescribe the means, he does

thereby leave the choice of the means to their discretion. And any

institution which fails to accomplish the end intended by it, if it has

not a divine sanction as to its form, may lawfully be so changed as to

suit the purpose for which it was appointed. We hold, therefore, that

the people have, by divine right, the authority to change, not only

their rulers, but their form of government, whenever the one or the

other, instead of promoting the well-being of the community, is unjust

or injurious. This is a right which, like all other prerogatives, may be

exercised unwisely, capriciously, or even unjustly, but still it is not

to be denied. It has been recognized and exercised in all ages of the

world, and with the sanction of the best of men. It is as unavoidable

and healthful as the changes in the body to adapt it to the increasing

vigor of the mind, in its progress from infancy to age. The progress of

society depends on the exercise of this right. It is impossible that its

powers should be developed, if it were to be forever wrapt up in its

swaddling clothes, or coffined as a mummy. The early Christians

submitted quietly to the unjust laws of their Pagan oppressors, until

the mass of the community became Christians, and then they

revolutionized the government. Protestants acted in the same way with

their papal rulers. So did our forefathers, and so may any people whose

form of government no longer answers the end for which God has commanded

civil government to be instituted. The Quakers are now a minority in all

the countries in which they exist, and furnish an edifying example of

submission to the laws which they can not conscientiously obey. But

should they come, in any political society, to be the controlling

power, it is plain they would have the right to conduct it on their own

principles.

The right of revolution therefore is really embedded in the right to

serve God. A government which interferes with that service, which

commands what God forbids, or forbids what he commands, we are bound by

our duty to him to change as soon as we have the power. If this is not

so, then God has subjected his people to the necessity of always

submitting to punishment for obeying his commands, and has cut them off

from the only means which can insure their peaceful and secure enjoyment

of the liberty to do his will. No one, however, in our land, or of the

race to which we belong, will be disposed to question the right of the

people to change their form of government. Our history forbids all

diversity of sentiment on this subject. We are only concerned to show

that the scriptural doctrine of civil government is perfectly consistent

with that right; or rather that the right is one of the logical

deductions from that doctrine.

We have thus endeavored to prove that government is a divine

institution; that obedience to the laws is a religious duty; that such

obedience is due in all cases in which it can be rendered with a good

conscience; that when obedience can not be yielded without sinning

against God, then our duty as individuals is quietly to submit to the

infliction of the penalty attached to disobedience; and that the right

of resistance or of revolution rests only in the body of people for

whose benefit government is instituted.

The application of these principles to the case of the fugitive slave

law is so obvious, as hardly to justify remark. The great body of the

people regard that law as consistent with the constitution of the

country and the law of God. Their duty, therefore, in the premises,

whether they think it wise or unwise, is perfectly plain. Those who take

the opposite view of the law, having in the great majority of cases,

nothing to do with enforcing it, are in no measure responsible for it.

Their duty is limited to the use of peaceable and constitutional means

to get it repealed. A large part of the people of this country thought

the acquisition of Louisiana; the admission of Texas into the Union by a

simple resolution; the late Mexican war; were either unjust or

unconstitutional, but there was no resistance to these measures. None

was made, and none would have been justifiable. So in the present case,

as the people generally are not called upon either to do, or to forbear

from doing, any thing their conscience forbids, all resistance to the

operation of this law on their part must be without excuse. With regard

to the executive officers, whose province it is to carry the law into

effect, though some of them may disapprove of it as unwise, harsh, or

oppressive, still they are bound to execute it, unless they believe the

specific act which they are called upon to perform involves personal

criminality, and then their duty is the resignation of their office, and

not resistance to the law. There is the most obvious difference between

an officer being called upon, for example, to execute a decision of a

court, which in his private opinion he thinks unjust, and his being

called upon to blaspheme, or commit murder. The latter involves personal

guilt, the former does not. He is not the judge of the equity or

propriety of the decision which he is required to carry into effect. It

is evident that the wheels of society would be stopped, if every officer

of the government, and every minister of justice should feel that he is

authorized to sit in judgment on the wisdom or righteousness of any law

he was called upon to execute. He is responsible for his own acts, and

not for the judgments of others, and therefore when the execution of a

law or of a command of a superior does not require him to sin, he is

free to obey.

Again, in those cases in which we, as private individuals, may be called

upon to assist in carrying the fugitive slave law into effect, if we can

not obey, we must do as the Quakers have long done with regard to our

military laws, _i. e._ quietly submit. We have no right to resist, or in

any way to impede the operation of the law. Whatever sin there is in it,

does not rest on us, any more than the sin of our military system rests

on the Quakers.[259]

And finally as regards the fugitives themselves, their obvious duty is

submission. To them the law must appear just as the laws of the Pagans

against Christians, or of Romanists against Protestants, appeared to

those who suffered from them. And the duty in both cases is the same.

Had the martyrs put to death the officers of the law, they would in the

sight of God and man have been guilty of murder. And any one who teaches

fugitive slaves to resort to violence even to the sacrifice of life, in

resisting the law in question, it seems to us, is guilty of exciting men

to murder. As before remarked, the principle of self-defense does not

apply in this case. Is there no difference between a man who kills an

assassin who attempts his life on the highway, and the man who, though

knowing himself to be innocent of the crime for which he has been

condemned to die, should kill the officers of justice? The former is a

case of justifiable homicide, the other is a case of murder. The

officers of justice are not the offenders. They are not the persons

responsible for the law or the decision. That responsibility rests on

the government. Private vengeance can not reach the state. And if it

could, such vengeance is not the remedy ordained by God for such evils.

They are to be submitted to, until the government can be changed. How

did our Lord act when he was condemned by an oppressive judgment, and

with wicked hands crucified and slain? Did he kill the Roman soldiers?

Has not he left us an example that we should follow his steps: who did

no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when he was reviled,

reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed

himself unto him that judgeth righteously. On this principle did all his

holy martyrs act; and on this principle are we bound to act in

submitting to the laws of the land, even when we deem them oppressive or

unjust.

The principles advocated in this paper appear to us so elementary, that

we feel disposed to apologize for presenting them in such a formal

manner. But every generation has to learn the alphabet for itself. And

the mass of men are so occupied with other matters, that they do not

give themselves time to discriminate. Their judgments are dictated, in

many cases, by their feelings, or their circumstances. One man simply

looks to the hardship of forcing a slave back to bondage, and he

impulsively counsels resistance unto blood. Another looks to the evils

which follow from resistance to law, and he asserts that human laws are

in all cases to be obeyed. Both are obviously wrong. Both would

overthrow all government. The one by justifying every man's taking the

law into his own hands; and the other by destroying the authority of

God, which is the only foundation on which human government can rest. It

is only by acting on the direction of the Divine Wisdom incarnate:

"Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things

that are God's," that these destructive extremes are to be avoided.

Government is a divine institution; obedience to the laws is commanded

by God; and yet like all other divine commands of the same class, there

are cases in which it ceases to be obligation. Of these cases every one

must judge for himself on his own responsibility to God and man; but

when he cannot obey, his duty is to submit. The divinely appointed

remedy for unjust or oppressive legislation is not private or tumultuous

opposition, but the repeal of unrighteous enactments, or the

reorganization of the government.

What, however, we have had most at heart in the preparation of this

article, is the exhibition of the great principle that all authority

reposes on God; that all our obligations terminate on him; that

government is not a mere voluntary compact, and obedience to law an

obligation which rests on the consent of the governed. We regard this as

a matter of primary importance. The character of men and of communities

depends, to a great extent on their faith. The theory of morals which

they adopt determines their moral charactcter. If they assume that

expediency is the rule of duty, that a thing is right because it

produces happiness, or wrong because it produces misery, that this

tendency is not merely the test between right and wrong, but the ground

of the distinction, then, the specific idea of moral excellence and

obligation is lost. All questions of duty are merged into a calculation

of profit and loss. There is no sense of God; reason or society takes

his place, and an irreligious, calculating cast of character is the

inevitable result. This is counteracted, in individuals and the

community by various causes, for neither the character of a man nor that

of a society is determined by any one opinion; but its injurious

influence may nevertheless be most manifest and deplorable. No man can

fail to see the deteriorating influence of this theory of morals on

public character both in this country and in England. If we would make

men religious and moral, instead of merely cute, let us place God before

them; let us teach them that his will is the ground of their

obligations; that they are responsible to him for all their acts; that

their allegiance as moral agents is not to reason or to society, but to

the heart-searching God; that the obligation to obey the laws of the

land does not rest on their consent to them, but to the fact government

is of God; that those who resist the magistrate, resist the ordinance of

God, and that they who resist, shall receive unto themselves damnation.

This is the only doctrine which can give stablity either to morals or to

government. Man's allegiance is not to reason in the abstract, nor to

society, but to a personal God, who has power to destroy both soul and

body in hell. This is a law revealed in the constitution of our nature,

as well as by the lips of Christ. And to no other sovereign can the soul

yield rational obedience. We might as well attempt to substitute some

mechanical contrivance of our own, for the law of gravitation, as a

means of keeping the planets in their orbits, as to expect to govern men

by any thing else than the fear of an Infinite God.

FOOTNOTES:

[258] In the _New York Independent_ for January 2, 1851, there is a

sermon delivered by Rev. Richard S. Storrs, Jr., of Brooklyn, Dec. 12,

1850, in which his opposition to the fugitive slave bill is expressly

placed on the injustice of slavery. He argues the matter almost

exclusively on that ground. "To what," he asks, "am I required to send

this man [the slave] back? To a system which . . . no man can contemplate

without shuddering." Again, "Why shall I send the man to this unjust

bondage? The fact that he has suffered it so long already is a reason

why I should NOT. . . . . Why shall I not HELP him, in his struggle for

the rights which God gave him indelibly, when he made him a man? There

is nothing to prevent, but the simple requirement of my equals in the

State; the parchment of the law, which they have written." This is an

argument against the Constitution and not against the fugitive slave

law. It is an open refusal to comply with one of the stipulations of our

national compact. If it has any force, it is in favor of the dissolution

of the Union. Nay, if the argument is sound it makes the dissolution of

the Union inevitable and obligatory. It should, therefore, in all

fairness be presented in that light, and not as an argument against the

law of Congress. Let it be understood that the ground now assumed is

that the Constitution can not be complied with. Let it be seen that the

moralists of our day have discovered that the compact framed by our

fathers, which all our public men in the general and state governments

have sworn to support, under which we have lived sixty years, and whose

fruits we have so abundantly enjoyed, is an immoral compact, and must be

repudiated out of duty to God. This is the real doctrine constantly

presented in the abolition prints; and if properly understood we should

soon see to what extent it commends itself to the judgment and

conscience of the people.

[259] The doctrine that the executive officers of a government are not

the responsible judges of the justice of its decisions, is perfectly

consistent with the principle advanced above, viz: that every man has

the right to judge for himself whether any law or command is obligatory.

This latter principle relates to acts for which we are personally

responsible. If a military officer is commanded to commit treason or

murder, he is bound to refuse; because those acts are morally wrong. But

if commanded to lead an army against an enemy he is bound to obey, for

that is not morally wrong. He is the judge of his own act, but not of

the act of the government in declaring the war. So a sheriff, if he

thinks all capital punishment a violation of God's law, he can not carry

a sentence of death into effect, because the act itself is sinful in his

view. But he is not the judge of the justice of any particular sentence

he is called on to execute. He may judge of his own part of the

transaction: but he is not responsible for the act of the judge and the

jury.

THE BIBLE ARGUMENT ON SLAVERY.

BY CHARLES HODGE, D.D.,

OF PRINCETON, N. J.

NOTE.--This Essay of Dr. Hodge, was designed by

the Editor, to follow that of Dr. Stringfellow,

but the copy was not received until the

stereotyping had progressed nearly to the close of

the volume. PUBLISHER.

* * * * *

Infatuation of the Abolitionists--Necessity of

Correct Opinions--Statement of the

Question--Slavery as Treated by Christ and his

Apostles--Slaveholding not Sinful--Answer to this

Argument--Dr. Channing's Answer--Admissions--Reply

to the Abolition Argument--Mr. Birney's

Admissions--Argument from the Old

Testament--Polygamy and Divorce--Inalienable

Rights.

EVERY one must be sensible that a very great change has, within a few

years, been produced in the feelings, if not in the opinions of the

public in relation to slavery. It is now the most exciting topic of

discussion. Nor is the excitement in society confined to discussion

alone. Designs and plans, of the most reprehensible character, are

boldly avowed and defended. What has produced this lamentable state of

things? No doubt many circumstances have combined in its production. We

think, however, that all impartial observers must acknowledge, that by

far the most prominent cause is the conduct of the abolitionists. . . . .

Nor is it by argument that the abolitionists have produced the present

unhappy excitement. Argument has not been the characteristic of their

publications. Denunciations of slaveholding, as manstealing, robbery,

piracy, and worse than murder; consequent vituperation of slaveholders

as knowingly guilty of the worst of crimes; passionate appeals to the

feelings of the inhabitants of the Northern States; gross exaggerations

of the moral and physical condition of the slaves, have formed the

staple of their addresses to the public.[260] We do not mean to say

that there has been no calm and Christian discussion of the subject. We

mean merely to state what has, to the best of our knowledge, been the

predominent character of the anti-slavery publications. There is one

circumstance which renders the error and guilt of this course of conduct

chargeable, in a great measure, on the abolitionists as a body, and even

upon those of their number who have pursued a different course. We refer

to the fact that they have upheld the most extreme publications, and

made common cause with the most reckless declaimers. The wildest ravings

of the _Liberator_ have been constantly lauded; agents have been

commissioned whose great distinction was a talent for eloquent

vituperation; coincidence of opinion as to the single point of immediate

emancipation has been sufficient to unite men of the most discordant

character. There is in this conduct such a strange want of adaptation

between the means and the end which they profess to have in view, as to

stagger the faith of most persons in the sincerity of their professions,

who do not consider the extremes to which even good men may be carried,

when they allow one subject to take exclusive possession of their minds.

We do not doubt their sincerity, but we marvel at their delusion. They

seem to have been led by the mere impulse of feeling, and a blind

imitation of their predecessors in England, to a course of measures,

which, though rational under one set of circumstances, is the hight of

infatuation under another. The English abolitionists addressed

themselves to a community, which, though it owned no slaves, had the

power to abolish slavery, and was therefore responsible for its

continuance. Their object was to rouse that community to immediate

action. For this purpose they addressed themselves to the feelings of

the people; they portrayed in the strongest colors the misery of the

slaves; they dilated on the gratuitous crime of which England was guilty

in perpetuating slavery, and did all they could to excite the passions

of the public. This was the course most likely to succeed, and it did

succeed. Suppose, however, that the British parliament had no power over

the subject; that it rested entirely with the colonial Assemblies to

decide whether slavery should be abolished or not. Does any man believe

the abolitionists would have gained their object? Did they in fact make

converts of the planters? Did they even pretend that such was their

design? Every one knows that their conduct produced a state of almost

frantic excitement in the West India Islands; that so far from the

public feeling in England producing a moral impression upon the planters

favorable to the condition of the slaves, its effect was directly the

reverse. It excited them to drive away the missionaries, to tear down

the chapels, to manifest a determination to rivet still more firmly the

chains on their helpless captives, and to resist to the utmost all

attempts for their emancipation or even improvement. All this was

natural, though it was all, under the circumstances, of no avail, except

to rouse the spirit of the mother country, and to endanger the result of

the experiment of emancipation, by exasperating the feelings of the

slaves. Precisely similar has been the result of the efforts of the

American abolitionists as regards the slaveholders of America. They have

produced a state of alarming exasperation at the South, injurious to the

slave and dangerous to the country, while they have failed to enlist the

feelings of the North. This failure has resulted, not so much from

diversity of opinion on the abstract question of slavery; or from want

of sympathy among Northern men in the cause of human rights, as from the

fact, that the common sense of the public has been shocked by the

incongruity and folly of hoping to effect the abolition of slavery in

one country, by addressing the people of another. We do not expect to

abolish despotism in Russia, by getting up indignation meetings in New

York. Yet for all the purposes of legislation on this subject, Russia is

not more a foreign country to us than South Carolina. The idea of

inducing the Southern slaveholder to emancipate his slaves by

denunciation, is about as rational as to expect the sovereigns of Europe

to grant free institutions, by calling them tyrants and robbers. Could

we send our denunciations of despotism among the subjects of those

monarchs, and rouse the people to a sense of their wrongs and a

determination to redress them, there would be some prospect of success.

But our Northern abolitionists disclaim, with great earnestness, all

intention of allowing their appeals to reach the ears of the slaves. It

is, therefore, not to be wondered at, that the course pursued by the

anti-slavery societies, should produce exasperation at the South,

without conciliating sympathy at the North. The impolicy of their

conduct is so obvious, that men who agree with them as to all their

leading principles, not only stand aloof from their measures, but

unhesitatingly condemn their conduct. This is the case with Dr.

Channing. Although his book was written rather to repress the feeling of

opposition to these societies, than to encourage it, yet he fully admits

the justice of the principal charges brought against them. We extract a

few passages on the subject. "The abolitionists have done wrong, I

believe; nor is their wrong to be winked at, because done fanatically,

or with good intentions; for how much mischief may be wrought with good

designs! They have fallen into the common error of enthusiasts, that of

exaggerating their object, of feeling as if no evil existed but that

which they opposed, and as if no guilt could be compared with that of

countenancing and upholding it. The tone of their newspapers, as far as

I have seen them, has often been fierce, bitter, and abusive." p. 133.

"Another objection to their movements is, that they have sought to

accomplish their object by a system of agitation; that is, by a system

of affiliated societies gathered, and held together, and extended, by

passionate eloquence." "The abolitionists might have formed an

association; but it should have been an elective one. Men of strong

principles, judiciousness, sobriety, should have been carefully sought

as members. Much good might have been accomplished by the co-operation

of such philanthropists. Instead of this, the abolitionists sent forth

their orators, some of them transported with fiery zeal, to sound the

alarm against slavery through the land, to gather together young and

old, pupils from schools, females hardly arrived at years of discretion,

the ignorant, the excitable, the impetuous, and to organize these into

associations for the battle against oppression. Very unhappily they

preached their doctrine to the colored people, and collected these into

societies.[261] To this mixed and excitable multitude, minute,

heartrending descriptions of slavery were given in the piercing tones of

passion; and slaveholders were held up as monsters of cruelty and

crime." p. 136. "The abolitionists often speak of Luther's vehemence as

a model to future reformers. But who, that has read history, does not

know that Luther's reformation was accompanied by tremendous miseries

and crimes, and that its progress was soon arrested? and is there not

reason to fear, that the fierce, bitter, persecuting spirit, which he

breathed into the work, not only tarnished its glory, but limited its

power? One great principle which we should lay down as immovably true,

is, that if a good work can not be carried on by the calm,

self-controlled, benevolent spirit of Christianity, then the time for

doing it has not come. God asks not the aid of our vices. He can

overrule them for good, but they are not to be chosen instruments of

human happiness." p. 138. "The adoption of the common system of

agitation by the abolitionists has proved signally unsuccessful. From

the beginning it created alarm in the considerate, and strengthened the

sympathies of the free States with the slaveholder. It made converts of

a few individuals, but alienated multitudes. Its influence at the South

has been evil without mixture.[262] It has stirred up bitter passions

and a fierce fanaticism, which have shut every ear and every heart

against its arguments and persuasions. These effects are the more to be

deplored, because the hope of freedom to the slaves lies chiefly in the

dispositions of his master. The abolitionist indeed proposed to convert

the slaveholders; and for this end he approached them with vituperation,

and exhausted on them the vocabulary of abuse! And he has reaped as he

sowed." p. 142.

Unmixed good or evil, however, in such a world as ours, is a very rare

thing. Though the course pursued by the abolitionists has produced a

great preponderance of mischief, it may incidentally occasion no little

good. It has rendered it incumbent on every man to endeavor to obtain,

and, as far as he can, to communicate definite opinions and correct

principles on the whole subject. The community are very apt to sink down

into indifference to a state of things of long continuance, and to

content themselves with vague impressions as to right and wrong on

important points, when there is no call for immediate action. From this

state the abolitionists have effectually roused the public mind. The

subject of slavery is no longer one on which men are allowed to be of no

mind at all. The question is brought up before all of our public bodies,

civil and religious. Almost every ecclesiastical society has in some

way been called to express an opinion on the subject; and these calls

are constantly repeated. Under these circumstances, it is the duty of

all in their appropriate sphere, to seek for truth, and to utter it in

love.

"The first question," says Dr. Channing, "to be proposed by a rational

being, is not what is profitable, but what is right. Duty must be

primary, prominent, most conspicuous, among the objects of human thought

and pursuit. If we cast it down from its supremacy, if we inquire first

for our interests and then for our duties we shall certainly err. We can

never see the right clearly and fully, but by making it our first

concern. . . . Right is the supreme good, and includes all other goods.

In seeking and adhering to it, we secure our true and only happiness.

All prosperity, not founded on it, is built on sand. If human affairs

are controlled, as we believe, by almighty rectitude and impartial

goodness, then to hope for happiness from wrong doing is as insane as to

seek health and prosperity by rebelling against the laws of nature, by

sowing our seed on the ocean, or making poison our common food. There is

but one unfailing good; and that is, fidelity to the everlasting law

written on the heart, and re-written and re-published in God's word.

"Whoever places this faith in the everlasting law of rectitude must, of

course, regard the question of slavery, first, and chiefly, as a moral

question. All other considerations will weigh little with him compared

with its moral character and moral influences. The following remarks,

therefore, are designed to aid the reader in forming a just moral

judgment of slavery. Great truths, inalienable rights, everlasting

duties, these will form the chief subjects of this discussion. There are

times when the assertion of great principles is the best service a man

can render society. The present is a moment of bewildering excitement,

when men's minds are stormed and darkened by strong passions and fierce

conflicts; and also a moment of absorbing worldliness, when the moral

law is made to bow to expediency, and its high and strict requirements

are decried or dismissed as metaphysical abstractions, or impracticable

theories. At such a season to utter great principles without passion,

and in the spirit of unfeigned and universal good will, and to engrave

them deeply and durably on men's minds, is to do more for the world,

than to open mines of wealth, or to frame the most successful schemes of

policy."

No man can refuse assent to these principles. The great question,

therefore, in relation to slavery is, what is right? What are the moral

principles which should control our opinions and conduct in regard to

it? Before attempting an answer to this question, it is proper to

remark, that we recognize no authoritative rule of truth and duty but

the word of God. Plausible as may be the arguments deduced from general

principles to prove a thing to be true or false, right and wrong, there

is almost always room for doubt and honest diversity of opinion. Clear

as we may think the arguments against despotism, there ever have been

thousands of enlightened and good men, who honestly believe it to be of

all forms of government the best and most acceptable to God. Unless we

can approach the consciences of men, clothed with some more imposing

authority than that of our own opinions and arguments, we shall gain

little permanent influence. Men are too nearly upon a par as to their

powers of reasoning, and ability to discover truth, to make the

conclusions of one mind an authoritative rule for others. It is our

object, therefore, not to discuss the subject of slavery upon abstract

principles, but to ascertain the scriptural rule of judgment and conduct

in relation to it. We do not intend to enter upon any minute or extended

examination of scriptural passages, because all that we wish to assume,

as to the meaning of the word of God, is so generally admitted as to

render the labored proof of it unnecessary.

It is on all hands acknowledged that, at the time of the advent of Jesus

Christ, slavery in its worst forms prevailed over the whole world. The

Saviour found it around him in Judea; the apostles met with it in Asia,

Greece and Italy. How did they treat it? Not by the denunciation of

slaveholding as necessarily and universally sinful. Not by declaring

that all slaveholders were men-stealers and robbers, and consequently to

be excluded from the church and the kingdom of heaven. Not by insisting

on immediate emancipation. Not by appeals to the passions of men on the

evils of slavery, or by the adoption of a system of universal agitation.

On the contrary, it was by teaching the true nature, dignity, equality

and destiny of men; by inculcating the principles of justice and love;

and by leaving these principles to produce their legitimate effects in

ameliorating the condition of all classes of society. We need not stop

to prove that such was the course pursued by our Saviour and his

apostles, because the fact is in general acknowledged, and various

reasons are assigned, by the abolitionists and others, to account for

it. The subject is hardly alluded to by Christ in any of his personal

instructions. The apostles refer to it, not to pronounce upon it as a

question of morals, put to prescribe the relative duties of masters and

slaves. They caution those slaves who have believing or Christian

masters, not to despise them because they were on a perfect religious

equality with them, but to consider the fact that their masters were

their brethren, as an additional reason for obedience. It is remarkable

that there is not even an exhortation to masters to liberate their

slaves, much less is it urged as an imperative and immediate duty. They

are commanded to be kind, merciful and just; and to remember that they

have a Master in heaven. Paul represents this relation as of

comparatively little account: "Let every man abide in the same calling

wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant (or slave), care

not for it; though, should the opportunity of freedom be presented,

embrace it. These external relations, however, are of little importance,

for every Christian is a freeman in the highest and best sense of the

word, and at the same time is under the strongest bonds to Christ," 1

Cor. vii: 20-22. It is not worth while to shut our eyes to these facts.

They will remain, whether we refuse to see them and be instructed by

them or not. If we are wiser, better, more courageous than Christ and

his apostles, let us say so; but it will do no good, under a paroxysm of

benevolence, to attempt to tear the Bible to pieces, or to exhort, by

violent exegesis, a meaning foreign to its obvious sense. Whatever

inferences may be fairly deducible from the fact, the fact itself can

not be denied that Christ and his inspired followers did treat the

subject of slavery in the manner stated above. This being the case, we

ought carefully to consider their conduct in this respect, and inquire

what lessons that conduct should teach us.

We think no one will deny that the plan adopted by the Saviour and his

immediate followers must be the correct plan, and therefore obligatory

upon us, unless it can be shown that their circumstances were so

different from ours, as to make the rule of duty different in the two

cases. The obligation to point out and establish this difference, rests

of course upon those who have adopted a course diametrically the reverse

of that which Christ pursued. They have not acquitted themselves of

this obligation. They do not seem to have felt it necessary to

reconcile their conduct with his; nor does it appear to have occurred to

them, that their violent denunciations of slaveholding and of

slaveholders is an indirect reflection on his wisdom, virtue, or

courage. If the present course of the abolitionists is right, then the

course of Christ and the apostles were wrong. For the circumstances of

the two cases are, as far as we can see, in all essential particulars,

the same. They appeared as teachers of morality and religion, not as

politicians. The same is the fact with our abolitionists. They found

slavery authorized by the laws of the land. So do we. They were called

upon to receive into the communion of the Christian Church, both slave

owners and slaves. So are we. They instructed these different classes of

persons as to their respective duties. So do we. Where then is the

difference between the two cases? If we are right in insisting that

slaveholding is one of the greatest of all sins; that it should be

immediately and universally abandoned as a condition of church

communion, or admission into heaven, how comes it that Christ and his

apostles did not pursue the same course? We see no way of escape from

the conclusion that the conduct of the modern abolitionists, being

directly opposed to that of the authors of our religion, must be wrong

and ought to be modified or abandoned.

An equally obvious deduction from the fact above referred to, is, that

slaveholding is not necessarily sinful. The assumption of the contrary

is the great reason why the modern abolitionists have adopted their

peculiar course. They argue thus: slaveholding is under all

circumstances sinful, it must, therefore, under all circumstances, and

at all hazards, be immediately abandoned. This reasoning is perfectly

conclusive. If there is error any where, it is in the premises, and not

in the deduction. It requires no argument to show that sin ought to be

at once abandoned. Every thing, therefore, is conceded which the

abolitionists need require, when it is granted that slaveholding is in

itself a crime. But how can this assumption be reconciled with the

conduct of Christ and the apostles? Did they shut their eyes to the

enormities of a great offence against God and man? Did they temporize

with a henious evil, because it was common and popular? Did they abstain

from even exhorting masters to emancipate their slaves, though an

imperative duty, from fear of consequences? Did they admit the

perpetrators of the greatest crimes to the Christian communion? Who

will undertake to charge the blessed Redeemer and his inspired followers

with such connivance at sin, and such fellowship with iniquity? Were

drunkards, murderers, liars, and adulterers thus treated? Were they

passed over without even an exhortation to forsake their sins? Were they

recognized as Christians? It can not be that slaveholding belongs to the

same category with these crimes; and to assert the contrary, is to

assert that Christ is the minister of sin.

This is a point of so much importance, lying as it does at the very

foundation of the whole subject, that it deserves to be attentively

considered. The grand mistake, as we apprehend, of those who maintain

that slaveholding is itself a crime, is, that they do not discriminate

between slaveholding in itself considered, and its accessories at any

particular time or place. Because masters may treat their slaves

unjustly, or governments make oppressive laws in relation to them, is no

more a valid argument against the lawfulness of slaveholding, than the

abuse of parental authority, or the unjust political laws of certain

states, is an argument against the lawfulness of the parental relation,

or of civil government. This confusion of points so widely distinct,

appears to us to run through almost all the popular publications on

slavery, and to vitiate their arguments. Mr. Jay, for example, quotes

the second article of the constitution of the American Anti-Slavery

Society, which declares that "slaveholding is a heinous crime in the

sight of God," and then, to justify this declaration, makes large

citations from the laws of the several Southern States, to show what the

system of slavery is in this country, and concludes by saying, "This is

the system which the American Anti-Slavery Society declares to be

sinful, and ought therefore to be immediately abolished." There is,

however, no necessary connection between his premises and conclusion. We

may admit all those laws which forbid the instruction of slaves; which

interfere with their marital or parental rights; which subject them to

the insults and oppression of the whites, to be in the highest degree

unjust, without at all admitting that slaveholding itself is a crime.

Slavery may exist without any one of these concomitants. In pronouncing

on the moral character of an act, it is obviously necessary to have a

clear idea of what it is; yet how few of those who denounce slavery,

have any well-defined conception of its nature. They have a confused

idea of chains and whips, of degradation and misery, of ignorance and

vice, and to this complex conception they apply the name slavery, and

denounce it as the aggregate of all moral and physical evil. Do such

persons suppose that slavery, as it existed in the family of Abraham,

was such as their imaginations thus picture to themselves? Might not

that patriarch have had men purchased with his silver who were well

clothed, well instructed, well compensated for their labor, and in all

respects treated with parental kindness? Neither inadequate

remuneration, physical discomfort, intellectual ignorance, moral

degradation, is essential to the condition of a slave. Yet if all these

ideas are removed from the commonly received notion of slavery, how

little will remain. All the ideas which necessarily enter into the

definition of slavery are deprivation of personal liberty, obligation of

service at the discretion of another, and the transferable character of

the authority and claim of service of the master.[263] The manner in

which men are brought into this condition; its continuance, and the

means adopted for securing the authority and claim of masters, are all

incidental and variable. They may be reasonable or unreasonable, just or

unjust, at different times and places. The question, therefore, which

the abolitionists have undertaken to decide, is not whether the laws

enacted in the slaveholding States in relation to this subject are just

or not, but whether slaveholding, in itself considered, is a crime. The

confusion of these two points has not only brought the abolitionists

into conflict with the Scriptures, but it has, as a necessary

consequence, prevented their gaining the confidence of the North, or

power over the conscience of the South. When Southern Christians are

told that they are guilty of a heinous crime, worse than piracy,

robbery, or murder, because they hold slaves, when they know that Christ

and his apostles never denounced slaveholding as a crime, never called

upon men to renounce it as a condition of admission into the church,

they are shocked and offended, without being convinced. They are sure

that their accusers can not be wiser or better than their divine Master,

and their consciences are untouched by denunciations which they know,

if well founded, must affect not them only, but the authors of the

religion of the Bible.

The argument from the conduct of Christ and his immediate followers,

seems to us decisive on the point, that slaveholding, in itself

considered, is not a crime. Let us see how this argument has been

answered. In the able "Address to the Presbyterians of Kentucky,

proposing a plan for the instruction and emancipation of their slaves,

by a committee of the Synod of Kentucky," there is a strong and extended

argument to prove the sinfulness of slavery, _as it exists among us_, to

which we have little to object. When, however, the distinguished

draughter of that address comes to answer the objection, "God's word

sanctions slavery, and it can not, therefore, be sinful," he forgets the

essential limitation of the proposition which he had undertaken to

establish, and proceeds to prove that the Bible condemns slaveholding,

and not merely the kind or system of slavery which prevails in this

country. The argument drawn from the Scriptures, he says, needs no

elaborate reply. If the Bible sanctions slavery, it sanctions the kind

of slavery which then prevailed; the atrocious system which authorized

masters to starve their slaves, to torture them, to beat them, to put

them to death, and to throw them into their fish ponds. And he justly

asks, whether a man could insult the God of heaven worse than by saying

he does not disapprove of such a system? Dr. Channing presents strongly

the same view, and says, that an infidel would be laboring in his

vocation in asserting that the Bible does not condemn slavery. These

gentlemen, however, are far too clear-sighted not to discover, on a

moment's reflection, that they have allowed their benevolent feelings to

blind them to the real point at issue. No one denies that the Bible

condemns all injustice, cruelty, oppression, and violence. And just so

far as the laws then existing authorized these crimes, the Bible

condemned them. But what stronger argument can be presented, to prove

that the sacred writers did not regard slaveholding as in itself sinful,

than that while they condemn all unjust or unkind treatment (even

threatening), on the part of masters towards their slaves, they did not

condemn slavery itself? While they required the master to treat his

slave according to the law of love, they did not command him to set him

free. The very atrocity, therefore, of the system which then prevailed,

instead of weakening the argument, gives it tenfold strength. Then, if

ever, when the institution was so fearfully abused, we might expect to

hear the interpreters of the divine will, saying that a system which

leads to such results is the concentrated essence of all crimes, and

must be instantly abandoned, on pain of eternal condemnation. This,

however, they did not say, and we can not now force them to say it. They

treated the subject precisely as they did the cruel despotism of the

Roman emperors. The licentiousness, the injustice, the rapine and

murders of those wicked men, they condemned with the full force of

divine authority; but the mere extent of their power, though so liable

to abuse, they left unnoticed.

Another answer to the argument in question is, that "The New Testament

does condemn slaveholding, as _practiced among us_, in the most explicit

terms furnished by the language in which the sacred penman wrote." This

assertion is supported by saying that God has condemned slavery, because

he has specified the parts which compose it and condemned them, one by

one, in the most ample and unequivocal form.[264] It is to be remarked

that the saving clause "slaveholding _as it exists among us_," is

introduced into the statement, though it seems to be lost sight of in

the illustration and confirmation of it which follow. We readily admit,

that if God does condemn all the parts of which slavery consists, he

condemns slavery itself. But the draughter of the address has made no

attempt to prove that this is actually done in the sacred Scriptures.

That many of the attributes of the system as established by law in this

country, are condemned, is indeed very plain; but that slaveholding in

itself is condemned, has not been and can not be proved. The writer,

indeed, says, "The Greek language had a word corresponding exactly, in

signification, with our word servant, but it had none which answered

precisely to our term slave. How then was an apostle writing in Greek,

to condemn our slavery? How can we expect to find in Scripture, the

words 'slavery is sinful,' when the language in which it is written

contained no term which expressed the meaning of our word slavery?" Does

the gentleman mean to say the Greek language could not express the idea

that slaveholding is sinful? Could not the apostles have communicated

the thought that it was the duty of masters to set their slaves free?

Were they obliged from paucity of words to admit slaveholders into the

Church? We have no doubt the writer himself could, with all ease, pen a

declaration in the Greek language void of all ambiguity, proclaiming

freedom to every slave upon earth, and denouncing the vengeance of

heaven upon every man who dared to hold a fellow creature in bondage. It

is not words we care for. We want evidence that the sacred writers

taught that it was incumbent on every slaveholder, as a matter of duty,

to emancipate his slaves (which no Roman or Greek law forbade), and that

his refusing to do so was a heinous crime in the sight of God. The Greek

language must be poor indeed if it can not convey such ideas.

Another answer is given by Dr. Channing. "Slavery," he says, "in the age

of the apostle, had so penetrated society, was so intimately interwoven

with it, and the materials of servile war were so abundant, that a

religion, preaching freedom to its victims, would have armed against

itself the whole power of the State. Of consequence Paul did not assail

it. He satisfied himself with spreading principles, which, however

slowly, could not but work its destruction." To the same effect, Dr.

Wayland says, "The gospel was designed, not for one race or one time,

but for all men and for all times. It looked not at the abolition of

this form of evil for that age alone, but for its universal abolition.

Hence the important object of its author was to gain it a lodgment in

every part of the known world; so that, by its universal diffusion among

all classes of society, it might quietly and peacefully modify and

subdue the evil passions of men; and thus, without violence, work a

revolution in the whole mass of mankind. In this manner alone could its

object, a universal moral revolution, be accomplished. For if it had

forbidden the _evil_ without subduing the _principle_, if it had

proclaimed the unlawfulness of slavery, and taught slaves to _resist_

the oppression of their masters, it would instantly have arrayed the two

parties in deadly hostility throughout the civilized world; its

announcement would have been the signal of a servile war; and the very

name of the Christian religion would have been forgotten amidst the

agitations of universal bloodshed. The fact, under these circumstances,

that the gospel does not forbid slavery, affords no reason to suppose

that it does not mean to prohibit it, much less does it afford ground

for belief that Jesus Christ intended to authorize it."[265]

Before considering the force of this reasoning, it may be well to notice

one or two important admissions contained in these extracts. First,

then, it is admitted by these distinguished moralists, that the apostles

did not preach a religion proclaiming freedom to slaves; that Paul did

not assail slavery; that the gospel did not proclaim the unlawfulness of

slaveholding; it did not forbid it. This is going the whole length that

we have gone in our statement of the conduct of Christ and his apostles,

Secondly, these writers admit that the course adopted by the authors of

our religion was the only wise and proper one. Paul satisfied himself,

says Dr. Channing, with spreading principles, which, however slowly,

could not but work its destruction. Dr. Wayland says, that if the

apostles had pursued the opposite plan of denouncing slavery as a crime,

the Christian religion would have been ruined; its very name would have

been forgotten. Then how can the course of the modern abolitionists,

under circumstances so nearly similar, or even that of these reverend

gentlemen themselves be right? Why do not they content themselves with

doing what Christ and his apostles did? Why must they proclaim the

unlawfulness of slavery? Is human nature so much altered, that a course,

which would have produced universal bloodshed, and led to the very

destruction of the Christian religion, in one age, wise and Christian in

another?

Let us, however, consider the force of the argument as stated above. It

amounts to this: Christ and his apostles thought slaveholding a great

crime, but they abstained from saying so, for fear of the consequences.

The very statement of the argument, in its naked form, is its

refutation. These holy men did not refrain from condemning sin from a

regard to consequences. They did not hesitate to array against the

religion which they taught, the strongest passions of men. Nor did they

content themselves with denouncing the general principles of evil; they

condemned its special manifestations. They did not simply forbid

intemperate sensual indulgence, and leave it to their hearers to decide

what did or what did not come under that name. They declared that no

fornicator, no adulterer, no drunkard could be admitted into the kingdom

of heaven. They did not hesitate, even when a little band, a hundred and

twenty souls, to place themselves in direct and irreconcilable

opposition to the whole polity, civil and religious, of the Jewish

State. It will hardly be maintained that slavery was, at that time,

more intimately interwoven with the institutions of society than

idolatry was. It entered into the arrangements of every family; of every

city and province, and of the whole Roman empire. The emperor was the

Pontifex Maximus; every department of the State, civil and military, was

pervaded by it. It was so united with the fabric of the government that

it could not be removed without effecting a revolution in all its parts.

The apostles knew this. They knew that to denounce polytheism, was to

array against them the whole power of the State. Their divine Master had

distinctly apprized them of the result. He told them that it would set

the father against the son, and the son against the father; the mother

against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; and that a

man's enemies should be those of his own household. He said that he came

not to bring peace, but a sword, and that such would be the opposition

to his followers, that whosoever killed them, would think he did God

service. Yet in view of these certain consequences, the apostles did

denounce idolatry, not merely in principle, but by name. The result was

precisely what Christ had foretold. The Romans, tolerant of every other

religion, bent the whole force of their wisdom and arms to extirpate

Christianity. The scenes of bloodshed, which century after century

followed the introduction of the gospel, did not induce the followers of

Christ to keep back or modify the truth. They adhered to their

declaration, that idolatry was a heinous crime. And they were right. We

expect similar conduct of our missionaries. We do not expect them to

refrain from denouncing the institutions of the heathen, as sinful,

because they are popular, or intimately interwoven with society. The

Jesuits, who adopted this plan, forfeited the confidence of Christendom,

without making converts of the heathen. It is, therefore, perfectly

evident that the authors of our religion were not withheld by these

considerations, from declaring slavery to be unlawful. If they did

abstain from this declaration, as is admitted, it must have been because

they did not consider it as in itself a crime. No other solution of

their conduct is consistent with their truth or fidelity.

Another answer to the argument from Scripture is given by Dr. Channing

and others. It is said that it proves too much; that it makes the Bible

sanction despotism, even the despotism of Nero. Our reply to this

objection shall be very brief. We have already pointed out the fallacy

of confounding slaveholding itself with the particular system of slavery

prevalent at the time of Christ, and shown that the recognition of

slaveholders as Christians, though irreconcilable with the assumption

that slavery is a heinous crime, gives no manner of sanction to the

atrocious laws and customs of that age, in relation to that subject.

Because the apostles admitted the masters of slaves to the communion of

the church, it would be a strange inference that they would have given

this testimony to the Christian character of the master who oppressed,

starved, or murdered his slaves. Such a master would have been rejected

as an oppressor, or murderer, however, not as a slaveholder. In like

manner, the declaration that government is an ordinance of God, that

magistrates are to be obeyed within the sphere of their lawful

authority; that resistance to them, when in the exercise of that

authority, is sinful,[266] gives no sanction to the oppression of the

Roman emperors, or to the petty vexations of provincial officers. The

argument urged from Scripture in favor of passive submission, is not so

exactly parallel with the argument for slavery, as Dr. Channing

supposes. They agree in some points, but they differ in others. The

former is founded upon a false interpretation of Rom. xiii: 1-3; it

supposes that passage to mean what it does not mean, whereas the latter

is founded upon the sense which Dr. C. and other opponents of slavery,

admit to be the true sense. This must be allowed to alter the case

materially. Again, the argument for the lawfulness of slaveholding, is

not founded on the mere injunction, "Slaves, obey your masters,"

analagous to the command, "Let every soul be subject to the higher

powers," but on the fact that the apostles did not condemn slavery; that

they did not require emancipation, and that they recognized slaveholders

as Christian brethren. To make Dr. Channing's argument of any force, it

must be shown that Paul not only enjoined obedience to a despotic

monarch, but that he recognized Nero as a Christian. When this is done,

then we shall admit that our argument is fairly met, and that it is just

as true that he sanctioned the conduct of Nero, as that he acknowledged

the lawfulness of slavery.

The two cases, however, are analogous as to one important point. The

fact that Paul enjoins obedience under a despotic government, is a valid

argument to prove, not that he sanctioned the conduct of the reigning

Roman emperor, but that he did not consider the possession of despotic

power a crime. The argument of Dr. C. would be far stronger, and the two

cases more exactly parallel, had one of the emperors become a penitent

believer during the apostolic age, and been admitted to the Christian

church by inspired men, notwithstanding the fact that he retained his

office and authority. But even without this latter decisive

circumstance, we acknowledge that the mere holding of despotic power is

proved not to be a crime by the fact that the apostles enjoined

obedience to those who exercised it. Thus far the arguments are

analogous; and they prove that both political despotism and domestic

slavery, belong in morals to the _adiaphora_, to things indifferent.

They may be expedient or inexpedient, right or wrong, according to

circumstances. Belonging to the same class, they should be treated in

the same way. Neither is to be denounced as necessarily sinful, and to

be abolished immediately under all circumstances and at all hazards.

Both should be left to the operation of those general principles of the

gospel, which have peacefully ameliorated political institutions, and

destroyed domestic slavery throughout the greater part of Christendom.

The truth on this subject is so obvious that it sometimes escapes

unconsciously from the lips of the most strenuous abolitionists. Mr.

Birney says: "He would have retained the power and authority of an

emperor; yet his oppressions, his cruelties would have ceased; the very

temper that prompted them, would have been suppressed; his power would

have been put forth for good and not for evil."[267] Here every thing is

conceded. The possession of despotic power is thus admitted not to be a

crime, even when it extends over millions of men, and subjects their

lives as well as their property and services to the will of an

individual. What becomes then of the arguments and denunciations of

slaveholding, which is despotism on a small scale? Would Mr. Birney

continue in the deliberate practice of a crime worse than robbery,

piracy, or murder? When he penned the above sentiment, he must have seen

that neither by the law of God nor of reason is it necessarily sinful to

sustain the relation of master over our fellow creatures; that if this

unlimited authority be used for the good of those over whom it extends

and for the glory of God, its possessor may be one of the best and most

useful of men. It is the abuse of this power for base and selfish

purposes which constitutes criminality, and not its simple possession.

He may say that the tendency to abuse absolute power is so great that it

ought never to be confided to the hands of men. This, as a general rule,

is no doubt true, and establishes the inexpediency of all despotic

governments, whether for the state or the family. But it leaves the

morality of the question just where it was, and where it was seen to be,

when Mr. Birney said he could with a good conscience be a Roman emperor,

_i. e._ the master of millions of slaves.

The consideration of the Old Testament economy leads us to the same

conclusion on this subject. It is not denied that slavery was tolerated

among the ancient people of God. Abraham had servants in his family who

were "bought with his money," Gen. xvii: 13. "Abimeleck took sheep and

oxen and men servants and maid servants and gave them unto Abraham."

Moses, finding this institution among the Hebrews and all surrounding

nations, did not abolish it. He enacted laws directing how slaves were

to be treated, on what conditions they were to be liberated, under what

circumstances they might and might not be sold; he recognizes the

distinction between slaves and hired servants, (Deut. xv: 18); he speaks

of the way by which these bondmen might be procured; as by war, by

purchase, by the right of creditorship, by the sentence of a judge, by

birth; but not by seizing on those who were free, an offense punished by

death.[268] The fact that the Mosaic institutions recognized the

lawfulness of slavery is a point too plain to need proof, and is almost

universally admitted. Our argument from this acknowledged fact is, that

if God allowed slavery to exist, if he directed how slaves might be

lawfully acquired, and how they were to be treated, it is in vain to

contend that slaveholding is a sin, and yet profess reverence for the

Scriptures. Every one must feel that if perjury, murder, or idolatry had

been thus authorized, it would bring the Mosaic institutions into

conflict with the eternal principles of morals, and that our faith in

the divine origin of one or the other must be given up.

Dr. Channing says, of this argument also, that it proves too much. "If

usages, sanctioned under the Old Testament and not forbidden under the

New, are right, then our moral code will undergo a sad deterioration.

Polygamy was allowed to the Israelites, was the practice of the holiest

men, and was common and licensed in the age of the apostles. But the

apostles no where condemn it, nor was the renunciation of it made an

essential condition of admission into the Christian Church." To this we

answer, that so far as polygamy and divorce were permitted under the old

dispensation, they were lawful, and became so by that permission; and

they ceased to be lawful when the permission was withdrawn, and a new

law given. That Christ did give a new law on this subject is abundantly

evident.[269] With regard to divorce, it is as explicit as language can

make it; and with regard to polygamy it is so plain as to have secured

the assent of every portion of the Christian churches in all ages. The

very fact that there has been no diversity of opinion or practice among

Christians with regard to polygamy, is itself decisive evidence that the

will of Christ was clearly revealed on the subject. The temptation to

continue the practice was as strong, both from the passions of men, and

the sanction of prior ages, as in regard to slavery. Yet we find no

traces of the toleration of polygamy in the Christian church, though

slavery long continued to prevail. There is no evidence that the

apostles admitted to the fellowship of Christians, those who were guilty

of this infraction of the law of marriage. It is indeed possible that in

cases where the converts had already more than one wife, the connection

was not broken off. It is evident this must have occasioned great evil.

It would lead to the breaking up of families, the separation of parents

and children, as well as husbands and wives. Under these circumstances

the connection may have been allowed to continue. It is however very

doubtful whether even this was permitted. It is remarkable that among

the numerous cases of conscience connected with marriage, submitted to

the apostles, this never occurs.

Dr. Channing uses language much too strong when he says that polygamy

was common and licensed in the days of the apostles. It was contrary

both to Roman and Grecian laws and usages until the most degenerate

periods of the history of those nations. It was very far from being

customary among the Jews, though it might have been allowed. It is

probable that it was, therefore, comparatively extremely rare in the

apostolic age. This accounts for the fact that scarcely any notice is

taken of, the practice in the New Testament. Wherever marriage is spoken

of, it seems to be taken for granted, as a well understood fact, that it

was a contract for life between one man and one woman; compare Rom. vii:

2, 3. 1 Cor. vii: 1, 2, 39. It is further to be remarked on this

subject, that marriage is a positive institution. If God had ordained

that every man should have two or more wives, instead of one, polygamy

would have been lawful. But slaveholding is denounced as a _malum in

se_; as essentially unjust and wicked. This being the case, it could at

no period of the world receive the divine sanction, much less could it

have continued in the Christian church under the direction of inspired

men, when there was nothing to prevent its immediate abolition. The

answer then of Dr. Channing is unsatisfactory, first, because polygamy

does not belong to the same category in morals as that to which

slaveholding is affirmed to belong; and secondly, because it was so

plainly prohibited by Christ and his apostles as to secure the assent of

all Christians in all ages of the church.

It is, however, argued that slavery must be sinful because it interferes

with the inalienable rights of men. We have already remarked, that

slavery, in itself considered, is a state of bondage, and nothing more.

It is the condition of an individual who is deprived of his personal

liberty, and is obliged to labor for another, who has the right to

transfer this claim of service, at pleasure. That this condition

involves the loss of many of the rights which are commonly and properly

called natural, because belonging to men, as men, is readily admitted.

It is, however, incumbent on those who maintain that slavery is, on this

account, necessarily sinful, to show that it is criminal, under all

circumstances, to deprive any set of men of a portion of their natural

rights. That this broad proposition can not be maintained is evident.

The very constitution of society supposes the forfeiture of a greater or

less amount of these rights, according to its peculiar organization.

That it is not only the privilege, but the duty of men to live together

in a regularly organized society, is evident from the nature which God

has given us; from the impossibility of every man living by and for

himself, and from the express declarations of the word of God. The

object of the formation of society is the promotion of human virtue and

happiness; and the form in which it should be organized, is that which

will best secure the attainment of this object. As, however, the

condition of men is so very various, it is impossible that the same form

should be equally conducive to happiness and virtue under all

circumstances. No one form, therefore, is prescribed in the Bible, or is

universally obligatory. The question which form is, under given

circumstances, to be adopted, is one of great practical difficulty, and

must be left to the decision of those who have the power to decide, on

their own responsibility. The question, however, does not depend upon

the degree in which these several forms may encroach upon the natural

rights of men. In the patriarchal age, the most natural, the most

feasible, and perhaps the most beneficial form of government was by the

head of the family. His power by the law of nature, and the necessity of

the case, extended without any other limit than the general principles

of morals, over his children, and in the absence of other regular

authority, would not terminate when the children arrived at a particular

age, but be continued during life. He was the natural umpire between his

adult offspring, he was their lawgiver and leader. His authority would

naturally extend over his more remote descendants, as they continued to

increase, and on his death, might devolve on the next oldest of the

family. There is surely nothing in this mode of constituting society

which is necessarily immoral. If found to be conducive to the general

good, it might be indefinitely continued. It would not suffice to render

its abrogation obligatory, to say that all men are born free and equal;

that the youth of twenty-one had as good a right to have a voice in the

affairs of the family as the aged patriarch; that the right of

self-government is indefeasible, etc. Unless it could be shown that the

great end of society was not attainable by this mode of organization,

and that it would be more securely promoted by some other, it would be

an immorality to require or to effect the change. And if a change

became, in the course of time, obviously desirable, its nature and

extent would be questions to be determined by the peculiar circumstances

of the case, and not by the rule of abstract rights. Under some

circumstances it might be requisite to confine the legislative power to

a single individual; under others to the hands of a few; and under

others to commit it to the whole community. It would be absurd to

maintain, on the ground of the natural equality of men, that a horde of

ignorant and vicious savages, should be organized as a pure democracy,

if experience taught that such a form of government was destructive to

themselves and others. These different modes of constituting civil

society are not necessarily either just or unjust, but become the one or

the other according to circumstances; and their morality is not

determined by the degree in which they encroach upon the natural rights

of men, but on the degree in which they promote or retard the progress

of human happiness and virtue. In this country we believe that the

general good requires us to deprive the whole female sex of the right of

self-government. They have no voice in the formation of the laws which

dispose of their persons and property. When married, we despoil them

almost entirely of a legal existence, and deny them some of the most

essential rights of property. We treat all minors much in the same way,

depriving them of many personal and almost all political rights, and

that too though they may be far more competent to exercise them aright

than many adults. We, moreover, decide that a majority of one may make

laws for the whole community, no matter whether the numerical majority

have more wisdom or virtue than the minority or not. Our plea for all

this is, that the good of the whole is thereby most effectually

promoted. This plea, if made out, justifies the case. In England and

France they believe that the good of the whole requires that the right

of governing, instead of being restricted, to all adult males, as we

arbitrarily determine, should be confined to that portion of the male

population who hold a given amount of property. In Prussia and Russia,

they believe with equal confidence, that public security and happiness

demand that all power should be in the hands of the king. If they are

right in their opinion, they are right in their practice. The principle

that social and political organizations are designed for the general

good, of course requires they should be allowed to change, as the

progress of society may demand. It is very possible that the feudal

system may have been well adapted to the state of Europe in the middle

ages. The change in the condition of the world, however, has gradually

obliterated almost all its features. The villein has become the

independent farmer; the lord of the manor, the simple landlord; and the

sovereign leige, in whom, according to the fiction of the system, the

fee of the whole country vested, has become a constitutional monarch. It

may be that another series of changes may convert the tenant into an

owner, the lord into a rich commoner, and the monarch into a president.

Though these changes have resulted in giving the people the enjoyment of

a larger amount of their rights than they formerly possessed, it is not

hence to be inferred that they ought centuries ago to have been

introduced suddenly or by violence. Christianity "operates as

alterative." It was never designed to tear up the institutions of

society by the roots. It produces equality not by prostrating trees of

all sizes to the ground, but by securing to all the opportunity of

growing, and by causing all to grow, until the original disparity is no

longer perceptible. All attempts, by human wisdom, to frame society, of

a sudden, after a pattern cut by the rule of abstract rights, have

failed; and whether they had failed or not, they can never be urged as a

matter of moral obligation. It is not enough, therefore, in order to

prove the sinfulness of slaveholding, to show that it interferes with

the natural rights of a portion of the community. It is in this respect

analagous to all other social institutions. They are all of them

encroachments on human rights, from the freest democracy to the most

absolute despotism.

It is further to be remarked, that all these rights suppose

corresponding duties, and where there is an incompetence for the duty,

the claim to exercise the right ceases. No man can justly claim the

exercise of any right to the injury of the community of which he is a

member. It is because females and minors are judged (though for

different reasons), incompetent to the proper discharge of the duties of

citizenship, that they are deprived of the right of suffrage. It is on

the same principle that a large portion of the inhabitants of France and

England are deprived of the same privilege. As it is acknowledged that

the slaves may be justly deprived of political rights, on the ground of

their incompetency to exercise them without injury to the community, it

must be admitted, by parity of reason, that they may be justly deprived

of personal freedom, if incompetent to exercise it with safety to

society. If this be so, then slavery is a question of circumstances, and

not a _malum in se_. It must be borne in mind that the object of these

remarks is not to prove that the American, the British, or the Russian

form of society, is expedient or otherwise; much less to show that the

slaves in this country are actually unfit for freedom, but simply to

prove that the mere fact that slaveholding interferes with natural

rights, is not enough to justify the conclusion that it is necessarily

and universally sinful.

Another very common and plausible argument on this subject is, that a

man can not be made a matter of property. He can not be degraded into a

brute or chattel, without the grossest violation of duty and propriety;

and that as slavery confers this right of property in human beings, it

must, from its very nature, be a crime. We acknowledge the correctness

of the principle on which this argument is founded, but deny that it is

applicable to the case in hand. We admit that it is not only an

enormity, but an impossibility, that a man should be made a thing, as

distinguished from a rational and moral being. It is not within the

compass of human law to alter the nature of God's creatures. A man must

be regarded and treated as a rational being, even in his greatest

degradation. That he is, in some countries and under some institutions,

deprived of many of the rights and privileges of such a being, does not

alter his nature. He must be viewed as a man under the most atrocious

system of slavery that ever existed. Men do not arraign and try on

evidence, and punish on conviction, either things or brutes. Yet slaves

are under a regular system of laws which, however unjust they may be,

recognize their character as accountable beings. When it is inferred

from the fact that the slave is called the property of his master, that

he is thereby degraded from his rank as a human being, the argument

rests on the vagueness of the term _property_. Property is the right of

possession and use, and must of necessity vary according to the nature

of the objects to which it attaches. A man has property in his wife, in

his children, in his domestic animals, in his fields and in his forests.

That is, he has the right to the possession and use of these several

objects, according to their nature. He has no more right to use a brute

as a log of wood, in virtue of the right of property, than he has to use

a man as a brute. There are general principles of rectitude, obligatory

on all men, which require them to treat all the creatures of God

according to the nature which he has given them. The man who should burn

his horse because he was his property, would find no justification in

that plea, either before God or man. When, therefore, it is said that

one man is the property of another, it can only mean that the one has a

right to use the other _as a man_, but not as a brute, or as a thing. He

has no right to treat him as he may lawfully treat his ox, or a tree. He

can convert his person to no use to which a human being may not, by the

laws of God and nature, be properly applied. When this idea of property

comes to be analyzed, it is found to be nothing more than a claim of

service either for life or for a term of years. This claim is

transferable, and is of the nature of property, and is consequently

liable for the debts of the owner, and subject to his disposal by will

or otherwise. It is probable that the slave is called the property of

his master in the statute books, for the same reason that children are

called the servants of the parents, or that wives are said to be the

same person with their husbands, and to have no separate existence of

their own. These are mere technicalities, designed to facilitate certain

legal processes. Calling a child a servant, does not alter his relation

to his father; and a wife is still a woman, though the courts may rule

her out of existence. In like manner, where the law declares, that a

slave shall be deemed and adjudged to be a chattel personal in the hands

of his master, it does not alter his nature, nor does it confer on the

master any right to use him in a manner inconsistent with that nature.

As there are certain moral principles which direct how brutes are to be

used by those to whom they belong, so there are fixed principles which

determine how a man may be used. These legal enactments, therefore, are

not intended to legislate away the nature of the slave, as a human

being; they serve to facilitate the transfer of the master's claim of

service, and to render that claim the more readily liable for his debts.

The transfer of authority and claim of service from one master to

another, is, in principle, analagous to transfer of subjects from one

sovereign to another. This is a matter of frequent occurrence. By the

treaty of Vienna, for example, a large part of the inhabitants of

central Europe changed masters. Nearly half of Saxony was transferred to

Prussia; Belgium was annexed to Holland. In like manner, Louisiana was

transferred from France to the United States. In none of these cases

were the people consulted. Yet in all, a claim of service more or less

extended, was made over from one power to another. There was a change of

masters. The mere transferable character of the master's claim to the

slave, does not convert the latter into a thing, or degrade him from his

rank as a human being. Nor does the fact that he is bound to serve for

life, produce this effect. It is only property in his time for life,

instead of for a term of years. The nature of the relation is not

determined by the period of its continuance.

It has, however, been argued that the slave is the property of his

master, not only in the sense admitted above, but in the sense assumed

in the objection, because his children are under the same obligation of

service as the parent. The hereditary character of slavery, however,

does not arise out of the idea of the slave as a chattel or thing, a

mere matter of property, it depends on the organization of society. In

England one man is born a peer, another a commoner; in Russia one man is

born a noble, another a serf; here, one is born a free citizen, another

a disfranchised outcast (the free colored man), and a third a slave.

These forms of society, as before remarked, are not necessarily, or in

themselves, either just or unjust; but become the one or the other,

according to circumstances. Under a state of things in which the best

interests of the community would be promoted by the British or Russian

organization, they would be just and acceptable to God; but under

circumstances in which they would be injurious, they would be unjust. It

is absolutely necessary, however, to discriminate between an

organization essentially vicious, and one which, being in itself

indifferent, may be right or wrong, according to circumstances. On the

same principle, therefore, that a human being in England is deprived, by

the mere accident of birth, of the right of suffrage, and in Russia has

the small portion of liberty which belongs to a commoner, or the still

smaller belonging to a serf, in this country one class is by birth

invested with all the rights of citizenship, another (females) is

deprived all political and many personal rights, and a third of even

their personal liberty. Whether this organization be right or wrong, is

not now the question. We are simply showing that the fact that the

children of slaves become by birth slaves, is not to be referred to the

idea of the master's property in the body and soul of the parent, but

results from the form of society, and is analagous to other social

institutions, as far as the principle is concerned, that children take

the rank, or the political or social condition of the parent.

We prefer being chargeable with the sin of wearisome repetition, to

leaving any room for the misapprehension of our meaning. We, therefore,

again remark that we are discussing the mere abstract morality of these

forms of social organization, and not their expediency. We have in view

the vindication of the character of the inspired writings and inspired

men from the charge of having overlooked the blackest of human crimes,

and of having recognized the worst of human beings as Christians. We

say, therefore, that an institution which deprives a certain portion of

the community of their personal liberty, places them under obligation of

service to another portion, is no more necessarily sinful than one which

invests an individual with despotic power (such as Mr. Birney would

consent to hold); or than one which limits the right of government to a

small portion of the people, or restricts it to the male part of the

community. However inexpedient, under certain circumstances, any one of

these arrangements may be, they are not necessarily immoral, nor do they

become such, from the fact that the accident of birth determines the

relation in which one part of the community is to stand to the other. In

ancient Egypt, as in modern India, birth decided the position and

profession of every individual. One was born a priest, another a

merchant, another a laborer, another a soldier. As there must always be

these classes, it is no more necessarily immoral, to have them all

determined by hereditary descent, than it was among the Israelites to

have all the officers of religion from generation to generation thus

determined; or that birth should determine the individual who is to fill

a throne, or occupy a seat in parliament.

Again, Dr. Wayland argues, if the right to hold slaves be conceded,

"there is of course conceded all other rights necessary to insure its

possession. Hence, inasmuch as the slave can be held in this condition

only while he remains in the lowest state of mental imbecility, it

supposes the master to have the right to control his intellectual

development just as far as may be necessary to secure entire

subjection."[270] He reasons in the same way, to show that the religious

knowledge and even eternal happiness of the slave are as a matter of

right conceded to the power of the master, if the right of slaveholding

is admitted. The utmost force that can be allowed to this argument is,

that the right to hold slaves includes the right to exercise all

_proper_ means to insure its possession. It is in this respect on a par

with all other rights of the same kind. The right of parents to the

service of their children, of husbands to the obedience of their wives,

of masters over their apprentices, of creditors over their debtors, of

rulers over their subjects, all suppose the right to adopt proper means

for their secure enjoyment. They, however, give no sanction to the

employment of any and every means which cruelty, suspicion, or jealousy

may choose to deem necessary, nor of any which would be productive of

greater general evil than the forfeiture of the rights themselves.

According to the ancient law even among the Jews, the power of life and

death was granted to the parent; we concede only the power of

correction. The old law gave the same power to the husband over the

wife. The Roman law confided the person and even life of the debtor to

the mercy of the creditor. According to the reasoning of Dr. Wayland,

all these laws must be sanctioned if the rights which they were deemed

necessary to secure, are acknowledged. It is clear, however, that the

most unrighteous means may be adopted to secure a proper end, under the

plea of necessity. The justice of the plea must be made out on its own

grounds, and can not be assumed on the mere admission of the propriety

of the end aimed at. Whether the slaves of this country may be safely

admitted to the enjoyments of personal liberty, is a matter of dispute;

but that they could not, consistently with the public welfare, be

intrusted with the exercise of political power, is in on all hands

admitted. It is, then, the acknowledged right of the state to govern

them by laws in the formation of which they have no voice. But it is the

universal plea of the depositaries of irresponsible power, sustained too

by almost universal experience, that men can be brought to submit to

political despotism only by being kept in ignorance and poverty. Dr.

Wayland, then, if he concedes the right of the state to legislate for

the slaves, must, according to his own reasoning, acknowledge the right

to adopt all the means necessary for the security of this irresponsible

power, and of consequence, that the state has the right to keep the

blacks in the lowest state of degradation. If he denies the validity of

this argument in favor of political despotism, he must renounce his own

against the lawfulness of domestic slavery. Dr. Wayland himself would

admit the right of the Emperor of Russia to exercise a degree of power

over his present half civilized subjects, which could not be maintained

over an enlightened people, though he would be loth to acknowledge his

right to adopt all the means necessary to keep them in their present

condition. The acknowledgment, therefore, of the right to hold slaves,

does not involve the acknowledgment of the right to adopt measures

adapted and intended to perpetuate their present mental and physical

degradation.

We have entered much more at length into the abstract argument on this

subject than we intended. It was our purpose to confine our remarks to

the scriptural view of the question. But the consideration of the

objections derived from the general principles of morals, rendered it

necessary to enlarge our plan. As it appears to us too clear to admit of

either denial or doubt, that the Scriptures do sanction slaveholding;

that under the old dispensation it was expressly permitted by divine

command, and under the New Testament is nowhere forbidden or denounced,

but on the contrary, acknowledged to be consistent with the Christian

character and profession (that is, consistent with justice, mercy,

holiness, love to God and love to man), to declare it to be a heinous

crime, is a direct impeachment of the word of God. We, therefore, felt

it incumbent upon us to prove, that the sacred Scriptures are not in

conflict with the first principles of morals; that what they sanction is

not the blackest and basest of all offenses in the sight of God. To do

this, it was necessary to show what slavery is, to distinguish between

the relation itself, and the various cruel or unjust laws which may be

made either to bring men into it, or to secure its continuance; to show

that it no more follows from the admission that the Scriptures sanction

the right of slaveholding, that it, therefore, sanctions all the

oppressive slave laws of any community, than it follows from the

admission of the propriety of parental, conjugal, or political

relations, that it sanctions all the conflicting codes by which these

relations have at different periods and in different countries been

regulated.

We have had another motive in the preparation of this article. The

assumption that slaveholding is itself a crime, is not only an error,

but it is an error fraught with evil consequences. It not merely brings

its advocates into conflict with the Scriptures, but it does much to

retard the progress of freedom; it embitters and divides the members of

the community, and distracts the Christian church. Its operation in

retarding the progress of freedom is obvious and manifold. In the first

place, it directs the battery of the enemies of slavery to the wrong

point. It might be easy for them to establish the injustice or cruelty

of certain slave laws, where it is not in their power to establish the

sinfulness of slavery itself.[271] They, therefore, waste their

strength. Nor is this the least evil. They promote the cause of their

opponents. If they do not discriminate between slaveholding and the

slave laws, it gives the slaveholder not merely an excuse but an

occasion and a reason for making no such distinction. He is thus led to

feel the same conviction in the propriety of the one that he does in

that of the other. His mind and conscience may be satisfied that the

mere act of holding slaves is not a crime. This is the point, however,

to which the abolitionist directs his attention. He examines their

arguments, and becomes convinced of their inconclusiveness, and is not

only thus rendered impervious to their attacks, but is exasperated by

what he considers their unmerited abuse. In the mean time his attention

is withdrawn from far more important points;--the manner in which he

treats his slaves, and the laws enacted for the security of his

possession. These are points on which his judgment might be much more

readily convinced of error, and his conscience of sin.

In the second place, besides fortifying the position and strengthening

the purpose of the slaveholder, the error in question divides and

weakens the friends of freedom. To secure any valuable result by public

sentiment, you must satisfy the public mind and rouse the public

conscience. Their passions had better be allowed to rest in peace. As

the anti-slavery societies declare it to be their object to convince

their fellow-citizens that slaveholding is necessarily a heinous crime

in the sight of God, we consider their attempt as desperate, so long as

the Bible is regarded as the rule of right and wrong. They can hardly

secure either the verdict of the public mind or of the public conscience

in behalf of this proposition. Their success hitherto has not been very

encouraging, and is certainly not very flattering, if Dr. Channing's

account of the class of persons to whom they have principally addressed

their arguments, is correct. The tendency of their exertions, be their

success great or small, is not to unite, but to divide. They do not

carry the judgment or conscience of the people with them. They form,

therefore, a class by themselves. Thousands who earnestly desire to see

the South convinced of the injustice and consequent impolicy of their

slave laws, and under this conviction, of their own accord, adopting

those principles which the Bible enjoins, and which tend to produce

universal intelligence, virtue, liberty and equality, without violence

and sudden change, and which thus secure private and public prosperity,

stand aloof from the abolitionists, not merely because they disapprove

of their spirit and mode of action, but because they do not admit their

fundamental principle.

In the third place, the error in question prevents the adoption of the

most effectual means of extinguishing slavery. These means are not the

opinions or feelings of the non-slaveholding States, nor the

denunciations of the holders of slaves, but the improvement,

intellectual and moral, of the slaves themselves. Slavery has but two

natural and peaceful modes of death. The one is the increase of the

slave population until it reaches the point of being unproductive. When

the number of slaves becomes so great that the master can not profitably

employ them, he manumits them in self-defense. This point would probably

have been reached long ago, in many of the Southern States, had not the

boundless extent of the south-western section of the Union presented a

constant demand for the surplus hands. Many planters in Virginia and

Maryland, whose principles or feelings revolt at the idea of selling

their slaves to the South, find that their servants are gradually

reducing them to poverty, by consuming more than they produce. The

number, however, of slaveholders who entertain these scruples is

comparatively small. And as the demand for slave labor in the still

unoccupied regions of the extreme south-west is so great, and is likely

to be so long continued, it is hopeless to think of slavery dying out by

becoming a public burden. The other natural and peaceful mode of

extinction, is the gradual elevation of the slaves in knowledge, virtue,

and property to the point at which it is no longer desirable or possible

to keep them in bondage.[272] Their chains thus gradually relax, until

they fall off entirely. It is in this way that Christianity has

abolished both political and domestic bondage, whenever it has had free

scope. It enjoins a fair compensation for labor; it insists on the moral

and intellectual improvement of all classes of men; it condemns all

infractions of marital or parental rights; in short, it requires not

only that free scope should be allowed to human improvement, but that

all suitable means should be employed for the attainment of that end.

The feudal system, as before remarked, has, in a great measure, been

thus outgrown in all the European states. The third estate, formerly

hardly recognized as having an existence, is becoming the controlling

power in most of those ancient communities. The gradual improvement of

the people rendered it impossible, and undesirable to deprive them of

their just share in the government. And it is precisely in those

countries where this improvement is most advanced that the feudal

institutions are the most completely obliterated, and the general

prosperity the greatest. In like manner the gospel method of

extinguishing slavery is by improving the condition of the slave. The

grand question is, How is this to be done? The abolitionist answers, by

immediate emancipation. Perhaps he is right, perhaps he is wrong; but

whether right or wrong, it is not the practical question for the North.

Among a community which have the power to emancipate, it would be

perfectly proper to urge that measure on the ground of its being the

best means of promoting the great object of the advancement of human

happiness and virtue. But the error of the abolitionists is, that they

urge this measure from the wrong quarter, and upon the wrong ground.

They insist upon immediate abolition because slavery is a sin, and its

extinction a duty. If, however, slaveholding is not in itself sinful,

its abolition is not necessarily a duty. The question of duty depends

upon the effects of the measure, about which men may honestly differ.

Those who believe that it would advance the general good, are bound to

promote it; while those who believe the reverse, are equally bound to

resist it. The abolitionists, by insisting upon one means of

improvement, and that on untenable ground, are most effectually working

against the adoption of any other means, by destroying the disposition

and power to employ them. It is in this way that the error to which we

have referred throughout this article, is operating most

disadvantageously for the cause of human liberty and happiness. The fact

is, that the great duty of the South is not emancipation; but

improvement.[273] The former is obligatory only as a means to an end,

and, therefore, only under circumstances where it would promote that

end. In like manner the great duty of despotic governments is not the

immediate granting of free institutions, but the constant and assiduous

cultivation of the best interests (knowledge, virtue, and happiness) of

the people. Where free institutions would conduce to this object, they

would be granted, and just so far and so fast as this becomes apparent.

Again, the opinion that slaveholding is itself a crime, must operate to

produce the disunion of the States, and the division of all the

ecclesiastical societies in this country. The feelings of the people may

be excited violently for a time, but the transport soon passes away. But

if the conscience is enlisted in the cause, and becomes the controlling

principle, the alienation between the North and the South must become

permanent. The opposition to Southern institutions will become calm,

constant, and unappeasable. Just so far as this opinion operates, it

will lead those who entertain it to submit to any sacrifices to carry it

out, and give it effect. We shall become two nations in feeling, which

must soon render us two nations in fact. With regard to the church, its

operation will be more summary. If slaveholding is a heinous crime,

slaveholders must be excluded from the church. Several of our

judicatories have already taken this position. Should the General

Assembly adopt it, the church is ipso facto, divided. If the opinion in

question is correct, it must be maintained, whatever are the

consequences. We are no advocates of expediency in morals. We have no

more right to teach error in order to prevent evil, than we have a right

to do evil to promote good. On the other hand, if the opinion is

incorrect, its evil consequences render it a duty to prove and exhibit

its unsoundness. It is under the deep impression that the primary

assumption of the abolitionists is an error, that its adoption tends to

the distraction of the country, and the division of the church; and that

it will lead to the longer continuance and greater severity of slavery,

that we have felt constrained to do what little we could towards its

correction.