[As it is always difficult to know the temper of speaker and audience from
a printed report, it is due alike to Dr. R., to the whole Assembly, and
the galleries, to say, that he, in reading these resolutions, and
throughout his speech, evinced great good-humour and kindness of feeling,
which was equally manifested by the Assembly and spectators, repeatedly,
while he was on the floor.]
Dr. Ross then proceeded:--Mr. Moderator, I move this amendment in the best
spirit. I desire to imitate the committee in their refinement and delicacy
of distinction. I disavow all intention to be _impertinently_
inquisitorial. I intend to be inquisitorial, as the committee say they
are,--but not _impertinently_ so. No, sir; not at all; not at all.
(Laughter.) Well, sir, we of the South, who desire the removal of the evil
of slavery, and believe it will pass away in the developments of
Providence, are grieved when we read your graphic, shuddering pictures of
the "middle passage,"--the slave-ship, piling up her canvas, as the shot
pours after her from English or American guns,--see her again and again
hurrying hogshead after hogshead, filled with living slaves, into the
deep, and, thus lightened, escape. Sir, what horror to believe that
clipper-ship was built by the hands of Northern, noisy Abolition
church-members! ["Yes, I know some in New York and Boston," said one in
the crowd.] Again, sir, when we walk along your _Broadways_, and see, as
we do, the soft hands of your church-members sending off to the South, not
only clothing for the slave, but manacles and whips, manufactured
expressly for him,--what must we think of your consistency of character?
[True, true.] And what must we think of your self-righteousness, when we
know your church-members order the sale of slaves,--yes, slaves such as
St. Clair's,--and under circumstances involving all the separations and
all the loathsome things you so mournfully deplore? Your Mrs. Stowe says
so, and it is so, without her testimony. I have read that splendid, bad
book. Splendid in its genius, over which I have wept, and laughed, and got
mad, (here some one said, "All at the same time?") yes--all at the same
time. Bad in its theology, bad in its morality, bad in its temporary evil
influence here in the North, in England, and on the continent of Europe;
bad, because her isolated cruelties will be taken (whether so meant by her
or not) as the general condition of Southern life,--while her Shelbys, and
St. Clairs, and Evas, will be looked upon as angel-visitors, lingering for
a moment in that earthly hell. The _impression made by the book is a
falsehood_.
Sir, why do your Northern church-members and philanthropists buy Southern
products at all? You know you are purchasing cotton, rice, sugar,
sprinkled with blood, literally, you say, from the lash of the driver! Why
do you buy? What's the difference between my filching this blood-stained
cotton from the outraged negro, and your standing by, taking it from me?
What's the difference? You, yourselves, say, in your abstractions, there
is no difference; and yet you daily stain your hands in this horrid
traffic. You hate the traitor, but you love the treason. Your ladies,
too,--oh, how they shun the slave-owner _at a distance_, in _the
abstract_! But alas, when they see him in the _concrete_,--when they see
the slave-owner _himself_, standing before them,--not the brutal driver,
but the splendid gentleman, with his unmistakable grace of carriage and
ease of manners,--why, lo, behold the lady says, "Oh, fie on your
slavery!--what a _wretch_ you are! But, indeed, sir, I love your
sugar,--and truly, truly, sir, _wretch_ as you are, I love you too." Your
gentlemen talk just the same way when they behold our matchless women. And
well for us all it is, that your good taste, and hearts, can thus
appreciate our genius, and accomplishments, and fascinations, and
loveliness, and sugar, and cotton. Why, sir, I heard this morning, from
one pastor only, of two or three of his members thus intermarried in the
South. May I thus give the mildest rebuke to your inconsistency of
conduct? (Much good-natured excitement.)
Sir, may we know who are the descendants of the New England kidnappers?
What is their wealth? Why, here you are, all around me. You, gentlemen,
made the best of that bargain. And you have kept every dollar of your
money from the charity of emancipating the slave. You have left us,
unaided, to give millions. Will you now come to our help? Will you give
dollar for dollar to equalize our loss? [Here many voices cried out, "Yes,
yes, we will."]
Yes, yes? Then pour out your millions. Good. I may thank you personally.
My own emancipated slaves would to-day be worth greatly more than
$20,000. Will you give me back $10,000? Good. I need it now.
I recommend to you, sirs, to find out your advocates of _murder_,--your
owners of stock in under-ground railroads,--your Sabbath-breakers for
money. I particularly urge you to find Legree, who whipped Uncle Tom to
death. He is a Northern _gentleman_, although having a somewhat Southern
name. Now, sir, you know the Assembly was embarrassed all yesterday by
the inquiry how the Northern churches may find their absent members, and
what to do with them. Here then, sir, is a chance for you. Send a
committee up Red River. You may find Legree to be a Garrison, Phillips,
Smith, or runaway husband from some Abby Kelly. [Here Rev. Mr. Smith
protested against Legree being proved to be a Smith. Great laughter.
[Footnote: This gentleman was soon after made a D.D., and I think in part
for that witticism.]] I move that you bring him back to lecture on the
_cuteness_ there is in leaving a Northern church, going South, changing
his name, buying slaves, and calculating, without _guessing_, what the
profit is of killing a negro with inhuman labor above the gain of
treating him with kindness.
I have little to say of spirit-rappers, women's-rights conventionists,
Bloomers, cruel husbands, or hen-pecked. But, if we may believe your own
serious as well as caricature writers, you have things up here of which we
down South know very little indeed. Sir, we have no young Bloomers, with
hat to one side, cigar in mouth, and cane tapping the boot, striding up to
a mincing young gentleman with long curls, attenuated waist, and soft
velvet face,--the boy-lady to say, "May I see you home, sir?" and the
lady-boy to reply, "I thank ye--no; pa will send the carriage." Sir, we of
the South don't understand your women's-rights conventions. Women have
their wrongs. "The Song of the Shirt,"--Charlotte Elizabeth,--many, many
laws,--tell her wrongs. But your convention ladies despise the Bible. Yes,
sir; and we of the South are afraid _of them_, and _for you_. When women
despise the Bible, what next? _Paris,--then the City of the Great Salt
Lake,--then Sodom, before_ and _after the Dead Sea_. Oh, sir, if slavery
tends in any way to give the _honour of chivalry_ to Southern young
gentlemen towards ladies, and the exquisite delicacy and heavenly
integrity and love to Southern maid and matron, it has then a glorious
blessing with its curse.
Sir, your inquisitorial committee, and the North so far as represented by
them, (a small fraction, I know,) have, I take it, caught a Tartar this
time. Boys say with us, and everywhere, I _reckon_, "You worry my dog, and
I'll worry your cat." Sir, it is just simply a _fixed fact: the South will
not submit to these questions_. No, not for an instant. We will not permit
you to approach us at all. If we are morbidly sensitive, you have made us
so. But you are directly and grossly violating the Constitution of the
Presbyterian Church. The book forbids you to put such questions; the book
forbids _you to begin discipline_; the book forbids your sending this
committee to help common fame bear testimony against us; the book guards
the honour of our humblest member, minister, church, presbytery, against
all this impertinently-inquisitorial action. Have you a _prosecutor_, with
his definite charge and witnesses? Have you _Common Fame_, with her
specified charges and witnesses? Have you a request from the South that
you send a committee to inquire into slanders? No. Then hands off. As
gentlemen you may ask us these questions,--we will answer you. But,
ecclesiastically, you cannot speak in this matter. You have no power to
move as you propose.
I beg leave to say, just here, that Tennessee [Footnote: At that time I
resided in Tennessee.] will be more calm under this movement than any
other slave-region. Tennessee has been ever high above the storm, North
and South,--especially we of the mountains. Tennessee!--"there she
is,--look at her,"--binding this Union together like a great, long,
broad, deep stone,--more splendid than all in the temple of Baalbec or
Solomon. Tennessee!--there she is, in her calm valour. I will not lower
her by calling her unconquerable, for she has never been assailed; but I
call her ever-victorious. King's Mountain,--her pioneer
battles:--Talladega, Emucfau, Horse-shoe, New Orleans, San Jacinto,
Monterey, the Valley of Mexico. Jackson represented her well in his
chivalry from South Carolina,--his fiery courage from Virginia and
Kentucky,--all tempered by Scotch-Irish Presbyterian prudence from
Tennessee. We, in his spirit, have looked on this storm for years
untroubled. Yes, Jackson's old bones rattled in their grave when that
infamous disunion convention met in Nashville, and its members turned
pale and fled aghast. Yes, Tennessee, in her mighty million, feels
secure; and, in her perfect preparation to discuss this question,
politically, ecclesiastically, morally, metaphysically, or physically,
with the extreme North or South, she is willing and able _to persuade
others to be calm_. In this connection, I wish to say, for the South to
the North, and to the world, that we have no fears from our
slave-population. There might be a momentary insurrection and bloodshed;
but destruction to the black man would be inevitable. The Greeks and
Romans controlled immense masses of white slaves,--many of them as
intelligent as their lords. Schoolmasters, fabulists, and poets were
slaves. Athens, with her thirty thousand freemen, governed half a
million of bondmen. Single Roman patricians owned thirty thousand. If,
then, the phalanx and the legion mastered such slaves for ages, when
battle was physical force of man to man, how certain it is that
infantry, cavalry, and artillery could hold in bondage millions of
Africans for a thousand years!
But, dear brethren, our Southern philanthropists do not seek to have this
unending bondage; Oh, no, no. And I earnestly entreat you to "stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord." Assume a masterly inactivity, and you
will behold all you desire and pray for,--you will see _America liberated
from the curse of slavery_.
The great question of the world is, WHAT IS TO BE THE FUTURE OF THE
AMERICAN SLAVE?--WHAT IS TO BE THE FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN MASTER? The
following _extract from the "Charleston Mercury"_ gives my view of the
subject with great and condensed particularity:--
"Married, Thursday, 26th inst., the Hon. Cushing Kewang, Secretary of
State of the United States, to Laura, daughter of Paul Coligny,
Vice-President of the United States, and one of our noblest Huguenot
families. We learn that this distinguished gentleman, with his bride, will
visit his father, the Emperor of China, at his summer palace, in Tartary,
north of Pekin, and return to the Vice-President's Tea Pavilion, on Cooper
River, ere the meeting of Congress." The editor of the "Mercury" goes on
to say: "This marriage in high life is only one of many which have
signalized that immense emigration from Christianized China during the
last seventy-five years, whereby Charleston has a population of 1,250,000,
and the State of South Carolina over 5,000,000,--an emigration which has
wonderfully harmonized with the great exodus of the negro race to
Africa." [Some gentleman here requested to know of Dr. Ross the date of
the "Charleston Mercury" recording this marriage. The doctor replied, "The
date is 27th May, 1953, exactly one hundred years from this day." Great
laughter.]
Sir, this is a dream; but it is not all a dream. No, I verily believe you
have there the Gordian knot of slavery untied; you have there the solution
of the problem; you have there the curtain up, and the last scene in the
last act of the great drama of Ham.
I am satisfied with the tendencies of things. I stand on the mountain-peak
above the clouds. I see, far beyond the storm, the calm sea and blue sky;
I see the Canaan of the African. I like to stand there on the Nebo of his
exodus, and look across, not the Jordan, but the Atlantic. I see the
African crossing as certainly as if I gazed upon the ocean divided by a
great wind, and piled up in walls of green glittering glass on either
hand, the dry ground, the marching host, and the pillar of cloud and of
fire. I look over upon the Niger, black with death to the white man,
instinct with life to the children of Ham. _There_ is the black man's
home. Oh, how strange that you of the North see not how you degrade him
when you keep him here! You will not let him vote; you will not let him
rise to honors or social equality; you will not let him hold a pew in your
churches. Send him away, then; tell him, begone. Be urgent, like the
Egyptians: send him out of this land. _There_, in his fatherland, he will
exhibit his own type of Christianity. He is, of all races, the most gentle
and kind. The _man_, the most submissive; the _woman_, the most
affectionate. What other slaves would love their masters better than
themselves?--rock them and fan them in their cradles? caress them--how
tenderly!--boys and girls? honor them, grown up, as superior beings? and,
in thousands of illustrious instances, be willing to give life, and, in
fact, die, to serve or save them? Verily, verily, this emancipated race
may reveal the most amiable form of spiritual life, and the _jewel_ may
glitter on the Ethiop's brow in meaning more sublime than all in the
poet's imagery. Brethren, let them go; and, when they are gone,--ay,
before they go away,--rear a monument; let it grow in greatness, if not on
your highest mountain, in your hearts,--in lasting memory of the
South,--in memory of your wrong to the South,--in memory of the
self-denial of the South, and her philanthropy in training the slave to
be free, enlightened, and Christian.
Can all this be? Can this double emigration civilize Africa and more than
re-people the South? Yes; and I regard the difficulties presented here, in
Congress, or the country, as little worth. God intends both emigrations.
And, without miracle, he will accomplish both. Difficulties! There are no
difficulties. Half a million emigrate to our shores, from Ireland, and all
Europe, every year. And you gravely talk of difficulties in the negro's
way to Africa! Verily, God will unfold their destiny as fast, and as
fully, as he sees best for the highest good of the slave, the highest good
of the master, and the glory of Christ in Africa.
And, sir, there are forty thousand Chinese in California. And in Cuba,
this day, American gentlemen are cultivating sugar, with Chinese hired
labor, more profitably than the Spaniards and their slaves. Oh! there is
China--half the population of the globe--just fronting us across that
peaceful sea,--her poor, living on rats and a pittance of red rice,--her
rich, hoarding millions in senseless idolatry, or indulging in the
luxuries of birds'-nests and roasted ice. Massed together, they must
migrate. Where can they go? They must come to our shores. They must come,
even did God forbid them. But he will hasten their coming. They can live
in the extremest South. It is their latitude,--their side of the ocean.
They can cultivate cotton, rice, sugar, tea, and the silkworm. Their
skill, their manipulation, is unrivalled. Their commonest gong you can
neither make nor explain. They are a law-abiding people, without castes,
accustomed to rise by merit to highest distinctions, and capable of the
noblest training, when their idolatry, which is waxing old as a garment,
shall be folded up as a vesture and changed for _that_ whose years shall
not fail. The English ambassador assures us that the Chinese negotiator of
the late treaty was a splendid gentleman, and a diplomatist to move in any
court of Europe. Shem, then, can mingle with Japheth in America.
The Chinese must come. God will bring them. He will fulfil Benton's noble
thought. The railroad must complete the voyage of Columbus. The statue of
the Genoese, on some peak of the Rocky Mountains, high above the flying
cars, must point to the West, saying, "There is the East! There is India
and Cathay."
Let us, then, North and South, bring our minds to comprehend _two ideas_,
and submit to their irresistible power. Let the Northern philanthropist
learn from the Bible that the relation of master and slave is not sin
_per se_. Let him learn that God nowhere says it is sin. Let him learn
that sin is the transgression of the law; and where there is no law,
there is no sin; and that _the golden rule_ may exist in the relations of
slavery. Let him learn that slavery is simply an evil _in certain
circumstances_. Let him learn that _equality_ is only the highest form of
social life; that _subjection_ to authority, even _slavery_, may, in
_given conditions_, be _for a time_ better than freedom to the slave, of
any complexion. Let him learn that _slavery_, like _all evils_, has its
_corresponding_ and _greater good_; that the Southern slave, though
degraded _compared with his master_, is _elevated_ and _ennobled compared
with his brethren in Africa_. Let the Northern man learn these things,
and be wise to cultivate the spirit that will harmonize with his brethren
of the South, who are lovers of liberty as truly as himself. And let the
Southern Christian--nay, the Southern man of every grade--comprehend that
_God never intended the relation of master and slave to be perpetual_.
Let him give up the theory of Voltaire, that the negro is of a different
species. Let him yield the semi-infidelity of Agassiz, that God created
different races of the same species--in swarms, like bees--for Asia,
Europe, America, Africa, and the islands of the sea. Let him believe that
slavery, although not a sin, is a degraded condition,--the evil, the
curse on the South,--yet having blessings in its time to the South and to
the Union. Let him know that slavery is to pass away, in the fulness of
Providence. Let the South believe this, and prepare to obey the hand that
moves their destiny.
Ham will be ever lower than Shem; Shem will be ever lower than Japheth.
All will rise in the Christian grandeur to be revealed. Ham will be lower
than Shem, because he was sent to Central Africa. Man south of the
Equator--in Asia, Australia, Oceanica, America, especially Africa--is
inferior to his Northern brother. The _blessing_ was upon Shem in his
magnificent Asia. The _greater blessing_ was upon Japheth in his
man-developing Europe. _Both blessings_ will be combined, in America,
_north of the Zone_, in commingled light and life. I see it all in the
first symbolical altar of Noah on that mound at the base of Ararat. The
father of all living men bows before the incense of sacrifice, streaming
up and mingling with the rays of the rising sun. His noble family, and all
flesh saved, are grouped round about him. There is Ham, at the foot of
the green hillock, standing, in his antediluvian, rakish recklessness,
near the long-necked giraffe, type of his _Africa_,--his magnificent wife,
seated on the grass, her little feet nestling in the tame lion's mane, her
long black hair flowing over crimson drapery and covered with gems from
mines before the flood. Higher up is Shem, leaning his arm over that
mouse-colored horse,--his _Arab_ steed. His wife, in pure white linen,
feeds the elephant, and plays with his lithe proboscis,--the mother of
Terah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, and Christ. And yet she looks
up, and bows in mild humility, to _her_ of Japheth, seated amid plumed
birds, in robes like the sky. Her noble lord, meanwhile, high above all,
stands, with folded arms, following that eagle which wheels up towards
Ararat, displaying his breast glittering with stars and stripes of scarlet
and silver,--radiant heraldry, traced by the hand of God. Now he purifies
his eye in the sun, and now he spreads his broad wings in symbolic flight
to the _West_, until lost to the prophetic eye of Japheth, under the bow
of splendors set that day in the cloud. God's covenant with man,--oh, may
the bow of covenant between us be here to-day, that the waters of _this
flood_ shall never again threaten our beloved land!
Speech Delivered in the General Assembly
New York, 1856.
The circumstances, under which this speech was delivered, are sufficiently
shown in the statement below.
It was not a hasty production. After being spoken, it was prepared for the
"Journal of Commerce," with the greatest care I could give to it: most of
it was written again and again. Unlike Pascal, who said, as to his longest
and inferior sixteenth letter, that he had not had time to make it
shorter, I had time; and I did condense in that one speech the matured
reflections of my whole life. I am calmly satisfied I am right. I am sure
God has said, and does say, "Well done."
The speech brings to view a wide range of thought, all belonging to the
subject of slavery, of immense importance. As introductory,--there is the
question of the abolition agitation the last thirty years; then, what is
right and wrong, and the foundation of moral obligation; then, the
definition of sin; next, the origin of human government, and the
relations, in which God has placed men under his rule of subjection;
finally, the word of God is brought to sustain all the positions taken.
The challenge to argue the question of slavery from the Bible was thrown
down on the floor of the Assembly, as stated. Presently I took up the
gauntlet, and made this argument. The challenger never claimed his glove,
then nor since; nor has anybody, so far as I know, attempted to refute
this speech. Nothing has come to my ears (save as to two points, to be
noticed hereafter) but reckless, bold denial of God's truth, infidel
affirmation without attempt at proof, and denunciations of myself.
_Dr. Wisner_ having said that he would argue the question on the Bible at
a following time, Dr. Ross rose, when he took his seat, and, taking his
position on the platform near the Moderator's chair, said,--
"I accept the challenge given by Dr. Wisner, to argue the question of
slavery from the Scriptures."
_Dr. Wisner_.--Does the brother propose to go into it here?
_Dr. Ross_.--Yes, sir.
_Dr. Wisner_.--Well, I did not propose to go into it here.
_Dr. Ross_.--You gave the challenge, and I accept it.
_Dr. Wisner_.--I said I would argue it at a proper time; but it is no
matter. Go ahead.
_Dr. Beman_ hoped the discussion would be ruled out. He did not think it a
legitimate subject to go into,--Moses and the prophets, Christ and his
apostles, and all intermediate authorities, on the subject of what the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America had done.
_Judge Jessup_ considered the question had been opened by this report of
the majority: after which _Dr. Beman_ withdrew his objection, and _Dr.
Ross_ proceeded.
I am not a slave-holder. Nay, I have shown some self-denial in that
matter. I emancipated slaves whose money-value would now be $40,000. In
the providence of God, my riches have entirely passed from me. I do not
mean that, like the widow, I gave all the living I had. My estate was then
greater than that slave-property. I merely wish to show I have no selfish
motive in giving, as I shall, the true Southern defence of slavery.
(Applause.) I speak from Huntsville, Alabama, my present home. That gem of
the South, that beautiful city where the mountain softens into the
vale,--where the water gushes, a great fountain, from the rock,--where
around that living stream there are streets of roses, and houses of
intelligence and gracefulness and gentlest hospitality,--and, withal,
where so high honor is ever given to the ministers of God.
Speaking then from that region where "_Cotton is king_," I affirm,
contrary as my opinion is to that most common in the South, that the
slavery agitation has accomplished and will do great good. I said so, to
ministerial and political friends, twenty-five years ago. I have always
favored the agitation,--just as I have always countenanced discussion
upon all subjects. I felt that the slavery question needed examination.
I believed it was not understood in its relations to the Bible and human
liberty. Sir, the light is spreading North and South. 'Tis said, I know,
this agitation has increased the severity of slavery. True, but for a
moment only, in the days of the years of the life of this noble problem.
Farmers tell us that deep ploughing in poor ground will, for a year or
two, give you a worse crop than before you went so deep; but that that
deep ploughing will turn up the under-soil, and sun and air and rain will
give you harvests increasingly rich. So, this moral soil, North and
South, was unproductive. It needed deep ploughing. For a time the harvest
was worse. Now it is becoming more and more abundant. The political
controversy, however fierce and threatening, is only for power. But the
moral agitation is for the harmony of the Northern and Southern mind, in
the right interpretations of Scripture on this great subject, and, of
course, for the ultimate union of the hearts of all sensible people, to
fulfil God's intention,--to bless the white man and the black man in
America. I am sure of this. I take a wide view of the progress of the
destiny of this vast empire. I see God in America. I see him in the North
and in the South. I see him more honored in the South to-day than he was
twenty-five years ago; and that that higher regard is due, mainly, to the
agitation of the slavery question. Do you ask how? Why, sir, this is the
how. Twenty-five years ago the religious mind of the South was leavened
by wrong Northern training, on the great point of the right and wrong of
slavery. Meanwhile, powerful intellects in the South, following the mere
light of a healthy good sense, guided by the common grace of God, reached
the very truth of this great matter,--namely, that the relation of the
master and slave is not sin; and that, notwithstanding its admitted
evils, it is a connection between the highest and the lowest races of
man, revealing influences which may be, and will be, most benevolent for
the ultimate good of the master and the slave,--conservative on the
Union, by preserving the South from all forms of Northern fanaticism, and
thereby being a great balance-wheel in the working of the tremendous
machinery of our experiment of self-government. This seen result of
slavery was found to be in absolute harmony with the word of God. These
men, then, of highest grade of thought, who had turned in scorn from
Northern notions, now see, in the Bible, that these notions are false
and silly. They now read the Bible, never examined before, with growing
respect. God is honored, and his glory will be more and more in their
salvation. These are some of the moral consummations of this agitation in
the South. The development has been twofold in the North. On the one
hand, some anti-slavery men have left the light of the Bible, and
wandered into the darkness until they have reached the blackness of the
darkness of infidelity. Other some are following hard after, and are
throwing the Bible into the furnace,--are melting it into iron, and
forging it, and welding it, and twisting it, and grooving it into the
shape and significance and goodness and gospel of Sharpe's rifles. Sir,
are you not afraid that some of your once best men will soon have no
better Bible than that?
But, on the other hand, many of your brightest minds are looking intensely
at the subject, in the same light in which it is studied by the highest
Southern reason. Ay, sir, mother-England, old fogy as she is, begins to
open her eyes. What, then, is our gain? Sir, Uncle Tom's Cabin, in many of
its conceptions, could not have been written twenty-five years ago. That
book of genius,--over which I and hundreds in the world have freely
wept,--true in all its facts, false in all its impressions,--yea, as false
in the prejudice it creates to Southern social life as if Webster, the
murderer of Parkman, may be believed to be a personification of the
_elite_ of honor in Cambridge, Boston, and New England. Nevertheless,
Uncle Tom's Cabin could not have been written twenty-five years ago. Dr.
Nehemiah Adams's "_South-Side View_" could not have been written
twenty-five years ago. Nor Dr. Nathan Lord's "_Letter of Inquiry_." Nor
Miss Murray's book. Nor "_Cotton is King_". Nor Bledsoe's "_Liberty and
Slavery"_. These books, written in the midst of this agitation, are all of
high, some the highest, reach of talent and noblest piety; all give, with
increasing confidence, the present Southern Bible reading on Slavery. May
the agitation, then, go on! I know the New School Presbyterian church has
sustained some temporary injury. But God is honored in his word. The
reaction, when the first abolition-movement commenced, has been succeeded
by the sober second thought of the South. The sun, stayed, is again
travelling in the greatness of his strength, and will shine brighter and
brighter to the perfect day.
My only fear, Mr. Moderator, is that, as you Northern people are so prone
to go to extremes in your zeal and run every thing into the ground, you
may, perhaps, become _too pro-slavery;_ and that we may have to take
measures against your coveting, over much, our daughters, if not our
wives, our men-servants, our maid-servants, our houses, and our lands.
(Laughter.)
Sir, I come now to the Bible argument. I begin at the beginning of
eternity! (Laughter.) WHAT is RIGHT AND WRONG? _That's the question of
questions_.
Two theories have obtained in the world. The one is, that right and wrong
are eternal facts; that they exist _per se_ in the nature of things; that
they are ultimate truths above God; that he must study, and does study, to
know them, as really as man. And that he comprehends them more clearly
than man, only because he is a better student than man. Now, sir, _this
theory is atheism_. For if right and wrong are like mathematical
truths--fixed facts--then I may find them out, as I find out mathematical
truths, without instruction from God. I do not ask God to tell me that one
and one make two. I do not ask him to reveal to me the demonstrations of
Euclid. I thank him for the mind to perceive. But I perceive mathematical
relations without his telling me, because they exist independent of his
will. If, then, moral truths, if right and wrong, if rectitude and sin,
are, in like manner, fixed, eternal facts,--if they are out from and above
God, like mathematical entities,--then I may find them for myself. I may
condescend, perhaps, to regard the Bible as a hornbook, in which God, an
older student than I, tells _me_ how to _begin_ to learn what he had to
study; or I may decline to be taught, through the Bible, how to learn
right and wrong. I may think the Bible was good enough, may be, for the
Israelite in Egypt and in Canaan; good enough for the Christian in
Jerusalem and Antioch and Rome, but not good enough, even as a hornbook,
for me,--the man of the nineteenth century,--the man of Boston, New York,
and Brooklyn! Oh, no. I may think I need it not at all. What next? Why,
sir, if I may think I need not God to teach me moral truth, I may think I
need him not to teach me any thing. What next? The irresistible conclusion
is, I may think I can live without God; that Jehovah is a myth,--a name; I
may bid him stand aside, or die. Oh, sir, _I will be_ the fool to say
there is no God. This is the result of the notion that right and wrong
exist in the nature of things.
The other theory is, that right and wrong are results brought into being,
mere contingencies, means to good, made to exist solely by the will of
God, expressed through his word; or, when his will is not thus known, he
shows it in the human reason by which he rules the natural heart. This is
so; because God, in making all things, saw that in the relations he would
constitute between himself and intelligent creatures, and among
themselves, NATURAL GOOD AND EVIL would come to pass. In his benevolent
wisdom, he then _willed_ LAW, to control this _natural good and evil_. And
he thereby made _conformity_ to that law to be _right_, and
_non-conformity_ to be _wrong_. Why? Simply because he saw it to be good,
and made it to be right; not because _he saw it to be right_, but because
he _made it to be right_.
Hence, the ten specific commandments of the one moral law of love are just
ten rules which God made to regulate the natural good and evil which he
knew would be in the ten relations, which he himself constituted between
himself and man, and between man and his neighbor. The Bible settles the
question:--_sin is the transgression of the law, and where there is no law
there is no sin_.
I must-advance one step further. _What is sin_, as a mental state? Is
it some quality--some concentrated essence--some elementary moral
particle in the nature of things--something black, or red, like
crimson, in the constitution of the soul, or the soul and body as
amalgamated? No. Is it self-love? No. Is it selfishness? No. What is
it? Just exactly, _self-will._ Just that. I, the creature, WILL _not
submit_ to _thy_ WILL, God, the Creator. It is the I AM, _created_, who
dares to defy and dishonor the I AM, not created,--the Lord God, the
Almighty, Holy, Eternal.
_That_ IS SIN, _per se_. And that is all of it,--so help me God! Your
child there--John--says to his father, "I WILL _not to submit_ to your
will." "Why not, John?" And he answers and says, "Because I WILL _not_."
There, sir, John has revealed _all of sin_, on earth or in hell. Satan has
never said--can never say--more. "I, Satan, WILL NOT, because I WILL _not
to submit_ to thee, God; MY WILL, not thine, shall be."
This beautiful theory is the ray of light which leads us from night, and
twilight, and fog, and mist, and mystification, on this subject, to clear
day. I will illustrate it by the law which has controlled and now
regulates the most delicate of all the relations of life,--viz.: that of
the intercourse between the sexes. I take this, because it presents the
strongest apparent objections to my argument.
Cain and Abel married their sisters. Was it wrong in the nature of things?
[Here Dr. Wisner spoke out, and said, "Certainly."] I deny it. What an
absurdity, to suppose that God could not provide for the propagation of
the human race from one pair, without _requiring them to sin!_ Adam's sons
and daughters must have married, had they remained in innocence. They must
then have sinned in Eden, from the very necessity of the command upon the
race:--"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." (Gen. i. 28).
What pure nonsense! There, sir!--_that_, my one question, Dr. Wisner's
reply, and my rejoinder, bring out, perfectly, the two theories of right
and wrong. Sir, Abraham married his half-sister. And there is not a word
forbidding such marriage, until God gave the law (Lev. xviii.) prohibiting
marriage in certain degrees of consanguinity. That law made, then, such
marriage _sin_. But God gave no such law in the family of Adam; because he
made, himself, the marriage of brother and sister the way, and the only
way, for the increase of the human race. _He commanded them thus to marry.
They would have sinned had they not thus married_; for they would have
transgressed his law. Such marriage was not even a natural evil, in the
then family of man. But when, in the increase of numbers, it became a
natural evil, physical and social, God placed man on a higher platform for
the development of civilization, morals, and religion, and then made the
law regulating marriages in the particulars of blood. But he still left
polygamy untouched. [Here Dr. Wisner again asked if Dr. R. regarded the
Bible as sustaining the polygamy of the Old Testament.] Dr. R.--Yes, sir;
yes, sir; yes, sir. Let the reporters mark _that_ question, and my answer.
(Laughter.) My principle vindicates God from unintelligible abstractions.
I fearlessly tell what the Bible says. In its strength, I am not afraid of
earth or hell. I fear only God. God made no law against polygamy, in the
beginning. Therefore it was no sin for a man to have more wives than one.
God sanctioned it, and made laws in regard to it. Abraham had more wives
than one; Jacob had, David had, Solomon had. God told David, by the mouth
of Nathan, when he upbraided him with his ingratitude for the blessings
he had given him, and said, "And I gave thee thy master's house, and _thy
master's wives_ into thy bosom." (2 Sam. xvii. 8.)
God, in the gospel, places man on another platform, for the revelation of
a nobler social and spiritual life. He now forbids polygamy. _Polygamy now
is sin_--not because it is in itself sin. No; but because God forbids
it,--to restrain the natural and social evil, and to bring out a higher
humanity. And see, sir, how gently in the gospel the transition from the
lower to the higher table-land of our progress upward is made. Christ and
his apostles do not declare polygamy to be sin. The new law is so wisely
given that nothing existing is rudely disturbed. The minister of God,
unmarried, must have only one wife at the same time. This law, silently
and gradually, by inevitable and fair inference of its meaning, and from
the example of the apostles, passed over the Christian world. God, in the
gospel, places us in this higher and holier ground and air of love. We
sin, then, if we marry the sister, and other near of kin; and we sin if we
marry, at the same time, more wives than one, not because there is sin in
the thing itself, whatever of natural evil there might be, but because in
so doing we transgress God's law, given to secure and advance the good of
man. I might comment in the same way on every one of the ten commandments,
but I pass on.
The subject of slavery, in this view of _right and wrong_, is seen in the
very light of heaven. And you, Mr. Moderator, know that, if the view I
have presented be true, I have got you. (Great laughter.)
[The Moderator said, very pleasantly--Yes--_if_--but it is a _long if_.]
(Continued laughter.)
Dr. R. touched the Moderator on the shoulder, and said, Yes, _if_--it is a
_long if_; for it is this:--_if_ there is a God, he is not Jupiter, bowing
to the Fates, but God, the sovereign over the universe he has created, in
which he makes right, by making law to be known and obeyed by angels and
men, in their varied conditions.
He gave Adam _that_ command,--sublime in its simplicity, and intended to
vindicate the principle I am affirming,--that there is no right and wrong
in the nature of things. There was no right or wrong, _per se_, in eating
or willing to eat of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
But God made the law,--_Thou shall not eat of that tree_. As if he had
said,--I seek to _test_ the submission of your will, freely, to my will.
And, that your test may be perfect, I will let your temptation be
nothing more than your natural desire for that fruit. Adam sinned. What
was the sin?
Adam said, in heart, MY WILL, _not thine_, SHALL BE. _That_ was the
sin,--_the simple transgression of God's law_, when there was neither sin
nor evil in the _thing_ which God forbade to be done.
Man fell and was cursed. The law of the control of the superior over the
inferior is now to begin, and is to go on in the depraved conditions of
the fallen and cursed race. And, FIRST, God said to the woman, "_Thy
desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." There,_ in
that law, is _the beginning of government ordained of God. There_ is the
beginning of the rule of the superior over the inferior, bound to obey.
_There_, in the family of Adam, is the germ of the rule in the tribe,--the
state. Adam, in his right, from God, to rule over his wife and his
children, had _all the authority_ afterwards expanded in the patriarch and
the king. This simple, beautiful fact, there, on the first leaf of the
Bible, solves the problem, whence and how has man right to rule over man.
In that great fact God gives his denial to the idea that government over
man is the result of a social compact, in which each individual man living
in a state of natural liberty, yielded some of that liberty to secure the
greater good of government. Such a thing never was; such a thing never
could have been. _Government was ordained and established before the first
child was born:_--"HE SHALL RULE OVER THEE." Cain and Abel were born in a
_state_ as perfect as the empire of Britain or the rule of these United
States. All that Blackstone, and Paley, and Hobbs, or anybody else, says
about the social compact, is flatly and fully denied and upset by the
Bible, history, and common sense. Let any New York lawyer--or even a
Philadelphia lawyer--deny this if he dares. _Life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness_ never were the _inalienable_ right of the
_individual_ man.
His self-control, in all these particulars, _from the beginning_, was
subordinate to the good of the family,--the empire. The command to Noah
was,--"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."
(Gen. ix. 6.)
This command to shed blood was, and is, in perfect harmony with the
law,--"Thou shalt not kill." There is nothing right or wrong in _the
taking of life_, per se, or in itself considered. It may or it may not be
a natural good or evil. As a _general fact_, the taking of life is a
natural evil. Hence, "Thou shalt not kill" is the general rule, to
preserve the good there is in life. To take life under the forbidden
conditions is sin, simply because God forbids it under those conditions.
The sin is not in taking life, but in transgressing God's law.
But _sometimes_ the taking of life will secure a greater good. God, then,
commands that life be taken. Not to take life, under the commanded
conditions, is sin,--solely because God then commands it.
This power over life, for the good of the one great family of man, God
_delegated_ to Noah, and through him to the tribe, the clan, the kingdom,
the empire, the democracy, the republic, as they may be governed by chief,
king, emperor, parliament, or congress. Had Ham killed Shem, Noah would
have commanded Japheth to slay him. So much for the origin of the power
over life: now for the power over liberty.
The right to take life included the right over liberty. But God intended
the rule of the superior over the inferior, in relations of service,
should _exemplify human depravity, his curse and his overruling blessing_.
The rule and the subordination which is essential to the existence of the
family, God made commensurate with mankind; for _mankind is only the
congeries of families_. When Ham, in his antediluvian recklessness,
laughed at his father, God took occasion to give to the world the rule of
the superior over the inferior. _He cursed him. He cursed him because he
left him unblessed_. The withholding of the father's blessing, in the
Bible, was curse. Hence Abraham prayed God, when Isaac was blessed, that
Ishmael might not be passed by. Hence Esau prayed his father, when Jacob
was blessed, that he might not be left untouched by his holy hands. Ham
was cursed to render service, forever, to Shem and Japheth. The _special_
curse on Canaan made the general curse on Ham conspicuous, historic, and
explanatory, simply because his descendants were to be brought under the
control of God's peculiar people. Shem was blessed to rule over Ham.
Japheth was blessed to rule over both. God sent Ham to Africa, Shem to
Asia, Japheth to Europe. Mr. Moderator, you have read Guyot's "_Earth and
Man_." That admirable book is a commentary upon this part of Genesis. It
is the philosophy of geography. And it is the philosophy of the rule of
the higher races over the inferior, written on the very face of the earth.
He tells you why the continents are shaped as they are shaped; why the
mountains stand where they stand; why the rivers run where they run; why
the currents of the sea and the air flow as they flow. And he tells you
that the earth south of the Equator makes the inferior man. That the
oceanic climate makes the inferior man in the Pacific Islands. That South
America makes the inferior man. That the solid, unindented Southern Africa
makes the inferior man. That the huge, heavy, massive, magnificent Asia
makes the huge, heavy, massive, magnificent man. That Europe, indented by
the sea on every side, with its varied scenery, and climate, and Northern
influences, makes the varied intellect, the versatile power and life and
action, of the master-man of the world. And it is so. Africa, with here
and there an exception, has never produced men to compare with the men of
Asia. For six thousand years, save the unintelligible stones of Egypt, she
has had no history. Asia has had her great men and her name. But Europe
has ever shown, and now, her nobler men and higher destiny. Japheth has
now come to North America, to give us his past greatness and his
transcendent glory. (Applause.) And, sir, I thank God our mountains stand
where they stand; and that our rivers run where they run. Thank God they
run not across longitudes, but across latitudes, from north to south. If
they crossed longitudes, we might fear for the Union. But I hail the
Union,--made by God, strong as the strength of our hills, and ever to live
and expand,--like the flow and swell of the current of our streams.
(Applause.)
These two theories of Right and Wrong,--these two ideas of human
liberty,--the right, in the nature of things, or the right as made by
God,--the liberty of the individual man, of Atheism, of Red Republicanism,
of the devil,--or the liberty of man, in the family, in the State, the
liberty from God,--these two theories now make the conflict of the world.
This anti-slavery battle is only part of the great struggle: God will be
victorious,--and we, in his might.
I now come to particular illustrations of the world-wide law that service
shall be rendered by the inferior to the superior. The relations in which
such service obtains are very many. Some of them are these:--husband and
wife; parent and child; teacher and scholar; commander and
soldier,--sailor; master and apprentice; master and hireling; master and
slave. Now, sir, all these relations are ordained of God. They are all
directly commanded, or they are the irresistible law of his providence, in
conditions which must come up in the progress of depraved nature. The
relations themselves are all good in certain conditions. And there may be
no more of evil in the lowest than in the highest. And there may be in the
lowest, as really as in the highest, the fulfilment of the commandment to
love thy neighbor as thyself, and of doing unto him whatsoever thou
wouldst have him to do unto thee.
Why, sir, the wife everywhere, except where Christianity has given her
elevation, is _the slave_. And, sir, I say, without fear of saying too
strongly, that for every sigh, every groan, every tear, every agony of
stripe or death, which has gone up to God from the relation of master and
slave, there have been more sighs, more groans, more tears, and more agony
in the rule of the husband over the wife. Sir, I have admitted, and do
again admit, without qualification, that every fact in Uncle Tom's Cabin
has occurred in the South. But, in reply, I say deliberately, what one of
your first men told me, that he who will make the horrid examination will
discover in New York City, in any number of years past, more cruelty from
husband to wife, parent to child, _than in all the South from master to
slave_ in the same time. I dare the investigation. And you may extend it
further, if you choose,--to all the results of honor and purity. I fear
nothing on this subject. I stand on rock,--the Bible,--and therefore, just
before I bring the Bible, to which all I have said is introductory, I will
run a parallel between the relation of master and slave and that of
husband and wife. I will say nothing of the grinding oppression of capital
upon labor, in the power of the master over the hireling--the crushed
peasant--the chain-harnessed coal-pit woman, a thousand feet under ground,
working in darkness, her child toiling by her side, and another child not
born; I will say nothing of the press-gang which fills the navy of
Britain--the conscription which makes the army of France--the terrible
floggings--the awful court-martial--the quick sentence--the
lightning-shot--the chain, and ball, and every-day lash--the punishment of
the soldier, sailor, slave, who had run away. I pass all this by: I will
run the parallel between the slave and wife.
Do you say, The slave is held to _involuntary service?_ So is the wife.
Her relation to her husband, in the immense majority of cases, is made for
her, and not by her. And when she makes it for herself, how often, and how
soon, does it become involuntary! How often, and how soon, would she
throw off the yoke if she could! O ye wives, I know how superior you are
to your husbands in many respects,--not only in personal attraction,
(although in that particular, comparison is out of place,) in grace, in
refined thought, in passive fortitude, in enduring love, and in a heart to
be filled with the spirit of heaven. Oh, I know all this. Nay, I know you
may surpass him in his own sphere of boasted prudence and worldly wisdom
about dollars and cents. Nevertheless, he has authority, from God, to rule
over you. You are under service to him. You are bound to obey him _in all
things_. Your service is very, very, very often involuntary from the
first, and, if voluntary at first, becomes hopeless necessity afterwards.
I know God has laid upon the husband to love you as Christ loved the
church, and in that sublime obligation has placed you in the light and
under the shadow of a love infinitely higher, and purer, and holier than
all talked about in the romances of chivalry. But the husband may not so
love you. He may rule you with the rod of iron. What can you do? Be
divorced? God forbids it, save for crime. Will you say that you are
free,--that you will go where you please, do as you please? Why, ye dear
wives, your husbands may forbid. And listen, you cannot leave New York,
nor your palaces, any more than your shanties. No; you cannot leave your
parlor, nor your bedchamber, nor your couch, if your husband commands you
to stay there! What can you do? Will you run away, with your stick and
your bundle? He can advertise you!! What can you do? You can, and I fear
some of you do, wish him, from the bottom of your hearts, at the bottom of
the Hudson. Or, in your self-will, you will do just as you please. (Great
laughter.)
[A word on the subject of divorce. One of your standing denunciations on
the South is the terrible laxity of the marriage vow among the slaves.
Well, sir, what does your Boston Dr. Nehemiah Adams say? He says, after
giving eighty, sixty, and the like number of applications for divorce, and
nearly all granted at individual quarterly courts in New England,--he says
he is not sure but that the marriage relation is as enduring among _the
slaves in the South_ as it is among white people in New England. I only
give what Dr. Adams says. I would fain vindicate the marriage relation
from this rebuke. But one thing I will say: you seldom hear of a divorce
in Virginia or South Carolina.]