Dear Sir:--In my first letter I promised to prove that the paragraph in
the Declaration of Independence, which contains the affirmation of
created equality and unalienable rights, has no sanction from the word of
God. I now meet my obligation.
The time has come when civil liberty, as revealed in the Bible and in
Providence, must be re-examined, understood, and defended against infidel
theories of human rights. The slavery question has brought on this
conflict; and, strange as it may seem, the South, the land of the slave,
is summoned by God to defend the liberty he gives; while the North, the
clime of the free, misunderstands and changes the truth of God into a
lie,--claiming a liberty he does not give. Wherefore is this? I reply:---
God, when he ordained government over men, gave to the individual man
RIGHTS, _only_ as he is under government. He first established the family;
hence all other rule is merely the family expanded. The _good_ of the
family limited the _rights_ of every member. God required the family, and
then the state, so to rule as to give to every member the _good_ which is
his, in harmony with the welfare of the whole; and he commanded the
individual to seek _that good_, and NO MORE.
Now, mankind being depraved, government has ever violated its obligation
to rule for the benefit of the entire community, and has wielded its
power in oppression. Consequently, the governed have ever struggled to
secure the good which was their right. But, in this struggle, they have
ever been tempted to go beyond the limitation God had made, and to seek
supposed good, not given, in rights, prompted by _self-will_, destructive
of the state.
Government thus ever existing in oppression, and people thus ever rising
up against despotism, have been the history of mankind.
The Reformation was one of the many convulsions in this long-continued
conflict. In its first movements, men claimed the liberty the Bible
grants. Soon they ran into licentiousness. God then stayed the further
progress of emancipation in Europe, because the spread of the asserted
liberty would have made infidelity prevail over that part of the
continent where the Reformation was arrested. God preferred Romanism,
and other despotisms, modified as they were by the struggle, to rule for
a time, than have those countries destroyed under the sway of a
licentious freedom.
In this contest the North American colonies had their rise, and they
continued the strife with England until they declared themselves
independent.
That "Declaration" affirmed not only the liberty sanctioned of the Bible,
but also the liberty constituting infidelity. Its first paragraph, to the
word "_separation_," is a noble introduction. Omit, then, what follows,
to the sentence beginning "_Prudence will dictate_," and the paper, thus
expurgated, is complete, and is then simply the complaint of the colonies
against the government of England, which had oppressed them beyond
further submission, and the assertion of their right to be free and
independent States.
This declaration was, in that form, nothing more than the affirmation of
the right God gives to children, in a family, applied to the colonies, in
regard to their mother-country. That is to say, children have, from God,
RIGHT, AS CHILDREN, when cruelly treated, to secure the good to which they
are entitled, as children, IN THE FAMILY. They may secure _this_ good by
becoming part of another family, or by setting up for themselves, if old
enough. So the colonies had, from God, _right_ as colonies, when oppressed
beyond endurance, to exchange the British family for another, or, if of
sufficient age, to establish their own household. The Declaration, then,
in that complaint of oppression and affirmation of right, in the colonies,
to be independent, asserts liberty sanctioned by the word of God. And
therefore the pledge to _that_ Declaration, of "lives, fortune, and sacred
honor," was blessed of Heaven, in the triumph of their cause.
But the Declaration, in the part I have omitted, affirms other things, and
very different. It asserts facts and rights as appertaining to man, not in
the Scriptures, but contrary thereto. Here is the passage:--
"We hold these truths to be self-evident,--that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or
abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation
on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to
them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
_This is the affirmation of the liberty claimed by infidelity._ It teaches
as a fact _that_ which is not true; and it claims as right _that_ which
God has not given. It asserts nothing new, however. It lays claim to that
individual right beyond the limitation God has put, which man has ever
asserted when in his struggle for liberty he has refused to be guided and
controlled by the word and providence of his Creator.
The paragraph is a chain of four links, each of which is claimed to be a
self-evident truth.
The _first_ and controlling assertion is, "that ALL MEN ARE CREATED
EQUAL;" which proposition, as I understand it, is, that _every man and
woman on earth is created with equal attributes of body and mind_.
_Secondly_, and consequently, that every individual has, by virtue of his
or her being created the equal of each and every other individual, the
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, _so in his or her
own keeping that that right is unalienable without his or her consent_.
_Thirdly_, it follows, that government among men must derive its just
powers only from the _consent_ of the governed; and, as the governed are
the aggregate of individuals, _then each person must consent to be thus
controlled before he or she can be rightfully under such authority_.
_Fourthly_, and finally, that whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
_as each such individual man or woman may think_, then each such person
may rightly set to work to alter or abolish such form, and institute a new
government, on such principles and in such form as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their safety and happiness.
This is the celebrated averment of created equality, and unalienable right
to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, with the necessary
consequences. I have fairly expanded its meaning. It is the old infidel
averment. It is not true in any one of its assertions.
_All Men not created equal_.
It is not a truth, _self-evident,_ that all men are created equal.
Webster, in his dictionary, defines "Self-evident--Evident without proof
or reason: clear conviction upon a bare presentation to the mind, as that
two and three make five."
Now, I affirm, and you, I think, will not contradict me, that the
position, "_all men are created equal"_ is _not_ self-evident; that the
nature of the case makes it impossible for it to be self-evident. For the
created nature of man is not in the class of things of which such
self-evident propositions can by possibility be predicated. It is equally
clear and beyond debate, that it is not _self-evident_ that all men have
_unalienable rights_, that governments derive their just powers from the
_consent_ of the governed, and may be altered or abolished whenever _to
them_ such rights may be better secured. All these assertions can be known
to be true or false only from revelation of the Creator, or from
examination and induction of reasoning, covering the nature and the
obligations of the race on the whole face of the earth. What revelation
and examination of facts do teach, I will now show. The whole
battle-ground, as to the truth of this series of averments, is on the
first affirmation, "_that all men are created equal_." Or, to keep up my
first figure, the strength of the chain of asserted truths depend on
_that_ first link. It must then stand the following perfect trial.
God reveals to us that he created man in his image, _i.e._ a spirit
endowed with attributes resembling his own,--to reason, to form rule of
right, to manifest various emotions, to will, to act,--and that he gave
him a body suited to such a spirit, (Gen. i. 26, 27, 28;) that he created
MAN "_male and female_," (Gen. i. 27;) that he made the woman "_out of the
man_," (Gen. ii. 23;) that he made "_the man the image and glory of God_,
but the woman _the glory of the man_. For the man is not of the woman, but
the woman of the man. Neither was the man _created for the woman_, but the
woman _for the man_," (1 Cor. xi.;) that he made the woman to be the
weaker vessel, (1 Pet. iii. 7.) Here, then, God created _the race_ to be
in the beginning TWO,--a male and a female MAN; one of them _not equal_ to
the other _in attributes of body and mind_, and, as we shall see
presently, not equal in rights as to government. Observe, this inequality
was fact as to the TWO, in the perfect state wherein they were _created_.
But these two fell from that perfect state, became depraved, and began to
be degraded in body and mind. This statement of the original inequality in
which man was created controls all that comes after, in God's providence
and in the natural history of the race.
_Providence_, in its comprehensive teaching, "says that God, soon after
the flood, subjected the races to all the influences of the different
zones of the earth;"--"That he hath made of one blood all nations of men
for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times
before appointed and the bounds of their habitation; that they should
seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he
be not far from every one of us." (Acts xvii. 26, 27.)
These "bounds of their habitation" have had much to do in the natural
history of man; for "_all men_" have been "_created_," or, more
correctly, _born_, (since the race was "created" once only at the first,)
with attributes of body and mind derived from the TWO unequal parents,
and these attributes, in every individual, the combined result of the
parental natures. "_All men_," then, come into the world under influences
upon the amalgamated and transmitted body and mind, from depravity and
degradation, sent down during all the generations past; and, therefore,
under causes of inequality, acting on each individual from climate, from
scenery, from food, from health, from sickness, from love, from hatred,
from government, inconceivable in variety and power. Under such causes,
to produce infinite shades of inequality, physical and mental, in
birth--if "all men" were created equal (_i.e._ born equal) in attributes
of body and mind--such "creation" would be a violation of all the known
analogies in the world of life.
Do, then, the facts in man's natural history exhibit this departure from
the laws of life and spirit? Do they prove that "all men are created
equal"? Do they show that every man and every woman of Africa, Asia,
Europe, America, and the islands of the seas, is created each one equal in
body and mind to each other man or woman on the face of the earth, and
that this has always been?
Need I extend these questions? Methinks, sir, I hear you say, what others
have told me, that the "Declaration" is not to be understood as affirming
what is so clearly false, but merely asserts that all men are "created
equal" in _natural rights._
I reply that _that_ is _not_ the meaning of the clause before us; for
_that_ is the meaning of the next sentence,--the _second_ in the series we
are considering.
There are, as I have said, four links to the chain of thought in this
passage:--1. That all men are created equal. 2. That they are endowed by
the Creator with certain unalienable rights. 3. That government derives
its just powers from the consent of the governed. 4. That the people may
alter and abolish it, &c.
These links are logical sequences. All men--man and woman--are created
equal,--equal in _attributes of body and mind_; (for _that_ is the only
sense in which they could be _created_ equal;) _therefore_ they are
endowed with right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness,
unalienable, except in their consent; _consequently_ such consent is
essential to all rightful government; and, _finally_ and _irresistibly_,
the people have supreme right to alter or abolish it, &c.
The meaning, then, I give to that first link, and to the chain following,
_is_ the sense, because, if you deny that meaning to the _first link_,
then the others have no logical truth whatever. Thus:--
If all men are _not_ created equal in attributes of body and mind, then
the _inequality_ may be _so great_ that such men cannot be endowed with
right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, unalienable save in
their _consent_; then government over such men cannot rightfully rest upon
their _consent_; nor can they have right to alter or abolish government in
their mere determination.
Yea, sir, you concede every thing if you admit that the "Declaration"
does _not_ mean to affirm that all men are "_created_" _equal in body
and mind_.
I will suppose in the Alps a community of Cretins,--_i.e._ deformed and
helpless idiots,--but among them many from the same parents, who, in body
and mind, by birth are comparatively _Napoleons_. Now, this _inequality_,
physical and mental, by birth, makes it impossible that the government
over these Cretins can be in their "_consent_." _The Napoleons must rule_.
The Napoleons must absolutely control their "life, liberty, and pursuit of
happiness," for the good of the community. Do you reply that I have taken
an extreme case? that everybody admits sensible people must govern natural
fools? Ay, sir, there is the rub. _Natural fools_! Are some men, then,
"_created_" natural fools? Very well. Then you also admit that some men
are _created_ just a degree above natural fools!--and, consequently, that
men are "_created_" in all degrees, gradually rising in the scale of
intelligence. Are they not "_created_" just above the brute, with savage
natures along with mental imbecility and physical degradation? Must the
Napoleons govern the Cretins without their "consent"? Must they not also
govern without their "consent" these types of mankind, whether one, two,
three, thirty, or three hundred degrees above the Cretins, if they are
still greatly inferior by nature? Suppose the Cretins removed from the
imagined community, and a colony of Australian ant-catchers or California
lizard-eaters be in their stead: must not the Napoleons govern these? And,
if you admit inequality to be in birth, then that inequality is the very
ground of the reason why the Napoleons must govern the ant-catchers and
lizard-eaters. Remove these, and put in their place an importation of
African negroes. Do you admit _their inferiority by_ "CREATION?" Then the
same control over them must be the irresistible fact in common sense and
Scripture of God. _The Napoleons must govern_. They must govern without
asking "consent,"--if the inequality be such that "_consent_" would be
evil, and not good, in the family--the state.
Yea, sir, if you deny that the "Declaration" asserts "all men are created
equal" in body and mind, then you admit the inequality may be such as to
make it impossible that in such cases men have rights unalienable save in
their "consent;" and you admit it to be impossible that government in such
circumstances can exist in such "_consent_" But, if you affirm the
"Declaration" _does_ mean that men are "_created_ equal" in attributes of
body and mind, then you hold to an equality which God, in his word, and
providence, and the natural history of man, denies to be truth.
I think I have fairly shown, from Scripture and facts, that the first
averment is not the truth; and have reduced it to an absurdity. I will now
regard the second, third, and fourth links of the chain.
I know they are already broken; for, the whole chain being but an electric
current from a vicious imagination, I have destroyed the whole by breaking
the first link. Or was it but a cluster from a poisonous vine, then I have
killed the branches by cutting the vine. I will, however, expose the other
three sequences by a distinct argument covering them all.
_Authority Delegated to Adam_.
God gave to Adam sovereignty over the human race, in his first
decree:--"_He shall rule over thee_." _That_ was THE INSTITUTION OF
GOVERNMENT. It was not based on the "_consent_" of Eve, the governed. It
was from God. He gave to Adam like authority to rule his children. It was
not derived from their "_consent_". It was from God. He gave Noah the same
sovereignty, with express power over life, liberty, and pursuit of
happiness. It was not founded in "_consent_" of Shem, Ham, and Japheth,
and their wives. It was from God. He then determined the habitations of
men on all the face of the earth, and _indicated_ to them, in every clime,
the _form_ and _power_ of their governments. He gave, directly, government
to Israel. He just as truly gave it to Idumea, to Egypt, and to Babylon,
to the Arab, to the Esquimaux, the Caffre, the Hottentot, and the negro.
God, in the Bible, decides the matter. He says, "Let every soul be subject
unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: 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. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.
Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou
shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for
good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the
sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath
upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for
wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also:
for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.
Render, therefore, to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due;
custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor." (Rom.
xiii. 1-7.)
Here God reveals to us that he has _delegated to government his own_ RIGHT
_over life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness_; and that that RIGHT is
not, in any sense, from the "_consent_" of the governed, but is directly
from him. Government over men, whether in the family or in the state, is,
then, as directly from God as it would be if he, in visible person, ruled
in the family or in the state. I speak not only of the RIGHT simply to
govern, but the _mode_ of the government, and the _extent_ of the power.
Government _can do_ ALL which God _would do,--just_ THAT,--_no more, no
less_. And it is _bound to do just_ THAT,--_no more, no less_. Government
is responsible to God, if it fails to do _just_ THAT which He himself
would do. It is under responsibility, then, to rule in righteousness. It
must not oppress. It must _give_ to every individual "_life, liberty, and
pursuit of happiness_," in harmony with the _good_ of the family,--the
state,--_as God himself would give it_,--_just_ THAT, _no more, no less_.
This passage of Scripture settles the question, From whence has
government RIGHT to rule, and what is the _extent_ of its power? The
RIGHT is from God, and the EXTENT of the power is _just_ THAT to which
God would exercise it if he were personally on the earth. God, in this
passage, and others, settles, with equal clearness, from whence is the
OBLIGATION to _submit_ to government, and what is the _extent_ of the
duty of obedience? The OBLIGATION to submit is not from individual RIGHT
to consent or not to consent to government,--but the OBLIGATION _to
submit_ is directly from God.
The EXTENT of the duty of obedience is equally revealed--in this wise: so
long as the government rules in righteousness, the duty is perfect
obedience. So soon, however, as government requires _that_ which God, in
his word, _forbids the subject to do_, he must obey God, and not man. He
must refuse to obey man. But, inasmuch as the obligation to submit to
authority of government is so great, the subject must _know_ it is the
will of God, that he shall refuse to obey, before he assumes the
responsibility of resistance to the powers that be. His _conscience_ will
not justify him before God, if he mistakes his duty. _He may be all the
more to blame for having_ SUCH A CONSCIENCE. Let him, then, be CERTAIN he
can say, like Peter and John, "Whether it be right, in the sight of God,
to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye."
But, when government requires _that_ which God _does not forbid_ the
subject to do, although _in that_ the government may have transcended the
line of its righteous rule, the subject must, nevertheless,
submit,--_until_ oppression has gone to _the point_ at which _God makes_
RESISTANCE _to be duty._ And _that point_ is when RESISTANCE will clearly
be _less of evil, and more of good_, TO THE COMMUNITY, than further
submission.
_That_ is the rule of _duty_ God gives to the _whole_ people, or to the
_minority_, or to the _individual_, to guide them in resistance to the
powers that be.
It is irresistibly _certain_ that _He who ordains_ government _has, alone,
the right to alter or abolish it_,--that He who institutes the powers that
be has, alone, the right to say when and how the people, in whole or in
part, may resist. So, then, the people, in whole, or in part, have no
right to resist, to alter, or abolish government, simply because _they_
may deem it destructive of the end for which it was instituted; but they
may resist, alter, or abolish, _when it shall be seen that God so regards
it_. This places the great fact where it must be placed,--_under the_
CONTROL _of the_ BIBLE _and_ PROVIDENCE.
_Illustrations_.
I will conclude with one or two illustrations. God, in his providence,
ordains the Russian form of government,--_i.e._ He places the sovereignty
in one man, because He sees that such government can secure, for a time,
more good to that degraded people than any other form. Now, I ask, Has the
emperor _right_, from God, to change at once, in his mere "_consent_," the
_form_ of his government to _that_ of the United States? No. God forbids
him. Why? Because he would thereby destroy the good, and bring immense
evil in his empire. I ask again, Have the Russian serfs and nobles,--yea,
all,--"consenting," the right, from God, to make that change? No. For the
government of the United States is not suited to them. And, in such an
attempt, they would deprive themselves of the blessings they now have, and
bring all the horrors of anarchy.
Do you ask if I then hold, that God ordains the Russian type of rule to be
perpetual over that people? No. The emperor is bound to secure all of
"_life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness_," to each individual,
consistent with the good of the nation. And he is to learn his obligation
from the Bible, and faithfully apply it to the condition of his subjects.
_He will thus gradually elevate them_; while they, on their part, are
bound to strive for this elevation, in all the ways in which God may show
them the good, and the right, which, more and more, will belong to them in
their upward progress. The result of such government and such obedience
would be that of a father's faithful training, and children's
corresponding obedience. The Russian people would thus have, gradually,
that measure of liberty they could bear, under the one-man power,--and
then, in other forms, as they might be qualified to realize them. This
development would be without convulsion,--as the parent gives place, while
the children are passing from the lower to their higher life. It would be
the exemplification of Carlyle's illustration of the snake. He says, A
people should change their government only as a snake sheds his skin: the
new skin is gradually formed under the old one,--and then the snake
wriggles out, with just a drop of blood here and there, where the old
jacket held on rather tightly.
God ordains the government of the United States. And _He places_ the
_sovereignty_ in the _will_ of the majority, because He has trained the
people, through many generations in modes of government, to such an
elevation in moral and religious intelligence, that such sovereignty is
best suited to confer on them the highest right, as yet, to "life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But God requires that _that will
of the majority_ be in perfect submission to Him. Once more then I
inquire,--Whether the people of this country, yea all of them consenting,
have right from God, to abolish now, at this time, our free institutions,
and set up the sway of Russia? No. But why? There is one answer only. He
tells us that our happiness is in this form of government, and in it, its
developed results.
_The "Social Compact" not recognised in the Divine Institute_.
Here I pause. So, then, God gives no sanction to the notion of a SOCIAL
COMPACT. He never gave to man individual, isolated, natural rights,
unalienably in his keeping. He never made him a Caspar Hauser, in the
forest, without name or home,--a Melchisedek, in the wilderness, without
father, without mother, without descent,--a Robinson Crusoe, on his
island, in skins and barefooted, waiting, among goats and parrots, the
coming of the canoes and the savages, to enable him to "_consent_" if he
would, to the relations of social life.
And, therefore, those five sentences in that second paragraph of the
Declaration of Independence are not the truth; so, then, it is not
_self-evident_ truth that all men are created equal. So, then, it is not
the truth, in fact, that they are created equal. So, then, it is not the
truth that God has endowed all men with unalienable right to life,
liberty, and pursuit of happiness. So, then, it is not the truth that
governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. So,
then, it is not the truth that the people have right to alter or abolish
their government, and institute a new form, whenever to them it shall seem
likely to effect their safety and happiness.
The manner in which these unscriptural dogmas have been modified or
developed in the United States, I will examine in another paper.
I merely add, that the opinions of revered ancestors, on these questions
of right and their application to American slavery, must now, as never
before, be brought to the test of the light of the Bible. F.A. Ross.
Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 1857.
Man-Stealing.
This argument on the abolition charge, against the slave-holder,--that he
is a man-stealer,--covers the whole question of slavery, especially as it
is seen in the Old Testament. The headings in the letter make the subject
sufficiently clear.
No. III.