Dear Sir:--In my first letter, I merely touched some points in your tract,
intending to notice them more fully in subsequent communications. I have,
in my second paper, sufficiently examined the imaginary maxims of created
equality and unalienable rights.
In this, I will test your views by Scripture more directly. "To the law
and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is
because there is no light in them." (Isaiah viii. 20).
The abolitionist charges the slave-holder with being a _man-stealer_. He
makes this allegation in two affirmations. First, that the slave-holder
is thus guilty, because, the negro having been kidnapped in Africa,
therefore those who now hold him, or his children, in bondage, lie under
the guilt of that first act. Secondly, that the slave-holder, by the very
fact that he is such, is guilty of stealing from the negro his unalienable
right to freedom.
This is the charge. It covers the whole subject. I will meet it in all
its parts.
_The Difference between Man-Stealing and Slave-Holding, as set forth in
the Bible_.
The Bible reads thus: (Exodus xxi. 16:)--"He that stealeth a man
and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be
put to death."
What, then, is it to kidnap or steal a man? Webster informs us--To kidnap
is "to steal a human being, a man, woman, or child; or to seize and
forcibly carry away any person whatever, from his own country or state
into another." The idea of "_seizing and forcibly carrying away"_ enters
into the meaning of the word in all the definitions of law.
The crime, then, set forth in the Bible was not _selling_ a man: but
selling a _stolen_ man. The crime was not having a man _in his hand as a
slave_; but......in _his_ hand, as a slave, a _stolen_ man. And hence, the
penalty of _death_ was affixed, not to selling, buying, or holding man, as
a slave, but to the specific offence of _stealing and selling, or holding_
a man _thus stolen, contrary to this law_. Yea, it was _this law_, and
this law _only_, which made it _wrong_. For, under some circumstances, God
sanctioned the seizing and forcibly carrying away a man, woman, or child
from country or state, into slavery or other condition. He sanctioned the
utter destruction of every male and every married woman, and child, of
Jabez-Gilead, and the seizure, and forcibly carrying away, four hundred
virgins, unto the camp to Shiloh, and there, being given as wives to the
remnant of the slaughtered tribe of Benjamin, in the rock Rimmon. Sir,
how did that destruction of Jabez-Gilead, and the kidnapping of those
young women, differ from the razing of an African village, and forcibly
seizing, and carrying away, those not put to the sword? The difference is
in this:--God commanded the Israelites to seize and bear off those young
women. But he forbids the slaver to kidnap the African. Therefore, the
Israelites did right; therefore, the trader does wrong. The Israelites,
it seems, gave wives, in that way, to the spared Benjamites, because they
had sworn not to give their daughters. But there were six hundred of these
Benjamites. Two hundred were therefore still without wives. What was done
for them? Why, God authorized the elders of the congregation to tell the
two hundred Benjamites to catch every man his wife, of the daughters of
Shiloh, when they came out to dance, in the feast of the Lord, on the
north side of Bethel. And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them
wives, "whom they caught:" (Judges xxi.) God made it right for those
Benjamites to catch every man his wife, of the daughters of Shiloh. But he
makes it wrong for the trader to catch his slaves of the sons or daughters
of Africa. Lest you should try to deny that God authorized this act of the
children of Israel, although I believe he did order it, let me remind you
of another such case, the authority for which you will not question.
Moses, by direct command from God, destroyed the Midianites. He slew all
the males, and carried away all the women and children. He then had all
the married women and male children killed; but all the virgins,
thirty-two thousand, were divided as spoil among the people. And
_thirty-two_ of these virgins, _the Lord's tribute_, were given unto
Eleazar, the priest, "as the Lord commanded Moses." (Numbers xxxi.)
Sir, Thomas Paine rejected the Bible on this fact among his other
objections. Yea, _his_ reason, _his_ sensibilities, _his_ great law of
humanity, _his_ intuitional and eternal sense of right, made it impossible
for him to honor such a God. And, sir, on your now avowed principles of
interpretation, which are those of Paine, you sustain him in his rejection
of the books of Moses and all the word of God.
God's command _made it right_ for Moses to destroy the Midianites and make
slaves of their daughters; and I have dwelt upon these facts, to reiterate
what I hold to be THE FIRST TRUTH IN MORALS:--that a thing is right, not
because it is ever so _per se_, but because God _makes it right_; and, of
course, a thing is wrong, not because it is so in the nature of things,
but because God makes it wrong. I distinctly have taken, and do take, that
ground in its widest sense, and am prepared to maintain it against all
comers. He made it right for the sons of Adam to marry their sisters. He
made it right for Abraham to marry his half-sister. He made it right for
the patriarchs, and David and Solomon, to have more wives than one. He
made it right when he gave command to kill whole nations, sparing none. He
made it right when he ordered that nations, or such part as he pleased,
should be spared and enslaved. He made it right that the patriarchs and
the Israelites should hold slaves in harmony with the system of servile
labor which had long been in the world. He merely modified that system to
suit his views of good among his people. So, then, when he saw fit, they
might capture men. So, then, when he forbade the individual Israelite to
steal a man, he made it crime, and the penalty death. So, then, that crime
was not the mere _stealing_ a man, nor the _selling_ a man, nor the
_holding_ a man,--but the _stealing and selling_, or _holding_, a man
_under circumstances thus forbidden of God_.
_Was the Israelite Master a Man-Stealer?_
I now ask, Did God intend to make man-stealing and slave-holding the same
thing? Let us see. In that very chapter of Exodus (xxi.) which contains
the law against man-stealing, and only four verses further on, God says,
"If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his
hand, he shall be surely punished: notwithstanding, if he continue a day
or two he shall not be punished; for he is his money." (Verses 20, 21.)
Sir, that man was not a hired servant. He was bought with money. He was
regarded by God _as the money_ of his master. He was his slave, in the
full meaning of a slave, then, and now, bought with money. God, then, did
not intend the Israelites to understand, and not one of them ever
understood, from that day to this, that Jehovah in his law to Moses
regarded the slave-holder as a man-stealer. Man-stealing was a specific
offence, with its specific penalty. Slave-holding was one form of God's
righteous government over men,--a government he ordained, with various
modifications, among the Hebrews themselves, and with sterner features in
its relation to heathen slaves.
In Exodus xxi. and Leviticus xxv., various gradations of servitude were
enacted, with a careful particularity which need not be misunderstood.
Among these, a Hebrew man might be a slave for six years, and then go free
with his wife, if he were married when he came into the relation; but if
his master had given him a wife, and she had borne him sons or daughters,
the wife and her children should be her master's, and he should go out by
himself. That is, the man by the law became free, while his wife and
children remained slaves. If the servant, however, plainly said, "I love
my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his
master brought him unto the judges, also unto the doorpost, and his master
bored his ear through with an awl, and he served him forever." (Ex. xxi.
1-6.) Sir, you have urged discussion:--give us then your views of that
passage. Tell us how that man was separated from his wife and children
according to _the eternal right_. Tell us what was the condition of the
woman in case the man chose to "go out" without her? Tell us if the Hebrew
who thus had his ear bored by his master with an awl was not a slave for
life? Tell us, lastly, whether those children were not slaves? And, while
on that chapter, tell us whether in the next verses, 7-11, God did not
allow the Israelite father to sell his own daughter into bondage and into
polygamy by the same act of sale?
I will not dwell longer on these milder forms of slavery, but read to you
the clear and unmistakable command of the Lord in Leviticus xxv. 44,
46:--"Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be
of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and
bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn
among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you,
which they beget in your land: and they shall be your possession: and ye
shall take them for an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit
them for a possession; and they shall be your bondmen forever."
Sir, the sun will grow dim with age before that Scripture can be tortured
to mean any thing else than just what it says; that God commanded the
Israelites to be slave-holders in the strict and true sense over the
heathen, in manner and form therein set forth. Do you tell the world that
this cannot be the sense of the Bible, because it is "a violation of the
first principles of the American Declaration of Independence;" because it
grates upon your "instinct of liberty;" because it reveals God in
opposition to the "spirit of the age;" because, if it be the sense of the
passage, then "the Bible neither ought to be, nor can be, received by
mankind as a divine revelation"? _That_ is what you say: _that_ is what
Albert Barnes affirms in his philosophy. But what if God in his word says,
"Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be of the
heathen that are round about you"? What if we may then choose between
Albert Barnes's philosophy and God's truth?
Or will you say, God, under the circumstances, _permitted_ the Israelites
_to sin_ in the matter of slave-holding, just as he permitted them _to
sin_ by living in polygamy. _Permitted_ them _to sin!_ No, sir; God
_commanded_ them to be slave-holders. He _made it_ the law of their social
state. He _made it_ one form of his ordained government among them.
Moreover, you take it for granted all too soon, that the Israelites
committed sin in their polygamy. God sanctioned their polygamy. It was
therefore not sin in them. It was right. But God now forbids polygamy,
under the gospel; and now it is sin.
Or will you tell us the iniquity of the Canaanites was then full, and
God's time to punish them had come? True; but the same question comes
up:--Did God punish the Canaanites by placing them in the relation of
slaves to his people, by express command, which compelled them to sin?
That's the point. I will not permit you to evade it. In plainer
words:--Did God command the Hebrews to make slaves of their fellow-men, to
buy them and sell them, to regard them as their money? He did. Then, did
the Hebrews sin when they obeyed God's command? No. Then they did what was
right, and it was right because God made it so. Then _the Hebrew
slave-holder was not a man-stealer_. But, you say, the Southern
slave-holder is. Well, we shall see presently.
Just here, the abolitionist who professes to respect the Scriptures is
wont to tell us that the whole subject of bondage among the Israelites was
so peculiar to God's ancient dispensation, that no analogy between that
bondage and Southern slavery can be brought up. Thus he attempts to raise
a dust out of the Jewish institutions, to prevent people from seeing that
slaveholding then was the same thing that it is now. But, to sustain my
interpretation of the plain Scriptures given, I will go back five hundred
years before the existence of the Hebrew nation.
I read at that time, (Gen. xiv. 14:)--"And when Abraham heard that his
brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own
house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them even unto Damascus,"
&c. (Gen. xvii. 27:)--"And all the men of his house, born, in the house,
and bought with the money of the stranger, were circumcised." (Gen. xx.
14:)--"And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and men-servants and
women-servants, and gave them unto Abraham." (Gen. xxiv. 34, 35:)--"And he
said, I am Abraham's servant; and the Lord hath blessed my master greatly,
and he is become great; and he hath given him flocks and herds, and silver
and gold, and men-servants and maid-servants, and camels and asses."
_Was Abraham a Man-Stealer?_
Sir, what is the common sense of these Scriptures? Why, that the
slave-trade existed in Abraham's day, as it had long before, and has ever
since, in all the regions of Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt, in which
criminals and prisoners of war were sold,--in which parents sold their
children. Abraham, then, it is plain, bought, of the sellers in this
traffic, men-servants and maid-servants; he had them born in his house; he
received them as presents.
Do you tell me that Abraham, by divine authority, made these servants part
of his family, social and religious? Very good. But still he regarded them
as his slaves. He took Hagar as a wife, but he treated her as his
slave,--yea, as Sarah's slave; and as such he gave her to be chastised,
for misconduct, by her mistress. Yea, he never placed Ishmael, the son of
the bondwoman, on a level with Isaac, the son of the freewoman. If, then,
he so regarded Hagar and Ishmael, of course he never considered his other
slaves on an equality with himself. True, had he been childless, he would
have given his estate to Eliezer: but he would have given it to his slave.
True, had Isaac not been born, he would have given his wealth to Ishmael;
but he would nave given it to the son of his bondwoman. Sir, every
Southern planter is not more truly a slave-holder than Abraham. And the
Southern master, by divine authority, may, to-day, consider his slaves
part of his social and religious family, just as Abraham did. His relation
is just that of Abraham. He has slaves of an inferior type of mankind from
Abraham's bondmen; and he therefore, for that reason, as well as from the
fact that they are his slaves, holds them lower than himself. But,
nevertheless, he is a slave-holder in no other sense than was Abraham. Did
Abraham have his slave-household circumcised? Every Southern planter may
have his slave-household baptized. I baptized, not long since, a
slave-child,--the master and mistress offering it to God. What was done
in the parlor might be done with divine approbation on every plantation.
So, then, Abraham lived in the midst of a system of slave-holding exactly
the same in nature with that in the South,--a system ordained of God as
really as the other forms of government round about him. He, then, with
the divine blessing, made himself the master of slaves, men, women, and
children, by buying them,--by receiving them in gifts,--by having them
born in his house; and he controlled them as property, just as really as
the Southern master in the present day. I ask now, _was Abraham a
man-stealer?_ Oh, no, you reiterate: but the Southern master is. Why?
_Is the Southern Master a Man-Stealer_?
Do you, sir, or anybody, contend that the Southern master seized his slave
in Africa, and forcibly brought him away to America, contrary to law?
That, and that alone, was and is kidnapping in divine and human statute.
No. What then? Why, the abolitionist responds, The African man-stealer
sold his victim to the slave-holder; he, to the planter; and the negro has
been ever since in bondage: therefore _the guilt_ of the man-stealer has
cleaved to sellers, buyers, and inheritors, to this time, and will
through all generations to come. That is the charge.
And it brings up the question so often and triumphantly asked by the
abolitionist; _i.e._ "You," he says to the slave-holder,--"you admit it
was wrong to steal the negro in Africa. Can the slave-holder, then, throw
off wrong so long as he holds the slave at any time or anywhere
thereafter?" I answer, yes; and my reply shall be short, yet conclusive. It
is this:--_Guilt_, or criminality, is that state of a moral agent which
results from _his_ actual commission of a crime or offence knowing it to
be crime or violation of law. _That_ is the received definition of
_guilt_, and _you_, I know, do accept it. The _guilt_, then, of kidnapping
_terminated_ with the man-stealer, the seller, the buyer, and holders,
who, knowingly and intentionally, carried on the traffic contrary to the
divine law. THAT GUILT attaches in no sense whatever, as a personal, moral
responsibility, to the present slave-holder. Observe, I am here
discussing, _not the question of mere slave-holding,_ but whether the
master, who has had nothing to do with the slave-trade, can _now_ hold the
slave without the moral guilt of the man-stealer? I have said that _that_
guilt, in no sense whatever, rests upon him; for he neither stole the
man, nor bought him from the kidnapper, nor had any _complicity_ in the
traffic. Here, I know, the abolitionist insists that the master _is_
guilty of this _complicity_, unless he will at once emancipate the slave;
because, so long as he holds him, he thereby, personally and _voluntarily,
assumes the same relation which the original kidnapper or buyer held to
the African_.
This is Dr. Cheever's argument in a recent popular sermon. He thinks it
unanswerable; but it has no weight whatever. It is met perfectly by adding
_one_ word to his proposition. Thus:--_The master does_ NOT _assume the
same relation which the original man-stealer or buyer held to the
African_. The master's _relation_ to God and to his slave is now _wholly
changed_ from that of the man-stealer, and those engaged in the trade; and
his obligation is wholly different. What is his relation? and what is his
obligation? They are as follows:----
The master finds himself, with no taint of personal concern in the African
trade, in a Christian community of white Anglo-Americans, holding control
over his black fellow-man, who is so unlike himself in complexion, in
form, in other peculiarities, and so unequal to himself in attributes of
body and mind, that it is _impossible, in every sense_, to place him on a
level with himself in the community. _This is his relation to the negro_.
What, then, does God command him to do? Does God require him to send the
negro back to his heathen home from whence he was stolen? That home no
longer exists. But, if it did remain, does God command the master to send
his Christianized slave into the horrors of his former African heathenism?
No. God has placed the master under law entirely different from his
command to the slave-trader. God said to the trader, _Let the negro
alone_. But he says to the present master, _Do unto the negro all the good
you can; make him a civilized man; make him a Christian man; lift him up
and give him all he has a right to claim in the good of the whole
community_. This the master can do; this he must do, and then leave the
result with the Almighty.
We reach the same conclusion by asking, What does God say to the
negro-slave?
Does he tell him to ask to be sent back to heathen Africa? No. Does he
give him authority to claim a created equality and unalienable right to
be on a level with the white man in civil and social relations? No. To
ask the first would be to ask a great evil; to claim the second is to
demand a natural and moral impossibility. No. God tells him to seek none
of these things. But he commands him to know the facts in his case as
they are in the Bible, and have ever been, and ever will be in
Providence:--that he is not the white man's equal,--that he can never
have his level--that he must not claim it; but that he can have, and
ought to have, and must have, all of good, in his condition as a slave,
until God may reveal a higher happiness for him in some other relation
than that _he must ever_ have to the Anglo-American. The present
slave-holder, then, by declining to emancipate his bondman, does not
place himself in _the guilt_ of the man-stealer or of those who had
complicity with him; but he stands _exactly_ in that NICK _of time and
place_, in the course of Providence, where _wrong_, in the transmission
of African slavery, _ends_, and _right begins_.
I have, sir, fairly stated this, your strongest argument, and fully met
it. _The Southern master is not a man-stealer._ The abolitionist--repulsed
in his charge that the slave-owner is a kidnapper, either in fact or by
voluntarily assuming any of the relations of the traffic--then makes his
impeachment on his second affirmation, mentioned at the opening of this
letter. That the slave-holder is, nevertheless, thus _guilty_, because,
in the simple fact of being a master, he _steals_ from the negro his
unalienable right to freedom.
This, sir, looks like a new view of the subject. The crime forbidden in
the Bible was stealing and selling a man; _i.e._ seizing and forcibly
carrying away, from country or State, a human being--man, woman, or
child--contrary to law, and selling or holding the same. But the
abolitionist gives us to understand this crime rests on the slave-holder
in another sense:--namely, that he steals from the negro a metaphysical
attribute,--his unalienable right to liberty!
This is a new sort of kidnapping. This is, I suppose, _stealing the man
from himself_, as it is sometimes elegantly expressed,--_robbing him of
his body and his soul_. Sir, I admit this is a strong figure of speech, a
beautiful personification, a sonorous rhetorical flourish, which must make
a deep impression on Dr. Cheever's people, Broadway, New York, and on your
congregation, Washington Square, Philadelphia; but it is certainly not the
Bible crime of man-stealing. And whether the Southern master is _guilty_
of this sublimated thing will be understood by us when you prove that the
negro, or anybody else, has such metaphysical right to be stolen,--such
transcendental liberty not in subordination to the good of the whole
people. In a word, sir, this refined expression is, after all, just the
old averment that the slave-holder is guilty of _sin per se!_ That's it.
I have given you, in reply, the Old Testament. In my next, I propose to
inquire what the New Testament says in the light of the _Golden Rule_.
F.A. Ross.
Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 31, 1857.
The Golden Rule.
This view of the Golden Rule is the only exposition of that great text
which has ever been given in words sufficiently clear, and, with practical
illustrations, to make the subject intelligible to every capacity. The
explanation is the truth of God, and it settles forever the slavery
question, so far as it rests on this precept of Jesus Christ.
No. IV.