SLAVERY.
BY
WILLIAM E. CHANNING.
BOSTON:
JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY.
M DCCC XXXV.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835, by JAMES
MUNROE & CO., in the Clerk's office of the District Court of
Massachusetts.
CAMBRIDGE PRESS:
METCALF, TORRY, AND BALLOU.
CONTENTS.
Page
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER I.
Property 13
CHAPTER II.
Rights 30
CHAPTER III.
Explanations 54
CHAPTER IV.
The Evils of Slavery 65
CHAPTER V.
Scripture 108
CHAPTER VI.
Means of Removing Slavery 116
CHAPTER VII.
Abolitionism 130
CHAPTER VIII.
Duties 149
NOTES 161
INTRODUCTION.
The first question to be proposed by a rational being is, not what is
profitable, but what is Right. Duty must be primary, prominent, most
conspicuous, among the objects of human thought and pursuit. If we cast
it down from its supremacy, if we inquire first for our interests and
then for our duties, we shall certainly err. We can never see the Right
clearly and fully, but by making it our first concern. No judgment can
be just or wise, but that which is built on the conviction of the
paramount worth and importance of Duty. This is the fundamental truth,
the supreme law of reason; and the mind, which does not start from this
in its inquiries into human affairs, is doomed to great, perhaps fatal
error.
The Right is the supreme good, and includes all other goods. In seeking
and adhering to it, we secure our true and only happiness. All
prosperity, not founded on it, is built on sand. If human affairs are
controlled, as we believe, by Almighty Rectitude and Impartial Goodness,
then to hope for happiness from wrong doing is as insane as to seek
health and prosperity by rebelling against the laws of nature, by sowing
our seed on the ocean, or making poison our common food. There is but
one unfailing good; and that is, fidelity to the Everlasting Law written
on the heart, and rewritten and republished in God's Word.
Whoever places this faith in the everlasting law of rectitude must of
course regard the question of slavery first and chiefly as a moral
question. All other considerations will weigh little with him, compared
with its moral character and moral influences. The following remarks,
therefore, are designed to aid the reader in forming a just moral
judgment of slavery. Great truths, inalienable rights, everlasting
duties, these will form the chief subjects of this discussion. There are
times when the assertion of great principles is the best service a man
can render society. The present is a moment of bewildering excitement,
when men's minds are stormed and darkened by strong passions and fierce
conflicts; and also a moment of absorbing worldliness, when the moral
law is made to bow to expediency, and its high and strict requirements
are decried or dismissed as metaphysical abstractions, or impracticable
theories. At such a season, to utter great principles without passion,
and in the spirit of unfeigned and universal good-will, and to engrave
them deeply and durably on men's minds, is to do more for the world,
than to open mines of wealth, or to frame the most successful schemes of
policy.
Of late our country has been convulsed by the question of slavery; and
the people, in proportion as they have felt vehemently, have thought
superficially, or hardly thought at all; and we see the results in a
singular want of well defined principles, in a strange vagueness and
inconsistency of opinion, and in the proneness to excess which belongs
to unsettled minds. The multitude have been called, now to contemplate
the horrors of slavery, and now to shudder at the ruin and bloodshed
which must follow emancipation. The word Massacre has resounded through
the land, striking terror into strong as well as tender hearts, and
awakening indignation against whatever may seem to threaten such a
consummation. The consequence is, that not a few dread all discussion of
the subject, and if not reconciled to the continuance of slavery, at
least believe that they have no duty to perform, no testimony to bear,
no influence to exert, no sentiments to cherish and spread, in relation
to this evil. What is still worse, opinions either favoring or
extenuating it are heard with little or no disapprobation. Concessions
are made to it which would once have shocked the community; whilst to
assail it is pronounced unwise and perilous. No stronger reason for a
calm exposition of its true character can be given, than this very
state of the public mind. A community can suffer no greater calamity
than the loss of its principles. Lofty and pure sentiment is the life
and hope of a people. There was never such an obligation to discuss
slavery as at this moment, when recent events have done much to unsettle
and obscure men's minds in regard to it. This result is to be ascribed
in part to the injudicious vehemence of those who have taken into their
hands the care of the slave. Such ought to remember that to espouse a
good cause is not enough. We must maintain it in a spirit answering to
its dignity. Let no man touch the great interests of humanity, who does
not strive to sanctify himself for the work by cleansing his heart of
all wrath and uncharitableness, who cannot hope that he is in a measure
baptized unto the spirit of universal love. Even sympathy with the
injured and oppressed may do harm, by being partial, exclusive, and
bitterly indignant. How far the declension of the spirit of freedom is
to be ascribed to the cause now suggested I do not say. The effect is
plain, and whoever sees and laments the evil should strive to arrest it.
Slavery ought to be discussed. We ought to think, feel, speak, and write
about it. But whatever we do in regard to it should be done with a deep
feeling of responsibility, and so done as not to put in jeopardy the
peace of the slave-holding States. On this point public opinion has not
been and cannot be too strongly pronounced. Slavery, indeed, from its
very nature, must be a ground of alarm wherever it exists. Slavery and
security can by no device be joined together. But we may not, must not,
by rashness and passion increase the peril. To instigate the slave to
insurrection is a crime for which no rebuke and no punishment can be too
severe. This would be to involve slave and master in common ruin. It is
not enough to say, that the Constitution is violated by any action
endangering the slave-holding portion of our country. A higher law than
the Constitution forbids this unholy interference. Were our national
union dissolved, we ought to reprobate, as sternly as we now do, the
slightest manifestation of a disposition to stir up a servile war. Still
more, were the free and the slave-holding States not only separated, but
engaged in the fiercest hostilities, the former would deserve the
abhorrence of the world, and the indignation of Heaven, were they to
resort to insurrection and massacre as means of victory. Better were it
for us to bare our own breasts to the knife of the slave, than to arm
him with it against his master.
It is not by personal, direct action on the mind of the slave that we
can do him good. Our concern is with the free. With the free we are to
plead his cause. And this is peculiarly our duty, because we have bound
ourselves to resist his efforts for his own emancipation. We suffer him
to do nothing for himself. The more, then, should be done for him. Our
physical power is pledged against him in case of revolt. Then our moral
power should be exerted for his relief. His weakness, which we increase,
gives him a claim to the only aid we can afford, to our moral sympathy,
to the free and faithful exposition of his wrongs. As men, as
Christians, as citizens, we have duties to the slave, as well as to
every other member of the community. On this point we have no liberty.
The Eternal Law binds us to take the side of the injured; and this law
is peculiarly obligatory, when we forbid him to lift an arm in his own
defence.
Let it not be said we can do nothing for the slave. We can do much. We
have a power mightier than armies, the power of truth, of principle, of
virtue, of right, of religion, of love. We have a power, which is
growing with every advance of civilization, before which the slave-trade
has fallen, which is mitigating the sternest despotisms, which is
spreading education through all ranks of society, which is bearing
Christianity to the ends of the earth, which carries in itself the
pledge of destruction to every institution which debases humanity. Who
can measure the power of Christian philanthropy, of enlightened
goodness, pouring itself forth in prayers and persuasions, from the
press and pulpit, from the lips and hearts of devoted men, and more and
more binding together the wise and good in the cause of their race? All
other powers may fail. This must triumph. It is leagued with God's
omnipotence. It is God himself acting in the hearts of his children. It
has an ally in every conscience, in every human breast, in the wrong
doer himself. This spirit has but begun its work on earth. It is
breathing itself more and more through literature, education,
institutions, and opinion. Slavery cannot stand before it. Great moral
principles, pure and generous sentiments, cannot be confined to this or
that spot. They cannot be shut out by territorial lines, or local
legislation. They are divine inspirations, and partake of the
omnipresence of their Author. The deliberate, solemn conviction of good
men through the world, that slavery is a grievous wrong to human nature,
will make itself felt. To increase this moral power is every man's duty.
To embody and express this great truth is in every man's power; and thus
every man can do something to break the chain of the slave.
There are not a few persons, who, from vulgar modes of thinking, cannot
be interested in this subject. Because the slave is a degraded being,
they think slavery a low topic, and wonder how it can excite the
attention and sympathy of those who can discuss or feel for any thing
else. Now the truth is, that slavery, regarded only in a philosophical
light, is a theme worthy of the highest minds. It involves the gravest
questions about human nature and society. It carries us into the
problems which have exercised for ages the highest understandings. It
calls us to inquire into the foundation, nature, and extent of human
rights, into the distinction between a person and a thing, into the true
relations of man and man, into the obligations of the community to each
of its members, into the ground and laws of property, and above all into
the true dignity and indestructible claims of a moral being. I venture
to say, there is no subject, now agitated by the community, which can
compare in philosophical dignity with slavery; and yet to multitudes the
question falls under the same contempt with the slave himself. To many,
a writer seems to lower himself who touches it. The falsely refined, who
want intellectual force to grasp it, pronounce it unworthy of their
notice.
But this subject has more than philosophical dignity. It has an
important bearing on character. Our interest in it is one test by which
our comprehension of the distinctive spirit of Christianity must be
judged. Christianity is the manifestation and inculcation of Universal
Love. The great teaching of Christianity is, that we must recognise and
respect human nature in all its forms, in the poorest, most ignorant,
most fallen. We must look beneath "the flesh," to "the spirit." The
Spiritual principle in man is what entitles him to our brotherly regard.
To be just to this is the great injunction of our religion. To overlook
this, on account of condition or color, is to violate the great
Christian law. We have reason to think that it is one design of God, in
appointing the vast diversities of human condition, to put to the test
and to bring out most distinctly the principle of love. It is wisely
ordered, that human nature is not set before us in a few forms of
beauty, magnificence, and outward glory. To be dazzled and attracted by
these would be no sign of reverence for what is interior and spiritual
in human nature. To lead us to discern and love this, we are brought
into connexion with fellow-creatures, whose outward circumstances are
repulsive. To recognise our own spiritual nature and God's image in
these humble forms, to recognise as brethren those who want all outward
distinctions, is the chief way in which we are to manifest the spirit of
Him, who came to raise the fallen and to save the lost. We see, then,
the moral importance of the question of slavery; according to our
decision of it, we determine our comprehension of the Christian law. He
who cannot see a brother, a child of God, a man possessing all the
rights of humanity under a skin darker than his own, wants the vision
of a Christian. He worships the Outward. The Spirit is not yet revealed
to him. To look unmoved on the degradation and wrongs of a
fellow-creature, because burned by a fiercer sun, proves us strangers to
justice and love, in those universal forms which characterize
Christianity. The greatest of all distinctions, the only enduring one,
is moral goodness, virtue, religion. Outward distinctions cannot add to
the dignity of this. The wealth of worlds is "not sufficient for a
burnt-offering" on its altar. A being capable of this is invested by God
with solemn claims on his fellow-creatures. To exclude millions of such
beings from our sympathy, because of outward disadvantages, proves,
that, in whatever else we surpass them, we are not their superiors in
Christian virtue.
The spirit of Christianity, I have said, is distinguished by
Universality. It is universal justice. It respects all the rights of all
beings. It suffers no being, however obscure, to be wronged, without
condemning the wrong doer. Impartial, uncompromising, fearless, it
screens no favorites, is dazzled by no power, spreads its shield over
the weakest, summons the mightiest to its bar, and speaks to the
conscience in tones, under which the mightiest have quailed. It is also
universal love, comprehending those that are near and those that are far
off, the high and the low, the rich and poor, descending to the fallen,
and especially binding itself to those in whom human nature is trampled
under foot. Such is the spirit of Christianity; and nothing but the
illumination of this spirit can prepare us to pass judgment on slavery.
These remarks are intended to show the spirit in which slavery ought to
be approached, and the point of view from which it will be regarded in
the present discussion. My plan may be briefly sketched.
1. I shall show that man cannot be justly held and used as Property.
2. I shall show that man has sacred and infallible rights, of which
slavery is the infraction.
3. I shall offer some explanations to prevent misapplication of these
principles.
4. I shall unfold the evils of slavery.
5. I shall consider the argument which the Scriptures are thought to
furnish in favor of slavery.
6. I shall offer some remarks on the means of removing it.
7. I shall offer some remarks on abolitionism.
8. I shall conclude with a few reflections on the duties belonging to
the times.
In the first two sections I propose to show that slavery is a great
wrong, but I do not intend to pass sentence on the character of the
slave-holder. These two subjects are distinct. Men are not always to be
interpreted by their acts or institutions. The same acts in different
circumstances admit and even require very different constructions. I
offer this remark, that the subject may be approached without prejudice
or personal reference. The single object is to settle great principles.
Their bearing on individuals will be a subject of distinct
consideration.
CHAPTER I.
PROPERTY.
The slave-holder claims the slave as his Property. The very idea of a
slave is, that he belongs to another, that he is bound to live and labor
for another, to be another's instrument, and to make another's will his
habitual law, however adverse to his own. Another owns him, and of
course has a right to his time and strength, a right to the fruits of
his labor, a right to task him without his consent, and to determine the
kind and duration of his toil, a right to confine him to any bounds, a
right to extort the required work by stripes, a right, in a word, to use
him as a tool, without contract, against his will, and in denial of his
right to dispose of himself or to use his power for his own good. "A
slave," says the Louisiana Code, "is in the power of the master to whom
he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his
industry, his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any
thing, but which must belong to his master." "Slaves shall be deemed,
taken, reputed, and adjudged," say the South Carolina laws, "to be
chattels personal in the hands of their masters, and possessions to all
intents and purposes whatsoever." Such is slavery, a claim to man as
property.
Now this claim of property in a human being is altogether false,
groundless. No such right of man in man can exist. A human being cannot
be justly owned. To hold and treat him as property is to inflict a great
wrong, to incur the guilt of oppression.
This position there is a difficulty in maintaining on account of its
exceeding obviousness. It is too plain for proof. To defend it is like
trying to confirm a self-evident truth. To find arguments is not easy,
because an argument is something clearer than the proposition to be
sustained. The man, who, on hearing the claim to property in man, does
not see and feel distinctly that it is a cruel usurpation, is hardly to
be reached by reasoning, for it is hard to find any plainer principles
than what he begins with denying. I will endeavour, however, to
illustrate the truth which I have stated.
1. It is plain, that, if one man may be held as property, then every
other man may be so held. If there be nothing in human nature, in our
common nature, which excludes and forbids the conversion of him who
possesses it into an article of property; if the right of the free to
liberty is founded, not on their essential attributes as rational and
moral beings, but on certain adventitious, accidental circumstances,
into which they have been thrown; then every human being, by a change of
circumstances, may justly be held and treated by another as property. If
one man may be rightfully reduced to slavery, then there is not a human
being on whom the same chain may not be imposed. Now let every reader
ask himself this plain question: Could I, can I, be rightfully seized,
and made an article of property; be made a passive instrument of
another's will and pleasure; be subjected to another's irresponsible
power; be subjected to stripes at another's will; be denied the control
and use of my own limbs and faculties for my own good? Does any man, so
questioned, doubt, waver, look about him for an answer? Is not the reply
given immediately, intuitively, by his whole inward being? Does not an
unhesitating, unerring conviction spring up in my breast, that no other
man can acquire such a right in myself? Do we not repel indignantly and
with horror the thought of being reduced to the condition of tools and
chattels to a fellow-creature? Is there any moral truth more deeply
rooted in us, than that such a degradation would be an infinite wrong?
And if this impression be a delusion, on what single moral conviction
can we rely? This deep assurance, that we cannot be rightfully made
another's property, does not rest on the hue of our skins, or the place
of our birth, or our strength, or wealth. These things do not enter our
thoughts. The consciousness of indestructible rights is a part of our
moral being. The consciousness of our humanity involves the persuasion,
that we cannot be owned as a tree or a brute. As men we cannot justly be
made slaves. Then no man can be rightfully enslaved. In casting the yoke
from ourselves as an unspeakable wrong, we condemn ourselves as wrong
doers and oppressors in laying it on any who share our nature. It is not
necessary to inquire whether a man, by extreme guilt, may not forfeit
the right of his nature, and be justly punished with slavery. On this
point crude notions prevail. But the discussion would be foreign to the
present subject. We are now not speaking of criminals. We speak of
innocent men, who have given us no hold on them by guilt; and our own
consciousness is a proof, that such cannot rightfully be seized as
property by a fellow-creature.
2. A man cannot be seized and held as property, because he has Rights.
What these rights are, whether few or many, or whether all men have the
same, are questions for future discussion. All that is assumed now is,
that every human being has _some_ rights. This truth cannot be denied,
but by denying to a portion of the race that moral nature which is the
sure and only foundation of rights. This truth has never, I believe,
been disputed. It is even recognised in the very codes of
slave-legislation, which, while they strip a man of liberty, affirm his
right to life, and threaten his murderer with punishment. Now, I say a
being having rights cannot justly be made property; for this claim over
him virtually annuls all his rights. It strips him of all power to
assert them. It makes it a crime to assert them. The very essence of
slavery is, to put a man defenceless into the hands of another. The
right claimed by the master, to task, to force, to imprison, to whip,
and to punish the slave, at discretion, and especially to prevent the
least resistance to his will, is a virtual denial and subversion of all
the rights of the victim of his power. The two cannot stand together.
Can we doubt which of them ought to fall?
3. Another argument against property is to be found in the Essential
Equality of men. I know that this doctrine, so venerable in the eyes of
our fathers, has lately been denied. Verbal logicians have told us that
men are "born equal," only in the sense of being equally born. They have
asked whether all are equally tall, strong, or beautiful; or whether
nature, Procrustes-like, reduces all her children to one standard of
intellect and virtue. By such arguments it is attempted to set aside the
principle of equality, on which the soundest moralists have reared the
structure of social duty; and in these ways the old foundations of
despotic power, which our fathers in their simplicity thought they had
subverted, are laid again by their sons.
It is freely granted, that there are innumerable diversities among men;
but be it remembered, they are ordained to bind men together, and not to
subdue one to the other; ordained to give means and occasions of mutual
aid, and to carry forward each and all, so that the good of all is
equally intended in this distribution of various gifts. Be it also
remembered, that these diversities among men are as nothing in
comparison with the attributes in which they agree, and it is this which
constitutes their essential equality. All men have the same rational
nature, and the same power of conscience, and all are equally made for
indefinite improvement of these divine faculties, and for the happiness
to be found in their virtuous use. Who, that comprehends these gifts,
does not see that the diversities of the race vanish before them? Let it
be added, that the natural advantages, which distinguish one man from
another, are so bestowed as to counterbalance one another, and bestowed
without regard to rank or condition in life. Whoever surpasses in one
endowment is inferior in others. Even genius, the greatest gift, is
found in union with strange infirmities, and often places its possessors
below ordinary men in the conduct of life. Great learning is often put
to shame by the mother-wit and keen good sense of uneducated men.
Nature, indeed, pays no heed to birth or condition in bestowing her
favors. The noblest spirits sometimes grow up in the obscurest spheres.
Thus equal are men; and among these equals, who can substantiate his
claim to make others his property, his tools, the mere instruments of
his private interest and gratification? Let this claim begin, and where
will it stop? If one may assert it, why not all? Among these partakers
of the same rational and moral nature, who can make good a right over
others, which others may not establish over himself? Does he insist on
superior strength of body or mind? Who of us has no superior in one or
the other of these endowments: Is it sure that the slave or the slave's
child may not surpass his master in intellectual energy or in moral
worth? Has nature conferred distinctions which tell us plainly, who
shall be owner? and who be owned? Who of us can unblushingly lift his
head and say that God has written "Master" there? or who can show the
word "Slave" engraven on his brother's brow? The equality of nature
makes slavery a wrong, Nature's seal is affixed to no instrument, by
which property in a single human being is conveyed.
4. That a human being cannot be justly held and used as property is
apparent from the very nature of property. Property is an exclusive,
single right. It shuts out all claim but that of the possessor, What one
man owns cannot belong to another. What, then, is the consequence of
holding a human being as property? Plainly this. He can have no right to
himself. His limbs are, in truth, not morally his own. He has not a
right to his own strength. It belongs to another. His will, intellect,
and muscles, all the powers of body and mind which are exercised in
labor, he is bound to regard as another's. Now, if there be property in
any thing, it is that of a man in his own person, mind, and strength.
All other rights are weak, unmeaning, compared with this, and in denying
this all right is denied. It is true that an individual may forfeit by
crime his right to the use of his limbs, perhaps to his limbs, and even
to life. But the very idea of forfeiture implies that the right was
originally possessed. It is true that a man may by contract give to
another a limited right to his strength. But he gives only because he
possesses it, and gives it for considerations which he deems beneficial
to himself; and the right conferred ceases at once on violation of the
conditions on which it was bestowed. To deny the right of a human being
to himself, to his own limbs and faculties, to his energy of body and
mind, is an absurdity too gross to be confuted by any thing but a simple
statement. Yet this absurdity is involved in the idea of his belonging
to another.
5. We have a plain recognition of the principle now laid down, in the
universal indignation excited towards a man who makes another his slave.
Our laws know no higher crime than that of reducing a man to slavery. To
steal or to buy an African on his own shores is piracy. In this act the
greatest wrong is inflicted, the most sacred right violated. But if a
human being cannot without infinite injustice be seized as property,
then he cannot without equal wrong be held and used as such. The wrong
in the first seizure lies in the destination of a human being to future
bondage, to the criminal use of him as a chattel or brute. Can that very
use, which makes the original seizure an enormous wrong, become
gradually innocent? If the slave receive injury without measure at the
first moment of the outrage, is he less injured by being held fast the
second or the third? Does the duration of wrong, the increase of it by
continuance, convert it into right? It is true, in many cases, that
length of possession is considered as giving a right, where the goods
were acquired by unlawful means. But in these cases the goods were such
as might justly be appropriated to individual use. They were intended by
the Creator to be owned. They fulfil their purpose by passing into the
hands of an exclusive possessor. It is essential to rightful property in
a thing, that the thing from its nature may be rightfully appropriated.
If it cannot originally be made one's own without crime, it certainly
cannot be continued as such without guilt. Now, the ground, on which the
seizure of the African on his own shore is condemned, is, that he is a
Man, who has by his nature a right to be free. Ought not, then, the same
condemnation to light on the continuance of his yoke? Still more. Whence
is it that length of possession is considered by the laws as conferring
a right? I answer, from the difficulty of determining the original
proprietor, and from the apprehension of unsettling all property by
carrying back inquiry beyond a certain time. Suppose, however, an
article of property to be of such a nature that it could bear the name
of the true original owner, stamped on it in bright and indelible
characters. In this case, the whole ground, on which length of
possession bars other claims, would fail. The proprietor would not be
concealed or rendered doubtful by the lapse of time. Would not he, who
should receive such an article from a robber or a succession of robbers,
be involved in their guilt? Now, the true owner of a human being is made
manifest to all. It is Himself. No brand on the slave was ever so
conspicuous as the mark of property which God has set on him. God, in
making him a rational and moral being, has put a glorious stamp on him,
which all the slave-legislation and slave-markets of worlds cannot
efface. Hence no right accrues to the master from the length of the
wrong which has been done to the slave.
6. Another argument against the right of property in man may be drawn
from a very obvious principle of moral science. It is a plain truth,
universally received, that every right supposes or involves a
corresponding Obligation. If, then, a man has a right to another's
person or powers, the latter is under obligation to give himself up as a
chattel to the former. This is his Duty. He is bound to be a slave; and
bound not merely by the Christian law which enjoins submission to
injury, not merely by prudential considerations, or by the claims of
public order and peace; but bound because another has a right of
Ownership, has a Moral claim to him, so that he would be guilty of
dishonesty, of robbery, in withdrawing himself from this other's
service. It is his Duty to work for his master, though all compulsion
were withdrawn; and in deserting him he would commit the crime of taking
away another man's property, as truly as if he were to carry off his
owner's purse. Now, do we not instantly feel, can we help feeling, that
this is false? Is the slave thus morally bound? When the African was
first brought to these shores, would he have violated a solemn
obligation, by slipping his chain, and flying back to his native home?
Would he not have been bound to seize the precious opportunity of
escape? Is the slave under a moral obligation to confine himself, his
wife, and children, to a spot where their union in a moment may be
forcibly dissolved? Ought he not, if he can, to place himself and his
family under the guardianship of equal laws? Should we blame him for
leaving his yoke? Do we not feel, that, in the same condition, a sense
of duty would quicken our flying steps? Where, then, is the obligation
which would necessarily be imposed, if the right existed which the
master claims? The absence of obligation proves the want of the right.
The claim is groundless. It is a cruel wrong.
7. I come now to what is to my own mind the great argument against
seizing and using a man as property. He cannot be property in the sight
of God and justice, because he is a Rational, Moral, Immortal Being;
because created in God's image, and therefore in the highest sense his
child; because created to unfold Godlike faculties, and to govern
himself by a Divine Law written on his heart, and republished in God's
Word. His whole nature forbids that he should be seized as property.
From his very nature it follows, that so to seize him is to offer an
insult to his Maker, and to inflict aggravated social wrong. Into every
human being God has breathed an immortal spirit more precious than the
whole outward creation. No earthly or celestial language can exaggerate
the worth of a human being. No matter how obscure his condition.
Thought, Reason, Conscience, the capacity of Virtue, the capacity of
Christian Love, an Immortal Destiny, an intimate moral connexion with
God,--here are attributes of our common humanity which reduce to
insignificance all outward distinctions, and make every human being
unspeakably dear to his Maker. No matter how ignorant he may be. The
capacity of Improvement allies him to the more instructed of his race,
and places within his reach the knowledge and happiness of higher
worlds. Every human being has in him the germ of the greatest Idea in
the universe, the Idea of God; and to unfold this is the end of his
existence. Every human being has in his breast the elements of that
Divine, Everlasting Law, which the highest orders of the creation obey.
He has the Idea of Duty; and to unfold, revere, obey this is the very
purpose for which life was given. Every human being has the Idea of what
is meant by that word, Truth; that is, he sees, however dimly, the great
object of Divine and created intelligence, and is capable of
ever-enlarging perceptions of Truth. Every human being has affections,
which may be purified and expanded into a Sublime Love. He has, too, the
Idea of Happiness, and a thirst for it which cannot be appeased. Such is
our nature. Wherever we see a man, we see the possessor of these great
capacities. Did God make such a being to be owned as a tree or a brute?
How plainly was he made to exercise, unfold, improve his highest powers,
made for a moral, spiritual good! and how is he wronged, and his Creator
opposed, when he is forced and broken into a tool to another's physical
enjoyment!
Such a being was plainly made for an End in Himself. He is a Person, not
a Thing. He is an End, not a mere Instrument or Means. He was made for
his own virtue and happiness. Is this end reconcilable with his being
held and used as a chattel? The sacrifice of such a being to another's
will, to another's present, outward, ill-comprehended good, is the
greatest violence which can be offered to any creature of God. It is to
degrade him from his rank in the universe, to make him a means, not an
end, to cast him out from God's spiritual family into the brutal herd.
Such a being was plainly made to obey a Law within Himself. This is the
essence of a moral being. He possesses, as a part of his nature, and the
most essential part, a sense of Duty, which he is to reverence and
follow, in opposition to all pleasure or pain, to all interfering human
wills. The great purpose of all good education and discipline is, to
make a man Master of Himself, to excite him to act from a principle in
his own mind, to lead him to propose his own perfection as his supreme
law and end. And is this highest purpose of man's nature to be
reconciled with entire subjection to a foreign will, to an outward,
overwhelming force, which is satisfied with nothing but complete
submission?
The end of such a being as we have described is manifestly Improvement.
Now, it is the fundamental law of our nature, that all our powers are to
improve by free exertion. Action is the indispensable condition of
progress to the intellect, conscience, and heart. Is it not plain, then,
that a human being cannot, without wrong, be owned by another, who
claims, as proprietor, the right to repress the powers of his slaves, to
withhold from them the means of development, to keep them within the
limits which are necessary to contentment in chains, to shut out every
ray of light and every generous sentiment, which may interfere with
entire subjection to his will?
No man, who seriously considers what human nature is, and what it was
made for, can think of setting up a claim to a fellow-creature. What!
own a spiritual being, a being made to know and adore God, and who is to
outlive the sun and stars! What! chain to our lowest uses a being made
for truth and virtue! Convert into a brute instrument that intelligent
nature on which the Idea of Duty has dawned, and which is a nobler type
of God than all outward creation! Should we not deem it a wrong which no
punishment could expiate, were one of our children seized as property,
and driven by the whip to toil? And shall God's child, dearer to him
than an only son to a human parent, be thus degraded? Every thing else
may be owned in the universe; but a moral, rational being cannot be
property. Suns and stars may be owned, but not the lowest spirit. Touch
any thing but this. Lay not your hand on God's rational offspring. The
whole spiritual world cries out, Forbear! The highest intelligences
recognise their own nature, their own rights, in the humblest human
being. By that priceless, immortal spirit which dwells in him, by that
likeness of God which he wears, tread him not in the dust, confound him
not with the brute.
We have thus seen that a human being cannot rightfully be held and used
as property. No legislation, not that of all countries or worlds, could
make him so. Let this be laid down, as a first, fundamental truth. Let
us hold it fast, as a most sacred, precious truth. Let us hold it fast
against all customs, all laws, all rank, wealth, and power. Let it be
armed with the whole authority of the civilized and Christian world.
I have taken it for granted that no reader would be so wanting in moral
discrimination and moral feeling, as to urge that men may rightfully be
seized and held as property, because various governments have so
ordained. What! is human legislation the measure of right? Are God's
laws to be repealed by man's? Can government do no wrong? What is the
history of human governments but a record of wrongs? How much does the
progress of civilization consist in the substitution of just and humane,
for barbarous and oppressive laws? Government, indeed, has ordained
slavery, and to government the individual is in no case to offer
resistance. But criminal legislation ought to be freely and earnestly
exposed. Injustice is never so terrible, and never so corrupting, as
when armed with the sanctions of law. The authority of government,
instead of being a reason for silence under wrongs, is a reason for
protesting against wrong with the undivided energy of argument,
entreaty, and solemn admonition.