SCRIPTURE.
Attempts are often made to support slavery by the authority of
Revelation. "Slavery," it is said, "is allowed in the Old Testament, and
not condemned in the New. Paul commands slaves to obey. He commands
masters, not to release their slaves, but to treat them justly.
Therefore slavery is right, is sanctified by God's Word." In this age of
the world, and amidst the light which has been thrown on the true
interpretation of the Scriptures, such reasoning hardly deserves notice.
A few words only will be offered in reply.
This reasoning proves too much. If usages sanctioned in the Old
Testament and not forbidden in the New are right, then our moral code
will undergo a sad deterioration. Polygamy was allowed to the
Israelites, was the practice of the holiest men, and was common and
licensed in the age of the Apostles. But the Apostles no where condemn
it, nor was the renunciation of it made an essential condition of
admission into the Christian church. It is true that in one passage
Christ has condemned it by implication. But is not slavery condemned by
stronger implication in the many passages, which make the new religion
to consist in serving one another, and in doing to others what we would
that they should do to ourselves? Why may not Scripture be used to stock
our houses with wives as well as with slaves?
Again. Paul is said to sanction slavery. Let us now ask. What was
slavery in the age of Paul? It was the slavery, not so much of black as
of white men, not merely of barbarians but of Greeks, not merely of the
ignorant and debased, but of the virtuous, educated, and refined. Piracy
and conquest were the chief means of supplying the slave-market, and
they heeded neither character nor condition. Sometimes the greater part
of the population of a captured city was sold into bondage, sometimes
the whole, as in the case of Jerusalem. Noble and royal families, the
rich and great, the learned and powerful, the philosopher and poet, the
wisest and best men, were condemned to the chain. Such was ancient
slavery. And this we are told is allowed and confirmed by the Word of
God! Had Napoleon, on capturing Berlin or Vienna, doomed most or the
whole of their inhabitants to bondage; had he seized on venerable
matrons, the mothers of illustrious men, who were reposing after
virtuous lives in the bosom of grateful families; had he seized on the
delicate, refined, beautiful young woman, whose education had prepared
her to grace the sphere in which God had placed her, whose plighted love
had opened before her visions of bliss, and over all whose prospects the
freshest hopes and most glowing imaginations of early life were
breathed; had he seized on the minister of religion, the man of science,
the man of genius, the sage, the guides of the world; had he scattered
these through the slave-markets of the world, and transferred them to
the highest bidders at public auction, the men to be converted into
instruments of slavish toil, the women into instruments of lust, and
both to endure whatever indignities and tortures absolute power can
inflict; we should then have had a picture in the present age of slavery
as it existed in the time of Paul. Such slavery we are told was
sanctioned by the Apostle! Such we are told he pronounced to be morally
right! Had Napoleon sent some cargoes of these victims to these shores,
we might have bought them, and degraded the noblest beings to our lowest
uses, and might have cited Paul to testify to our innocence! Were an
infidel to bring this charge against the Apostle, we should say that he
was laboring in his vocation; but that a professed Christian should so
insult this sainted philanthropist, this martyr to truth and
benevolence, is a sad proof of the power of slavery to blind its
supporters to the plainest truth.
Slavery, in the age of the Apostle, had so penetrated society, was so
intimately interwoven with it, and the materials of servile war were so
abundant, that a religion, preaching freedom to its victims, would have
shaken the social fabric to its foundation, and would have armed against
itself the whole power of the State. Of consequence Paul did not assail
it. He satisfied himself with spreading principles, which, however
slowly, could not but work its destruction. He commanded Philemon to
receive his fugitive slave, Onesimus, "not as a slave, but above a
slave, as a brother beloved;" and he commanded masters to give to their
slaves that which was "_just_ and _equal_;" thus asserting for the slave
the rights of a Christian and a Man; and how, in his circumstances, he
could have done more for the subversion of slavery, I do not see.
Let me offer another remark. The perversion of Scripture to the support
of slavery is singularly inexcusable in this country. Paul not only
commanded slaves to obey their masters. He delivered these precepts:
"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." This passage was
written in the time of Nero. It teaches passive obedience to despotism
more strongly than any text teaches the lawfulness of slavery.
Accordingly, it has been quoted for ages by the supporters of arbitrary
power, and made the stronghold of tyranny. Did our fathers acquiesce in
the most obvious interpretation of this text? Because the first
Christians were taught to obey despotic rule, did our fathers feel as if
Christianity had stript men of their rights? Did they argue that tyranny
was to be excused, because forcible opposition to it is in most cases
wrong? Did they argue that absolute power ceases to be unjust, because,
as a general rule, it is the duty of subjects to obey? Did they infer
that bad institutions ought to be perpetual, because the subversion of
them by force will almost always inflict greater evil than it removes?
No; they were wiser interpreters of God's Word. They believed that
despotism was a wrong, notwithstanding the general obligation upon its
subjects to obey; and that whenever a whole people should so feel the
wrong as to demand its removal, the time for removing it had fully come.
Such is the school in which we here have been brought up. To us, it is
no mean proof of the divine original of Christianity, that it teaches
human brotherhood and favors human rights; and yet, on the ground of two
or three passages, which admit different constructions, we make
Christianity the minister of slavery, the forger of chains for those
whom it came to make free.
It is a plain rule of scriptural criticism, that particular texts
should be interpreted according to the general tenor and spirit of
Christianity. And what is the general, the perpetual teaching of
Christianity in regard to social duty? "All things whatsoever ye would
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law
and the prophets." Now does not every man feel that nothing, nothing,
could induce him to consent to be a slave? Does he not feel, that, if
reduced to this abject lot, his whole nature, his reason, conscience,
affections, would cry out against it as the greatest of calamities and
wrongs? Can he pretend, then, that in holding others in bondage he does
to his neighbour what he would that his neighbour should do to him? Of
what avail are a few texts, which were designed for local and temporary
use, when urged against the vital, essential spirit, and the plainest
precepts of our religion?
I close this section with a few extracts from a recent work of one of
our most distinguished writers; not that I think additional arguments
necessary, but because the authority of Scripture is more successfully
used than any thing else to reconcile good minds to slavery.
"The very course, which the Gospel takes on this subject, seems to have
been the only one that could have been taken in order to effect the
universal abolition of slavery. The gospel was designed, not for one
race or for one time, but for all men and for all times. It looked not
at the abolition of this form of evil for that age alone, but for its
universal abolition. Hence the important object of its author was to
gain it a lodgment in every part of the known world; so that, by its
universal diffusion among all classes of society, it might quietly and
peacefully modify and subdue the evil passions of men; and thus, without
violence work a revolution in the whole mass of mankind. In this manner
alone could its object, a universal moral revolution, have been
accomplished. For if it had forbidden the _evil_ instead of subverting
the _principle_, if it had proclaimed the unlawfulness of slavery, and
taught slaves to _resist_ the oppression of their masters, it would
instantly have arrayed the two parties in deadly hostility throughout
the civilized world; its announcement would have been the signal of
servile war; and the very name of the Christian religion would have been
forgotten amidst the agitations of universal bloodshed. The fact, under
these circumstances, that the Gospel does not forbid slavery, affords no
reason to suppose that it does not mean to prohibit it; much less does
it afford ground for belief that Jesus Christ intended to authorize it."
"It is important to remember that two grounds of moral obligation are
distinctly recognised in the Gospel. The first is our duty to man as
man; that is, on the ground of the relation which men sustain to each
other; the second is our duty to man as a creature of God; that is, on
the relation which we all sustain to God.--Now, it is to be observed,
that it is precisely upon this latter ground that the slave is commanded
to obey his master. It is never urged like the duty to obedience to
parents, because it is right, but because the cultivation of meekness
and forbearance under injury will be well pleasing unto God.--The manner
in which the duty of servants or slaves is inculcated, therefore,
affords no ground for the assertion that the Gospel authorizes one man
to hold another in bondage, any more than the command to honor the king,
when that king was Nero, authorized the tyranny of the emperor; or than
the command to turn the other cheek, when one is smitten, justifies the
infliction of violence by an injurious man."[1]
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Wayland's Elements of Moral Science, pages 225-6. The
discussion of Slavery, in the chapter from which these extracts are
made, is well worthy attention.