extension of slavery beyond its present limits. I say nothing here of
the political question of State rights, or of interfering with slavery
in States where it now exists. The question of authorizing by law the
extension of slavery into new States and Territories, or of admitting
new States with pro-slavery constitutions, is another and very different
thing from that of disturbing the compact in relation to slavery entered
into by the founders of this republic. The concessions in relation to
the slave interest which our fathers made by no means oblige us to make
further concessions, by consenting that slavery shall overstep her
present geographical limits. I know not what others may think; but, for
one, I feel constrained, by a sense of duty to God and my country, so to
vote as to have my votes tell against the spread of slavery. I must
carry my Christian principles of love and humanity to the ballot-box, as
well as elsewhere. Though long identified with one of the political
parties, I have of late felt myself bound, as a voter, to ignore the
ancient party lines, and even to ignore all other questions, compared
with the one great and absorbing one, Shall slavery be allowed to have
more territory, in which to breed and expand itself? In my deliberate
judgment, all Christian patriots should, so far as their votes can
speak, say to the system of bondage existing in our midst, "Hitherto
shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be
stayed." This becomes now a moral and a religious duty.
3. In our visits to the throne of grace, we ought, with more frequency
and fervor, "to remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them."
Assured that all hearts and events are at God's disposal, that he abhors
oppression, and that prayer is the Christian's mode of taking hold of
God's strength, we must make full proof of this as a weapon with which
to effect the subversion of slavery. It may be that importunate,
persevering prayer will effect more in behalf of the enslaved than all
other instrumentalities. It is, at least, quite certain that other means
will prove inefficacious, if this be not superadded.
But the question we are considering has a negative as well as positive
side; and we will next inquire, what we anti-slavery Christians ought to
refrain from doing.
1. We must not, in our efforts to subvert slavery, indulge in an
unchristian spirit, or in language adapted needlessly to anger and
alienate those whom it should be our aim to win. A cause that is
intrinsically good may be advocated in a bad spirit, or with improper
weapons; and such may have sometimes been the case with ours. Would that
all men had ever borne it in mind, that truth and love are the only
weapons with which to wage a successful conflict with this or any other
deep-seated moral evil.
2. We must not, in our zeal for emancipation, allow mere feeling or
benevolent impulses partially to dethrone reason; and thus disqualify
ourselves for taking impartial views of the subject, or for accurately
discriminating between truth and error. There may have been men in the
anti-slavery ranks, with whom sympathy was every thing, and reason--and
even the Bible--comparatively nothing. In obeying the injunction to
"remember them that are in bonds," they may have neglected to remember
any thing else. Slavery seemed to occupy their entire field of vision.
Hence, not fully informed in regard to the actual condition of things at
the South, they have erroneously supposed that the slave codes
prevailing there were the standard by which to judge of the actual
condition of the slaves, and that all the Southern church was actually
practising the barbarities authorized by those codes. As there was no
just appreciation of the actual conduct of masters towards their
servants, so there was no allowance made for the circumstances which
conspired to render them masters, nor for the obstacles which stand in
the way of their ceasing to be masters. It must be admitted, that
generally, where unrighteous laws are suffered to exist, the mass of the
community will not be better than the laws; but there are
exceptions,--men who intend to give heed to a higher law. So much for
allowing an amiable but blind sympathy to usurp that throne which reason
and revelation were designed conjointly to occupy. It scarcely need be
added, that these ultraisms have done much to prejudice the anti-slavery
cause, and bring it, in the eyes of some, into unmerited contempt. We
must wipe away that reproach, by so conducting our warfare with slavery
as to evince that we are neither men of one idea, nor men whose judgment
is led captive by their sensibilities.
3. We must not, in opposing slavery, indorse the sentiment, that one
cannot in any conceivable circumstances give credible evidence of piety,
and yet continue in form to hold slaves; that being a master is,
in any and in all circumstances, a disciplinable offence in the
church; or that it should, without exception, constitute a barrier to
church-membership, or to the communion of saints at Christ's sacramental
board. While we believe that all the great principles of God's Word go
to subvert slavery, and while we are constrained to regard the holding
of slaves as diminishing the evidence of a man's piety, and thus far
alienating his claims to a good standing in the Christian church, we may
nevertheless make exceptions, and not keep a man out of the church, or
discipline him when in it, merely because he sustains temporarily the
relation of master, not for selfish ends, but, as in rare cases, for
benevolent reasons. But if a man defends the system, and takes away from
a fellow man inalienable human rights, then we may and should refuse him
admission, or subject him to discipline, as the case may be. But,
obvious and important as is this distinction, it is one which some
anti-slavery men may have failed to make; and that failure may have
prejudiced or retarded the cause of emancipation. A good cause suffers
by having a single uncandid statement or untenable argument advanced in
its support; and the friends of the enslaved must afford their opponents
no room for saying, that their reasonings are illogical or
anti-scriptural.
4. We must not, in seeking the extinction of American slavery, so
insist on its immediate abolition as to repudiate the responsibility
which a master owes to this dependent and depressed class of his fellow
beings; but that that end be kept steadily in view, to be accomplished
as speedily as is consistent with the best good of the parties
concerned. The immediate and total extinction of southern slavery, if
not obviously impossible, is of questionable expediency. The upas of
American slavery has struck its roots so deep, and shot its branches so
far, and so interlaced itself with all surrounding objects, that, to
have it instantaneously and unreservedly uprooted, might prove, in many
cases, disastrous; and, at all events, is not to be expected. To say
nothing of other obstacles to the immediate abolition of Southern
slavery, the highest good of many of the slaves makes it inexpedient.
Some, probably many of them, need to pass through an educating
process,--a kind of mental and moral apprenticeship,--in order to their
profiting largely by the boon of emancipation.[J]
II. We are now to inquire, lastly, what duties, positive and negative,
this great question devolves on those Christians among whom American
slavery has its seat, or who are personally identified with it. Hoping,
brethren, that the sentiments thus far advanced are your sentiments, I
shall have your further assent when I say,
1. That the extinction, at the earliest consistent date, of the system
of servitude existing among you, is a result at which you ought steadily
and strenuously to aim. And, as you see, we base this obligation of
yours, not on the assumption of any sinfulness which you may sustain to
slavery, but on the acknowledged injustice and woes, past, present, and
prospective, of the system as a system,--its contrariety, as a system,
to the fundamental principles of Christianity. Did we regard you as
necessarily sinners, if in any sense you hold slaves, then the least we
could ask of you would be, that with contrition of heart you should
instantaneously cease to indulge in this sin, for all sin should be
immediately abandoned. As it is, we only ask, that, just as fast as your
slaves can be prepared for freedom, and as the providence of God may put
it in your power to liberate them, you will do so. We are not so unwise
as to expect that the work of extinction can be accomplished in a day.
We know, too, that you are not, in your church capacity, the constituted
arbiters of the question as a question of State policy. And, so long as
your legislatures and their constituencies are resolved on maintaining
the system, perhaps you will be unable to effect as much as you desire
in the way of promoting its overthrow. And yet, brethren, there is a way
in which we think you can, with entire safety and manifest propriety,
contribute largely and directly to the extinction of American slavery.
Would the entire Southern church cease all personal participation in
slavery, and throw her whole weight and influence into the scale of
slavery's complete subversion, that "consummation devoutly to be wished"
would soon ensue. Slave-holding, no longer practised or justified by the
church, but discountenanced, could not long retain its foothold in the
State. Now if this be so, our slaveholding brethren will confess that
they are imperiously bound, by motives of Christian duty, to liberate
their bondmen with all consistent speed. Meantime, and as one important
means of qualifying them for freedom, you ought,
2. To see to it that not only your own, but all the bondmen among
you,--your entire slave population,--are furnished with the Bible, and
qualified to read and comprehend it; and also with stated preaching.
They need a written and preached gospel, were it only to fit them to
exchange, with advantage, a state of vassalage for the dignity of
freemen; for all experience proves that the Bible and the pulpit are of
all instruments the best to qualify men safely to exercise the right of
self-government. But there is a servitude more dreadful by far than any
domestic bondage that men have ever groaned under; and your slaves need
the Bible, and the Bible preached, to prove God's instruments of
breaking the chains imposed by Satan, and making them Christ's freemen.
Before God and in prospect of eternity, the distinctions between the
master and his slave dwindle into insignificance. Having souls that are
alike impure and alike precious, alike remembered by a dying Saviour and
alike in need of the regenerating change, they stand alike in need of
God's Word, written and preached, as the Spirit's instrument in renewing
and sanctifying the soul. Hence the Bible and preaching are as much the
rightful inheritance of the slave as of the master. We rejoice that
these truths and the obligations resulting therefrom are, to some
extent, recognized by southern Christians; and that, in spite of certain
adverse statutes, so much is being done there for the spiritual
well-being of the slaves. Go on, brethren, in the good work of
evangelizing your slave population; in teaching them the art of reading
and the rudiments of knowledge; in putting the Bible into their hands,
and affording them stated opportunities to read it, and to hear it
expounded by you and by Christ's ministers. Go on, we say, till there be
not one southern slave, who, in point of religious privileges, is not on
a footing of equality with yourselves. Prosecuting this laudable work in
the spirit of love, you will probably encounter no serious opposition.
The adverse but dead statutes referred to will not, we hope, be
galvanized into life, in order to oppose you.
It only remains that we name a few things, which we trust our Southern
brethren will unite with us in saying that they should refrain from
doing. (1.) You ought not to, and we trust you will not, betray
impatience and irritation, whenever we of the North attempt to press the
claims of the enslaved on your attention. Your doing this,--as you
sometimes have,--seems to indicate, that, in your opinion, we Northern
Christians have no responsibility in regard to slavery and its evils;
and that when we discuss this theme we make ourselves "busybodies in
other men's matters." To the justness of this opinion we cannot
subscribe. While we disclaim all right or intention to break our compact
with you as States, we feel that American slavery is a question of too
great moment to ourselves and to unborn generations for us to have no
concern with or responsibility for; and as patriots, as philanthropists,
as Christians, we are constrained to do all that we rightfully may for
the downfall of this hoary system of wrong and woe. If any of you differ
with us in opinion on this theme, we trust you will allow us to discuss
it to our heart's content; and that you will listen to our reasonings
with Christian meekness and candor. Not to do so will be construed as an
evidence of intrinsic weakness in your cause. (2.) You will freely
admit, we presume, that certain practices are authorized by your slave
laws, in which you must not indulge even so long as by any necessity
you hold slaves. Your slave codes, for example, do not recognize the
sanctity of family ties and the domestic affections as existing among
slaves; but, as Christian masters, you must. You doubtless believe, as
do we, that the marriage relation, with all its rights and immunities,
was as much designed for the negro as for the white man; that he, as
truly as the other, is entitled to "cleave unto his wife," unexposed to
the danger of man's putting asunder what God hath so closely joined,
that "they are no more twain, but one flesh." You believe, too, that God
united husband and wife thus indissolubly, not simply that they might be
a help and solace to each other in the toilsome pilgrimage of life, but
that the children with which God should bless them might grow up under
their supervision, and by them be qualified for a career of usefulness
and honor. Thus you believe, and believing thus, you will not, we trust,
counteract God's benevolent designs, by countenancing, in your own
practice, the separation of husbands and wives, or of parents and their
offspring. We feel assured, that, whatever your laws may allow, or
non-professing masters around you may do, you will never ignore the
conjugal or parental rights of your servants, or indulge in any thing
adapted to mar their domestic enjoyment. Were you to do so, we confess
we could not extend to you "the right hand of fellowship" as brethren in
Christ. Were a church-member of ours to practise thus, we should regard
him as amenable to discipline. We should also regard it as disciplinable
for a master to overwork, or brutally chastise, or but half feed and
clothe his servants; or to hold slaves for mere purposes of gain, or to
traffic in them. None of these inhumanities could we reconcile with the
obligations of a Christian profession; and we confidently hope that in
these views you will heartily concur, and that with them your practice
will correspond.
Christian brethren of the North and the South! The question we have been
considering is one of vast moment. Upon the right disposition of it are
suspended, under God, interests of immeasurable value, and which stretch
far out into the unseen future of our country and the world. Coming ages
and unborn generations are to be affected; favorably or otherwise, by
the decision of this vexed question; and, brethren, unless I misjudge,
its right decision is, to a very great extent, lodged in our hands. As
decides the American church, so, methinks, will decide the American
people. And now,--may I confess it?--I have dared to hope that the
sentiments of this Essay are not only sound, but in unison with the
views of the great mass of American Christians. Are we not agreed in
this: that American slavery is a system of deep injustice and wrong, not
sanctioned by the Word or the providence of God; fraught with
incalculable mischief to the interests of both masters, and slaves, and
to the social and religious well-being of our whole country; a blot on
the escutcheon both of the nation and of the church; a weapon for
scepticism to wield, and an obstacle to the introduction of millennial
glory; and hence, a system which ought speedily to terminate, and which
all good men should unitedly oppose and seek to subvert? If we are thus
agreed, let us join hands as well as hearts, and, swerving neither to
the extreme of passive indifference on the one hand nor to that of
erratic fanaticism on the other, in the majesty of principle let us move
calmly onward, a phalanx of Christian philanthropists, attempting naught
but what they are assured God would have them attempt, and employing
only such means as are warranted by an enlightened conscience. Leaning
prayerfully on Him who hears the sighing of the oppressed, let us push
vigorously forward, and, though the year of jubilee has not yet fully
come, be assured it will come,--that proud day, when not only
"throughout all the land," but throughout the civilized world, liberty
shall be proclaimed "unto all the inhabitants thereof." Hasten its
advent, "O Thou that hearest prayer," and that "delightest in mercy!"
Amen and Amen.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] An extended passage containing the extract may be found conveniently
in Chambers' Cyclopædia of English Literature, vol. 2, p. 246.
[B] Genesis, 10th Chapter. Vide, Kitto's Cyclopædia, for views in this
connection.
[C] Col. 4:1; "Ye masters, give unto your servants that which is just
and equal." That is, act towards them on the principles of justice and
equity. Justice requires that all their rights, as men, as husbands, and
as parents, should be regarded. And these rights are not to be
determined by the civil law, but by the law of God.... But God concedes
nothing to the master beyond what the law of love allows. Paul requires
for servants not only what is strictly just, but [Greek: tên isotêta].
What is that? Literally, it is _equality_. This is not only its
signification, but its meaning. Servants are to be treated by their
masters on the principles of equality. Not that they are to be equal
with their masters in authority or station or circumstances; but that
they are to be treated as having, as men, as husbands, and as parents,
equal rights with their masters. It is just as great a sin to deprive a
servant of the just recompense for his labor, or to keep him in
ignorance, or to take from him his wife or child, as it is to act thus
towards a free man. This is the equality which the law of God demands,
and on this principle the final judgment is to be administered. Christ
will punish the master for defrauding the servant as severely as he will
punish the servant for robbing his master. The same penalty will be
inflicted for the violation of the conjugal or parental rights of the
one as of the other. For, as the apostle adds, there is no respect of
persons with him. At his bar the question will be, "What was done?" not
"Who did it?" Paul carries this so far as to apply the principle not
only to the acts, but to the temper of masters. They are not only to act
towards their servants on the principles of justice and equity, but are
to _avoid threatening_. This includes all manifestation of contempt and
ill temper, or undue severity. All this is enforced by the consideration
that masters have a Master in heaven, to whom they are responsible for
their treatment of their servants.... Believers will act in conformity
with the Gospel in this. And the result of such obedience, if it could
become general, would be, that first the evils of slavery, and then
slavery itself, would pass away naturally, and as healthfully as
children cease to be minors.
_Prof. Hodge's Commentary._
[D] See 2 Brevard's Digest, 229; Prince's Digest, 446.
[E] Civil Code, Art. 35.
[F] Job ch. 32, v. 17-20, Barnes's translation.
[G] It is sometimes said that the crime of adultery is neither
perpetrated nor encouraged by the breaking up of slave-families,
because, generally, the connections formed are not truly marriage, not
being solemnized according to forms of law, and hence the marriage
obligation _cannot_ be violated.
It may be replied, if this be so, it presents slavery in a worse light
still, for it encourages and perpetuates a state of universal
concubinage. But it is _not_ so. When a slave takes a companion, and
they consent and engage to live together as husband and wife until
death, and they thus declare their intentions before others, whether any
legal form is gone through or not, they are as truly "no more twain but
one flesh" as were Adam and Eve. It has been thus decided by our courts
in regard to white persons.
[H] Rev. R. I. Breckenridge, D. D.
[I] Mehemet Ali.
[J] The publishers understand the writer to mean, that the working of
them without wages,--the withholding that which is just and
equal,--should be immediately and universally abandoned, and that
emancipation should be granted as speedily as the slaves can be prepared
to use and enjoy their freedom. The right should be acknowledged, and
the needful means for its security immediately used. The writer does not
say, that holding men in bondage is not generally sinful, nor that all
sin should not be immediately repented of and forsaken, but only that
there may be exceptions where for a time, and under very peculiar
circumstances, it may not be sinful, and cannot consistently with the
greatest good be abandoned, without some previous means of preparation.