P. 206. “It” (slavery) “supposes that the Creator intended one human
being to govern the physical, intellectual, and moral actions of as many
other human beings as, by purchase, he can bring within his physical
power, and that one human being may thus acquire a right to sacrifice
the happiness of any number of other human beings, for the purpose of
promoting his own.”
This proposition is almost a total error. Slavery supposes the Creator
intended that the interest of the master in the slave who, by becoming
his slave, becomes his property, should secure to the slave that
protection and government which the slave is too degenerate to supply to
himself; and that such protection and government are necessary to the
happiness and well-being of the slave, without which he either remains
stationary or degenerates in his moral, mental, and physical condition.
P. 207. “It” (slavery) “renders the eternal happiness of the one party
subservient to the temporal happiness of the other.”
This is equally untrue. Slavery subjects one party to the command of
another who is expected to feel it a duty to so “command his household”
that “they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.”
This is the voice of God on the subject, as heretofore quoted. The
learned Dr. Wayland is evidently wholly unacquainted with the spirit and
intention, and, we may add, origin of the institution of slavery; yet he
has, doubtless, been studying some of its abuses.
But suppose a man to study nothing of Christianity but its abuses, and
from these alone undertake to describe what he conceives to be its
results, its character, and suppositions; he doubtless would make what
Dr. Wayland would very justly call a distorted representation; and
perhaps, he might safely use a harsher phrase. But would such a
representation be productive of any good in the world? It might do much
mischief by spreading, broadcast, its errors and misrepresentations; a
most delicious food for the morbid appetite of the ignorant and fanatic
infidel! Yes, infidelity has its fanatics as well as abolitionism!
“Obey them that have rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they
watch for your souls as they that must give account, that they may do it
with joy and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.” _Heb._
xiii. 17.
* * * * *
P. 207. “If argument were necessary to show that such a system as this
must be at variance with the ordinance of God, it might easily be drawn
from the effects which it produces, both upon morals and national
wealth.”
The author, in this instance, as he has in many others, designs to
produce an effect on the mind of his reader from what he does not say,
as well as from what he does say. We acknowledge this mode to be quite
noncommittal, while, on the minds of some, it may be very skilfully used
to produce an impression. But we confess ourselves ignorant of any
logical rule by which it is entitled to produce any on us. The mode of
speech used is intended to produce the impression that the proposition
is someway self-evident, and therefore stands in no need of proof or
argument. But how the proposition, that slavery is “at variance with the
ordinances of God” is self-evident, and needs no proof nor argument, we
have not the “moral sense” or “faculty” to discover. But as Dr. Wayland
proposes, nevertheless, to prove its truth by its effects on morals and
wealth, let us listen to the evidence.
_Idem._ “Its effects must be disastrous upon the morals of both parties.
By presenting objects on whom passion may be satiated without resistance
and without redress, it tends to cultivate in the master, pride, anger,
cruelty, selfishness, and licentiousness. By accustoming the slave to
subject his moral principles to the will of another, it tends to abolish
in him all moral distinctions; and thus fosters in him lying, deceit,
hypocrisy, dishonesty, and a willingness to yield himself up to the
appetites of his master.”
This is his proof that slavery is “at variance with the ordinances of
God,” as he has drawn it from its effect on morals;—in which we think
him singularly unfortunate. He asks us to receive, as proof of the truth
of the proposition, a combination of propositions all requiring proof of
their truth, but of the truth of which he offers no proof.
This view of the state of the argument, we imagine, would be sufficient
to condemn it in all well-schooled minds; but, nevertheless, we propose
to show that which he offers as proof is not true; and even if true, is
no proof of the truth of the proposition he endeavours to sustain.
In regard to the master, the effect complained of may or may not exist,
as may be the fact whether the master is or is not capable of
administering the charge and government of slaves wisely for himself and
them. But these abuses, when found to exist, are no proof of the moral
impropriety of the institution; for, if so, the abuses of a thing are
proof that the thing itself is evil. There are many abuses of
government: is government, therefore, at variance with the ordinances of
God? The same of matrimony; and is it, therefore, to be set aside? Some
men make an abusive use of their education, and, in consequence, would
have been more valuable members of society in a state of comparative
ignorance: are our universities, therefore, to be abolished? Money has
been said to be “the root of all evil;” it, to some extent, is the
representative of wealth and power; the possession of either of which
may, in some individuals, sometimes apparently enable the possessor “to
cultivate pride, anger, cruelty, selfishness, and licentiousness.” The
same may be said of power of any kind. But has not Dr. Wayland learned
that there are cases where the effect would be and is entirely the
reverse?—where power, wealth, or even the possession of slaves, produces
in the possessor a greater degree of humility, placidity or mildness,
sympathy or charity for others, and orderly conduct in himself? Does the
reverend moral philosopher make so low an estimate of the value of
civilization—of the influence of Christianity—as not to admit the
capability of enjoying a blessing without abusing it?
If Dr. Wayland’s argument be founded on truth, it will be easy to show
that any system of things must be at variance with the ordinances of God
which permit the possession of either power or wealth: consequently, in
such case, we must and should all go back to the savage state. We ask
this learned standard author to read the history of Abraham and Isaac,
and inform us whether slavery produced the effect on them which he
supposes to be an entailment of the institution; for the effect must be
proved to be an unchangeable, a universal and unavoidable consequence,
before it can receive the character of evidence in the case to which he
applies it.
But Dr. Wayland thinks that slavery “tends to abolish all moral
distinctions in the slave”—“fosters in him lying, deceit, hypocrisy,
dishonesty, and a willingness to yield himself up to minister to the
appetites of his master;” and, therefore, “is at variance with the
ordinances of God.”
If the doctor had seen the native African and slave in the wild, frantic
joy of his savage worship, tendered to his chief idol-god, the
imbodiment of concupiscence; if he had seen all the power of the
Christian master centered to effect the eradication of this heathen
belief, and the habits it engendered; had he witnessed the anxiety of
the master for the substitution of the precepts of Christianity; if he
had seen the untiring efforts of the masters, sometimes for several
generations, before this great object could be accomplished, and the
absolute necessity of its accomplishment before the labour of the slave
could ordinarily become to him an article of full and desirable
profit,—he would probably never have written the paragraph we have
quoted!
But since, in the honest, we may perhaps say the amiable, simplicity of
his mind, he has composed this lesson for his pupil, which, like the
early dew in imperceptible showers on the tender blade, becomes the
daily nutriment of his juvenile mind and the habitual aliment of its
maturity, we deem it necessary to make one further brief remark in proof
of its entire inadequacy to the task assigned it in his argument, as a
particular and special, and of its total untruthfulness as a general and
comprehensive, maxim in morals.
Our experience is, that the crimes here named, when detected in the
slave, are punished, and, if necessary, with severity, if for no other
reason, because they render the slave less valuable to his master. The
master wishes to find in his slave one on whom he can rely with
certainty; in whom there is no dissonance of interest from his own, and
whose honesty and obedience are past doubt. The qualities which are the
exact opposite of the crimes imputed are, therefore, sedulously
cultivated in the slave,—and truly, very often, with small success. But
we are surprised at the doctrine which proclaims a system of government
that ever punishes and looks with displeasure on “lying, deceit,
hypocrisy, and dishonesty,” to be the very thing to foster and nourish
those vices! When such is proved to be the fact, we shall regard it as a
new discovery in morals.
As to the last clause of what he has adduced as proof of his
proposition, we say that any one who is in the employ, or even the
company, of another, either as a friend, wife, child, or hireling, as
well as slave, may manifest a growing willingness to minister to the
appetites of such person; and such inclination, or willingness, will
operate to the benefit or injury of those so influenced, in proportion
as such appetite is good or bad, or tends to good or evil: but this
influence, whether tending to benefit or injury, is not an exclusive
incident of slavery, and, therefore, cannot with any propriety, be
quoted either for or against it: for, everywhere, “evil communications
corrupt good manners.”
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