It is said all nature swarms with life. But every animal, in some way,
preys upon his fellow. Even we cannot move our foot without becoming the
means of destruction to petty animals capable of palpitating for hours,
may be days, in the agonies of death. There is no day upon this earth,
in which men, and millions of other animals, are not tortured in some
way, to the fullest extent of life.
Let us look at man alone; poor and oppressed; tormented by injustice,
and stupified to lethargy; writhing under disease, or tortured by his
brethren! Recollect his mental pains! The loss of friends, and the
poison of ingratitude; the rage of tyranny, and the slow progress of
justice; the brave, the high-minded, the honest, consigned to the fate
of guilt!
Dive into the dungeon, or the more obscure prison-house of penury. See
the aged long for his end, and the young languish in despair; talents
and virtue in eternal oblivion: see malice, vengeance, and cruelty at
their work, while they propagate every hour; for severity begets its
kind, and hate begets hate.
Look where you will, the heart is torn with anguish; the soul is
saddened by sorrow. All things seem at war; all one vast abortion. Such
is the rugged surface; and the eye sees no golden sands, no precious
gems gleaming from beneath the blackened waters of human suffering.
These things are so; creation has grown up; and human life can never
effect one tremble of the leaf on which it has found its residence.
But the Christian philosopher views these evidences of a great moral
catastrophe without madness. He perceives that sin has sunk man into
degradation, slavery, and death. He comprehends his own weakness, and
trusts in God.
But there is a man, with all these facts before him, who rages. He makes
war on the providence, and determines, as if to renovate the work, of
the Almighty. Is he a man of a single idea? If not, let him make a
better world; and, while he is thus employed, let us resume our subject.
Slavery, either voluntary or involuntary, whether the immediate result
of crime or of mental and physical degradation, is equally the
consequent of sin. Let us consider how far its existence is sustained by
the laws of justice, of religion, and of God.
Our word, God, is pure Saxon, signifying “perfectly good;” “God is
good.” “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, _it was_
very good.”
Suppose the laws of Japan permit voluntary slavery, as did those of
Moses. (See _Exod._ xxi. 5; also _Lev._ xxv. 47.) Suppose an African
negro, of the lowest grade, destitute and naked, voluntarily finds
himself in that island, where the poor, free inhabitants scarcely
sustain life by the most constant toil. The negro finds no employment.
He can neither buy, beg, nor steal; starvation is at hand. He applies to
sell himself, under the law of the country, a slave for life. Is not
slavery, in this case, a good, because life is a greater good than
liberty? Liberty is worth nothing in opposition to life. Liberty is
worth nothing without available possessions to sustain it. The
preservation of life is the highest law. The law of God, therefore,
would be contradictory, if it forbid a man to sell himself to sustain
his life; and the justice and propriety of such law must be universal
and eternal, so far as it can have relation with the condition of man
upon this earth.
But, “What is life without liberty?” said a beggar-woman! He, who thinks
life without liberty worth nothing, must die if he have no means to
sustain his liberty. Esther entertained no such notion: “For we are
sold, I and my people, to be destroyed and slain, and to perish. But if
we had been sold for bond-men, and bond-women, I had held my tongue.”
_Esth._ vii. 4.
Nor has such ever been the notion of the church. Bergier says, Dict.
Theo., Art. _Esclava_—
“That civil liberty became a benefit, only after the establishment of
civil society, when man had the protection of law, and the multiplied
facilities for subsistence; that, previous to this, absolute freedom
would be an injury to a person destitute of flocks, herds, lands, and
servants.”
“The common possession of all things is said to be of the natural law;
because the distinction of possessions and slavery were not introduced
by nature, but by reason of man, for the benefit of human life; and thus
the law of nature is not changed by their introduction, but an addition
is made thereto.” _St. Thomas Aquinas, 1, 2, q. 94 a 95 ad 2_.
And the same father says again, _2, 2 q. 57 a 3 ad 2_—“This man is a
slave, absolutely speaking, rather a son, not by any natural cause, but
by reason of the benefits which are produced; for it is more beneficial
to this one to be governed by one who has more wisdom, and the other to
be helped by the labour of the former. Hence the state of slavery
belongs principally to the law of nations, and to the natural law, only
in the second degree, not in the first.”
But a man having the natural right to _sell_ himself proves that he has
the same right to _buy_ others. The one follows the other. But, suppose
the laws of Japan do not permit voluntary slavery for life, or, rather
that they have no law on the subject; but that they have a law, that
whosoever proves himself to be so degraded that he cannot, or will not
sustain himself, but is found loitering, begging, or stealing, shall be
forcibly sold a slave for life,—is not the same good effected as in the
other case, although the individual may be too debased to perceive it
himself? And is it difficult to perceive, that the same deteriorating
causes have produced both cases? The doctrine of the church is that
“death, sickness, and a large train of what is called natural evils, are
considered to be the consequences of sin. Slavery is an evil, and is
also a consequence of sin.” _Bishop England_, p. 23.
And St. Augustine preached the same doctrine, as long ago as the year
425. See his book, “_Of the City of God_,” liber xix. cap. 15. He
says—“The condition of slavery is justly regarded as imposed on the
sinner. Hence, we never read _slave_ (as one having a master) in
Scripture before the just Noe, by this word, punished the sin of his
son. Sin, not nature, thus introduced the word.”
And St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, A.D. 390, in his book on “_Elias and
Fasting_” c. 5, says—“There would be no slavery to-day had there not
been drunkenness.”
And so, St. John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, A.D. 400, Hom.
29, in Gen.: “Behold brethren born of the same mother! Sin makes one of
them a servant, and, taking away his liberty, lays him under
subjection.”
The very expression, “Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he
be to his brethren,” most distinctly shows the sentence to have been the
consequent of sin, and especially so when compared with the blessing
bestowed upon the two brothers, in which they are promised the
_services_ of him accursed.
Pope Gelesius I., A.D. 491, in his letter to the bishops of the Picene
territory, states, “slavery to have been the consequence of sin, and to
have been established by human law.”
St. Augustine, lib. xix. cap. 16, “On the City of God,” argues at length
to show “that the peace and good order of society, as well as religious
duty, demand that the wholesome laws of the state regulating the conduct
of slaves should be conscientiously observed.”
“Slavery is regarded by the church * * * not to be incompatible with the
natural law, to be the result of sin by Divine dispensation, to have
been established by human legislation; and, when the dominion of the
slave is justly acquired by the master, to be lawful, not in the sight
of the human tribunal only, but also in the eye of Heaven.” _Bishop
England_, page 24.
But again, in the works already quoted, “De Civitate Dei,” St. Augustine
says, liber xix. caput 15, that, “although slavery is the consequence of
sin, yet that the slavery may not always light upon the sinful
individual, any more than sickness, war, famine, or any other
chastisement of this sinful world, whereby it may often happen that the
less sinful are afflicted, that they may be turned more to the worship
of God, and brought into his enjoyment,” and refers to the case of
Daniel and his companions, who were slaves in Babylon, and by which
captivity Israel was brought to repentance.
In cap. 16, “he presents to view the distinction of bodily employment
and labour between the son and the slave; but that each are equally
under the master’s care; and as it regards the soul, each deserved a
like protection, and that therefore the masters were called _patres
familias_, or _fathers of households_; and shows that they should
consult for the eternal welfare of their slaves as a father for his
children; and insists upon the weight and obligation of the master to
restrain his slaves from vice, and to preserve discipline with strict
firmness, but yet with affection; not by verbal correction alone, but,
if requisite, corporeal chastisement, not merely for the punishment of
delinquency, but for a salutary monition to others.”
And he proceeds to show “that these things become a public duty, since
the peace of the vicinage depends upon the good order of its families,
and that the safety of the state depends upon the peace and discipline
of all the vicinage.”
This author also shows, from the etymology of the word “_servus_,” that,
according to the law of nations at the time, the conqueror had at his
disposal the lives of the captives. If from some cause he forbore to put
some of them to death, then such one was _servati_, or _servi_, that is,
kept from destruction or death, and their lives spared, upon the
condition of obedience, and of doing the labours and drudgery of the
master.”
And we may again inquire whether, when prisoners taken in war, under
circumstances attending their capture by which the captor feels himself
entitled to put them to death,—it is not a great good to the captured to
have their lives spared them, and they permitted to be slaves? The
answer will again turn upon the question, whether life is worth any
thing upon these terms? And whatever an individual may say, the world
will answer like Esther. Thus far slavery is an institution of mercy and
in favour of life.
We close this lesson by presenting the condition of slavery among the
Chinese, and their laws and customs touching the subject.
M. De Guignes, who traversed China throughout its whole extent,
observing with minuteness and philosophical research every thing in
relation to its singular race, does not believe slavery existed there
until its population had become overloaded, when, as a partial relief
from its miseries, they systematically made slaves of portions of their
own race.
He says, that in ancient times, “it is not believed that there were
slaves in China, except those who were taken prisoners in war, or
condemned to servitude by the laws. Afterwards, in times of famine,
parents were frequently reduced to the necessity of selling their
children. This practice, originated in the pressure of necessity, has
continued to exist, and even become common. * * * A person may also sell
himself as a slave when he has no other means of succouring his father;
a young woman, who finds herself destitute, may in like manner be
purchased with her own consent.
“The prisoners of war are the slaves of the emperor, and generally sent
to labour on his land in Tartary. The judges have the power to pass the
sentence of slavery on culprits such as are sold at public auction;
slaves also who belong to persons whose property is confiscated, are
sold to the highest bidder by public outcry.” See work as quoted by
Edin. Encyc., Article, “_China_.”
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