The titles which divines and canonists have considered to be good and
valid for the possession of slaves, are purchase, inheritance, gift,
birth, slaves made in war, and sentenced for crime; but, in all cases,
the title is vitiated when not sustained by the civil law. Yet the civil
law may be repealed, or ameliorated, so that prisoners taken in war or
crime may not be subject to death or servitude, in which case the
validity of the title follows in the footsteps of the civil law; but
these conditions primarily exist, as perpetual as the condition of man.
The civil law, by its intervention, merely diverts the action during its
rule.
But, in all cases of a secondary title, the validity follows the
character of the previous holding, as no man can sell, give, or leave by
inheritance a better title than that which he has. The question thus
runs to the origin of what gives a good title, to wit, the condition
that enforces one to be sold, or to sell himself, a slave, in favour of
life. True, Blackstone, Montesquieu, and others of less note, contend
that no man has a right _to sacrifice his liberty_; and what is their
argument? They make an assumption, where there is no parallel, “that
liberty is of equal worth to life;” but before their argument is good,
they must show that liberty is of more value than life: for surely a man
may barter an equal for an equal. They cry, “God gave all men liberty.”
Even that is a fiction. The truth is, God gave no man liberty, only upon
conditions.
But to show that life is of more value than liberty, we need only
observe that even with the loss of liberty there is hope—hope of change,
of liberty, and of the means of sustaining it; and such hopes have often
been realized. There is no truth in the proposition that liberty is of
equal value (or rather superior) to life. The doctrine therefore is,
that man, in his natural state, is the master of his own liberty, and
may dispose of it as he sees proper in favour of life; that he may be
deprived of it by force, in consequence of crime, or from his not being
able to sustain it; and in all cases where liberty has become of less
value than life, and both cannot be sustained, the one may be properly
exchanged for the safety of the other. And upon this principle, in those
countries where the parent had the right, by their law, to put to death
his own children, he also had the right to sell them into slavery; and
further, by natural law, where the parent cannot sustain the life of his
child, where civil law gives him no power over its life, he yet, in
favour of life, may sell him into slavery.
Natural law recognises the principle that the child, of right, is
subject to the condition of the parent; and in these enfeebled
conditions of man, for sake of more certainty, the civil law usually
acknowledges the maternal line. It acknowledges the paternal line only
when the elevated condition forms a presumption of equal certainty.
The Divine law recognises a good title to hold slaves among all people.
The Divine grant to hold slaves was not an “especial permit to the
Hebrews.” Abimelech gave slaves to Abraham: had his title been bad,
Abraham could not have received them. Bethuel and Laban gave slaves to
their daughters. None of these were Hebrews, yet they held slaves by a
good title; for the very act of acceptance, in all these cases, is proof
that the title was good.
Besides, the Divine law itself instructed the Israelites to buy slaves
of the surrounding nations. See _Lev._ xxv. 44. Can there be a stronger
proof of the purity of a title, than this gives of the title by which
the “nations round about” held slaves? The same law which permitted the
Israelites to buy slaves of the “heathen round about,” also permitted
the “heathen round about” to hold slaves, because it acknowledges their
title to be good.
By an inquiry into the history of these “heathen round about,” their
religion, civil condition, their manners and customs, as well as the
final state to which they arrived, we may form some idea how a good
title to hold slaves and to sell them arose among them; and since the
laws of God are everlasting, and always applicable to every case where
all the circumstances are similar, we may reasonably conclude that the
same race, or any other race, then, or at any other period of time, to
whom the same descriptions will apply, will also be found attended with
the same facts in regard to slavery.
The conclusion therefore is, that from such a people, who have a good
right to hold and sell slaves, other people, whose civil laws permit
them to do so, may purchase slaves by a good title.
It may not then be wholly an idle labour to compare the history and race
of these “heathen round about,” with the history, race, and present
condition of those African heathen who have from time immemorial held
and sold slaves.
But it being shown that the Divine sanction to hold slaves, did, at one
time, exist, it devolves on them, who deny its religious legality, now
to prove that the sanction had been withdrawn.
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