This letter is the examination and refutation of the infidel theory of human government foisted into the Declaration of Independence.
I had written this criticism in different form for publication, before Mr. Barnes's had appeared. I wrote it to vindicate my affirmation in the General Assembly which met in New York, May last, on this part of the Declaration. My views were maturely formed, after years of reflection, and weeks--nay months--of carefully-penned writing.
And thus these truths, from the Bible, Providence, and common sense, were like rich freight, in goodly ship, waiting for the wind to sail; when lo, Mr. Barnes's abolition-breath filled the canvas, and carried it out of port into the wide, the free, the open sea of American public thought. There it sails. If pirate or other hostile craft comes alongside, the good ship has guns.
I ask that this paper be carefully read more than once, twice, or three times. Mr. Barnes, I presume, will not so read it. He is committed. Greeley may notice it with his sparkling wit, albeit he has too much sense to grapple with its argument. The Evangelist-man will say of it, what he would say if Christ were casting out devils in New York,--"He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils." Yea, this Evangelist-man says that my version of the golden rule is "diabolical;" when truly that version is thewordof the Spirit, as Christ's casting out devils was theworkof the Holy Ghost.
Gerrett Smith, Garrison, Giddings, do already agree with me, that they are right if Jefferson spoke the truth. Yea, whether the Bible be true, is no question with them no more than with him. Yea, they hold, as he did, that whether there be one God or twenty, it matters not: the fact either way, in men's minds, neither breaks the leg nor picks the pocket. (See Jefferson's Notes on Virginia.) Messrs. Beecher and Cheever will find nothing in me to aid them in speaking to the mobs of Ephesus and Antioch. They are making shrines, and crying, Great is Diana. Mrs. Stowe is on the Dismal Swamp, with Dred for her Charon, to paddle her light canoe, by the fire-fly lamps, to the Limbo of Vanity, of which she is the queen. None of these will read with attention or honesty, if at all, this examination of what Randolph long ago said was afanfaronade of nonsense. These are all wiser "than seven men that can render a reason."
But there are thousands, North and South, who will read this refutation, and will feel and acknowledge that in the light of God's truth the notion of created equality and unalienable right is falsehood and infidelity.
Rev. A. Barnes:--
Dear Sir:--In my first letter I promised to prove that the paragraph in the Declaration of Independence, which contains the affirmation of created equality and unalienable rights, has no sanction from the word of God. I now meet my obligation.
The time has come when civil liberty, as revealed in the Bible and in Providence, must be re-examined, understood, and defended against infidel theories of human rights. The slavery question has brought on this conflict; and, strange as it may seem, the South, the land of the slave, is summoned by God to defend the liberty he gives; while the North, the clime of the free, misunderstands and changes the truth of God into a lie,--claiming a liberty he does not give. Wherefore is this? I reply:---
God, when he ordained government over men, gave to the individual man RIGHTS,onlyas he is under government. He first established the family; hence all other rule is merely the family expanded. Thegoodof the family limited therightsof every member. God required the family, and then the state, so to rule as to give to every member thegoodwhich is his, in harmony with the welfare of the whole; and he commanded the individual to seekthat good, and NO MORE.
Now, mankind being depraved, government has ever violated its obligation to rule for the benefit of the entire community, and has wielded its power in oppression. Consequently, the governed have ever struggled to secure the good which was their right. But, in this struggle, they have ever been tempted to go beyond the limitation God had made, and to seek supposed good, not given, in rights, prompted byself-will, destructive of the state.
Government thus ever existing in oppression, and people thus ever rising up against despotism, have been the history of mankind.
The Reformation was one of the many convulsions in this long-continued conflict. In its first movements, men claimed the liberty the Bible grants. Soon they ran into licentiousness. God then stayed the further progress of emancipation in Europe, because the spread of the asserted liberty would have made infidelity prevail over that part of the continent where the Reformation was arrested. God preferred Romanism, and other despotisms, modified as they were by the struggle, to rule for a time, than have those countries destroyed under the sway of a licentious freedom.
In this contest the North American colonies had their rise, and they continued the strife with England until they declared themselves independent.
That "Declaration" affirmed not only the liberty sanctioned of the Bible, but also the liberty constituting infidelity. Its first paragraph, to the word "separation," is a noble introduction. Omit, then, what follows, to the sentence beginning "Prudence will dictate," and the paper, thus expurgated, is complete, and is then simply the complaint of the colonies against the government of England, which had oppressed them beyond further submission, and the assertion of their right to be free and independent States.
This declaration was, in that form, nothing more than the affirmation of the right God gives to children, in a family, applied to the colonies, in regard to their mother-country. That is to say, children have, from God, RIGHT, AS CHILDREN, when cruelly treated, to secure the good to which they are entitled, as children, IN THE FAMILY. They may securethisgood by becoming part of another family, or by setting up for themselves, if old enough. So the colonies had, from God,rightas colonies, when oppressed beyond endurance, to exchange the British family for another, or, if of sufficient age, to establish their own household. The Declaration, then, in that complaint of oppression and affirmation of right, in the colonies, to be independent, asserts liberty sanctioned by the word of God. And therefore the pledge tothatDeclaration, of "lives, fortune, and sacred honor," was blessed of Heaven, in the triumph of their cause.
But the Declaration, in the part I have omitted, affirms other things, and very different. It asserts facts and rights as appertaining to man, not in the Scriptures, but contrary thereto. Here is the passage:--
"We hold these truths to be self-evident,--that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
This is the affirmation of the liberty claimed by infidelity.It teaches as a factthatwhich is not true; and it claims as rightthatwhich God has not given. It asserts nothing new, however. It lays claim to that individual right beyond the limitation God has put, which man has ever asserted when in his struggle for liberty he has refused to be guided and controlled by the word and providence of his Creator.
The paragraph is a chain of four links, each of which is claimed to be a self-evident truth.
Thefirstand controlling assertion is, "that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL;" which proposition, as I understand it, is, thatevery man and woman on earth is created with equal attributes of body and mind.
Secondly, and consequently, that every individual has, by virtue of his or her being created the equal of each and every other individual, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,so in his or her own keeping that that right is unalienable without his or her consent.
Thirdly, it follows, that government among men must derive its just powers only from theconsentof the governed; and, as the governed are the aggregate of individuals,then each person must consent to be thus controlled before he or she can be rightfully under such authority.
Fourthly, and finally, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,as each such individual man or woman may think, then each such person may rightly set to work to alter or abolish such form, and institute a new government, on such principles and in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
This is the celebrated averment of created equality, and unalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, with the necessary consequences. I have fairly expanded its meaning. It is the old infidel averment. It is not true in any one of its assertions.
All Men not created equal.
It is not a truth,self-evident,that all men are created equal. Webster, in his dictionary, defines "Self-evident--Evident without proof or reason: clear conviction upon a bare presentation to the mind, as that two and three make five."
Now, I affirm, and you, I think, will not contradict me, that the position, "all men are created equal"isnotself-evident; that the nature of the case makes it impossible for it to be self-evident. For the created nature of man is not in the class of things of which such self-evident propositions can by possibility be predicated. It is equally clear and beyond debate, that it is notself-evidentthat all men haveunalienable rights, that governments derive their just powers from theconsentof the governed, and may be altered or abolished wheneverto themsuch rights may be better secured. All these assertions can be known to be true or false only from revelation of the Creator, or from examination and induction of reasoning, covering the nature and the obligations of the race on the whole face of the earth. What revelation and examination of facts do teach, I will now show. The whole battle-ground, as to the truth of this series of averments, is on the first affirmation, "that all men are created equal." Or, to keep up my first figure, the strength of the chain of asserted truths depend onthatfirst link. It must then stand the following perfect trial.
God reveals to us that he created man in his image,i.e.a spirit endowed with attributes resembling his own,--to reason, to form rule of right, to manifest various emotions, to will, to act,--and that he gave him a body suited to such a spirit, (Gen. i. 26, 27, 28;) that he created MAN "male and female," (Gen. i. 27;) that he made the woman "out of the man," (Gen. ii. 23;) that he made "the man the image and glory of God, but the womanthe glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the mancreated for the woman, but the womanfor the man," (1 Cor. xi.;) that he made the woman to be the weaker vessel, (1 Pet. iii. 7.) Here, then, God createdthe raceto be in the beginning TWO,--a male and a female MAN; one of themnot equalto the otherin attributes of body and mind, and, as we shall see presently, not equal in rights as to government. Observe, this inequality was fact as to the TWO, in the perfect state wherein they werecreated.
But these two fell from that perfect state, became depraved, and began to be degraded in body and mind. This statement of the original inequality in which man was created controls all that comes after, in God's providence and in the natural history of the race.
Providence, in its comprehensive teaching, "says that God, soon after the flood, subjected the races to all the influences of the different zones of the earth;"--"That he hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us." (Acts xvii. 26, 27.)
These "bounds of their habitation" have had much to do in the natural history of man; for "all men" have been "created," or, more correctly,born, (since the race was "created" once only at the first,) with attributes of body and mind derived from the TWO unequal parents, and these attributes, in every individual, the combined result of the parental natures. "All men," then, come into the world under influences upon the amalgamated and transmitted body and mind, from depravity and degradation, sent down during all the generations past; and, therefore, under causes of inequality, acting on each individual from climate, from scenery, from food, from health, from sickness, from love, from hatred, from government, inconceivable in variety and power. Under such causes, to produce infinite shades of inequality, physical and mental, in birth--if "all men" were created equal (i.e.born equal) in attributes of body and mind--such "creation" would be a violation of all the known analogies in the world of life.
Do, then, the facts in man's natural history exhibit this departure from the laws of life and spirit? Do they prove that "all men are created equal"? Do they show that every man and every woman of Africa, Asia, Europe, America, and the islands of the seas, is created each one equal in body and mind to each other man or woman on the face of the earth, and that this has always been?
Need I extend these questions? Methinks, sir, I hear you say, what others have told me, that the "Declaration" is not to be understood as affirming what is so clearly false, but merely asserts that all men are "created equal" innatural rights.
I reply thatthatisnotthe meaning of the clause before us; forthatis the meaning of the next sentence,--thesecondin the series we are considering.
There are, as I have said, four links to the chain of thought in this passage:--1. That all men are created equal. 2. That they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights. 3. That government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. 4. That the people may alter and abolish it, &c.
These links are logical sequences. All men--man and woman--are created equal,--equal inattributes of body and mind; (forthatis the only sense in which they could becreatedequal;)thereforethey are endowed with right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, unalienable, except in their consent;consequentlysuch consent is essential to all rightful government; and,finallyandirresistibly, the people have supreme right to alter or abolish it, &c.
The meaning, then, I give to that first link, and to the chain following,isthe sense, because, if you deny that meaning to thefirst link, then the others have no logical truth whatever. Thus:--
If all men arenotcreated equal in attributes of body and mind, then theinequalitymay beso greatthat such men cannot be endowed with right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, unalienable save in theirconsent; then government over such men cannot rightfully rest upon theirconsent; nor can they have right to alter or abolish government in their mere determination.
Yea, sir, you concede every thing if you admit that the "Declaration" doesnotmean to affirm that all men are "created"equal in body and mind.
I will suppose in the Alps a community of Cretins,--i.e.deformed and helpless idiots,--but among them many from the same parents, who, in body and mind, by birth are comparativelyNapoleons. Now, thisinequality, physical and mental, by birth, makes it impossible that the government over these Cretins can be in their "consent."The Napoleons must rule. The Napoleons must absolutely control their "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," for the good of the community. Do you reply that I have taken an extreme case? that everybody admits sensible people must govern natural fools? Ay, sir, there is the rub.Natural fools! Are some men, then, "created" natural fools? Very well. Then you also admit that some men arecreatedjust a degree above natural fools!--and, consequently, that men are "created" in all degrees, gradually rising in the scale of intelligence. Are they not "created" just above the brute, with savage natures along with mental imbecility and physical degradation? Must the Napoleons govern the Cretins without their "consent"? Must they not also govern without their "consent" these types of mankind, whether one, two, three, thirty, or three hundred degrees above the Cretins, if they are still greatly inferior by nature? Suppose the Cretins removed from the imagined community, and a colony of Australian ant-catchers or California lizard-eaters be in their stead: must not the Napoleons govern these? And, if you admit inequality to be in birth, then that inequality is the very ground of the reason why the Napoleons must govern the ant-catchers and lizard-eaters. Remove these, and put in their place an importation of African negroes. Do you admittheir inferiority by"CREATION?" Then the same control over them must be the irresistible fact in common sense and Scripture of God.The Napoleons must govern. They must govern without asking "consent,"--if the inequality be such that "consent" would be evil, and not good, in the family--the state.
Yea, sir, if you deny that the "Declaration" asserts "all men are created equal" in body and mind, then you admit the inequality may be such as to make it impossible that in such cases men have rights unalienable save in their "consent;" and you admit it to be impossible that government in such circumstances can exist in such "consent" But, if you affirm the "Declaration"doesmean that men are "createdequal" in attributes of body and mind, then you hold to an equality which God, in his word, and providence, and the natural history of man, denies to be truth.
I think I have fairly shown, from Scripture and facts, that the first averment is not the truth; and have reduced it to an absurdity. I will now regard the second, third, and fourth links of the chain.
I know they are already broken; for, the whole chain being but an electric current from a vicious imagination, I have destroyed the whole by breaking the first link. Or was it but a cluster from a poisonous vine, then I have killed the branches by cutting the vine. I will, however, expose the other three sequences by a distinct argument covering them all.
Authority Delegated to Adam.
God gave to Adam sovereignty over the human race, in his first decree:--"He shall rule over thee."Thatwas THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. It was not based on the "consent" of Eve, the governed. It was from God. He gave to Adam like authority to rule his children. It was not derived from their "consent". It was from God. He gave Noah the same sovereignty, with express power over life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It was not founded in "consent" of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. It was from God. He then determined the habitations of men on all the face of the earth, andindicatedto them, in every clime, theformandpowerof their governments. He gave, directly, government to Israel. He just as truly gave it to Idumea, to Egypt, and to Babylon, to the Arab, to the Esquimaux, the Caffre, the Hottentot, and the negro.
God, in the Bible, decides the matter. He says, "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. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render, therefore, to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor." (Rom. xiii. 1-7.)
Here God reveals to us that he hasdelegated to government his ownRIGHTover life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness; and that that RIGHT is not, in any sense, from the "consent" of the governed, but is directly from him. Government over men, whether in the family or in the state, is, then, as directly from God as it would be if he, in visible person, ruled in the family or in the state. I speak not only of the RIGHT simply to govern, but themodeof the government, and theextentof the power. Governmentcan doALL which Godwould do,--justTHAT,--no more, no less. And it isbound to do justTHAT,--no more, no less. Government is responsible to God, if it fails to dojustTHAT which He himself would do. It is under responsibility, then, to rule in righteousness. It must not oppress. It mustgiveto every individual "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," in harmony with thegoodof the family,--the state,--as God himself would give it,--justTHAT,no more, no less.
This passage of Scripture settles the question, From whence has government RIGHT to rule, and what is theextentof its power? The RIGHT is from God, and the EXTENT of the power isjustTHAT to which God would exercise it if he were personally on the earth. God, in this passage, and others, settles, with equal clearness, from whence is the OBLIGATION tosubmitto government, and what is theextentof the duty of obedience? The OBLIGATION to submit is not from individual RIGHT to consent or not to consent to government,--but the OBLIGATIONto submitis directly from God.
The EXTENT of the duty of obedience is equally revealed--in this wise: so long as the government rules in righteousness, the duty is perfect obedience. So soon, however, as government requiresthatwhich God, in his word,forbids the subject to do, he must obey God, and not man. He must refuse to obey man. But, inasmuch as the obligation to submit to authority of government is so great, the subject mustknowit is the will of God, that he shall refuse to obey, before he assumes the responsibility of resistance to the powers that be. Hisconsciencewill not justify him before God, if he mistakes his duty.He may be all the more to blame for havingSUCH A CONSCIENCE. Let him, then, be CERTAIN he can say, like Peter and John, "Whether it be right, in the sight of God, to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye."
But, when government requiresthatwhich Goddoes not forbidthe subject to do, althoughin thatthe government may have transcended the line of its righteous rule, the subject must, nevertheless, submit,--untiloppression has gone tothe pointat whichGod makesRESISTANCEto be duty.Andthat pointis when RESISTANCE will clearly beless of evil, and more of good, TO THE COMMUNITY, than further submission.
Thatis the rule ofdutyGod gives to thewholepeople, or to theminority, or to theindividual, to guide them in resistance to the powers that be.
It is irresistiblycertainthatHe who ordainsgovernmenthas, alone, the right to alter or abolish it,--that He who institutes the powers that be has, alone, the right to say when and how the people, in whole or in part, may resist. So, then, the people, in whole, or in part, have no right to resist, to alter, or abolish government, simply becausetheymay deem it destructive of the end for which it was instituted; but they may resist, alter, or abolish,when it shall be seen that God so regards it. This places the great fact where it must be placed,--under theCONTROLof theBIBLEandPROVIDENCE.
Illustrations.
I will conclude with one or two illustrations. God, in his providence, ordains the Russian form of government,--i.e.He places the sovereignty in one man, because He sees that such government can secure, for a time, more good to that degraded people than any other form. Now, I ask, Has the emperorright, from God, to change at once, in his mere "consent," theformof his government tothatof the United States? No. God forbids him. Why? Because he would thereby destroy the good, and bring immense evil in his empire. I ask again, Have the Russian serfs and nobles,--yea, all,--"consenting," the right, from God, to make that change? No. For the government of the United States is not suited to them. And, in such an attempt, they would deprive themselves of the blessings they now have, and bring all the horrors of anarchy.
Do you ask if I then hold, that God ordains the Russian type of rule to be perpetual over that people? No. The emperor is bound to secure all of "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," to each individual, consistent with the good of the nation. And he is to learn his obligation from the Bible, and faithfully apply it to the condition of his subjects.He will thus gradually elevate them; while they, on their part, are bound to strive for this elevation, in all the ways in which God may show them the good, and the right, which, more and more, will belong to them in their upward progress. The result of such government and such obedience would be that of a father's faithful training, and children's corresponding obedience. The Russian people would thus have, gradually, that measure of liberty they could bear, under the one-man power,--and then, in other forms, as they might be qualified to realize them. This development would be without convulsion,--as the parent gives place, while the children are passing from the lower to their higher life. It would be the exemplification of Carlyle's illustration of the snake. He says, A people should change their government only as a snake sheds his skin: the new skin is gradually formed under the old one,--and then the snake wriggles out, with just a drop of blood here and there, where the old jacket held on rather tightly.
God ordains the government of the United States. AndHe placesthesovereigntyin thewillof the majority, because He has trained the people, through many generations in modes of government, to such an elevation in moral and religious intelligence, that such sovereignty is best suited to confer on them the highest right, as yet, to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But God requires thatthat will of the majoritybe in perfect submission to Him. Once more then I inquire,--Whether the people of this country, yea all of them consenting, have right from God, to abolish now, at this time, our free institutions, and set up the sway of Russia? No. But why? There is one answer only. He tells us that our happiness is in this form of government, and in it, its developed results.
The "Social Compact" not recognised in the Divine Institute.
Here I pause. So, then, God gives no sanction to the notion of a SOCIAL COMPACT. He never gave to man individual, isolated, natural rights, unalienably in his keeping. He never made him a Caspar Hauser, in the forest, without name or home,--a Melchisedek, in the wilderness, without father, without mother, without descent,--a Robinson Crusoe, on his island, in skins and barefooted, waiting, among goats and parrots, the coming of the canoes and the savages, to enable him to "consent" if he would, to the relations of social life. And, therefore, those five sentences in that second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence are not the truth; so, then, it is notself-evidenttruth that all men are created equal. So, then, it is not the truth, in fact, that they are created equal. So, then, it is not the truth that God has endowed all men with unalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. So, then, it is not the truth that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. So, then, it is not the truth that the people have right to alter or abolish their government, and institute a new form, whenever to them it shall seem likely to effect their safety and happiness.
The manner in which these unscriptural dogmas have been modified or developed in the United States, I will examine in another paper.
I merely add, that the opinions of revered ancestors, on these questions of right and their application to American slavery, must now, as never before, be brought to the test of the light of the Bible. F.A. Ross.
Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 1857.
This argument on the abolition charge, against the slave-holder,--that he is a man-stealer,--covers the whole question of slavery, especially as it is seen in the Old Testament. The headings in the letter make the subject sufficiently clear.
Rev. Albert Barnes:--
Dear Sir:--In my first letter, I merely touched some points in your tract, intending to notice them more fully in subsequent communications. I have, in my second paper, sufficiently examined the imaginary maxims of created equality and unalienable rights.
In this, I will test your views by Scripture more directly. "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." (Isaiah viii. 20).
The abolitionist charges the slave-holder with being aman-stealer. He makes this allegation in two affirmations. First, that the slave-holder is thus guilty, because, the negro having been kidnapped in Africa, therefore those who now hold him, or his children, in bondage, lie under the guilt of that first act. Secondly, that the slave-holder, by the very fact that he is such, is guilty of stealing from the negro his unalienable right to freedom.
This is the charge. It covers the whole subject. I will meet it in all its parts.
The Difference between Man-Stealing and Slave-Holding, as set forth in the Bible.
The Bible reads thus: (Exodus xxi. 16:)--"He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death."
What, then, is it to kidnap or steal a man? Webster informs us--To kidnap is "to steal a human being, a man, woman, or child; or to seize and forcibly carry away any person whatever, from his own country or state into another." The idea of "seizing and forcibly carrying away"enters into the meaning of the word in all the definitions of law.
The crime, then, set forth in the Bible was notsellinga man: but selling astolenman. The crime was not having a manin his hand as a slave; but......inhishand, as a slave, astolenman. And hence, the penalty ofdeathwas affixed, not to selling, buying, or holding man, as a slave, but to the specific offence ofstealing and selling, or holdinga manthus stolen, contrary to this law. Yea, it wasthis law, and this lawonly, which made itwrong. For, under some circumstances, God sanctioned the seizing and forcibly carrying away a man, woman, or child from country or state, into slavery or other condition. He sanctioned the utter destruction of every male and every married woman, and child, of Jabez-Gilead, and the seizure, and forcibly carrying away, four hundred virgins, unto the camp to Shiloh, and there, being given as wives to the remnant of the slaughtered tribe of Benjamin, in the rock Rimmon. Sir, how did that destruction of Jabez-Gilead, and the kidnapping of those young women, differ from the razing of an African village, and forcibly seizing, and carrying away, those not put to the sword? The difference is in this:--God commanded the Israelites to seize and bear off those young women. But he forbids the slaver to kidnap the African. Therefore, the Israelites did right; therefore, the trader does wrong. The Israelites, it seems, gave wives, in that way, to the spared Benjamites, because they had sworn not to give their daughters. But there were six hundred of these Benjamites. Two hundred were therefore still without wives. What was done for them? Why, God authorized the elders of the congregation to tell the two hundred Benjamites to catch every man his wife, of the daughters of Shiloh, when they came out to dance, in the feast of the Lord, on the north side of Bethel. And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, "whom they caught:" (Judges xxi.) God made it right for those Benjamites to catch every man his wife, of the daughters of Shiloh. But he makes it wrong for the trader to catch his slaves of the sons or daughters of Africa. Lest you should try to deny that God authorized this act of the children of Israel, although I believe he did order it, let me remind you of another such case, the authority for which you will not question.
Moses, by direct command from God, destroyed the Midianites. He slew all the males, and carried away all the women and children. He then had all the married women and male children killed; but all the virgins, thirty-two thousand, were divided as spoil among the people. Andthirty-twoof these virgins,the Lord's tribute, were given unto Eleazar, the priest, "as the Lord commanded Moses." (Numbers xxxi.)
Sir, Thomas Paine rejected the Bible on this fact among his other objections. Yea,hisreason,hissensibilities,hisgreat law of humanity,hisintuitional and eternal sense of right, made it impossible for him to honor such a God. And, sir, on your now avowed principles of interpretation, which are those of Paine, you sustain him in his rejection of the books of Moses and all the word of God.
God's commandmade it rightfor Moses to destroy the Midianites and make slaves of their daughters; and I have dwelt upon these facts, to reiterate what I hold to be THE FIRST TRUTH IN MORALS:--that a thing is right, not because it is ever soper se, but because Godmakes it right; and, of course, a thing is wrong, not because it is so in the nature of things, but because God makes it wrong. I distinctly have taken, and do take, that ground in its widest sense, and am prepared to maintain it against all comers. He made it right for the sons of Adam to marry their sisters. He made it right for Abraham to marry his half-sister. He made it right for the patriarchs, and David and Solomon, to have more wives than one. He made it right when he gave command to kill whole nations, sparing none. He made it right when he ordered that nations, or such part as he pleased, should be spared and enslaved. He made it right that the patriarchs and the Israelites should hold slaves in harmony with the system of servile labor which had long been in the world. He merely modified that system to suit his views of good among his people. So, then, when he saw fit, they might capture men. So, then, when he forbade the individual Israelite to steal a man, he made it crime, and the penalty death. So, then, that crime was not the merestealinga man, nor thesellinga man, nor theholdinga man,--but thestealing and selling, orholding, a manunder circumstances thus forbidden of God.
Was the Israelite Master a Man-Stealer?
I now ask, Did God intend to make man-stealing and slave-holding the same thing? Let us see. In that very chapter of Exodus (xxi.) which contains the law against man-stealing, and only four verses further on, God says, "If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished: notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two he shall not be punished; for he is his money." (Verses 20, 21.)
Sir, that man was not a hired servant. He was bought with money. He was regarded by Godas the moneyof his master. He was his slave, in the full meaning of a slave, then, and now, bought with money. God, then, did not intend the Israelites to understand, and not one of them ever understood, from that day to this, that Jehovah in his law to Moses regarded the slave-holder as a man-stealer. Man-stealing was a specific offence, with its specific penalty. Slave-holding was one form of God's righteous government over men,--a government he ordained, with various modifications, among the Hebrews themselves, and with sterner features in its relation to heathen slaves.
In Exodus xxi. and Leviticus xxv., various gradations of servitude were enacted, with a careful particularity which need not be misunderstood. Among these, a Hebrew man might be a slave for six years, and then go free with his wife, if he were married when he came into the relation; but if his master had given him a wife, and she had borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children should be her master's, and he should go out by himself. That is, the man by the law became free, while his wife and children remained slaves. If the servant, however, plainly said, "I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his master brought him unto the judges, also unto the doorpost, and his master bored his ear through with an awl, and he served him forever." (Ex. xxi. 1-6.) Sir, you have urged discussion:--give us then your views of that passage. Tell us how that man was separated from his wife and children according tothe eternal right. Tell us what was the condition of the woman in case the man chose to "go out" without her? Tell us if the Hebrew who thus had his ear bored by his master with an awl was not a slave for life? Tell us, lastly, whether those children were not slaves? And, while on that chapter, tell us whether in the next verses, 7-11, God did not allow the Israelite father to sell his own daughter into bondage and into polygamy by the same act of sale?
I will not dwell longer on these milder forms of slavery, but read to you the clear and unmistakable command of the Lord in Leviticus xxv. 44, 46:--"Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they beget in your land: and they shall be your possession: and ye shall take them for an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; and they shall be your bondmen forever."
Sir, the sun will grow dim with age before that Scripture can be tortured to mean any thing else than just what it says; that God commanded the Israelites to be slave-holders in the strict and true sense over the heathen, in manner and form therein set forth. Do you tell the world that this cannot be the sense of the Bible, because it is "a violation of the first principles of the American Declaration of Independence;" because it grates upon your "instinct of liberty;" because it reveals God in opposition to the "spirit of the age;" because, if it be the sense of the passage, then "the Bible neither ought to be, nor can be, received by mankind as a divine revelation"?Thatis what you say:thatis what Albert Barnes affirms in his philosophy. But what if God in his word says, "Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you"? What if we may then choose between Albert Barnes's philosophy and God's truth?
Or will you say, God, under the circumstances,permittedthe Israelitesto sinin the matter of slave-holding, just as he permitted themto sinby living in polygamy.Permittedthemto sin!No, sir; Godcommandedthem to be slave-holders. Hemade itthe law of their social state. Hemade itone form of his ordained government among them. Moreover, you take it for granted all too soon, that the Israelites committed sin in their polygamy. God sanctioned their polygamy. It was therefore not sin in them. It was right. But God now forbids polygamy, under the gospel; and now it is sin.
Or will you tell us the iniquity of the Canaanites was then full, and God's time to punish them had come? True; but the same question comes up:--Did God punish the Canaanites by placing them in the relation of slaves to his people, by express command, which compelled them to sin? That's the point. I will not permit you to evade it. In plainer words:--Did God command the Hebrews to make slaves of their fellow-men, to buy them and sell them, to regard them as their money? He did. Then, did the Hebrews sin when they obeyed God's command? No. Then they did what was right, and it was right because God made it so. Thenthe Hebrew slave-holder was not a man-stealer. But, you say, the Southern slave-holder is. Well, we shall see presently.
Just here, the abolitionist who professes to respect the Scriptures is wont to tell us that the whole subject of bondage among the Israelites was so peculiar to God's ancient dispensation, that no analogy between that bondage and Southern slavery can be brought up. Thus he attempts to raise a dust out of the Jewish institutions, to prevent people from seeing that slaveholding then was the same thing that it is now. But, to sustain my interpretation of the plain Scriptures given, I will go back five hundred years before the existence of the Hebrew nation.
I read at that time, (Gen. xiv. 14:)--"And when Abraham heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them even unto Damascus," &c. (Gen. xvii. 27:)--"And all the men of his house, born, in the house, and bought with the money of the stranger, were circumcised." (Gen. xx. 14:)--"And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and men-servants and women-servants, and gave them unto Abraham." (Gen. xxiv. 34, 35:)--"And he said, I am Abraham's servant; and the Lord hath blessed my master greatly, and he is become great; and he hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and men-servants and maid-servants, and camels and asses."
Was Abraham a Man-Stealer?
Sir, what is the common sense of these Scriptures? Why, that the slave-trade existed in Abraham's day, as it had long before, and has ever since, in all the regions of Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt, in which criminals and prisoners of war were sold,--in which parents sold their children. Abraham, then, it is plain, bought, of the sellers in this traffic, men-servants and maid-servants; he had them born in his house; he received them as presents.
Do you tell me that Abraham, by divine authority, made these servants part of his family, social and religious? Very good. But still he regarded them as his slaves. He took Hagar as a wife, but he treated her as his slave,--yea, as Sarah's slave; and as such he gave her to be chastised, for misconduct, by her mistress. Yea, he never placed Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, on a level with Isaac, the son of the freewoman. If, then, he so regarded Hagar and Ishmael, of course he never considered his other slaves on an equality with himself. True, had he been childless, he would have given his estate to Eliezer: but he would have given it to his slave. True, had Isaac not been born, he would have given his wealth to Ishmael; but he would nave given it to the son of his bondwoman. Sir, every Southern planter is not more truly a slave-holder than Abraham. And the Southern master, by divine authority, may, to-day, consider his slaves part of his social and religious family, just as Abraham did. His relation is just that of Abraham. He has slaves of an inferior type of mankind from Abraham's bondmen; and he therefore, for that reason, as well as from the fact that they are his slaves, holds them lower than himself. But, nevertheless, he is a slave-holder in no other sense than was Abraham. Did Abraham have his slave-household circumcised? Every Southern planter may have his slave-household baptized. I baptized, not long since, a slave-child,--the master and mistress offering it to God. What was done in the parlor might be done with divine approbation on every plantation.
So, then, Abraham lived in the midst of a system of slave-holding exactly the same in nature with that in the South,--a system ordained of God as really as the other forms of government round about him. He, then, with the divine blessing, made himself the master of slaves, men, women, and children, by buying them,--by receiving them in gifts,--by having them born in his house; and he controlled them as property, just as really as the Southern master in the present day. I ask now,was Abraham a man-stealer?Oh, no, you reiterate: but the Southern master is. Why?
Is the Southern Master a Man-Stealer?
Do you, sir, or anybody, contend that the Southern master seized his slave in Africa, and forcibly brought him away to America, contrary to law? That, and that alone, was and is kidnapping in divine and human statute. No. What then? Why, the abolitionist responds, The African man-stealer sold his victim to the slave-holder; he, to the planter; and the negro has been ever since in bondage: thereforethe guiltof the man-stealer has cleaved to sellers, buyers, and inheritors, to this time, and will through all generations to come. That is the charge.
And it brings up the question so often and triumphantly asked by the abolitionist;i.e."You," he says to the slave-holder,--"you admit it was wrong to steal the negro in Africa. Can the slave-holder, then, throw off wrong so long as he holds the slave at any time or anywhere thereafter?" I answer, yes; and my reply shall be short, yet conclusive. It is this:--Guilt, or criminality, is that state of a moral agent which results fromhisactual commission of a crime or offence knowing it to be crime or violation of law.Thatis the received definition ofguilt, andyou, I know, do accept it. Theguilt, then, of kidnappingterminatedwith the man-stealer, the seller, the buyer, and holders, who, knowingly and intentionally, carried on the traffic contrary to the divine law. THAT GUILT attaches in no sense whatever, as a personal, moral responsibility, to the present slave-holder. Observe, I am here discussing,not the question of mere slave-holding,but whether the master, who has had nothing to do with the slave-trade, cannowhold the slave without the moral guilt of the man-stealer? I have said thatthatguilt, in no sense whatever, rests upon him; for he neither stole the man, nor bought him from the kidnapper, nor had anycomplicityin the traffic. Here, I know, the abolitionist insists that the masterisguilty of thiscomplicity, unless he will at once emancipate the slave; because, so long as he holds him, he thereby, personally andvoluntarily, assumes the same relation which the original kidnapper or buyer held to the African.
This is Dr. Cheever's argument in a recent popular sermon. He thinks it unanswerable; but it has no weight whatever. It is met perfectly by addingoneword to his proposition. Thus:--The master doesNOTassume the same relation which the original man-stealer or buyer held to the African. The master'srelationto God and to his slave is nowwholly changedfrom that of the man-stealer, and those engaged in the trade; and his obligation is wholly different. What is his relation? and what is his obligation? They are as follows:----
The master finds himself, with no taint of personal concern in the African trade, in a Christian community of white Anglo-Americans, holding control over his black fellow-man, who is so unlike himself in complexion, in form, in other peculiarities, and so unequal to himself in attributes of body and mind, that it isimpossible, in every sense, to place him on a level with himself in the community.This is his relation to the negro. What, then, does God command him to do? Does God require him to send the negro back to his heathen home from whence he was stolen? That home no longer exists. But, if it did remain, does God command the master to send his Christianized slave into the horrors of his former African heathenism? No. God has placed the master under law entirely different from his command to the slave-trader. God said to the trader,Let the negro alone. But he says to the present master,Do unto the negro all the good you can; make him a civilized man; make him a Christian man; lift him up and give him all he has a right to claim in the good of the whole community. This the master can do; this he must do, and then leave the result with the Almighty.
We reach the same conclusion by asking, What does God say to the negro-slave?
Does he tell him to ask to be sent back to heathen Africa? No. Does he give him authority to claim a created equality and unalienable right to be on a level with the white man in civil and social relations? No. To ask the first would be to ask a great evil; to claim the second is to demand a natural and moral impossibility. No. God tells him to seek none of these things. But he commands him to know the facts in his case as they are in the Bible, and have ever been, and ever will be in Providence:--that he is not the white man's equal,--that he can never have his level--that he must not claim it; but that he can have, and ought to have, and must have, all of good, in his condition as a slave, until God may reveal a higher happiness for him in some other relation than thathe must everhave to the Anglo-American. The present slave-holder, then, by declining to emancipate his bondman, does not place himself inthe guiltof the man-stealer or of those who had complicity with him; but he standsexactlyin that NICKof time and place, in the course of Providence, wherewrong, in the transmission of African slavery,ends, andright begins.
I have, sir, fairly stated this, your strongest argument, and fully met it.The Southern master is not a man-stealer.The abolitionist--repulsed in his charge that the slave-owner is a kidnapper, either in fact or by voluntarily assuming any of the relations of the traffic--then makes his impeachment on his second affirmation, mentioned at the opening of this letter. That the slave-holder is, nevertheless, thusguilty, because, in the simple fact of being a master, hestealsfrom the negro his unalienable right to freedom.
This, sir, looks like a new view of the subject. The crime forbidden in the Bible was stealing and selling a man;i.e.seizing and forcibly carrying away, from country or State, a human being--man, woman, or child--contrary to law, and selling or holding the same. But the abolitionist gives us to understand this crime rests on the slave-holder in another sense:--namely, that he steals from the negro a metaphysical attribute,--his unalienable right to liberty!
This is a new sort of kidnapping. This is, I suppose,stealing the man from himself, as it is sometimes elegantly expressed,--robbing him of his body and his soul. Sir, I admit this is a strong figure of speech, a beautiful personification, a sonorous rhetorical flourish, which must make a deep impression on Dr. Cheever's people, Broadway, New York, and on your congregation, Washington Square, Philadelphia; but it is certainly not the Bible crime of man-stealing. And whether the Southern master isguiltyof this sublimated thing will be understood by us when you prove that the negro, or anybody else, has such metaphysical right to be stolen,--such transcendental liberty not in subordination to the good of the whole people. In a word, sir, this refined expression is, after all, just the old averment that the slave-holder is guilty ofsin per se!That's it.
I have given you, in reply, the Old Testament. In my next, I propose to inquire what the New Testament says in the light of theGolden Rule.
F.A. Ross.
Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 31, 1857.