I sincerely believe that he was more of a man than his political supporters thought him; that he had more natural sagacity, more common sense, more firmness of purpose, and very much more honesty than they expected or desired. Rumors reach me that he was not found quite so manageable as his "friends" and admirers had hoped; that he had some conscience and a will of his own. It seems to me that he honestly intended to be an honest and impartial ruler, the President of his country; that he took Washington for his general model; that he never sought the office, and at first did not desire it, but when he came to it endeavored to deserve well of his country and do well by mankind. But with the best intentions, what could such a man do, especially with such foes, and more especially with such friends.
It is said he was a religious man: sometimes that means that a man loves God and loves men; sometimes that he is superstitious, formal, hypocritical, that he does not love men, and is afraid of God, or of a devil. I do not know in which sense the word is used in reference to him. But it appears to me that he was a man of veracity, honest, upright, and downright too; a good father, a good husband, a good friend, faithful to his idea of duty; very plain, very unpretending, mild and yet firm, good-natured,free and easy. There were many that loved him; a rare circumstance among politicians. He was a temperate man, also, remarkably temperate, and such temperance as his is not a very common virtue in high political and social stations in America, as we all know too well.
These are all the good qualities I can make out his title to. I suppose there are some ten thousand men in Massachusetts that are his equals in all these qualities, as honest, as able, and as patriotic as he. It is hardly worth while to worship those qualities in a President which are not rare in farmers, and traders, and butchers and mechanics.
There are two things which seem to me decidedly wrong in his public career. His partisans at the North claimed that he was hostile to slavery. I never could find any reason for that opinion: at the South his friends insisted that he was the decided friend of slavery. When his opinion was asked on this matter, he remained steadily and pertinaciously silent. To me this does not seem honest or manly.
Then he was a slaveholder, not by compulsion, as some pretend they hold men in bondage, not by inheritance. He was a slaveholder from choice, and only three years ago bought one hundred and fourteen human beings and kept them as his slaves. This fact must be considered in estimating the character and value of the man. I know that Money is the popular god of America; that slaveholding isone of the canonical forms of worshipping that god, sanctioned by the Constitution and the laws and the legislature of the land, by its literature and by its churches. I know men in Boston, who would have no more scruple in buying and selling a black man as a slave, or a white man if they could catch and keep him, than they would have of buying a cow at Brighton. There are men in Massachusetts that have grown rich by the slave-trade. It does not hurt their reputation; it is no impeachment of their religious character. Now I do not expect a frontier colonel, busy in fighting Indians half his life, dogging them with Cuban bloodhounds, to be more enlightened on such a matter than merchants, manufacturers, lawyers, ministers and professors of theology in New England. It may be that he had the same opinion as Professor Stuart, that slavery was allowed in the New Testament and sanctioned in the Old Testament; such a good thing that Paul and James said never a word against it. We should not judge such a man as you would judge a Unitarian Minister in Boston or Doctors of Divinity at Andover. Born as he was, bred as he had been, living in a camp, sustained by the public opinion of the Press, the State and the Church, it would not be surprising if it had never occurred to him that it was wrong to steal men. But the fact is to be taken into the account in determining the elevation of his character.
It is now plain that he found the office of Presidenta heavy burden; that it cost him his life. It seems to me the conduct of some of our public men towards him was ungenerous, not to say unjust and shameful. An honest man, he looked for honest foes and honest friends; but his hardest battles were fought after he had ceased to be a soldier.
Well, he has gone to his rest and his recompense. To his family the affliction is sudden, painful and terrible. What vicissitudes in their life—from the obscurity of their former home to the glaring publicity of that high station; then in so brief a time the honored and well-beloved head is silent and cold forever! The nation may well drop its tears of sympathy for those whom its election has robbed of a father and a husband; the ghastly honors of the office are poor recompense for the desolation it has brought into a quiet and once happy home.
He has gone to his reward. He leaves the government in the hands of an obscure man, whom the nation knows very little of, whom no one would ever have thought of making President; a man selected certainly for no eminence of faculty, intellectual or moral. There is some cause to fear, perhaps some little for hope.[10]Two very important questions arenow before the nation: Shall we extend over the territory conquered from Mexico the awful blightwhich now mildews the material welfare of the South, and curses with a threefold ban the intellect, the conscience and the religion of the land? Shall Congress pass that infamous fugitive slave measure, known as Mr. Mason's bill, with Mr. Webster's indorsement on it? I know not how his death will affect these things. Who knows the intentions of the late President? or those of his successor? He has power to bless, he may use it only to curse the land. Let us wait and see. The fact that the "Great Compromiser" now represents the Administration in the Senate, the rumor of the appointment of the Senator of Boston to the highest place in the Cabinet, are things of ill omen for freedom, and bid us fear the worst. However, it may be that this event will affect the politicians more than the people.
Last Tuesday night General Taylor ceased to be mortal. His soul went home to God. He that fought against the Mexican and the Indian has goneto meet the God of the red man as well as the white. He who claimed to own the body and the soul of more than a hundred of his fellow creatures, enriched by the unrequited toil, which they unwillingly gave him when stung by the lash of his hireling overseers, has gone home to the Father of negro slaves, who is no respecter of persons; gone where the servant is free from his master. Black and white, conqueror and vanquished, the bond and the free, alike come up before the Infinite Father, whose perfect justice is perfect love; and there the question is, "What hast thou done with the talent committed unto thee?" The same question is asked of the President; the same of the slave; yea, it will one day be asked of you and me!
"An old man, wearied with the storms of State," now only asks a little earth for charity. Costly heathen pageants there will be in these streets to his memory, and politicians will, I suppose, hold their drunken and profane debauch over his grave, as over the tomb of that far-famed friend of freedom who died two years ago. But he has ceased to be mortal. The memory of his battle-fields faded from before his dying sight. Power rests no longer in his hands; victory perches on another banner. His ear is still, and his heart is cold. How hollow sounds the voice of former flattery! His riches go to other men; his slaves will be called by his name no more; the scourge that goads them to unpaid toil is nowowned by another man. His fame goes back to such as gave; the accident of an accident succeeds him in the presidential chair; only the man, not the officer, goes home to God, with what of goodness and piety he had won. His manhood is all that he can carry out of the world; elected or rejected, a conqueror or conquered, it is now the same to him; and it may be the humblest female slave who only earned the bread which her master only ate, and got an enforced concubinage for pay, takes rank in heaven far before the man whom the nation honored with its highest trust, and for whom the official Senate and low-browed Church send out their hollow groans.
"The glories of our birth and StateAre shadows, not substantial things.There is no armor against fate:Death lays his icy hand on kings.Sceptre and crownMust tumble down,And in the dust be equal made,With the poor crooked scythe and spade."Some men with swords may reap the field,And plant fresh laurels where they kill;But their strong arms at last must yield,They tame but one another still.Early or lateThey stoop to fate,And must give up their murmuring breath,When they, pale captives, creep to death."The garlands wither on his brow:Then boast no more his mighty deeds,Upon death's purple altar now,See where the victor victim bleeds.All heads must comeTo the cold tomb,Only the actions of the justSmell sweet and blossom in the dust."
"The glories of our birth and StateAre shadows, not substantial things.There is no armor against fate:Death lays his icy hand on kings.Sceptre and crownMust tumble down,And in the dust be equal made,With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
"Some men with swords may reap the field,And plant fresh laurels where they kill;But their strong arms at last must yield,They tame but one another still.Early or lateThey stoop to fate,And must give up their murmuring breath,When they, pale captives, creep to death.
"The garlands wither on his brow:Then boast no more his mighty deeds,Upon death's purple altar now,See where the victor victim bleeds.All heads must comeTo the cold tomb,Only the actions of the justSmell sweet and blossom in the dust."
If he could speak to us from his present position, methinks he would say: Countrymen and friends! You see how little it availed you to agitate the land and put a little man in a great place. It is not the hurrah of parties that will "save the Union," it is not "great men." It is only Justice. Remember that Atheism is not the first principle of a Republic; remember there is a law of God, the higher law of the universe, the Everlasting Right; I thought so once, and now I know it. Remember that you are accountable to God for all things; that you owe justice to all men, the black not less than the white; that God will demand it of you, proud, wicked nation, careful only of your gold, forgetful of God's high law! Before long each of you shall also come up before the Eternal. Then and there it will not avail you to have compromised truth, justice, love, but to have kept them. Righteousness only is the salvation of a State; that only of a man.
FOOTNOTES:[10]The above was written in July, 1851. Since then the ground of hope has wholly vanished; the ground for fear remains alone. The following statement may suggest a thought the other side of the ocean, if no shame on this side among politicians and their priests:Elisha Brazealle, a planter of Jefferson county in the State of Mississippi, was taken sick, and as he lay oppressed with a loathsome disease, a slave of his, a bright mulatto or quadroon, nursed him, and, as was believed, through her nursing, saved him from death. He was a man of feeling and did not forget her kindness, but took her to Ohio and there educated her. She made rapid progress, and soon became his wife. He made or caused to be made a legal and sound deed of emancipation, and had it legally and formally recorded in Ohio and Mississippi. Lawyers, in both States, said she was free, safe, and that no power in the South, or elsewhere, could legally deprive her or her children of freedom.Mr. Brazealle returned to Mississippi with his wife; they had a son, and named him John Munroe Brazealle. After some years Mr. Brazealle sickened and died, leaving a will in which he recited the deed of emancipation, declared his intention to ratify it, and devised all his property to his son, acknowledging him in the will to be such.Some poor and distant relations of his in North Carolina, whom he did not know, and for whom he did not care, hearing of his death, went on to Mississippi and claimed the property devised by Mr. Brazealle to his son. They instituted a suit for the recovery of the property. The case came before William L. Sharkey, "Chief Justice of the High Court of Errors and Appeals" for that State. It is reported in Howard's Mississippi Reports, Vol. II. p. 837,et seq.Judge Sharkey declared the act of emancipation "An offence against morality, pernicious and detestable as an example," set aside the will, gave to those distant relations the property which Mr. Brazealle had devised to his son, and in addition declared that son and his mother to be slaves. Here is his own language:—"The state of the case shows conclusively that the contract had its origin in an offence against morality, pernicious and detestable as an example."... "The consequence [of the decision] is, that the negroes John Munroe and his mother, are still slaves, and a part of the estate of Elisha Brazealle." "John Munroe being a slave cannot take the property as devised; and I apprehend it is equally clear that it cannot be held in trust for him."While these volumes are in the press, I learn that Mr. Fillmore has appointed Judge Sharkey to the honorable and lucrative post of Consul to Havana.
[10]The above was written in July, 1851. Since then the ground of hope has wholly vanished; the ground for fear remains alone. The following statement may suggest a thought the other side of the ocean, if no shame on this side among politicians and their priests:Elisha Brazealle, a planter of Jefferson county in the State of Mississippi, was taken sick, and as he lay oppressed with a loathsome disease, a slave of his, a bright mulatto or quadroon, nursed him, and, as was believed, through her nursing, saved him from death. He was a man of feeling and did not forget her kindness, but took her to Ohio and there educated her. She made rapid progress, and soon became his wife. He made or caused to be made a legal and sound deed of emancipation, and had it legally and formally recorded in Ohio and Mississippi. Lawyers, in both States, said she was free, safe, and that no power in the South, or elsewhere, could legally deprive her or her children of freedom.Mr. Brazealle returned to Mississippi with his wife; they had a son, and named him John Munroe Brazealle. After some years Mr. Brazealle sickened and died, leaving a will in which he recited the deed of emancipation, declared his intention to ratify it, and devised all his property to his son, acknowledging him in the will to be such.Some poor and distant relations of his in North Carolina, whom he did not know, and for whom he did not care, hearing of his death, went on to Mississippi and claimed the property devised by Mr. Brazealle to his son. They instituted a suit for the recovery of the property. The case came before William L. Sharkey, "Chief Justice of the High Court of Errors and Appeals" for that State. It is reported in Howard's Mississippi Reports, Vol. II. p. 837,et seq.Judge Sharkey declared the act of emancipation "An offence against morality, pernicious and detestable as an example," set aside the will, gave to those distant relations the property which Mr. Brazealle had devised to his son, and in addition declared that son and his mother to be slaves. Here is his own language:—"The state of the case shows conclusively that the contract had its origin in an offence against morality, pernicious and detestable as an example."... "The consequence [of the decision] is, that the negroes John Munroe and his mother, are still slaves, and a part of the estate of Elisha Brazealle." "John Munroe being a slave cannot take the property as devised; and I apprehend it is equally clear that it cannot be held in trust for him."While these volumes are in the press, I learn that Mr. Fillmore has appointed Judge Sharkey to the honorable and lucrative post of Consul to Havana.
[10]The above was written in July, 1851. Since then the ground of hope has wholly vanished; the ground for fear remains alone. The following statement may suggest a thought the other side of the ocean, if no shame on this side among politicians and their priests:
Elisha Brazealle, a planter of Jefferson county in the State of Mississippi, was taken sick, and as he lay oppressed with a loathsome disease, a slave of his, a bright mulatto or quadroon, nursed him, and, as was believed, through her nursing, saved him from death. He was a man of feeling and did not forget her kindness, but took her to Ohio and there educated her. She made rapid progress, and soon became his wife. He made or caused to be made a legal and sound deed of emancipation, and had it legally and formally recorded in Ohio and Mississippi. Lawyers, in both States, said she was free, safe, and that no power in the South, or elsewhere, could legally deprive her or her children of freedom.
Mr. Brazealle returned to Mississippi with his wife; they had a son, and named him John Munroe Brazealle. After some years Mr. Brazealle sickened and died, leaving a will in which he recited the deed of emancipation, declared his intention to ratify it, and devised all his property to his son, acknowledging him in the will to be such.
Some poor and distant relations of his in North Carolina, whom he did not know, and for whom he did not care, hearing of his death, went on to Mississippi and claimed the property devised by Mr. Brazealle to his son. They instituted a suit for the recovery of the property. The case came before William L. Sharkey, "Chief Justice of the High Court of Errors and Appeals" for that State. It is reported in Howard's Mississippi Reports, Vol. II. p. 837,et seq.Judge Sharkey declared the act of emancipation "An offence against morality, pernicious and detestable as an example," set aside the will, gave to those distant relations the property which Mr. Brazealle had devised to his son, and in addition declared that son and his mother to be slaves. Here is his own language:—
"The state of the case shows conclusively that the contract had its origin in an offence against morality, pernicious and detestable as an example."... "The consequence [of the decision] is, that the negroes John Munroe and his mother, are still slaves, and a part of the estate of Elisha Brazealle." "John Munroe being a slave cannot take the property as devised; and I apprehend it is equally clear that it cannot be held in trust for him."
While these volumes are in the press, I learn that Mr. Fillmore has appointed Judge Sharkey to the honorable and lucrative post of Consul to Havana.
There are some things which are true, independent of all human opinions. Such things we call facts. Thus it is true that one and one are equal to two, that the earth moves round the sun, that all men have certain natural unalienable rights, rights which a man can alienate only for himself, and not for another. No man made these things true; no man can make them false. If all the men in Jerusalem and ever so many more, if all the men in the world, were to pass a unanimous vote that one and one were not equal to two, that the earth did not move round the sun, that all men had not naturaland unalienable rights, the opinion would not alter the fact, nor make truth false and falsehood true.
So there are likewise some things which are right, independent of all human opinions. Thus it is right to love a man and not to hate him, to do him justice and not injustice, to allow him the natural rights which he has not alienated. No man made these things right; no man can make them wrong. If all the men in Jerusalem and ever so many more, if all the men in the world, were to pass a unanimous vote that it was right to hate a man and not love him, right to do him injustice and not justice, right to deprive him of his natural rights not alienated by himself, the opinion would not alter the fact, nor make right wrong and wrong right.
There are certain constant and general facts which occur in the material world, the world of external perception, which represent what are called the laws of matter, in virtue of which things take place so and not otherwise. These laws are the same everywhere and always; they never change. They are not made by men, but only discovered by men, are inherent in the constitution of matter, and seem designed to secure the welfare of the material world. These natural laws of matter, inherent in its constitution, are never violated, nor can be, for material nature is passive, or at least contains no element or will that is adverse to the will of God, the ultimate Cause of these laws as of matter itself. The observanceof these laws is a constant fact of the universe; "the most ancient heavens thereby are fresh and strong." These laws represent the infinity of God in the world of matter, His infinite power, wisdom, justice, love and holiness.
So there are likewise certain constant and general facts which occur in what may be called the spiritual world, the world of internal consciousness. They represent the laws of spirit—that is of the human spirit—in virtue of which things are designed to take place so and not otherwise. These laws are the same everywhere and always; they never change. They are not made by men, but only discovered by men. They are inherent in the constitution of man, and as you cannot conceive of a particle of matter without extension, impenetrability, figure and so on, no more can you conceive of man without these laws inhering in him. They seem designed to secure the welfare of the spiritual world. They represent the infinity of God in the world of man, His infinite power, wisdom, justice, love and holiness. But while matter is stationary, bound by necessity, and man is progressive and partially free, to the extent of a certain tether, so it is plain that there may be a will in the world of man adverse to the will of God, and thus the laws of man's spirit may be violated to a certain extent. The laws of matter depend for their execution only on the infinite will of God, and so cannot be violated. The laws of man depend fortheir execution also on the finite will of man, and so may be broken.[11]
Let us select a portion of these laws of the human spirit; such as relate to a man's conduct in dealing with his fellow men, a portion of what are commonly called moral laws, and examine them. They partake of the general characteristics mentioned above; they are universal and unchangeable, are only discovered and not made by man, are inherent in man, designed to secure his welfare, and represent the infinity of God. These laws are absolutely right; to obey them is to be and do absolutely right. So being and doing, a man answers the moral purpose of his existence, and attains moral manhood. If I and all men keep all the laws of man's spirit, I have peace in my own heart, peace with my brother, peace with my God; I have my delight in myself, in my brother, in my God, they theirs and God His in me.
What is absolutely right is commonly called justice. It is the point in morals common to me and all mankind, common to me and God, to mankind and God; the point where all duties unite—to myself, my brethren, and my God; the point whereall interests meet and balance—my interests, those of mankind, and the interests of God. When justice is done, all is harmony and peaceful progress in the world of man; but when justice is not done, the reverse follows, discord and confusion; for injustice is not the point where all duties and all interests meet and balance, not the point of morals common to mankind and me, or to us and God.
We may observe and study the constant facts of the material world, thus learn the laws they represent, and so get at a theory of the world which is founded on the facts thereof. Such a theory is true; it represents the thought of God, the infinity of God. Then for every point of theory we have a point of fact. Instead of pursuing this course we may neglect these constant facts, with the laws they represent, and forge a theory which shall not rest on these facts. Such a theory will be false and will represent the imperfection of men, and not the facts of the universe and the infinity of God.
In like manner we may study the constant facts of the spiritual world, and, in special, of man's moral nature, and thereby obtain a rule to regulate our conduct. If this rule is founded on the constant facts of man's moral nature, then it will be absolutely right, and represent Justice, the thought of God, the infinity of God, and for every point of moral theory we shall have a moral fact. Instead of pursuing that course, we may forge a rule for ourconduct, and so get a theory which shall not rest on those facts. Such a rule will be wrong, representing only the imperfection of men.
In striving to learn the laws of the universe, the wisest men often go astray, propound theories which do not rest upon facts, and lay down human rules for the conduct of the universe, which do not agree with its nature. But the universe is not responsible for that; material nature takes no notice thereof. The opinion of an astronomer, of the American academy, does not alter a law of the material universe, or a fact therein. The philosophers once thought that the sun went round the earth, and framed laws on that assumption; but that did not make it a fact; the sun did not go out of his way to verify the theory, but kept to the law of God, and swung the earth round him once a year, say the philosophers what they might say, leaving them to learn the fact and thereby correct their theory.
In the same way, before men attain a knowledge of the absolute right, they often make theories which do not rest upon the facts of man's moral nature, and enact human rules for the conduct of men which do not agree with the moral nature of man. These are rules which men make and do not find made. They are not a part of man's moral nature, writ therein, and so obligatory thereon, no more than the false rules for the conduct of matter are writ therein, and so obligatory thereon. You and I are no more morallybound to keep such rules of conduct, because King Pharaoh or King People say we shall, than the sun is materially bound to go round the earth every day, because Hipparchus and Ptolemy say it does. The opinion or command of a king, or a people, can no more change a fact and alter a law of man's nature, than the opinion of a philosopher can do this in material nature.
We learn the laws of matter slowly, by observation, experiment, and induction, and only get an outside knowledge thereof, as objects of thought. In the same way we might study the facts of man's moral nature, and arrive at rules of conduct, and get a merely outside acquaintance with the moral law as something wholly external. The law might appear curious, useful, even beautiful, moral gravitation as wonderful as material attraction. But no sense of duty would attach us to it. In addition to the purely intellectual powers, we have a faculty whose special function it is to discover the rules for a man's moral conduct. This is Conscience, called also by many names. As the mind has for its object absolute truth, so conscience has for its object absolute justice. Conscience enables us not merely to learn the right by experiment and induction, but intuitively, and in advance of experiment; so, in addition to the experimental way, whereby we learn justice from the facts of human history, we have a transcendentalway, and learn it from the facts of human nature, from immediate consciousness.
It is the function of conscience to discover to men the moral law of God. It will not do this with infallible certainty, for, at its best estate, neither conscience nor any other faculty of man is absolutely perfect, so as never to mistake. Absolute perfection belongs only to the faculties of God. But conscience, like each other faculty, is relatively perfect,—is adequate to the purpose God meant it for. It is often immature in the young, who have not had time for the growth and ripening of the faculty, and in the old, who have checked and hindered its development. Here it is feeble from neglect, there from abuse. It may give an imperfect answer to the question, What is absolutely right?
Now, though the conscience of a man lacks the absolute perfection of that of God, in all that relates to my dealing with men, it is still the last standard of appeal. I will hear what my friends have to say, what public opinion has to offer, what the best men can advise me to, then I am to ask my own conscience, and follow its decision; not that of my next friend, the public, or the best of men. I will not say that my conscience will always disclose to me the absolutely right, according to the conscience of God, but it will disclose the relatively right, what is my conviction of right to-day, with all the light I canget on the matter; and as all I can know of the absolute right, is my conviction thereof, so I must be true to that conviction. Then I am faithful to my own conscience, and faithful to my God. If I do the best thing I can know to-day, and to-morrow find a better one and do that, I am not to be blamed, nor to be called a sinner against God, because not so just to-day as I shall be to-morrow. I am to do God's will soon as I know it, not before, and to take all possible pains to find it out; but am not to blame for acting childish when a child, nor to be ashamed of it when grown up to be a man. Such is the function of conscience.
Having determined what is absolutely right, by the conscience of God, or at least relatively right, according to my conscience to-day, then it becomes my duty to keep it. I owe it to God to obey His law, or what I deem his law; that is my duty. It may be uncomfortable to keep it, unpopular, contrary to my present desires, to my passions, to my immediate interests; it may conflict with my plans in life; that makes no difference. I owe entire allegiance to my God. It is a duty to keep His law, a personal duty, my duty as a man. I owe it to myself, for I am to keep the integrity of my own consciousness; I owe it to my brother, and to my God. Nothing can absolve me from this duty, neither the fact that it is uncomfortable or unpopular, nor that it conflicts withmy desires, my passions, my immediate interests, and my plans in life. Such is the place of conscience amongst other faculties of my nature.
I believe all this is perfectly plain, but now see what it leads to. In the complicated relations of human life, various rules for the moral conduct of men have been devised, some of them in the form of statute laws, some in the form of customs, and, in virtue of these rules, certain artificial demands are made of men, which have no foundation in the moral nature of man; these demands are thought to represent duties. We have the same word to describe what I ought to do as subject to the law of God, and what is demanded of me by custom, or the statute. We call each a duty. Hence comes no small confusion: the conventional and official obligation is thought to rest on the same foundation as the natural and personal duty. As the natural duty is at first sight a little vague, and not written out in the law-book, or defined by custom, while the conventional obligation is well understood, men think that in case of any collision between the two, the natural duty must give way to the official obligation.
For clearness' sake, the natural and personal obligation to keep the law of God as my conscience declares it, I will call Duty; the conventional and official obligation to comply with some custom, keep some statute, or serve some special interest, I willcall Business. Here then are two things—my natural and personal duty, my conventional and official business. Which of the two shall give way to the other,—personal duty or official business? Let it be remembered that I am a man first of all, and all else that I am is but a modification of my manhood, which makes me a clergyman, a fisherman, or a statesman; but the clergy, the fish, and the State, are not to strip me of my manhood. They are valuable in so far as they serve my manhood, not as it serves them. My official business as clergyman, fisherman, or statesman, is always beneath my personal duty as man. In case of any conflict between the two, the natural duty ought to prevail and carry the day before the official business; for the natural duty represents the permanent law of God, the absolute right, justice, the balance-point of all interests; while the official business represents only the transient conventions of men, some partial interest; and besides the man who owes the personal duty, is immortal, while the officer who performs the official business, is but for a time. At death, the man is to be tried by the justice of God, for the deeds done, and character attained, for his natural duty, but he does not enter the next life as a clergyman, with his surplice and prayer-book, or a fisherman, with his angles and net, nor yet as a statesman, with his franking privilege, and title of honorable and member of Congress. The officer dies, of a vote or a fever.The man lives forever. From the relation between a man and his occupation, it is plain, in general, that all conventional and official business is to be overruled by natural personal duty. This is the great circle, drawn by God, and discovered by conscience, which girdles my sphere, including all the smaller circles, and itself included by none of them. The law of God has eminent domain everywhere, over the private passions of Oliver and Charles, the special interests of Carthage and of Rome, over all customs, all official business, all precedents, all human statutes, all treaties between Judas and Pilate, or England and France, over all the conventional affairs of one man or of mankind. My own conscience is to declare that law for me, yours for you, and is before all private passions, or public interests, the decision of majorities, and a world full of precedents. You may resign your office, and escape its obligations, forsake your country, and owe it no allegiance, but you cannot move out of the dominions of God, nor escape where conscience has not eminent domain.
See some examples of a conflict between the personal duty and the official business. A man may be a clergyman, and it may be his official business to expound and defend the creed which is set up for him by his employers, his bishop, his association, or his parish, to defend and hold it good against all comers; it may be, also, in a certain solemn sort, toplease the audience, who come to be soothed, caressed, and comforted,—to represent the average of religion in his society, and so to bless popular virtues and ban unpopular vices, but never to shake off or even jostle with one of his fingers the load of sin, beloved and popular, which crushes his hearers down till they are bowed together and can in nowise lift themselves up; unpopular excellence he is to call fanaticism, if not infidelity. But his natural duty as a man, standing in this position, overrides his official business, and commands him to tell men of the false things in their creed, of great truths not in it; commands him to inform his audience with new virtue, to represent all of religion he can attain, to undo the heavy burdens of popular sin, private or national, and let the men oppressed therewith go free. Excellence, popular or odious, he is to commend by its own name, to stimulate men to all nobleness of character and life, whether it please or offend. This is his duty, however uncomfortable, unpopular, against his desires, and conflicting with his immediate interests and plans of life. Which shall he do? His official business, and pimp and pander to the public lust, with base compliance serving the popular idols, which here are Money and Respectability, or shall he serve his God? That is the question. If the man considers himself substantially a man, and accidentally a clergyman, he will perform his natural duty; if he counts the priesthood his substance, andmanhood an accident of that, he will do only his official business.
I may be a merchant, and my official business may be to buy, and sell, and get gain; I may see that the traffic in ardent spirits is the readiest way to accomplish this. So it becomes my official business to make rum, sell rum, and by all means to induce men to drink it. But presently I see that the common use of it makes the thriving unthrifty, the rich less wealthy, the poor miserable, the sound sick, and the sane mad; that it brings hundreds to the jail, thousands to the almshouse, and millions to poverty and shame, producing an amount of suffering, wretchedness, and sin, beyond the power of man to picture or conceive. Then my natural duty as man is very clear, very imperative. Shall I sacrifice my manhood to money?—the integrity of my consciousness to my gains by rum-selling? That is the question. And my answer will depend on the fact, whether I am more a man or more a rum-seller. Suppose I compromise the matter, and draw a line somewhere between my natural duty as man, and my official business as rum-seller, and for every three cents that I make by iniquity, give one cent to the American Tract Society, or the Board for Foreign Missions, or the Unitarian Association, or the excellent Society for promoting the Gospel among the Indians (and others) in North America. That does not help the matter; business is not satisfied, thoughI draw the line never so near to money; nor conscience, unless the line comes up to my duty.
I am a citizen, and the State says, "You must obey all the statutes made by the proper authorities; that is your official business!" Suppose there is a statute adverse to the natural law of God, and the convictions of my own conscience, and I plead that fact in abatement of my obligation to keep the statute, the State says, "Obey it, none the less, or we will hang you. Religion is an excellent thing in every matter except politics; there it seems to make men mad." Shall I keep the commandment of men, or the law of my God?
A statute was once enacted by King Pharaoh for the destruction of the Israelites in Egypt; it was made the official business of all citizens to aid in their destruction: "Pharaoh charged all his people saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive." It was the official business of every Egyptian who found a Hebrew boy to throw him into the Nile,—if he refused, he offended against the peace and dignity of the kingdom of Egypt, and the form of law in such case made and provided. But if he obeyed, he murdered a man. Which should he obey, the Lord Pharaoh, or the Lord God? That was the question. I make no doubt that the priests of Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis, and the judges, and the justices of the peace and quorum, and the members of Congressof that time said, "Keep the king's commandment, oh ye that worship the crocodile and fear the cat, or ye shall not sleep in a whole skin any longer!" So said every thing that loveth and maketh a lie.
King Charles II. made a statute some one hundred and ninety years ago, to punish with death the remnant of the nine-and-fifty judges who had brought his father's head to the block, teaching kings "that they also had a joint in their necks." He called on all his subjects to aid in the capture of these judges. It was made their official business as citizens to do so; a reward was offered for the apprehension of some of them "alive or dead;" punishment hung over the head of any who should harbor or conceal them. Three of these regicides, who had adjudged a king for his felony, came to New England. Many Americans knew where they were, and thought the condemnation of Charles I. was the best thing these judges ever did. With that conviction ought they to have delivered up these fugitives, or afforded them shelter? In time of peril, when officers of the English government were on the lookout for some of these men, a clergyman in the town where one of them was concealed, preached, it is said, on the text "Bewray not him that wandereth," an occasional sermon, and put the duty of a man far before the business of a citizen. When Sir Edmund Andros was at New Haven looking after one of the judges, and attended public worship in the same meeting-housewith the fugitive, the congregation sung an awful hymn in his very ears.[12]
Would the men of Connecticut have done right, bewraying him that wandered, and exposing the outcast, to give up the man who had defended the liberties of the world and the rights of mankind against a tyrant,—give him up because a wanton king, and his loose men and loose women, made such a commandment? One of the regicides dwelt in peace eight-and-twenty years in New England, a monument of the virtue of the people.
Of old time the Roman statute commanded the Christians to sacrifice to Jupiter; they deemed it the highest sin to do so, but it was their official business as Roman citizens. Some of them were true to their natural duty as men, and took the same cross Jesus had borne before them; Peter and John had said at their outset to the authorities—"Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." The Emperor once made it the official business of every citizen to deliver up the Christians. But God made it no man's duty. Nay, it was each man's duty to help them. In such cases what shall a man do? Youknow what we think of men who comply basely, and save their life with the loss of their soul. You know how the Christian world honors the saints and martyrs, who laid down their lives for the sake of truth and right; a handful of their dust, which was quieted of its trouble by the headsman's axe seventeen hundred years ago, and is now gathered from the catacombs of Saint Agnes at Rome—why it is enough to consecrate half of the Catholic churches in New England. As I have stood among their graves, have handled the instruments with which they tasted of bitter death, and crumbled their bones in my hands,—I keep their relics still with reverend awe—I have thought there was a little difference between their religion, and the pale decency that haunts the churches of our time, and is afraid lest it lose its dividends, or its respectability, or hurt its usefulness, which is in no danger.
Do I speak of martyrs for conscience' sake? To-day is St. Maurice's day, consecrated to him and the "Thebæan legion." Maurice appears to have been a military tribune in the Christian legion, levied in the Thebais, a part of Egypt. In the latter part of the third century this legion was at Octodurum, near the little village of Martigni, in Valais, a Swiss Canton, under the command of Maximian, the associate emperor, just then named Herculeus, going to fight the Bagaudæ. The legion was ordered to sacrifice to the Gods after the heathen fashion. The soldiersrefused; every tenth man was hewn down by Maximian's command. They would not submit, and so the whole legion, as the Catholic story tells us, perished there on the 22d of September, fifteen hundred and fifty-three years ago this day. Perhaps the account is not true; it is probable that the number of martyrs is much exaggerated, for six thousand soldiers would not stand still and be slaughtered without striking a blow. But the fact that the Catholic church sets apart one day in the calendar to honor this alleged heroism, shows the value men put on fidelity to conscience in such cases.
Last winter a bill for the capture of fugitive slaves was introduced into the Senate of the United States of America; the Senator who so ably represented the opinions and wishes of the controlling men of this city, proposed to support that bill, "with all its provisions to the fullest extent;" that bill, with various alterations, some for the better, others for the worse, has become a law—it received the vote of the Representative from Boston, who was not sent there, I hope, for the purpose of voting for it. That statute allows the slaveholder, or his agent, to come here, and by summary process seize a fugitive slave, and, without the formality of a trial by jury, to carry him back to eternal bondage. The statute makes it the official business of certain magistrates to aid in enslaving a man; it empowers them to call out force enough to overcome any resistance which may beoffered, to summon the bystanders to aid in that work. It provides a punishment for any one who shall aid and abet, directly or indirectly, and harbor or conceal the man who is seeking to maintain his natural and unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He may be fined a thousand dollars, imprisoned six months, and be liable to a civil action for a thousand dollars more!
This statute is not to be laid to the charge of the slaveholders of the South alone; its most effective supporters are northern men; Boston is more to be blamed for it than Charleston or Savannah, for nearly a thousand persons of this city and neighborhood, most of them men of influence through money if by no other means, addressed a letter of thanks to the distinguished man who had volunteered to support that infamous bill, telling him that he had "convinced the understanding and touched the conscience of the nation." A man falls low when he consents to be a slave, and is spurned for his lack of manhood; to consent to be a catcher of fugitive slaves is to fall lower yet; but to consent to be the defender of a slave-catcher—it is seldom that human nature is base enough for that. But such examples are found in this city! This is now the law of the land. It is the official business of judges, commissioners and marshals, as magistrates, to execute the statute and deliver a fugitive up to slavery; it is your official business and mine, as citizens, when legallysummoned, to aid in capturing the man. Does the command make it any man's duty? The natural duty to keep the law of God overrides the obligation to observe any human statute, and continually commands us to love a man and not hate him, to do him justice, and not injustice, to allow him his natural rights not alienated by himself; yes, to defend him in them, not only by all means legal, but by all means moral.
Let us look a little at our duty under this statute. If a man falls into the water and is in danger of drowning, it is the natural duty of the bystanders to aid in pulling him out, even at the risk of wetting their garments. We should think a man a coward who could swim, and would not save a drowning girl for fear of spoiling his coat. He would be indictable at common law. If a troop of wolves or tigers were about to seize a man, and devour him, and you and I could help him, it would be our duty to do so, even to peril our own limbs and life for that purpose. If a man undertakes to murder or steal a man, it is the duty of the bystanders to help their brother, who is in peril, against wrong from the two-legged man, as much as against the four-legged beast. But suppose the invader who seizes the man is an officer of the United States, has a commission in his pocket, a warrant for his deed in his hand, and seizes as a slave a man who has done nothing to alienate his natural rights—does that give him anymore natural right to enslave a man than he had before? Can any piece of parchment make right wrong, and wrong right?
The fugitive has been a slave before: does the wrong you committed yesterday, give you a natural right to commit wrong afresh and continually? Because you enslaved this man's father, have you a natural right to enslave his child? The same right you would have to murder a man because you butchered his father first. The right to murder is as much transmissible by inheritance as the right to enslave! It is plain to me that it is the natural duty of citizens to rescue every fugitive slave from the hands of the marshal who essays to return him to bondage; to do it peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must, but by all means to do it. Will you stand by and see your countrymen, your fellow-citizens of Boston, sent off to slavery by some commissioner? Shall I see my own parishioners taken from under my eyes and carried back to bondage, by a man whose constitutional business it is to work wickedness by statute? Shall I never lift an arm to protect him? When I consent to that, you may call me a hireling shepherd, an infidel, a wolf in sheep's clothing, even a defender of slave-catching if you will; and I will confess I was a poor dumb dog, barking always at the moon, but silent as the moon when the murderer came near.
I am not a man who loves violence. I respect thesacredness of human life. But this I say, solemnly, that I will do all in my power to rescue any fugitive slave from the hands of any officer who attempts to return him to bondage. I will resist him as gently as I know how, but with such strength as I can command; I will ring the bells, and alarm the town; I will serve as head, as foot, or as hand to any body of serious and earnest men, who will go with me, with no weapons but their hands, in this work. I will do it as readily as I would lift a man out of the water, or pluck him from the teeth of a wolf, or snatch him from the hands of a murderer. What is a fine of a thousand dollars, and jailing for six months, to the liberty of a man? My money perish with me, if it stand between me and the eternal law of God. I trust there are manly men enough in this house to secure the freedom of every fugitive slave in Boston, without breaking a limb or rending a garment.
One thing more I think is very plain, that the fugitive has the same natural right to defend himself against the slave-catcher, or his constitutional tool, that he has against a murderer or a wolf. The man who attacks me to reduce me to slavery, in that moment of attack alienates his right to life, and if I were the fugitive, and could escape in no other way, I would kill him with as little compunction as I would drive a mosquito from my face. It is high time this was said. What grasshoppers we are beforethe statute of men! what Goliaths against the law of God! What capitalist heeds your statute of usury when he can get illegal interest? How many banks are content with sixper cent.when money is scarce? Did you never hear of a merchant evading theduties of the custom-house? When a man's liberty is concerned, we must keep the law, must we? betray the wanderer, and expose the outcast?[13]
In the same manner the natural duty of a man overrides all the special obligations which a man takeson himself as a magistrate by his official oath. Our theory of office is this: The man is sunk in the magistrate;he isun homme couvert; his individual manhood is covered up and extinguished by his officialcap; he is no longer a man, but a mere president, general, governor, representative, sheriff, juror, orconstable; he is absolved from all allegiance to God's law of the universe when it conflicts with man's law of the land; his officialbusiness as a magistrate supersedes his natural duty as a man. In virtue of this theory, President Polk, and his coadjutors in Congress and out of it, with malice aforethought and intent to rob and to kill,did officially invade Mexico, and therein "slay, kill, and murder" some thousands of men, as well Americans as Mexicans. This is thought right because he did it officially. But the fact that he and they were magistrates, doing official business, did not make the killing any the less a wrong than if he and they had been private men, with General Lopez and not General Taylor to head or back them. The official killing of a man who has not alienated his right to life, is just as much a violation of the law of God, and the natural duty of a man, as the unofficial killing of such a person. Because you and I and some other foolish people put a man in a high office, and get him to take an oath, does that, all at once, invest him with a natural right to kill anybody he sees fit; to kill an innocent Mexican? All his natural rightshe had before, and it would be difficult to ascertain where the people could find the right to authorize him to do a wrong. A man does not escape from the jurisdiction of natural law and the dominion of God by enlisting in the army, or by taking the oath of the President; for justice, the law paramount of the universe, extends over armies and nations.
A little while ago a murderer was hanged in Boston, by the Sheriff of Suffolk county, at the command of the Governor and Council of Massachusetts, by the aid of certain persons called grand and petit jurors, all of them acting in their official capacity, and doing the official business they had sworn to do. If it be a wrong thing to hang a man, or to take his life except in self-defence, and while in imminent peril, then it is not any less a wrong because men do it in their official character, in compliance with their oath. I am speaking of absolute wrong, not merely what is wrong relatively to the man's own judgment, for I doubt not that all those officers were entirely conscientious in what they did, and therefore no blame rests on them. But if a man believes it wrong to take human life deliberately, except in the cases named, then I do not see how, with a good conscience, he can be partaker in the death of any man, notwithstanding his official oath.
Let me suppose a case which may happen here, and before long. A woman flies from South Carolina to Massachusetts to escape from bondage. Mr.Greatheart aids her in her escape, harbors and conceals her, and is brought to trial for it. The punishment is a fine of one thousand dollars and imprisonment for six months. I am drawn to serve as a juror, and pass upon this offence. I may refuse to serve, and be punished for that, leaving men with no scruples to take my place, or I may take the juror's oath to give a verdict according to the law and the testimony. The law is plain, let us suppose, and the testimony conclusive. Greatheart himself confesses that he did the deed alleged, saving one ready to perish. The judge charges, that if the jurors are satisfied of that fact, then they must return that he is guilty. This is a nice matter. Here are two questions. The one, put to me in my official capacity as juror, is this: "Did Greatheart aid the woman?" The other, put to me in my natural character as man, is this: "Will you help punish Greatheart with fine and imprisonment for helping a woman obtain her unalienable rights?" I am to answer both. If I have extinguished my manhood by my juror's oath, then I shall do my official business and find Greatheart guilty, and I shall seem to be a true man; but if I value my manhood, I shall answer after my natural duty to love a man and not hate him, to do him justice, not injustice, to allow him the natural rights he has not alienated, and shall say "Not guilty." Then foolish men, blinded by the dust of courts, may call me forswornand a liar; but I think human nature will justify the verdict.[14]
In cases of this kind, when justice is on one side and the court on the other, it seems to me a conscientiousman must either refuse to serve as a juror, or else return a verdict at variance with the factsand what courts declare to be his official business as juror; but the eyes of some men have been so longblinded by what the court declares is the law, and by its notion of the juror's function, that they will help inflict such a punishment on their brother, and the judge decree the sentence, in a case where the arrest, the verdict and the sentence are the only wrong in which the prisoner is concerned. It seems to me it is time this matter should be understood, and that it should be known that no official oath can take a man out of the jurisdiction of God's natural law of the universe.
A case may be brought before a commissioner or judge of the United States, to determine whether Daniel is a slave, and therefore to be surrendered up. His official business, sanctioned by his oath, enforced by the law of the land, demands the surrender; his natural duty, sanctioned by his conscience, enforcedby absolute justice, forbids the surrender. What shall he do? There is no serving of God and Mammon both. He may abandon his commission and refuse to remain thus halting between two opposites. But if he keeps his office, I see not how he can renounce his nature and send back a fugitive slave, and do as great a wrong as to make a free man a slave!
Suppose the Constitution had been altered, and Congress had made a law, making it the business of the United States' commissioners to enslave and sell at public outcry all the red-haired men in the nation, and forbid us to aid and abet their escape, to harbor and conceal them under the same penalties just now mentioned; do you think any commissioner would be justified before God by his oath in kidnapping the red-haired men, or any person in punishing such as harbored or concealed them, such as forcibly took the victims out of the hand of officials who would work mischief by statute? Will the color of a hair make right wrong, and wrong right?
Suppose a man has sworn to keep the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution is found to be wrong in certain particulars: then his oath is not morally binding, for before his oath, by his very existence, he is morally bound to keep the law of God as fast as he learns it. No oath can absolve him from his natural allegiance to God. Yet I see not how a man can knowingly, and with a good conscience, swear to keep what he deemswrong to keep, and will not keep, and does not intend to keep.
It seems to me very strange that men so misunderstand the rights of conscience and their obligations to obey their country. Not long ago, an eminent man taunted one of his opponents, telling him he had better adhere to the "higher law." The newspapers echoed the sneer, as if there were no law higher than the Constitution. Latterly, the democratic party, even more completely than the whig party, seems to have forgotten that there is any law higher than the Constitution, any rights above vested rights.[15]
An eminent theologian of New England, who has hitherto done good and great service in his profession, grinding off the barb of Calvinism, wrote a book in defence of slave-catching, on "Conscience and the Constitution," a book which not only sins against the sense of the righteous in being wicked, but against the worldliness of the world in being weak,—and he puts the official business of keeping "a compact" far before the natural duty of keeping a conscience void of offence, and serving God. But suppose forty thieves assemble on Fire Island, and make a compact to rob every vessel wrecked on theircoast, and reduce the survivors to bondage. Suppose I am born amongst that brotherhood of pirates, am I morally bound to keep that compact, or to perform any function which grows out of it? Nay, I am morally bound to violate the compact, to keep the pirates from their plunder and their prey. Instead of forty thieves on Fire Island, suppose twenty millions of men in the United States make a compact to enslave every sixth man—the dark men—am I morally bound to heed that compact, or to perform any function which grows out of it? Nay, I am morally bound to violate the compact, in every way that is just and wise. The very men who make such a compact are morally discharged from it as soon as they see it is wrong. The forty Jews who bound themselves by wicked oath to kill Paul before they broke their fast,—were they morally bound to keep their word? Nay, morally bound to break it.
I will tell you a portion of the story of a fugitive slave whom I have known. I will call his name Joseph, though he was in worse than Egyptian bondage. He was "owned" by a notorious gambler, and once ran away, but was retaken. His master proceeded to punish him for that crime, took him to a chamber, locked the door, and lighted a fire; he then beat the slave severely. After that he put the branding-iron in the fire, took a knife,—I am not telling of what took place in Algiers, but in Alabama,—and proceeded to cut off the ears of hisvictim! The owner's wife, alarmed at the shrieks of the sufferer, beat down the door with a sledge-hammer, and prevented that catastrophe. Afterwards, two slaves of this gambler, for stealing their master's sheep, were beaten so that they died of the stripes. The "Minister" came to the funeral, told the others that those were wicked slaves, who deserved their fate; that they would never "rise" in the general resurrection, and were not fit to be buried! Accordingly their bodies were thrown into a hole and left there. Joseph ran away again; he came to Boston; was sheltered by a man whose charity never fails; he has been in my house, and often has worshipped here with us. Shall I take that man and deliver him up?—do it "with alacrity?" Shall I suffer that gambler to carry his prey from this city? Will you allow it—though all the laws and constitutions of men give the commandment? God do so unto us if we suffer it.[16]
This we need continually to remember: that nothing in the world without is so sacred as the Eternal Law of God; of the world within nothing is more venerable than our own conscience, the permanent, everlasting oracle of God. The Urim and Thummim were but Jewish or Egyptian toys on the breast-plateof the Hebrew priest; the Delphic oracle was only a subtle cheat, but this is the true Shekinah and presence of God in your heart: as this