I 
 
 FAST DAY SERMONS, 
 
EAST DAY SERMONS: 
 
 THE PULPIT 
 
 ON 
 
 THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 
 • ^ D ' 3 > 
 O '3 ^3' 3 3333'3' ^ 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 RuDD & Carleton, 130 Grand Street. 
 
 M DCCC LXI. 
 
./ 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by 
 
 EUDD & CARLETON, 
 
 In tiie Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for 
 
 The Southern District of New York. 
 
 M 
 
<P h 
 
 0> « 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. REV. J. H. THORNWELL, D. D. COLUMBIA, S. C. 
 
 OUR NATIONAL SINS 9 
 
 n. REV. B. M. PALMER, -D. D., NEW ORLEANS, LA. 
 
 SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 57 
 
 m. ROBERT L DABNEY, D. D., HAMPDEN SIDNEY, VA. 
 
 THE christian's BEST MOTIVE FOR PATRIOTISM. ... 81 
 
 IV. BOBERT J. BRECKINRIDGE, D. D, LEXINGTON, KY. 
 
 THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 98 
 
 V. REV. HENRY J. VAN DYKE, BROOKLYN, L. L 
 
 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OP ABOLITIONISM. . . . 127 
 
 VI. PROF. TAYLER LEWIS, UNION COLLEGE. 
 
 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN 
 SLAVERY , . . . 177 
 
 Vn. REV. M. J. RAPHAEL, M. A. PH. DR. 
 
 BIBLE VIEW OP SLAVERY 227 
 
 VIII. REV. FRANCIS VINTON, D. D., NEW YORK. 
 
 FANATICISM REBUKED . 247 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 IX. REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER, BROOKLYN, L. I. 
 
 PEACE, BE STILL 265 
 
 X REV. HENRY W. BELLOWS, NEW YORK. 
 
 THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE 293 
 
 XI. REV. WILLIAM ADAMS, D. D., NEW YORK. 
 
 PRAYER FOR RULERS ; OR DUTY OF CHRISTIAN PATRIOTS, . 311 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following Discourses are collected in a volume in the 
 belief that they will have a historical interest. These are 
 Revolutionary times. The country is profoundly agitated, not 
 on a question of party, but of National existence. On the 
 very brink of dissolution, we are led to pause and review the 
 causes that have brought us to this. ^Yh\h the people attend 
 eagerly to the appeals of their leaders, thoughtful men will 
 listen silently for the calm voices of the Pulpit, from which 
 they will expect a clearer statement of the principles which 
 underlie all this popular turbulence. 
 
 The particular sermons here introduced, have been chosen 
 not in the interest of any party, but as fairly representing the 
 mind of the country, both North and South. In the very 
 front of the book is placed the discourse of Dr. Thornwell, 
 the leading minister, if not the leading man, of South Caro- 
 lina — one who is regarded by many as being, by his intellec- 
 tual ascendency and influence, the natural successor of John 
 C. Calhoun. His discourse contains the whole argument of 
 Disunion. This abstract reasoning is carried out in the sermon 
 which follows, by Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans, a native of 
 South Carolina, and a former pupil of Dr. Thornwell. His 
 appeal to the South to maintain its rights is most earnest and 
 eloquent. In contrast with these fiery addresses, and to aflford 
 
Yin PREFACE. 
 
 tlie reader an interval of relief, we place next the milder coun- 
 sels and gentler tones of Dr. Dabney, of Virginia, who speaks 
 less as a Southern man than as a minister of the Prince of 
 Peace. Then follows a sharp rebuke of disunion from Dr. 
 Robert J. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. 
 
 Of the sermons of Northern preachers, the volume includes 
 those of directly opposite views. The learned Rabbi II a. - 
 PHALL argues for the ancient Hebrew slavery, as ordained of 
 God, and thus as justifying the same institution in later 
 ages, and Rev. H. J. Van Dyke assumes the same, while ex- 
 posing the character and influence of Abolitionism, a spirit 
 which he evidently thinks not from above, but from beneath. 
 To both of these Prof. Tayler Lewis replies, not as a vehe- 
 ment orator, but as a Christian scholar, in lucid style, and with 
 thoughts well set in logical an^ay. Next, Dr. Vinton, the ac- 
 complished minister of Trinity, rebukes the spirit of North- 
 ern fanaticism, as an offset to which, Mr. Beecher stoutly de- 
 fends the anti-slavery position of the North; and Dr. Bel- 
 lows argues that the present is a conflict between Civilization 
 and Barbarism. The collection closes with a middle-ground 
 sermon from Rev. Dr. Adams, of this city. 
 
 In reviewing these discourses, as they stand here side by 
 side, one cannot but see that the difference which now divides 
 the North and the South is not a mere misunderstanding ; that 
 there is a real and profound difference of opinion. At the 
 same time, seeing how widely, and yet how honestly and sin- 
 cerely, good men may differ, he will be apt to learn for himself 
 broader views and a kindlier charity. 
 
 New Yokk, Jan. 18G1. 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, COLUMBIA, S. C. 
 ON THE DAY OF THE STATE FAST, NOV. 21, 1860. 
 
 BY REV. J. H. THORNWELL, D. D. 
 
 " And it came to pass, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he rent 
 his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house 
 of the Lord." — Isaiah xxxvii : 1. 
 
 I have no design, in the selection of these words, to 
 intimate that there is a parallel between Jerusalem and 
 our own Commonwealth in relation to the Covenant of 
 God. I am far from believing that we alone, of all the 
 people of the earth, are possessed of the true religion, 
 and far from encouraging the narrow and exclusive spi- 
 rit which, with the ancient hypocrites denounced by 
 the Prophet, can complacently exclaim, the temple of 
 the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are we. Such arro- 
 gance and bigotry are utterly inconsistent with the pen- 
 itential confessions which this day has been set apart to 
 evoke. We are here, not like the Pharisee, to boast 
 of our own righteousness, and to thank God that we 
 are not like other men ; but we are here like the poor 
 })ublican, to smite upon our breasts, and to say, God be 
 merciful to us, sinners. My design, in the choice of 
 these words, is to illustrate the spirit and temper with 
 which a Christian people should deport themselves in 
 
10 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 times of public calamity and distress. Jerusalem was 
 in great straits. The whole country had been ravaged 
 by a proud and insolent foe. The Sacred City remain- 
 ed as the last hold of the State, and a large army 
 lay encamped before its walls. Ruin seemed to be in- 
 evitable. It ivas a day of ironhle^ and of rebuke, and 
 of blasphemy. The cltildren had come to the birth, and 
 there ivas not strength to brino^ forth. In the extremity 
 of the danger, the sovereign betakes himself to God. 
 Renouncing all human confidence, and all human allian- 
 ces, he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sack- 
 cloth, and went into the house of the Lord. 
 
 In applying the text to our own circumstances, widely 
 different in many respects from those of Jerusalem at the 
 time referred to, I am oppressed with a difficulty, which 
 you that are acquainted with my views of tlie nature and 
 functions of the Christian ministry can readily under- 
 stand. During the twenty-five years in which I have ful- 
 filled my course as a preacher — all of which have been 
 spent in my native State, and nearly all in this city — I 
 have never introduced secular politics into the instruc- 
 tions of the pulpit. It has been a point of conscience 
 with me to know no party in the State. Questions of 
 law and public administration I have left to the tribu- 
 nals appointed to settle them, and have confined my ex- 
 hortations to those great matters that pertain immedi- 
 ately to the kingdom of God. I have left it to Caesar 
 to take care of his own rights, and have insisted only 
 upon the supreme rights of the Almighty. The angry 
 disputes of the forum I have excluded from the house 
 of the Lord. And while all classes have been exhort- 
 ed to the discharge of their common duties, as men, as 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 11 
 
 citizens, as members of the family — while the sanc- 
 tions of religion have, without scruple, been applied to 
 all tlie relations of life, whether public or private, civil 
 or domestic — the grounds of dissension which divide 
 the community into parties, and range its members un- 
 der different banners, have not been permitted to in- 
 trude into the sanctuary. The business of a preacher, 
 as such, is to expound the Word of God. He has no 
 commission to go beyond the teaching of the Scriptures. 
 He has no authority to expound to senators the Consti- 
 tution of the State, nor to interpret for judges the law 
 of the land. In the civil and political sphere, the dead 
 must bury their dead. It is obvious, however, that re- 
 ligious sanctions cannot be applied to civil and political 
 duties without taking for granted the relations out of 
 which these duties spring. Religion cannot exact sub- 
 mission to the powers that be, without implying that 
 these powers are know^n and confessed. It cannot en- 
 join obedience to Caesar, without taking it for granted 
 that the authority of Caesar is acknowledged. When 
 the Constitution of the State is fixed and settled, the 
 general reference to it wdiich religion implies, in the 
 inculcation of civil and political duties, may be made 
 without intruding into the functions of the magistrate, 
 or taking sides with any particular party in the Com- 
 monwealth. The relations which condition duty are 
 admitted, and the conscience instantly recognizes the 
 grounds on which the minister of the Gospel exhorts to 
 fidelity. The duties belong to the department of reli- 
 gion ; the relations out of which they spring belong to 
 the department of political science ; and must be de- 
 termined apart from the Word of God. The concrete 
 
12 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 cases, to which the law of God is to be ajiplied, inubt 
 always be given ; the law itself is all that the preacher 
 can enforce as of Divii>e authority. As the law, with- 
 out the facts, however, is a shadow without substance ; 
 as the duty is unmeaning which is determined by no 
 definite relations ; tlie preacher cannot inculcate civil 
 obedience, or coiwict of national sin, witliout allusions, 
 more or less precise, to the theory and structure of the 
 government. He avoids presumption, by having it dis- 
 tinctly understood, that the theory which he assumes is 
 not announced as the Word of God, but is to be proved, 
 as any other facts of history and experience. He 
 speaks here only in his own name, as a man, and pro- 
 niulges a matter of opinion, and not an article of faith. 
 If the assumptions which he makes are true, the du- 
 ties which he enjoins must be accepted as Divine com- 
 mands. The speculative antecedents being admitted, 
 the practical consequents cannot be avoided. There 
 are cases in which the question relates to a change in 
 the government, in which the question of duty is simply 
 a question of revolution. In such cases the minister 
 has no commission from God to recommend or resist a 
 change, unless some moral principle is immediately in- 
 volved. He can explain and enforce the spirit and tem- 
 per in wdiich revolution should be contemplated and car- 
 ried forward or abandoned. He can expound the doc- 
 trine of the Scriptures in relation to the nature, the 
 grounds, the extent and limitations of civil obedience ; 
 but it is not for him, as a preacher, to say when evils 
 are intolerable, nor to prescribe the mode and measure 
 of redress. These points he must leave to the State 
 itself. When a revolution has once been achieved, he 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 13 
 
 can enforce the duties which spring from the new con- 
 dition of affairs,. 
 
 Thus much I have felt bound to say, as to my views 
 of the duty of a minister in relation to matters of State. 
 As a citizen, a man, a member of the Commonwealth, 
 lie has a right to form and express his opinions upon 
 every subject, to whatever department it belongs, which 
 affects the interests of his race. As a man, he is as 
 free as any other man ; but the citizen must not be con- 
 founded with the preacher, nor private opinions with 
 the oracles of God. Entertaining these sentiments 
 concerning the relations of the sacred office to political 
 affairs, I am oppressed with the apprehension, that in 
 attempting to fulfil the requisitions of the present occa- 
 sion, I may transgress the limits of propriety, and 
 merge the pulpit into the rostrum. I am anxious to 
 avoid this error, and would, therefore, have it under- 
 stood, in advance, that whatever theory may be assumed 
 of the nature and structure of our Government, is as- 
 sumed upon the common grounds of liistorical knowl- 
 edge, and is assumed mainly as fixing the points from 
 which I would survey the sins of the country. If true 
 — and no man has aright to reject them, without being 
 able to disprove them — my conclusions in reference to 
 our national guilt are irrefragably established. If not 
 true, we must either deny that we are sinners, or must 
 seek some other relations in which to ground the con- 
 sciousness of sin. If that consciousness should be tlio- 
 roughly grounded, the services of this day will not be 
 in vain. I can truly say that my great aim is not to 
 expound our complex institutions, but to awaken the 
 national conscience to a sense of its responsibility be- 
 
14 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 fore God. It is not to enlighten your minds, but to 
 touch your hearts ; not to plead the cause of States 
 rights or Federal authority, but to bring you as peni- 
 tents before the Supreme Judge. This is no common 
 solemnity. The day has been set apart by the consti- 
 tuted authorities of this Commonwealth, by joint reso- 
 lution of both branches of the Legislature, and pro- 
 claimed by the Chief Magistrate of the State, as a day 
 of fasting, humiliation and prayer. South Carolina, 
 therefore, as an organized political community, pros- 
 trates herself this day before God. It is a time of 
 danger, of blasphemy and rebuke, and, imitating the 
 example of Hezekiah, she rends her clothes, covers her- 
 self with sackcloth, and comes into the House of the 
 Lord. The question is, how she should demean herself 
 under these solemn circumstances. Every minister, 
 this day, becomes her organ, and he should instruct the 
 people as to the attitude we should all assume in the 
 presence of Jehovah. It is a day of solemn worship, 
 in which the state appears as a penitent, and lays her 
 case before the Judge of all the earth. 
 
 The points to which I shall direct your attention, 
 are, first, the spirit in which we should approach God, 
 and second, the errand on which we should go. 
 
 I. As the individual, in coming to God, must believe 
 that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them tlmt 
 diligently search Him, so the State must be impressed 
 with a profound sense of His all-pervading providence, 
 and of its responsibility to Him, as the moral Ruler of 
 the world. The powers that be are ordained of Him. 
 From Him the magistrate receives his commission, and 
 in His fear, he must use the sword as a terror to evil 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 15 
 
 doers and a praise to them that do well. Civil govern- 
 ment is an institute of Heaven, founded in the charac- 
 ter of man as social and moral, and is designed to real- 
 ize the idea of justice. Take away tlie notion of mutual 
 rights and the corresponding notions of duty and obli- 
 gation, and a commonwealth is no more conceivable 
 among men than among brutes. As the State is essen- 
 tially moral in its idea, it connects itself directly with 
 the government of God. It is, indeed, the organ 
 through which that government is administered in its 
 relations to the highest interests of earth. A State, 
 therefore, which does not recognize its dependence upon 
 God, or which fails to apprehend, in its functions and 
 offices, a commission from heaven, is false to the law of 
 its own being. The moral finds its source and centre 
 only in God. There can be no rights without responsi- 
 bility, and responsibility is incomplete until it termi- 
 nates in a supreme will. The earthly sanctions of the 
 State, its rewards and punishments, are insufficient 
 either for the punishment of vice or the encouragement 
 of virtue, unless they connect themselves with the high- 
 er sanctions which religion discloses. If the Sjtate had 
 to deal only with natures confessedly mortal ; if its 
 subjects were conscious of no other life than that which 
 they bear from the cradle to the grave ; if their pros- 
 pect terminated at death ; if they were only brutes of 
 a more finished make, but equally destined to ever- 
 lasting extinction, who does not see that the law 
 would lose its terror, and obedience be stripped of its 
 dignity. The moral nature of man is inseparably link- 
 ed with immortality, and immortality as inseparably 
 linked with religion. Among Pagan idolaters, the in- 
 
16 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 stinct of immortality, though not developed into a doc- 
 trine, nor realized as a fact in reflection, is yet the se- 
 cret }30wer which, in the spontaneous workings of the 
 soul, gives efficacy to punishment, and energy to re- 
 wards. Man feels himself immortal, and this feeling, 
 though operating blindly, colors his hopes and his fears. 
 The State, therefore, which should undertake to ac- 
 complish the ends of its being, without taking into ac- 
 count the religious element in man, palsies its own arm. 
 Subjects that have no religion are incapable of law. 
 Rules of prudence they may institute ; measures of pre- 
 caution they may adopt ; a routine of coercion and 
 constraint they may establish ; but laws they cannot 
 have. They may be governed like a lunatic asylum ; 
 but where there is no nature which responds to the sen- 
 timent of duty, there is no nature which confesses the 
 majesty of law. Every State, therefore, must have a 
 religion, or it must cease to be a government of men. 
 Hence no Commonwealth has ever existed without re- 
 ligious sanctions. '' Whether true or false, sublime or 
 ridiculous," says the author of the Consulate and the 
 Empire, " man must have a religion. Every where, in 
 all ages, in all countries, in ancient as in modern times, 
 in civilized as well as in barbarian nations, we find him 
 a worshipper at some altar, be it venerable, degraded, 
 or blood-stained." 
 
 It is not only necessary that the State should have a 
 religion ; it is equally necessary, in order to an ade- 
 quate fulfilment of its own idea, that it have the true 
 religion. Truth is the only proper food of the soul, 
 and tliough superstition and error may avail for a time 
 as external restraints, they never generate an inward 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 17 
 
 principle of obedience. They serve as outward mo- 
 tives, but never become an inward life, and when the 
 falsehood comes to be detected, the mind is apt to 
 abandon itself to unrestrained licentiousness. The 
 reaction is violent in proportion to the intensity of the 
 previous delusion. The most formidable convulsions in 
 States are those which have been consequent upon the 
 detection of religious imposture. '' Wlien a religion," 
 says McCosh, " waxes old in a country — when the cir- 
 cumstances which at first fjwored its formation or intro- 
 duction have changed — when in an age of reason it is 
 tried and found unreasonable — when in an age of 
 learning it is discovered to be the product of the gross- 
 est ignorance — when in an age of levity it is felt to be 
 too stern — then the infidel spirit takes courage, and, 
 wdth a zeal in which there is a strange mixture of 
 scowling revenge and light-liearted wantonness, of deep- 
 set hatred and laughing levity, it proceeds to level all 
 existing temples and altars, and erects no others in 
 their room." The void whicli is created is soon filled 
 with wantonness and violence. Tlie State cannot be 
 restored to order until it settles down upon some form 
 of religion again. As the subjects of a State must 
 have a religion in order to be truly obedient, and as it 
 is the true religion alone which converts obedience into 
 a living principle, it is obvious tliat a Commonwealth 
 can no more be organized, which shall recognize all 
 religions, than one which shall recognize none. The 
 sanctions of its laws must have a centre of unity some 
 where. To combine in the same government contra- 
 dictory systems of faith, is as hopelessly impossible as 
 to constitute into one State men of difi'erent races and 
 
18 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 languages. The Christian, the Pagan, Mohammedan ; 
 Jews, Infidels and Turks, cannot coalesce as organic 
 elements in one body politic. The State must take its 
 religious type from the doctrines, the precepts, and the 
 institutions of one or the other of these parties. 
 
 When we insist upon the religious character of the 
 State, we are not to be understood as recommending or 
 favoring a Church Establishment. To have a religion is 
 one thing — to have a Church Establishment is anoth- 
 er ; and perhaps the most effectual way of extinguish- 
 ing the religious life of a State is to confine the expres- 
 sion of it to the forms and peculiarities of a single sect. 
 
 The Church and the State, as visible institutions, are 
 entirely distinct, and neither can usurp the province of 
 the other without injury to both. But religion, as a 
 life, as an inward principle, though specially developed 
 and fostered by the Church, extends its domain beyond 
 the sphere of technical worship, touches all the rela- 
 tions of man, and constitutes the inspiration of every 
 duty. The service of the Commonwealth becomes an 
 act of piety to God. The State realizes its religious 
 character through the religious character of its sub- 
 jects ; and a State is and ought to be Christian, because 
 all its subjects are and ought to be determined by the 
 principles of the Gospel. As every legislator is bound 
 to be a Christian man, he has no right to vote for any 
 laws which are inconsistent with the teachings of the 
 Scriptures. He must carry his Christian conscience 
 into the halls of legislation. 
 
 In conformity with these principles, we recognize 
 Christianity to-day as the religion of our Common- 
 wealth. Our standard of right is that eternal law 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 19 
 
 which God proclaimed from Sinai, and which Jesus 
 expounded on the Mount. We recognize our responsi- 
 bility to Jesus Christ. He is head over all things to 
 the Church, and the nation that will not serve Plim is 
 doomed to perish. Before men we are a free and sov- 
 ereign State ; before God we are dependent subjects ; 
 and one of the most cheering omens of the times is the 
 heartiness with which this truth has been received. We 
 are a Christian people, and a Christian Commonwealth. 
 As on the one hand we are not Jews, Infidels or Turks, 
 so on the other, we are not Presbyterians, Baptists, 
 Episcopalians, or Methodists. Christianity, without 
 distinction of sects, is the fountain of our national life. 
 We accept the Bible as the great moral charter by 
 which our laws must be measured, and the Incarnate 
 Redeemer as the Judge to whom we are responsible. 
 
 In contending that Christianity is the organic life of 
 the State, we of course do not exclude from the privile- 
 ges of citizens, nor from the protection of the laws, 
 those who do not acknowledge the authority of Jesus. 
 They do not cease to be men, because they are not 
 Christians, and Christian principle exacts that their 
 rights should be sacredly maintained by an institute 
 which is founded in the idea of justice. As, moreover, 
 the religion of the State realizes itself through the re- 
 ligious life of its subjects, it is not to be supported by 
 arbitrary tests or by civil pains and disabilities. Re- 
 ligion is essentially free and spontaneous. It cannot be 
 enacted as a law, nor enforced by authority. When the 
 State protects its outward institutions, such as the sanc- 
 tity of the Sabbath, it enjoins nothing which does vio- 
 lence to any man's conscience. It is only giving vent 
 
20 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 to the religious life of the people, without exacting from 
 others what they feel it sinful to perform ; and so long 
 as freedom of conscience and the protection of their 
 rights are secured to men, they have no reason to com- 
 plain that they are not permitted to unsettle the princi- 
 ples upon which all law and order ultimately rest. As 
 long as they are not required to profess what they do 
 not believe, nor to do what their consciences condemn ; 
 as long as they are excluded from no privilege and de- 
 prived of no right, they cannot complain that the spirit 
 and sanction of the laws are a standing protest against 
 their want of sympathy with the prevailing type of na- 
 tional life. If Christianity be true, they ought certainly 
 to be Christians. The claim of this religion, in contra- 
 distinction from every other, or from none at all, is 
 founded only in its truth. If true, it must be authori- 
 tative, and the people who accept it as true would be 
 traitors to their faith if they did not mould their insti- 
 tutions in conformity with its spirit. It is only as a 
 sanction, and not as a law, that we plead for its influ- 
 ence ; and how a Christian people can have any other 
 than Christian institutions, it surpasses our intelligence 
 to compass. That the State should treat all religions 
 with equal indifference, is to suppose that the subjects 
 of the State can have a double life, flowing in parallel 
 streams, which never approach nor touch — a life as 
 citizens, and a life as men. It is to forget the essential 
 unity of man, and the convergence of all the energies 
 of his being to a religious centre. It is to forget tliat 
 religion is the perfection of his nature, and that he 
 realizes the idea of humanity in proportion as religion 
 pervades his whole being. A godless State is, in fact, 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 21 
 
 a contradistinction in terms ; and if wc must have some 
 god, or cease to be citizens because we have ceased to 
 be men, who will hesitate between the God of the Bible 
 and the absurd devices of human superstition and de- 
 pravity ? 
 
 It is, then, before the Supreme Jehovah that we pros- 
 trate ourselves to-day. We come as a Commonwealth 
 ordained by him. We come as His creatures and His 
 subjects. The sword by which we have executed jus- 
 tice, we received from His hands. We believe that He 
 is — that He is our God ; that His favor is life, and His 
 loving kindness better than life. We ascribe to His 
 grace the institutions under which we have flourished. 
 We trace to His hands the blessings which have distin- 
 guished our lot. Under Him the foundations of the 
 State were laid, and to Him we owe whatsoever is val- 
 uable in our laws, healthful in our customs, or precious 
 in our history. We come this day to acknowledge our 
 dependence, swear our allegiance, and confess our 
 responsibility. By Him we exist as a State, and to Him 
 we must answer for the maimer in which we have dis- 
 charged our trust. " God standeth in the congregation 
 of the mighty. He judgeth among the gods, 
 
 II. Having explained the spirit in which we should 
 approach God, let me call your attention, in the next 
 place, to the errand which brings us before Him this 
 day — fasting, humiliation, and prayer. These terms 
 define the worship Avhich we are expected to loresent. 
 Fasting is the outward sign ; penitence and prayer are 
 the inward graces. In fasting, we relinquish for a 
 season the bounties of Providence, in token of our con- 
 viction, that we have forfeited all claim to our daily 
 
22 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 bread. It is a symbolical confession that we deserve to 
 be stripped of every gift, and left to perish in hunger, 
 nakedness, and want. On occasions of solemn moment, 
 and particularly when " manifestations of the Divine 
 anger appear, as pestilence, war, and famine, the salu- 
 tary custom of all ages has been for pastors to exhort 
 the people to public fasting and extraordinary prayer." 
 Through such a solemnity Xineveh was saved ; and if 
 we are equally penitent, who shall say that we may not 
 also be delivered from the judgments which our sins have 
 provoked ? Fasting, apart from inward penitence, is an 
 idle mockery. Is it such a fast as I have chosen ? a 
 day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his 
 head as a bulrush^ and to spread sackcloth and ashes 
 under him? ivilt thou call this a fast and an acceptable 
 day to the Lord ? Is not this the fast that 1 have 
 chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the 
 heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and 
 that ye break every yoke ? Is it not to deal thy bread 
 to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are 
 cast out to thy house ? when thou seest the naked that 
 thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from 
 thine own flesh ? The great thing with us to-day is, to 
 be impressed with a sense of our sins as a people ; to 
 confess them humbly before God; to deprecate His 
 judgments, and to supplicate his favor. We are too 
 apt to restrict the notion of sin in its proper sense to the 
 sphere of the individual ; to regard it as altogether pri- 
 vate and personal, and not capable of being predicated 
 of the mal-administration of the State. But if the State 
 is a moral institute, responsible to God, and existing for 
 moral and spiritual ends, it is certainly a subject capa- 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 28 
 
 ble of sin. It may endure, too, the penalty of sin, 
 either in its organic capacity, by national judgments, by 
 war, pestilence, weakness, and dissolution, or in its 
 individual subjects, whose offences as citizens are as dis- 
 tinctly transgressions as any other forms of iniquity, 
 and enter into the grounds of the Divine dispensations 
 towards them. The State exists under a law which 
 defines its duty. It is a means to an end, which limits 
 its powers and determines its functions. It is the reali- 
 zation of an idea. Like an individual, it may sin by 
 defect in coming short of its duty, and sin by positive 
 contradiction to it. It may fail to comprehend its voca- 
 tion ; it may arrogate too much, or claim too little. It 
 may be wanting in public spirit, or it may give public 
 spirit a wrong direction. It may subordinate the spir- 
 itual to the material, and, in encouraging the increase 
 of national wealth, neglect to foster national greatness. 
 In aspiring to be rich and increased in goods, it may 
 forget that the real glory of a nation is to be free, 
 intelligent, and virtuous. The power which it has 
 received as an instrument of good, it may pervert into 
 an engine of tyranny. It may disregard the welfare 
 and prosperity of its subjects, and degenerate into a tool 
 for the selfish purposes of unscrupulous rulers. It may 
 seek to aggrandize factions, instead of promoting the 
 well-being of the people. The State, too, as a moral 
 person, stands in relations to other States, in conse- 
 quence of which it may be guilty of bad faith, of inor- 
 dinate ambition, of covetousness, rapacity, and selfish- 
 ness. The same vices which degrade the individual 
 among his fellows, may degrade a commonwealth among 
 surrounding nations. It may be mean, voracious, inso- 
 
24 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 lent, extortionary. It may cringe to the strong, and 
 oppress the weak. It may take unworthy advantages 
 of the necessities of its neighbors, or make unworthy 
 concessions for temporary purposes. The same laws 
 regulate, and the same crimes disfigure, the intercourse 
 of States with one another, which obtain in the case of 
 individuals. The political relations of the one are pre- 
 cisely analogous to the social relations of the other. 
 The same standard of honor, of integrity and magna- 
 nimity which is incumbent upon their subjects, is equally 
 binding upon the States themselves, and character 
 ought to be as sacred among sovereign States as among 
 private individuals. 
 
 The true light, therefore, in which national defects 
 and transgressions should be contemplated, is formally 
 that of sin against God. Their injustice to their peo- 
 ple is treachery to Him, and their failure to compre- 
 hend or to seek to fulfil the end of their being, is con- 
 tempt of the Divine authority. We take too low a 
 view, when we regard their errors simply as impolitic ; 
 their real magnitude and enormity we can never appre- 
 hend until we see them in the light of sins. 
 
 It is to be feared that this notion of sin has not the 
 hold which it should have of the public conscience. We 
 are not accustomed to judge of the State by the same 
 canons of responsibility which we apply to individuals. 
 In some way or other, the notion of sovereignty, which 
 only defines the relation of a State to earthly tribunals, 
 affects our views of its relations to God ; and, whilst 
 we charge it with errors, with blunders, with unfaith- 
 fulness to its trust, and deplore the calamities which its 
 misconduct brings upon its subjects as public evils, we 
 
OUR NATIONAL SIXS. 25 
 
 lose siglit of the still more solemn truth, tliat these ab- 
 errations are the actions of a moral agent, and must be 
 answered for at the bar of God. The moral law is one, 
 and the State is bound to do its duty, under the same 
 sanctions which pertain to the individual. When the 
 State fails, or transgresses, its offences are equally 
 abominations in the sight of God. It is clearly idle to 
 talk of national repentance, without the consciousness 
 of national sin. This doctrine, therefore, I would im- 
 press upon you in every form of statement, that the 
 misconduct of the State is rebellion against God, and 
 that a nation which comes short of its destination, and 
 is faithless to its trust, is stained with sin of the most 
 malignant dye. God may endure it in patience for a 
 season, but it is loathsome and abominable in His eyes, 
 and the day of reckoning will at last come. Sin must 
 either be pardoned or punished, confessed and forsak- 
 en, or it will work death. Sin has been the ruin of ev- 
 ery Empire that ever flourished and fell. Assyria, Per- 
 sia, Greece, and Rome, have paid the penalties to the 
 Divine law. The only alternative with States, as with 
 their subjects, is, repent or perish. The first duty, 
 therefore, wdiich, as a Christian people, we should en- 
 deavor to discharge this day, is to confess our national 
 sins with humility and penitence. We should endeav- 
 or to feel their magnitude and enormity, not as injuries 
 to man, but as offences against the majesty of God. 
 Our language should be that of David : Against Thee, 
 Thee only^ have ive sinned, and done this evil in thy 
 sight. 
 
 Another errand which it behooves us equally to pros- 
 ecute to-day is, to seek Divine guidance and Divine 
 2 
 
26 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 strength for the future. It is not in man that ivalketh 
 to direct his steps, and States are no more competent 
 than individuals to discharge their duties without the 
 grace of God. Let us endeavor to cherish a sense of 
 our dependence, and aspire to the distinction of that 
 happy people whose God is the Lord. It is a great 
 tiling to contemplate our civil duties in the light of obe- 
 dience to Him; and when they are undertaken in the 
 spirit of worship, they are likely to be performed in the 
 spirit of faithfulness. If we are truly penitent, and 
 truly sensible of our dependence upon God ; if it is the 
 reigning desire of our hearts to know His will, and our 
 fixed purpose, in reliance on His strength, to do it. He 
 may give us an answer of peace. He may bring light 
 out of darkness, and extract safety from danger. 
 
 Having indicated the spirit in which we should ap- 
 proach God, and pointed out the purposes for wliich we 
 should go, it remains that we apply the truth to our 
 present circumstances, by signalizing the sins which it 
 behooves us to confess, and by designating the bles- 
 sings which it behooves us to implore. The conscience 
 is never touched by vague generalities ; we must come 
 to particulars ; thus and thus hast thou done. The 
 State appears as a penitent this day. She has, there- 
 fore, sins to confess. There is a burden upon her heart 
 which must needs be relieved. What are these sins ? 
 What is tliis burden ? The completeness of our answer 
 to these questions will measure the extent and sincerity 
 of our repentance. 
 
 To understand our sins we must look at ourselves in a 
 double light : first, as a member of this Confederacy, as 
 part and parcel of the people of these United States ; 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 27 
 
 and, iu the next place, as a particular Commonwealth, a 
 perfect State in ourselves. As long as we are members 
 of this Confederacy w^e cannot detach ourselves from a 
 personal interest iu the sins and transgressions of the 
 whole people ; and, though there may be offences in which 
 we have had no actual participation, we are not at liberty 
 to indulge in a self-righteous temper, nor to employ the 
 language of recrimination and reproach. The specta- 
 cle of sin is always sad. The fall of none should be 
 contemplated with exultation or with triumph. We 
 should look upon the errors of our brethren with pity 
 and with sorrow, and, as Daniel confessed, in humility 
 and contrition, and with deep commiseration for their 
 misery, the sins of his people, so we should endeavor 
 this day to deplore the shortcomings of our common 
 country, as a matter of personal distress to ourselves. 
 When w^e come before God, we should endeavor to con- 
 template the moral aspects of the country in the light 
 of His awful holiness. And the more profoundly we 
 are impressed with the malignity of our national guilt, 
 the deeper should be our concern for the transgressors 
 themselves. Sinners cannot triumph over sinners. Those 
 whose only plea is mercy to themselves, ought not to be 
 unmerciful to others. Much more should we be filled 
 with sorrow w4ien the sins we deplore are likely to 
 prove the ruin of a great nation. To behold a vast, 
 imperial republic, like ours, bequeathed to us by a noble 
 ancestry, consecrated by a noble history, the work of 
 illustrious statesmen and patriots, falling a prey to na- 
 tional degeneracy and corruption, is enough to make 
 angels weep, and should wring from our hearts tears of 
 bitterness and blood. The sin must be enormous where 
 
28 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 the punishment is so fearful. In less than a century we 
 have spoiled the legacy of our fathers. A Christian 
 people, with Christian institutions, the envy and admi- 
 ration of the world, have not lived to the age of pagan 
 Greece. Surely, God has a controversy with us, and 
 it becomes us to inquire, with all solemnity, into tlie 
 cause of His fierce anger. The union, which our fath- 
 ers designed to be perpetual, is on the verge of dissolu- 
 tion. A name once dear to our hearts, has become in- 
 tolerable to entire States. Once admired, loved, almost 
 adored, as the citadel and safeguard of freedom, it has 
 become, in many minds, synonymous with oppression, 
 w^ith treachery, with falsehood, and with violence. The 
 government to which we once invited the victims of 
 tyranny from every part of the world, and under whose 
 ample shield we gloried in promising them security and 
 protection — that government has become hateful in the 
 very regions in which it was once hailed with the great- 
 est loyalty. Brother has risen up against brother, State 
 against State ; angry disputes and bitter criminations 
 and recriminations abound, and the country stands up- 
 on the very brink of revolution. Surely, it is time to 
 come to ourselves ; to look our follies and our wicked- 
 nesses in the face ; time for every patriot to rend his 
 garments, cover himself with sackcloth, and come into 
 the house of the Lord. Let us deal faithfully this day ; 
 let us survey the sins of the land, not to accuse one an- 
 other, but to humble ourselves under the mighty hand 
 of God. 
 
 1. To appreciate the sins which attach to us in our 
 unity as a confederated people, we must advert for a 
 moment to the peculiar structure of our government. 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 29 
 
 When we came out of the Revolution, it is admitted on 
 all hands that wo were separate and independent States. 
 Each was sovereign — that is, completely a nation in it- 
 self ; but our fathers looked around them, and saw that 
 the grounds of unity were as conspicuous as the ele- 
 ments of diversity. The people were of one blood, 
 one language, one religion. They were, in short, one 
 race. They surveyed the continent from north to south, 
 from east to west, and its geography indicated that it 
 ought to be the dwelling-place of a united population. 
 While there were differences in soil, climate, and pro- 
 ductions, that would naturally develop different types 
 of industry, and give rise to different forms of interest, 
 there were great connecting bonds in the mighty rivers 
 which traversed the country, that as clearly signified 
 that the diversity was not inconsistent with unity. The 
 problem, accordingly, whicli the wisdom of our ances- 
 tors undertook to solve was, to harmonize this diversity 
 with unity ; to make the people, who were already 
 many, at the same time, one. One nation, in the strict 
 and proper sense, they could never become ; that would 
 be to absorb the diversity in unity. Many nations, in 
 all the relations of sovereign States, they could not be ; 
 that would be to abolish the unity altogether. The 
 problem was solved by a happy application of the fed- 
 eral principle. The diversity existed already in the 
 many States which had just achieved their indepen- 
 dence. These many States, in the exercise of their 
 sovereignty, formed an alliance, which cemented them 
 together in one body politic. This alliance was, in its 
 principle, a treaty, and in its result, a government. In 
 its principle it was a treaty, because it was a compact 
 
so OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 among sovereigns. In its result it was a government, 
 because it created organs of political power which, un- 
 der certain conditions, acted immediately upon the peo- 
 ple of all the States, without the formal ratification of 
 their own Legislatures, and in all foreign relations stood 
 as the representative of their common sovereignty. It 
 is obvious that the ultimate ground of the authority of 
 federal legislation is the consent of the confederating 
 States. The laws of Congress bind me, only because 
 South Carolina has consented that I should be bound. 
 The rights of Congress are only the concessions of the 
 sovereign States. This will appear from a moment's 
 reflection. It is obvious that the States might have re- 
 quired that no measures of the Federal Government 
 should be of force within their own borders, without 
 the formal sanction of their own Legislatures. In that 
 case, there could have been no dispute as to the ulti- 
 mate ground of obedience. The difficulties of such an 
 arrangement are too obvious to be enumerated, but how 
 were these difficulties to be avoided ? By surrendering 
 the principle on which the authority of Congress de- 
 pended, or by changing the mode of its application ? To 
 have surrendered the principle would have been to ab- 
 jure their own sovereignty. There was evidently, then, 
 only a change in the mode of its application. That 
 change consisted in defining the conditions under which 
 consent might be presumed beforehand. The Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, in its grants of power to 
 Congress, is only a device by which a general de- 
 scription is given, in advance, of the kind of legislation 
 that each State will allow to be obligatory on its own 
 people. The provisions of the Constitution are really 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 31 
 
 anticipations of tlic concurrence of tlio States. They 
 are formal declarations to the Federal Legislature, that 
 within such and such limits, you have our consent to 
 bind our people. In this way our fatliers organized a 
 government that united us for all common purposes, and 
 left us in our original diversity to prosecute our scpa 
 rate and local interests. Congress is, therefore, only 
 the creature of the States, and acts only tlirough them. 
 It is their consent, their treaty, which gives to its enact- 
 ments the validity of law. As the Federal Legislature 
 was clearly designed to realize the unity of the people, 
 its powers are restricted, from the very necessities of 
 the case, to those points in which all the States have a 
 common interest. The creature of a treaty, in which 
 the contracting parties were all equal, it is manifestly 
 the servant, and not the master, of the States. It is an 
 agent, and not a principal. 
 
 If this view of the subject be correct, the Federal 
 government is preeminently a government, whose very 
 existence depends upon a scrupulous adherence to good 
 faith. It requires the sternest integrity to work it. Its 
 very life-blood is honor. Now, there are two respects 
 in which it may fatally err. In the first place Congress 
 may transcend its powers, and thus be guilty of a 
 breach of trust, and of disloyalty to its own masters. 
 It may presume upon the consent of the States, where 
 no consent has been given. It may forget that it is a 
 servant, and aspire to be lord. It may forget that it is 
 an agent, and arrogate to itself the rights and authori- 
 ty of the principal. When it surveys the extent of its 
 jurisdiction, the amount of its patronage, and the 
 weight of its influence abroad, it may become dazzled 
 
32 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 with the contemplation of its own greatness, and attri- 
 bute to itself the light that is reflected upon it. Its 
 one people it may construe into one nation, and, un- 
 mindful of its origin, treat the sovereignties which cre- 
 ated it as dependent provinces. Treating upon a foot- 
 ing of equality with foreign powers, it may insensibly 
 ascribe to itself the authority of Kings and Emperors. 
 All this is conceivable ; to some extent it is inevitable, 
 unless the most scrupulous integrity should reign in the 
 Federal Councils. But to sin in any of these respects 
 ii fraud, and fraud connected with treason. In the 
 next place, the States may break faith with one another. 
 They may refuse to fulfil their engagements. They may 
 pervert tlie Federal authorities to the accomplishment 
 of selfish and sectional ends. They may undertake to 
 make their common agent the minister of partial ad- 
 vantages, or they may use lawful powers for unlawful 
 purposes. Here, too, in the relation of the States to 
 each other, is wide scope for fraud. 
 
 In one, or in both these directions, we may look for 
 instances of national transgression ; and on this day, 
 we should solemnly review the history of the Republic, 
 for the purpose of bringing our consciences before the 
 tribunal of Grod. Perfidy, under all circumstances, is 
 an aggravated sin ; but when it brings in its train the 
 destruction of institutions which have been the hope 
 and admiration of the world ; when it subverts the 
 foundations of a great empire, scattering the seeds of 
 dissension, bitterness and strife ; when it arms house 
 against house, and State ^against State, and converts a 
 happy union into a scene of implacable and deadly 
 feuds, language is hardly competent to describe the 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 33 
 
 enormity of the guilt. The fraud which makes our 
 government a failure, must darken the prospects of lib- 
 erty throughout the world. No policy can be devised 
 wliich shall perpetuate freedom among a people that are 
 dead to honor and integrity. Liberty and virtue are 
 twin sisters, and the best fabric in the world, however 
 ingeniously framed, and curiously balanced, can be no 
 security against the corroding influences of bad faith. 
 Perfidy is always weakness ; and a government whose 
 basis is the faith of treaties, must inevitably perish be- 
 fore it. The combination of the federal principle with 
 the sovereignty of States, is the only principle which 
 can maintain free institutions upon a broad scale. This 
 combination can secure freedom to a continent ; it 
 might even govern the world. The day of small States 
 is passed, and as the federal principle is the only one 
 which can guarantee freedom to extensive territories, 
 the federal principle must constitute the hope of the 
 human race. It w^as the glory of this country to have 
 first applied it to the formation of an effective govern- 
 ment, and, had we been faithful to our trust, a destiny 
 was before us which it has never been the lot of any 
 people to inherit. It was ours to redeem this continent, 
 to spread freedom, civilization and religion through the 
 whole length of the land. Geographically placed be- 
 tween Europe and Asia, we were, in some sense, the 
 representatives of the human race. The fortunes of 
 the world were in our hand. We were a city set upon 
 a hill, whose light was intended to shine upon every 
 people and upon every land. To forego this destiny, 
 to forfeit this inheritance, and that through bad faith, 
 is an enormity of treason equalled only by the treache- 
 
34 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 ry of a Judas, who betrayed his master with a kiss. 
 Favored as we have been, we can expect to perish by 
 DO common death. The judgment lingers not, and the 
 damnation slumbers not, of the reprobates and traitors, 
 Avho, for the wages of unrighteousness, have sapped tlie 
 pillars and undermined the foundations of the statelie^^t 
 temple of liberty the world ever beheld. Rebellion 
 against God, and treason to man, are combined in the 
 perfidy. The innocent may be spared, as Lot was de- 
 livered from the destruction of Sodom ; but the guilty 
 must perish with an aggravated doom. The first in- 
 stances of trangression may seem slight and insignifi- 
 cant, but when they strike at the principle of good 
 faith, like a puncture of the heart, they strike at the 
 root of our national life. The Union was conceived in 
 plighted faith, and can only be maintained by a com- 
 plete redemption of the pledge. The moment faith is 
 broken, the Union is dissolved. Entertaining these 
 views of the radical relations of good faith to the suc- 
 cess and stability of our government, I would impress 
 upon the country the flagrant iniquity of dealing loose- 
 ly with its covenants. It is here that our dangers are 
 concentrated, and here we should look for the sins that 
 have provoked the judgments of God. Here is the 
 secret of our bitter strifes, our furious contention, our 
 deadly animosities ; and, should this Government be 
 destined to fall, the epitaph which may be written on 
 its tomb, is a memorial of broken faith. 
 
 The foregoing remarks are general, and designed to 
 bring no railing accusation against any section of the 
 country, but to excite every part of it to a faithful re- 
 view of its dealings under the Constitution. There is 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 35 
 
 one subject, however in relation to which the non- 
 slaveholding States have not only broken faith, but 
 have justified their course upon the plea of conscience. 
 We allude to the subject of slavery. They have been 
 reluctant to open the Territories to the introduction of 
 slaves, and have refused to restore fugitives to their 
 masters, and have vindicated themselves from blame by 
 appealing to a higher law than the compacts of men. 
 The doctrine of a higher law, properly interpreted and 
 applied, we are far from repudiating. God is greater 
 than man, and no human covenants can set aside or 
 annul the supreme obligations of His will. But, in the 
 present case, the plea is improperly applied. If it is 
 wn-ong to countenance slavery by restoring fugitives to 
 their masters, or by permitting it to enter into the Ter- 
 ritories, then the true method is to abrogate the con- 
 tract which requires both. We repent of sin by for- 
 sal?:ing it, and the only way to nndo a wicked bargain 
 is to cancel it. If the non-slaveholding States cannot 
 in conscience redeem their faith, they are bound in hon- 
 or to take back their pledges, to withdraw from the 
 Union, and to release their confederates from all the 
 conditions of the contract. No other course can they 
 pursue without sin. To swear to observe the Constitu- 
 tion, when the Constitution binds them to do what they 
 believe to be wicked, is an oath which, whether broken 
 or kept, cannot be taken without dishonor. To keep 
 it, is to violate the conscience in the unlawful article. 
 To break it, is to be guilty of perjury. The only es- 
 cape from this dilemma is, not to take it at all. 
 
 But, in truth, even upon the supposition that slavery 
 is innnoral, there is nothing wrong in the oath to observe 
 
36 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 the Constitution. The responsibility of slavery is not 
 upon the non-slaveholding States. It is not created by 
 their laws, but by the laws of the slaveholding States ; 
 and all they do in the case of the fugitive from his mas- 
 ter, is to remand him to the jurisdiction of the laws 
 from which he has escaped. They have nothing to do 
 with the justice or injustice of the laws themselves. 
 They are simply required to say that the accident of 
 being on their soil shall not dissolve the relation be- 
 tween a subject and its government. The treaty exist- 
 ing among the States, in reference to this point, is 
 precisely analogous to a treaty among foreign nations, 
 requiring the surrender of criminals that have fled from 
 justice. The country surrendering passes no judgment 
 upon the merits of the case. It leaves the whole of 
 the responsibility to the laws of the country claiming 
 jurisdiction. All that it does is not to interpose and 
 arrest the operation of t]iose laws. Surely, there is 
 nothing unrighteous in this ; nothing unrighteous in re- 
 fusing to screen a man from the authority of the code 
 under which Providence has cast his lot. There is no 
 obligation to do it without a treaty ; but there is nothing 
 inherently unlawful in making such a treaty, and in 
 strictly adhering to it when made. The plea of con- 
 science proceeds from a palpable misapprehension of 
 the nature of the case. 
 
 The plea is still more flagrantly inadequate when ap- 
 ])lied to the e>;clusiQu of slavery from the Territories. 
 All the States have confessedly an equal right of prop- 
 erty in them. They are a joint possession. The 
 citizens of any State may go there and take up their 
 abode, and, without express contract to the contrary 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 37 
 
 among tho proprietors, they are at liberty to observe the 
 customs of their own States. It is as if tlie land were 
 distributed, and each State had a part. In that case, 
 each State would evidently put its part under the juris- 
 diction of its own laws. The joint possession, to the 
 extent of the partnership, places the Territory in the 
 same relation to the laws of all the States. One has no 
 more right to introduce its peculiarities than another, 
 and without positive contract the peculiarities of none 
 can be excluded. The case is as if a Christian and a 
 Pagan people should acquire a common territory. 
 AVould it be competent for the Cliristian people, in the 
 absence of a positive stipulation, to say to their Pagan 
 neighbors. You shall not bring your idols into this land ? 
 You may come yourselves, but you come only on condi- 
 tion that you renounce your worship ? If there is any 
 wrong, it is in making the treaty at first ; but if Christ- 
 ians and Pagans can enter into treaties at all, there is 
 no crime in observing them. If they can lawfully 
 acquire joint possession of a soil, the Pagan has as much 
 right to introduce his idols as the Christian his purer 
 worship. In respect to the question of slavery, if there 
 is wrong any where, it is in the union of slaveholding 
 and non-slaveholding States in one confederacy ; but, 
 being confederate, there can be no just scruple as to the 
 fulfillment of their contracts. It is a mistake to sup-, 
 pose that the North sanctions slavery by doing justice to 
 the South. It leaves the whole responsibility of the, 
 institution where God has placed it, among the people] 
 of the South themselves. We do not ask the North to 
 introduce it upon their own soil; we do not ask them 
 to approve it ; we do not ask them to speak a single 
 
38 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 word in its defence : we only ask them to execute in 
 good faith the contract which has been solemnly ratified 
 betwixt us. We ask them not to interfere with the 
 jurisdiction of our own laws over our own subjects, nor 
 with the free use of our own property upon our own 
 soil. This is the head and front of our pretensions, and 
 when these reasonable demands are met by the plea of 
 conscience and the authority of a higher law, they must 
 pardon our dullness, if we cannot understand that deli- 
 cate sensibility to honor which makes no scruple of an 
 oath that it does not mean to observe, and holds to the 
 profit, without fulfilling the conditions, of the contract. 
 When they ask to be released from their engagements, 
 and, in token of their sincerity, are willing to release 
 us from ours ; when they are willing to abandon the 
 Union rather than ensnare their consciences ; when 
 tliey abhor the wages, as sincerely as the deeds, of un- 
 righteousness — then, and not till then, they may expect 
 their plea to be admitted. 
 
 2. In the next place, we shall find ample ground of 
 humiliation, if we consider the manner in which tlie or- 
 gans of Government have been perverted from their 
 real design, and changed in their essential character. 
 All our institutions are representative. We legislate 
 by parliaments, we judge by courts, and we execute by 
 officers appointed for the purpose. The people in their 
 collective capacity do nothing but choose their repre- 
 sentatives. They enact no laws ; they conduct no 
 trials ; they execute no sentences. Now, what is the 
 genius and spirit of a representative assembly ? Is 
 it to give expression to the popular will ? Is it to 
 lind out and do what the people, if assembled in 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. SO 
 
 mass, would do ? Is it simply a contrivance to avoid 
 ihe inconveniences of large convocations, and bound to 
 seek the same results which these convocations would 
 be likely to effect ? This doctrine I utterly and abso- 
 lutely deny. Representatives are appointed, not to 
 ascertain what the will of the people actually is, but 
 what it ought to be. The people are not permitted to 
 legislate en masse, because their passions and caprices 
 are likely to prove stronger than reason and truth. 
 Kepresentation is a check upon themselves. Every 
 State is bound to realize the idea of justice. This re- 
 quires calm deliberation and sober thought. To pro- 
 vide for this deliberation, to protect themselves from 
 their own prejudices and passions, and to cause the 
 voice of reason to be heard, they retire from the scene, 
 aad leave the inquiry and decision of their duty to 
 chosen men, in whose wisdom they have confidence. 
 This is the true theory of parliamentary government. 
 Courts are appointed to interpret the law, and officers 
 to execute the decrees of the courts, in order that 
 justice and not passion may rule in every trial. The 
 supremacy of reason and justice is the supremacy of 
 law and order. Contemplated in this light, parliamen- 
 tary government is the most perfect under heaven. It 
 avoids equally the extremes of the despotism of a single 
 will, which is sure to terminate in tyranny, and of the 
 still more hateful despotism of mobs, which is sure to 
 terminate in anarchy. It gives rise to a free common- 
 wealth. It aims at the true and right, and truth and 
 rectitude are the safeguards of freedom. Such is the 
 genius of our own institutions. But how has the gold 
 become dim, and the fine gold changed ! Has the Con- 
 
40 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 gress of these United States fulfilled its high idea? 
 Called together to deliberate, to discuss, to inquire 
 after truth ; bound to listen to no voice but the voice of 
 wisdom and justice — has it always presented the spec- 
 tacle of gravity, decorum, and candor, which we expect 
 to behold in the Senate of a free people ? What shall 
 we say, when gold has usurped the authority of truth, 
 when votes have been bought and sold, and the interests 
 of a faction allowed to outweigh the rights and inter- 
 ests of a whole people ? What shall we say, when 
 blows have taken the place of argument, and our halls 
 of legislation have been converted into an arena for the 
 combats of fierce gladiators ? What shall we say, 
 when, instead of the language of calm deliberation, the 
 representatives of the people have vied with each other 
 in vituperation and abuse, and, when they have ex- 
 hausted the dialect of Billingsgate, have rushed upon 
 each other with the ferocity of tigers, or with the fury 
 of the bulls of Bashan ? The offence is rank, and 
 smells to heaven. Such an awful prostitution of high 
 functions cannot take place with impunity. The hall 
 which should have inscribed upon its portals the scene 
 of wisdom and of high debate, cannot become a den of 
 robbers, or a rendezvous for bullies and hectors, with- 
 out provoking the just judgments of God. It is a 
 lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation, that the 
 Federal Legislature, wiiich ought to have been a model 
 of refined, impartial and courteous debate — a model to 
 which we could always point with an honest pride, has 
 made itself a scandal to a civilized people. The day 
 of reckoning was obliged to come. The country is 
 brought to the brink of dissolution. 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 41 
 
 The coiTiiption is of the same kind when tlie tribunals 
 of the law are set aside, and mobs usurp the jurisdic- 
 tion of the courts. There may be occasions when the 
 established order is unable to clieck a threatening evil. 
 In such cases, the necessities of self-defence may justify 
 society in falling back upon its primordial rights. But 
 tliese occasions are rare. But when society assumes, 
 without necessity, tlie functions of judges and magis- 
 trates, it is guilty of an abuse which, if not arrested, 
 must end in anarchy. There only is security where the 
 law is supreme ; and the worst of all social evils is 
 where the populace is stronger than the law — where 
 the sentence of courts is annulled by the phrenzy of 
 mobs, and the officers of justice are insulted and res- 
 trained in the execution of their functions. 
 
 In these respects, all of which resolve themselves 
 into the abuse of the representative principle, we have 
 national sins to confess. We have poisoned the springs 
 of our government. We have given to faction what is 
 due to truth. We have dethroned reason and justice, 
 and made our legislation a miserable scramble for the 
 interests of sections and parties. We have deified the 
 people, making their will, as will, and not as reasonable 
 and right, the supreme law ; and they, in turn, have 
 deified themselves, by assuming all tlie attributes of 
 government, and exercising unlimited dominion. They 
 have become at once legislators, judges, juries, and 
 executioners. The last form of evil has been only 
 occasional, but unless checked and repressed, it may 
 strengthen and expand. In proportion as it increases, 
 reverence for law and for the forms of law loses its 
 power. The tendency to sink our institutions into a 
 
42 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 pure democracy has been steadily growing. We are 
 rapidly losing even the notion of a representative, by 
 merging it into that of a deputy; and it is but the 
 natural product of this error, that Congress should be 
 the battle-ground of conflicting wills, and that its sole 
 inquiry should become : what says the voice of the 
 majority? Vox populi^ vox Dei. 
 
 I have said, I think, enough to show that in our 
 federal relations, we have reason to be humbled in the 
 presence of God. Our Government is a noble one. 
 Human wisdom could not have devised a better. With 
 all our unfaithfulness it has made us great and pros- 
 perous. It has won for us the homage and respect of 
 the world ; and had we been faithful to its principles, 
 the blessings it has already conferred upon us would be 
 but the beginning of its triumphs. Could we continue 
 a united people, united in heart as well as in form ; 
 could the government be administered accoi'ding to the 
 real genius of our federal and representative institu- 
 tions, imagination can hardly conceive the scene of 
 prosperity, influence and glory which would dawn upon 
 our children a hundred years hence. When we con- 
 template that we might become, and then look at the 
 prospect which is now before us, we have reason to put 
 our hands on our mouths, and our mouths in the dust, 
 and to exclaim : God he merciful to ifs sinner's I Let us 
 Aveep for the country. Let us confess our own sins and 
 the sins of the people. God may hear the cry of the 
 penitent, and say to them, as He said to Moses, when 
 he deplored the sins of his people, 1 will make of thee 
 a great nation. 
 
 3. There are other forms of sin which, though not 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 43 
 
 national in the sense that they pertain to the adminis- 
 tration of the government, are national in the sense 
 that they are widely diffused among the people : they 
 enter into the grounds of the Divine controversy with 
 us ; and, if not repented of and forsaken, must end in 
 national calamities. Conspicuous among these is the sin 
 of profaneness. The name of God is constantly on our 
 lips, and if the frequency with which it is used were any 
 sign of religion, ours might pass for the most devout 
 people tinder heaven. We introduce it into every sub- 
 ject, and upon all occasions. A sentence is never com- 
 plete without it. If we are earnest, it enlivens our dis- 
 course ; if we are angry, it affords a vent to our passions ; 
 if we are merry, it quickens our enjoyments, and if we 
 are sad, it relieves our misery. Like those particles in 
 the Greek tongue, which to the philologist give a deli- 
 cate turn to the meaning, but which to the common 
 reader might be removed without being missed, the name 
 of God is indispensable in the vulgar dialect of the 
 people, but it takes a practised ear to detect the shade 
 which it gives to the sentence. Many persons would 
 be dumb if they were not allowed to be profane. The 
 only words which, as nimble servitors, are ready to obey 
 their bidding, are the names of God and the awful 
 terms in which He announces the final doom of the 
 guilty. These are their vocabulary. Judging from the 
 discourse which he is likely to hear in the streets, a 
 stranger might infer that the name was all that we had 
 left of God ; that we were a nation of atheists, who Lad 
 at last discovered that He was only a word, and, 
 determined to make reprisals for the terrors with which 
 superstition had clothed Him, we were degrading even 
 
44 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 the name by the lowest associations. That a puny- 
 mortal should thus trifle with the majesty of God, and 
 make a jest of tlie Divine judgments, is a spectacle 
 which may well astonish the angels, and ought to con- 
 found ourselves. Devils hate, but they dare not make 
 light of God. It is only here upon earth, where the 
 patience of God is as infinite as His being, that the 
 name which fills heaven with reverence and hell with 
 terror is an idle word. Profaneness naturally leads to 
 licentiousness, by dissolving the sentiment of reverence. 
 
 Closely connected with levity in the use of the Divine 
 name, is the profaneness which treats with contempt the 
 positive institution of the Sabbath. Here the govern- 
 ment is implicated in the sin. It encourages the dese- 
 cration of the Lord's Day by the companies which 
 carry its mails. The Sabbath, as an external institute, 
 is absolutely essential to the maintenance and propaga- 
 tion of Christianity in the world, and until the Chris- 
 tian religion is disproved, and the supremacy of Christ 
 set aside, no government on earth can annul it with 
 impunity. 
 
 It is also characteristic of our people that they are 
 self sufficient and vainglorious, to a degree that makes 
 them ridiculous. They love to boast, and they love to 
 sacrifice to their own drag and to burn incense to their 
 own net. They feel themselves competent for every 
 enterprise. They can scale heaven, weigh the earth, 
 and measure the sea. Their own arms and their own 
 right hand will get them the victory in every under- 
 taking. Even the style of their conversation is grandi- 
 loquent. The hyperbole is their favorite figure, and the 
 superlative their favorite degree of comparison. To 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 43 
 
 hear their self-laudations, you would never dream that 
 they acknowledged a Providence, or depended on any 
 superior power. All this is the grossest atheism. The 
 consequence of this self-sufficiency is a want of rever- 
 ence for any thing. We honor neither God nor the 
 king. We revile our rulers, and speak evil of digni- 
 ties, with as little compunction as we profane the ordi- 
 nances of religion. Nothing is great but ourselves. 
 It is enough to indicate these types of sin, without 
 dwelling upon them. The important thing is to feel 
 that they are sins. They are so common that they 
 cease to impress us, and in some of their aspects they 
 are so grotesque, they provoke a smile more readily 
 than a tear. 
 
 4. Having adverted to the sins which belong to us as 
 members of the Confederacy, let us now turn to those 
 wdiich belong to us as a particular Commonwealth. I 
 shall restrict myself to our dealings with the institution 
 which has produced the present convulsions of the coun- 
 try, and brought us to the verge of ruin. That the re- 
 lation betwixt the slave and his master is not inconsis- 
 tent with the word of God, we have long since settled. 
 Our consciences are not troubled, and have no reason to 
 be troubled, on this score. We do not hold our slaves 
 in bondage from remorseless considerations of interest. 
 If I know the character of our people, I think I can 
 safely say, that if they were persuaded of the essential 
 immorality of slavery, they would not be backward in 
 adopting measures for the ultimate abatement of the 
 evil. We cherish the institution not from avarice, but 
 from principle. We look upon it as an element of 
 strength, and not of weakness, and confidently antici- 
 
46 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 pate the time when the nations that now revile us would 
 gladly change places with us. In its last analysis, sla- 
 very is nothing but an organization of labor, and an or- 
 ganization by virtue of which labor and capital are 
 made to coincide. Under this scheme, labor can never 
 be without employment, and the wealth of the country 
 is pledged to feed and clothe it. Where labor is free, 
 and the laborer not a part of the capital of the country, 
 there are two causes constantly at work, which, in the 
 excessive contrasts they produce, must end in agrarian 
 revolutions and intolerable distress. The first is the 
 tendency of capital to accumulate. Where it does not 
 include the laborer as a part, it will employ only that 
 labor which will yield the largest returns. It looks to 
 itself, and not to the interest of the laborer. The oth- 
 er is the tendency of population to outstrip the demands 
 for employment. The multiplication of laborers not 
 only reduces wages to the lowest point, but leaves mul- 
 titudes wholly unemployed. While the capitalist is ac- 
 cumulating his hoards, rolling in affluence and splen- 
 dor, thousands that would work if they had the oppor- 
 tunity are doomed to perish of hunger. The most as- 
 tonishing contrasts of poverty and riches are constantly 
 increasing. Society is divided between princes and 
 beggars. If labor is left free, how is this condition of 
 things to be obviated? The government must either 
 make provision to support people in idleness, or it 
 nmst arrest the law of population and keep them from 
 being born, or it must organize labor. Human beings 
 cannot be expected to starve. There is a point at 
 which they will rise in desperation against a social or- 
 der which dooms them to nakedness and famine, whilst 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 47 
 
 their lordly neighbor is clothed in purple and fine linen, 
 and faring sumptuously every day. They will scorn 
 the logic which makes it their duty to perish in the 
 midst of plenty. Bread tliey must have, and bread 
 they will have, though all the distinctions of property 
 liave to be abolished to provide it. The government, 
 therefore, must support them, or an agrarian revolution 
 is inevitable. But shall it support them in idleness ? 
 Will the poor, who have to work for their living, con- 
 sent to see others as stout and able as themselves cloth- 
 ed and fed like the lilies of the field, while they toil 
 not, neither do they spin ? Will not this be to give a 
 premium to idleness ? The government, then, must find 
 them employment ; but how shall this be done ? On 
 what principle shall labor be organized so as to make it 
 certain that the laborer shall never be without employ- 
 ment, and employment adequate for his support ? The 
 only way in which it can be done, as a permanent ar- 
 rangement, is by converting the laborer into capital ; 
 that is, by giving the employer a right of property in 
 the labor employed ; in other words, by slavery. The 
 master must always find work for his slave, as well as 
 food and raiment. The capital of the country, under 
 this system, must always feed and clothe the country. 
 There can be no pauperism, and no temptations to agra- 
 rianism. That non-slaveholding States will eventually 
 have to organize labor, and to introduce something so 
 like slavery that it will be impossible to discriminate 
 between them, or to suffer from the most violent and 
 disastrous insurrections against the system which cre- 
 ates and perpetuates their misery, seems to be as cer- 
 tain as the tendencies in the laws of capital and popu- 
 
48 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 lation to produce the extremes of poverty and wealth. 
 We do not envy them their social condition. With 
 sanctimonious complacency they may affect to despise 
 ns, and to shun onr society as they would shun the in- 
 fection of a plague. They may say to us, Stand by — 
 we are holier than thou; but the day of reckoning 
 must come. As long as the demand for labor tran- 
 scends the supply, all is Avell : capital and labor are 
 mutual friends, and tlie country grows in wealth with 
 mushroom rapidity. But when it is no longer capital 
 asking for labor, but labor asking for capital ; when it 
 is no longer work seeking men, but men seeking work 
 — then the tables are turned, and unemployed labor 
 and selfish capital stand face to face in deadly hostility. 
 We desire to see no such state of things among our- 
 selves, and we accept as a good and merciful constitu- 
 tion the organization of labor which Providence has 
 given us in slavery. Like every human arrangement, it 
 is liable to abuse ; but in its idea, and in its ultimate 
 influence upon the social system, it is wise and benefi- 
 cent. We see in it a security for the rights of proper- 
 ty and a safeguard against pauperism and idleness, 
 which our traducers may yet live to wish had been en- 
 grafted upon their own institutions. The idle declama- 
 tion about degrading men to the condition of chattels, 
 and treating them as cows, oxen, or swine ; the idea 
 that they are regarded as tools and instruments, and 
 not as beings possessed of immortal souls, betray a 
 gross ignorance of the real nature of the relation. Sla- 
 very gives one man the right of property in the labor 
 of another. The property of man in man is only the 
 property of man in human toil. The laborer becomes 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 49 
 
 capital, not because lie is a thing, but because lie is the 
 exponent of a presumed amount of labor. This is the 
 radical notion of the system, and all legislation upon it 
 should be regulated by this fundamental idea. 
 
 The question now arises, Have we, as a people and 
 a State, discharged our duty to our slaves ? Is there 
 not reason to apprehend that in some cases we have 
 given occasion to the calumnies of our adversaries, by 
 putting the defence of slavery upon grounds which 
 make the slave a different kind of being from his mas- 
 ter ? Depend upon it, it is no light matter to deny 
 the common brotherhood of humanity. The conse- 
 quences are much graver than flippant speculators 
 about the diversity of races are aware of. If the Afri- 
 can is not of the same blood with ourselves, he has no 
 lot nor part in the Gospel. The redemption of Jesus 
 Clirist extends only to those who are partakers of the 
 same flesh and blood with Himself. The ground of his 
 right to redeem is the participation, not of a like, but 
 of a common nature. Had the humanity of Jesus been 
 miraculously created apart from connection with the 
 human race, though it might in all respects have been 
 precisely similar to ours. He could not, according to 
 the Scriptures, have been our Redeemer. He must be 
 able to call us brethren before He can impart to us His 
 saving grace. No Christian man, therefore, can give 
 any countenance to speculations which trace the negro 
 to any other parent but Adam. If he is not descended 
 from Adam, he has not the same flesh and blood with 
 Jesus, and is therefore excluded f^om the possibility of 
 salvation. Those who defend slavery upon the plea 
 
60 OUR NATIONAL KINS. 
 
 that the African is not of tlie same stock with ourselves, 
 are aiming a fatal blow at the institution, by bringing 
 it into conflict with the dearest doctrines of the gospel. 
 To arm the religious sentiment against it, is to destroy 
 it. When the question at stake is, whether a large por- 
 tion of mankind can be saved, we want something more 
 than deductions from doubtful phenomena. Nothing 
 but the Word of God can justify us in shutting the 
 gates of mercy upon any portion of the race. The sci- 
 ence, falsely so called, which proffers its aid upon such 
 conditions, is such a friend to slavery as Joab to Ama- 
 sa, who met him wdth the friendly greeting. Art thou in 
 health, iny brother ? and stabbed him under the fifth 
 rib. I am happy to say that such speculations have 
 not sprung from slavery. They were not invented to 
 justify it. They are the offspring of infidelity, a part 
 of the process by which science has been endeavoring 
 to convict Christianity of falsehood ; and it is as idle 
 to charge the responsibility of the doctrine about the 
 diversity of species upon slaveholders, as to load them 
 with the guilt of queetioning the geological accuracy of 
 Moses. Both are assaults of infidel science upon the 
 records of our faith, and both have found their warm- 
 est advocates among the opponents of slavery. Our of- 
 fence has been, that in some instances we have accept- 
 ed and converted into a plea, the conclusions of this 
 vain deceit. Let us see to it that we give our revilers 
 no handle against us ; above all, that we make not God 
 our enemy. Let us not repudiate our kindred with the 
 poor brethren wdiom He has scattered among us, and 
 entrusted to our guardianship and care. Let us re- 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 51 
 
 ccive them as bono of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. 
 Let us recognize them as liaving the same Father, the 
 same Redeemer, and the same everlasting destiny. 
 
 Let us inquire, in the next place, whether we have 
 rendered unto our servants that wliich is just and equal. 
 Ls our legislation in all respects in harmony with the 
 idea of slavery ? Are our laws such that we can hearti- 
 ly approve them in the presence of God ? Have we 
 sufiiciently protected the person of the slave ? Are our 
 provisions adequate for giving him a fair and impartial 
 trial wlien prosecuted for ofi"ences ? Do we guard as 
 we should his family relations ? And, above all, have 
 we furnished him with proper means of religious in- 
 struction ? These and such questions we should en- 
 deavor to answer with the utmost solemnity and truth. 
 We have come before the Lord as penitents. The peo- 
 ple whom we hold in bondage are the occasion of all 
 our troubles. We have been provoked by bitter and 
 furious assailants to deal harshly with them, and it be- 
 comes us this day to review our history, and the history 
 of our legislation, in the light of God's truth, and to 
 abandon, with ingenuous sincerity, whatever our con- 
 sciences can not sanction. Let not the taunts of our 
 revilers shake us from our propriety. Let it be oui- 
 first care to commend ourselves to God, and, if He be 
 for us, what does it signify who is against us ? Our 
 slaves are a solemn trust, and while we have a right to 
 use and direct their labor, we are bound to feed, clothe 
 and protect them, to give them the comforts of this 
 life, and to introduce them to the hopes of a blessed 
 immortality. They are moral beings, and it will be 
 found that in the culture of tlieir moral nature we reap 
 
52 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 the largest reward from their service. The relation it- 
 self is moral, and in the tender affections and endear- 
 ing sympathies it evokes, it gives scope for the exercise 
 of the most attractive graces of human character. 
 Strange as it may sound to those who are not familiar 
 with the system, slavery is a school of virtue, and no 
 class of men have furnished sublimer instances of hero- 
 ic devotion than slaves in their loyalty and love to their 
 masters. We have seen them rejoice at the cradle of 
 the infant, and weep at the bier of the dead ; and there 
 are few amongst us, perhaps, who have not drawn their 
 nourishment from their generous breasts. Where the 
 relations are so kindly, there is every motive of fidelity 
 on our part. Let us apply with unflinching candor the 
 golden rule of our Saviour. Have we rendered to our 
 slaves what, if we were in their circumstances, we 
 should think it right and just in them to render to us. 
 We are not bound to render unto them what they may in 
 fact desire. Such a rule would transmute morality into 
 arbitrary caprice. But we are bound to render unto 
 them what they have a right to desire : that is, we are 
 bound to render unto them that which is just and equal. 
 The Saviour requires us to exchange places, in order 
 that we may appreciate what is just and equal, free 
 from the benumbing influences which are likely to per- 
 vert the judgment when there is no personal interest in 
 the decision. I need not say that it is our duty as a 
 Commonwealth to develop all the capabilities of good 
 which the relation of slavery contains. They have 
 never yet been fully unfolded. We have had to attend 
 so much to the outer defences, that we have not been in 
 a condition to give full play to the energies of the in- 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 53 
 
 ward life. This is tlie problem to wliicli Christian 
 statesmen should hereafter direct their eflbrts. 
 
 11. This day is a day of prayer^ as well as of liumili- 
 tion and confession. There are blessings which in our 
 present circumstances we uro-ently need, and we should 
 make them the burden of importunate supplications. 
 The first is the grace of magnanimity, that our modera- 
 tion may be known unto all men. By moderation, I do 
 not mean tameness and servility of spirit ; and by mag- 
 nanimity I do not mean what Aristotle seems to under- 
 stand by it — a consciousness of worth which feels 
 itself entitled to great rewards. The true notion of it 
 is, a just sense of what is due to the dignity of the 
 State, and an humble reliance upon God to make it 
 equal to every occasion. The mind that feels the re- 
 sponsibility of its spiritual endowments, and aims at the 
 perfection of its nature in the consummation of an end 
 which satisfies the fulness of its being, while it arro- 
 gates nothing of merit to itself, but ascribes all its ca- 
 pacities to the unmerited bounties of God ; the mind 
 timt is conscious of what is due to mind, and intent 
 upon fulfilling its own idea — is truly great ; and the 
 more thoroughly it is penetrated w^ith this conscious- 
 ness, the more deeply it is humbled under the convic- 
 tion of its manifold shortcomings, and the more earnest 
 in its cries for grace to enable it to win the prize. To 
 know our true place in the universe, to feel that we are 
 possessed of noble powers, and that we are bound to 
 pursue an end that is worthy of them, is not pride, but 
 sobriety of judgment. Pride emerges w^hen we attri- 
 bute to ourselves the excellence of our gifts ; when we 
 cherish a spirit of independence and self-sufficiency, and 
 
54 OUR NATIONxYL SINS. 
 
 r6b God of tlie glory wliicb is duo to His bounty. Hu- 
 mility is not a confession that mind is intrinsically little : 
 it is only the conviction of its absolute dependence up- 
 on God, and of its relative nothingness when compared 
 with Him. A Commonwealth is magnanimous when it 
 comprehends the vocation of a State, when it rises To 
 the dignity of its high functions, and seeks to cheri>h 
 a spirit in harmony with the great moral purposes it 
 was ordained to execute. A magnanimous State can 
 not be the victim of petty passions. It is superior to 
 rashness, to revenge, to irritation, and caprice. It has 
 an ideal which it aims to exemplify ; cultivates a mind 
 upon a level with its calling, and, turning neither to the 
 right nor to the left, presses with undeviating step to 
 the goal before it. It is calm, collected, self-possessed, 
 resolved. It dares do all that may become a State. It 
 will attempt nothing more ; it will be content with 
 nothing less. That we, as a Commonwealth, in the tr}^- 
 ing circumstances in which we are placed, may be able 
 to exhibit this spectacle of magnanimity to the world ; 
 that we may command its admiration by the dignity 
 and self-respect of our bearing, even though we should 
 not secure its assent to the wisdom of our policy ; that 
 we may make all men see and feel that we are actuated 
 by principle, and not by passion, should be a subject of 
 our fervent supplications this day. Wisdom and cour- 
 age are the inspiration of God. 
 
 In the next place, we should look to Him to raise up 
 for us, as guides and leaders in the present emergency, 
 men of counsel and understanding. Statesmen in tho 
 State, as Apostles in the Church, are special ministers 
 of God. They arise at His bidding, and execute His 
 
OUR NATIONAL SINS. 55 
 
 bcliests. Moses and Joshua, Solon and Lycurgus, tlio 
 Prince of Orange and Washington, were anointed and 
 commissioned of Heaven for the work they so happily 
 performed. To construct a Government of any kind, is a 
 work of no ordinary magnitude ; but the Grovernment of 
 a free people, with its complicated checks and balances, 
 it is given only to the loftiest minds to be able to conceive, 
 much less to create. If ever tliere was a time, since 
 the adoption of the Federal Constitution, when the 
 whole country needed the counsel and guidance of pat- 
 riotic statesmen, it is now, when, under the lead of 
 demagogues, factions and politicians, we have corrupted 
 every principle of our polity, and brought the Govern- 
 ment to the brink of dissolution. No human arm is 
 equal to the crisis. No human eye can penetrate the 
 future. Our only help is in God ; from Him alone Com- 
 eth our salvation. The highest proof of patriotism in 
 the present conjuncture, is in penitence and humility 
 to seek His favor, and if it is his purpose to redeem 
 and save us, in answer to our prayers, He will cause the 
 men to stand forth, and the people to honor and accept 
 them whom He has commissioned to conduct us througli 
 the wilderness. In the meantime, let us scrupulously 
 resist every influence that is unfriendly to the influence 
 of His Spirit. Let us mortify every thought, and sub- 
 due every passion, upon which we cannot sincerely in- 
 voke His blessing. If we are to lay the foundations of 
 a new empire, or to readjust the proportions of the old, 
 the only pledge of permanent success is the Divine fa- 
 vor. Happy is that people, and that people alone, 
 wliose God is the Lord. 
 
 Finally, lot us pray that our courage may be equal to 
 
56 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 every emergency. Even though our cause be just, and 
 our course approved of Heaven, our path to victory 
 may be through a baptism of blood. Liberty has its 
 martyrs and confessors, as well as religion. The oak is 
 rooted amid wintry storms. Great truths come to us 
 at great cost, and the most impressive teachers of man- 
 kind are those who have sealed their lessons with their 
 blood. Our State may suffer ; she may suffer grievous- 
 ly ; she may suffer long : Be it so : we shall love her 
 the more tenderly and the more intensely, the more bit- 
 terly she suffers. It does not follow, even if she should 
 be destined to fall, that her course was wrong, or her 
 sufferings in vain. Thermopylae was lost, but the moral 
 power of Thermopylae will continue as long as valor 
 and freedom have a friend ; and reverence for law is 
 one of the noblest sentiments of the hum.an soul. Let 
 it be our great concern to know God's will. Let right 
 and duty be our watchword ; liberty, regulated by law, 
 our goal ; and, leaning upon the arm of everlasting 
 strength, we shall achieve a name, whether we succeed 
 or fall, that posterity will not willingly let die. 
 
SLAVEllY A DIVINE TRUST. 
 
 DUTY OF THE SOUTH TO PRESERVE AND PERPETUATE IT 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED IN THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF 
 NEW ORLEANS, LA., NOV. 29, 18G0 
 
 BY REV. B. M. rALMER, D. D. 
 
 Shall the thi'one of iniquity have fello-vvsliip with thee, which frameth 
 mischief by a law ? — Psalm xciv, 20. 
 
 All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border; 
 the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed 
 against thee; they that ate thy bread have laid a wound under thee; 
 there is none understanding in him. — Obadiah v. 
 
 The voice of the Chief Magistrate lias summoned us 
 to-day to the house of prayer. This call, in its annual 
 repetition, may be, too often, only a solemn state-form ; 
 nevertheless, it covers a mighty and a double truth. 
 
 It recognizes the existence of a personal God, whose 
 will shapes the destiny of nations, and that sentiment 
 of religion in man which points to Him as the needle t<^ 
 rlio pole. Even with those who grope in the twiligli 
 ' ! ruitural religion, natural conscience gives a voice t; 
 I he dispensations of Providence. If in autumn " exten- 
 sive harvests hang their heavy head," the joyous reaper, 
 " crowned with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf," lifts 
 his heart to the " Father of lights, from whom cometh 
 down every good and perfect gift." Or, if pestilence 
 
68 SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 
 
 and famine waste tlie earth, even pagan altars smoke 
 with bleeding victims, and costly hecatombs appease the 
 divine anger which flames out in such dire misfortunes. 
 It is the instinct of man's religious nature, which, among 
 Christians and heathen alike, seeks after God — tlio 
 natural homage which reason, blinded as it may be, 
 pays to a universal and ruling Providence. All classes 
 bow beneath its spell, especially in seasons of gloom, 
 when a nation bends beneath the weight of a general 
 calamity, and a common sorrow falls upon every heart. 
 The hesitating skeptic forgets to weigh his scruples, as 
 the dark shadow passes over him and fills his soul with 
 awe. The dainty philosopher, coolly discoursing of the 
 forces of nature and her uniform laws, abandons for a 
 time his atheistical speculations, abashed by the proofs 
 of a supreme and personal will. 
 
 Thus the devout followers of Jesus Christ, and those 
 who do not rise above the level of mere theism, are 
 drawn into momentary fellowship; as, under the pres- 
 sure of these inextinguishable convictions, they pay a 
 public and united homage to the God of nature and 
 grace. 
 
 In obedience to this great law of religious feeling, not 
 less than in obedience to the civil ruler who represents 
 this Commonwealth in its unity, we arc now assembled. 
 Hitherto, on similar occasions, our language has been 
 the language of gratitude and song. " The voice of 
 rejoicing and salvation was in the tabernacles of the 
 righteous." Together we praised the Lord " that our 
 garners were full, affording all manner of store ; that 
 our sheep brought forth thousands and tens of thous- 
 ands in our streets ; that our oxen were strong to labor, 
 
SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 59 
 
 and tlicro was no broaking in nor going out, and no 
 complaining was in our streets." As we together sur- 
 veyed tlie blessings of Providence, the joyful chorus 
 swelled from millions of people, " Peace be within thy 
 walls, and prosperity within thy palaces." But, to-day, 
 burdened hearts all over this land are brought to the 
 sanctuary of God. Wo " see the tents of Cushan in 
 affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian do 
 tremble." We have fallen upon times when there are 
 " signs in tlie sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; 
 upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity ; the 
 sea and the waves roaring ; men's hearts failing them 
 for fear, and for looking after those things which are 
 coming " in the near, yet gloomy, future. Since the 
 words of this proclamation were penned by which we 
 are convened, that which all men dreaded, but against 
 Avhich all men hoped, has been realized ; and in the tri- 
 umph of a sectional majority, we are compelled to read 
 the probable doom of our once happy and united con- 
 federacy. It is not to be concealed, that we are in the 
 most fearful and perilous crisis which has occurred in 
 our history as a nation. The cords wiiich, during four- 
 fifths of a century, have bound together this growing 
 Republic, are now strained to their utmost tension — 
 they just need the touch of fire to part asunder forever. 
 Like a ship laboring in the storm, and suddenly ground- 
 ed upon some treacherous shoal, every timber of this 
 vast confederacy strains and groans under the pressure. 
 Sectional divisions, the jealousy of rival interests, the 
 lust of political power, a bastard ambition, which looks 
 to personal aggrandizement rather than to the public 
 weal, a reckless radicalism, which seeks for the subver- 
 
60 SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 
 
 sion of all that is ancient and stal)l(3, and a furious 
 fanaticism, which drives on its ill-considered conclusions 
 with utter disregard of the evil it engenders — all these 
 combine to create a portentous crisis, the like of which 
 we have never known before, and which puts to a cru- 
 cifying test the virtue, the patriotism, and the piety of 
 tlie country. 
 
 You, my hearers, who have waited upon my public 
 ministry, and have known me in the intimacies of pas- 
 toral intercourse, will do me the justice to testify that I 
 have never intermeddled with political questions. In- 
 terested as I might be in the progress of events, I have 
 never obtruded, either publicly or privately, my opin- 
 ions upon any of you ; nor can a single man arise and 
 say that, by word or sign, have I ever souglit to warp 
 his sentiments or control his judgment upon any politi- 
 cal subject whatsoever. The party questions which have 
 hitherto divided the political world, have seemed to mo 
 to involve no issue sufficiently momentous to warrant my 
 turning aside, even for a moment, from my chosen call- 
 ing. In this day of intelligence, I have felt tliere were 
 thousands around me more competent to instruct in 
 statesmanship ; and thus, from considerations of modes 
 ty, no less than prudence, I have preferred to move 
 among you as a preacher of righteousness belonging to 
 a kingdom not of this world. 
 
 During the heated canvass which has just been 
 brought to so disastrous a close, the seal of a rigid and 
 religious silence has not been broken. I deplored the 
 divisions amongst us, as being, to a large extent, imper- 
 tinent in the solemn crisis which was too evidently im- 
 pending. Most clearly did it appear to me that but 
 
SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 61 
 
 one issue before us ; an issue soon to be presented in a 
 form wliicli would compel the attention. That crisis 
 might make it imperative upon me, as a Christian and 
 a divine, to speak in language admitting no misconstruc- 
 tion. Until then, aside from the din and strife of par- 
 ties, I could only mature, with solitary and prayerful 
 thought, the destined utterance. That hour has come. 
 At a juncture so solemn as the present, with the destiny 
 of a great people waiting upon the decision of an hour, 
 it is not lawful to be still. Whoever may have influ- 
 ence to shape public opinion, at such a time must lend 
 it, or prove faithless to a trust as solemn as any to be 
 accounted for at tlie bar of God. 
 
 Is it immodest in me to assume that I may represent 
 a class whose opinions in such a controversy are of cai-- 
 dinal importance — the class which seeks to ascertain 
 its duty in the light simply of conscience and religion, 
 and which turns to the moralist and the Christian for 
 support and guidance ? The question, too, which now 
 places us upon the brink of revolution, was, in its ori- 
 gin, a question of morals and religion. It was debated 
 in ecclesiastical councils before it entered legislative 
 halls. It has riven asunder the two largest religious 
 communions in the land ; and the right determination 
 of this primary question will go far toward fixing tlie 
 attitude we must assume in the coming struggle. I sin- 
 cerely pray God that I may be forgiven if I have mis- 
 apprehended the duty incumbent upon me to-day ; for 1 
 have ascended this pulpit under the agitation of feeling 
 natural to one who is about to deviate from the settled 
 policy of his public life. It is my purpose — not as 
 your organ, compromiting you, whose opinions are for 
 
62 SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 
 
 the most part unknown to me, but on my sole responsi- 
 bility — to speak upon the one question of the day; 
 and to state the duty which, as I believe, patriotism and 
 religion alike requires of us all. I shall aim to speak 
 with a moderation of tone and feeling almost judicial, 
 wxll befitting the sanctities of the place and the solem- 
 nities of the judgment-day. 
 
 In determining our duty in this emergency, it is ne- 
 cessary that we should first ascertain the nature of the 
 trust providentially committed to us. A nation often 
 has a character as well-defined and intense as that of 
 the individual. This depends, of course, upon a varie- 
 ty of causes, operating through a long period of time. 
 It is due largely to the original traits which distinguish 
 tlie stock from which it springs, and to the providential 
 training which has formed its education. But however 
 derived, this individuality of character alone makes any 
 people truly historic, competent to work out its specific 
 mission, and to become a factor in the world's progress. 
 The particular trust assigned to such a people becomes 
 the pledge of Divine protection, and their fidelity to it 
 determines the fate by which it is finally overtaken. 
 What that trust is must be ascertained from the necessi- 
 ties of their position, the institutions v/hich are the out- 
 growth of their principles, and the conflicts through 
 which they preserve their identity and independence. 
 If, then, the South is such a people, what, at this junc- 
 ture, is their providential trust ? I answer, that it is to 
 conserve and to perpetuate the institidion of slavery as 
 novj existing. It is not necessary here to inquire 
 whether this is precisely the best relation in which the 
 hewer of wood and drawer of water can stand to his 
 
SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 63 
 
 emploj-er ; although this proposition may perhaps be 
 successfully sustained by tliosc who choose to defend it. 
 Still less are we required, dogmatically, to affirm that 
 it will subsist through all time. Baffled as our wisdom 
 may now be, in finding a solution of this intricate social 
 problem, it would, nevertheless, be the height of arro- 
 gance to pronounce wdiat changes may or may not occur 
 in the distant future. In the grand march of events, 
 Providence may work out a solution undiscoverable by 
 us. What modifications of soil and climate may here- 
 after be produced, what consequent changes in the pro- 
 ducts on wdiich we depend, what political revolutions 
 may occur among the races which are now enacting the 
 great drama of history ; — all such inquiries are totally 
 irrelevant, because no prophetic vision Can pierce the 
 darkness of tliat future. If this question should ever 
 arise, the generation to whom it is remitted will doubt- 
 less have the wisdom to meet it, and Providence will 
 furnish the lights in which it is to be resolved. All 
 tliat we claim for them and for ourselves is liberty to 
 work out tliis problem, guided by nature and God, with- 
 out obtrusive interference from abroad. These great 
 questions of providence and history must have free 
 scope for their solution ; and the race whose fortunes 
 are distinctly implicated in the same is alone authorized, 
 as it is alone competent, to determine them. It is just 
 this impertinence of human legislation, setting bounds 
 to what God only can regulate, that the South is called 
 this day to resent and resist. The country is con- 
 vulsed simply because " the throne of iniquity frameth 
 mischief by a law." Without, therefore, determining 
 the question of duty for future generations, I simply 
 
6-i SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST 
 
 say, tliat for us, as now situated, the duty is plain of 
 conserving and transmitting the system of slavery, with 
 the freest scope for its natural development and exten- 
 sion. Let us, my brethren, look our duty in the face. 
 With this institution assigned to our keeping, what re- 
 ply shall we make to those who say that its days are 
 numbered ? My own conviction is, that we should at 
 once lift ourselves, intelligently, to the highest moral 
 ground, and proclaim to all the world that we hold this 
 trust from God, and in its occupancy we are prepared 
 to stand or fall as God may appoint. If the critical 
 moment has arrived at which the great issue is joined, 
 let us say that, in the sight of all perils, we will stand 
 by our trust : and God be with the right ! 
 
 The argument which enforces the solemnity of this 
 providential trust is simple and condensed. It is bound 
 upon us, then, by the principle of self-preservation, thai 
 " first law " which is continually asserting its suprema- 
 cy over others. Need I pause to show how this system 
 of servitude underlies and supports our material inter- 
 ests ? That our wealth consists in our lands, and in the 
 serfs who till them ? That from the nature of our pro- 
 ducts they can only be cultivated by labor which must 
 be controlled in order to be certain ? That any other 
 than a tropical race must faint and wither beneath a 
 tropical sun ? Need I pause to show how this system is 
 interwoven with our entire social fabric ? That these 
 slaves form parts of our households, even as our chil- 
 dren ; and that, too, through a relationship recognized 
 and sanctioned in the scriptures of God even as the 
 other ? Must I pause to show how it has fashioned our 
 modes of life, and determined all our habits of thought 
 
SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 65 
 
 and feeling, and moulded the very type of our civiliza- 
 tion ? How, then, can the hand of violence be laid up- 
 on it without involving our existence ? The so-called 
 free States of this country are working out the social 
 problem under conditions peculiar to themselves. These 
 conditions are sufficiently hard, and their success is too 
 uncertain, to excite in us the least jealousy of their lot. 
 With a teeming population, which the soil cannot sup- 
 port — with their wealth depending upon arts, created 
 by artificial wants — with an eternal friction between 
 the grades of their society — with their labor and their 
 capital grinding against each other like the upper and 
 nether millstones — with labor cheapened and displaced 
 by new mechanical inventions, bursting more asunder 
 the bonds of brotherhood ; amid these intricate perils 
 we have ever given them our sympathy and our prayers, 
 and have never sought to weaken the foundations of 
 their social order. God grant them complete success 
 in the solution of all their perplexities ! We, too, have 
 our responsibilities and our trials ; but they are all 
 bound up in this one institution, which has been the ob- 
 ject of such unrighteous assault through five and twen- 
 ty years. If we are true to ourselves, we shall, at this 
 critical juncture, stand by it, and w^ork out our destiny. 
 This duty is bound upon us again as the constituted 
 guardians of the slaves themselves. Our lot is not 
 more implicated in theirs, than is their lot in ours ; in 
 our mutual relations we survive or perish together. 
 The worst foes of the black race are those who have in- 
 termeddled on their behalf. We know better than 
 others that every attribute of their character fits them 
 for dependence and servitude. By nature, the most 
 
66 SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 
 
 affectionate and loyal of all races beneath the sun, they 
 are also the most helpless ; and no calamity can befall 
 them greater than the loss of that protection they enjoy 
 under this patriarchal system. Indeed, the experiment 
 has been grandly tried of precipitating them upon free- 
 dom, which they knov*^ not how to enjoy; and the dis- 
 mal results are before us, in statistics that astonish the 
 world. With the fairest portions of the earth in their 
 possession, and with the advantage of a long discipline 
 as cultivators of the soil, their constitutional indolence 
 has converted the most beautiful islands of tlie sea into 
 a howling waste. It is not too much to say, that if the 
 South should, at this moment, surrender every slave, 
 the w^isdom of the entire world, united in solemn coun- 
 cil, could not solve the question of tlieir dis|)osal. 
 Their transportation to Africa, even if it were feasible, 
 V\^ould be but the most refined cruelty ; they must perish 
 with starvation before they could have time to relapse 
 into their primitive barbarism. Their residence here, 
 in the presence of the vigorous Saxon race, would be 
 but the signal for their rapid extermination before they 
 had time to waste away through listlessness, filth and 
 vice. Freedom would be their doom ; and equally 
 from both they call upon us, their providential guar- 
 dians, to be protected. I know tliis argument will be 
 scoffed abroad as the hypocritical cover thrown over 
 our own cupidity and selfishness ; but every Southern 
 master knows its truth and feels its power. My ser- 
 vant, wdiether born in my house or bought with my 
 money, stands to me in the relation of a child. Though 
 providentially owing me service, which, providentially, 
 I am bound to exact, he is, nevertheless, my brother and 
 
SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 67 
 
 my friend ; and I am to him a guardian and a father. 
 He loans upon me for protection, for counsel, and for 
 blessing ; and so long as the relation continues, no 
 power, but the power of almighty God, shall come be- 
 tween him and me. Were there no argument but this, 
 it binds upon us the providential duty of preserving the 
 relation that we may save him from a doom worse than 
 death. 
 
 It is a duty which we owe, further, to the civilized 
 world. It is a remarkable fact, that during these thirty 
 years of unceasing warfare against slavery, and while a 
 lying spirit has inflamed the world against us, that 
 world has grown more and more dependent upon it for 
 sustenance and wealth. Every tyro knows that all 
 branches of industry fall back upon the soil. We must 
 come, every one of us, to the bosom of this great mother 
 for nourishment. In the happy partnership whieh has 
 grown up in providence between the tribes of this con- 
 federacy, our industry has been concentrated upon agri- 
 culture. To the North we have cheerfully resigned all 
 the profits arising from manufacture and commerce. 
 Those profits they have, for the most part, fairly earned, 
 and we have never begrudged them. We have sent 
 them our sugar, and bought it back when refined ; we 
 have sent them our cotton, and bought it back when 
 spun into thread or woven into cloth. Almost every 
 article we use, from the shoe-latchet to the most elabo- 
 rate and costly article of luxury, they have made and 
 we have bought ; and both sections have thriven by the 
 partnership, as no people ever thrived before since the 
 first shining of the sun. So literally true are the words 
 of the text, addressed by Obadiah to Edom, "All the 
 
68 SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 
 
 men of our confederacy, tlie men that were at peace 
 with us, have eaten our bread at tlie very time they 
 have deceived and laid a wound under us." Even be- 
 yond this — the enriching commerce which has built the 
 sjtlendid cities and marble palaces of England as well 
 as of America, has been largely established upon the 
 ra-oducts of our soil; and the blooms upon Southern 
 liolds, gathered by black hands, have fed the spindles 
 and looms of Manchester and Birmingham not less than 
 of Lawrence and Lowell. Strike now a blow at this 
 system of labor, and the world itself totters at the 
 stroke. Shall we permit that blow to fall ? Do we not 
 owe it to civilized man to stand in the breach and stay 
 the uplifted arm ? If the blind Samson lays hold of 
 tlie pillars which support the arch of the world's indus- 
 try, how many more will be buried beneath its ruins 
 than the lords of the Philistines ? " Who knoweth 
 whether we are not come to the kingdom for such a 
 time as this ? " 
 
 Last of all, in tliis great struggle, ive defend the cause 
 of God and religion. The Abolition spirit is undeni- 
 ably atheistic. The demon which erected its throne 
 upon tiie guillotine in the days of Robespierre and 
 Marat, wliich abolished the Sabbath, and worshipped 
 reason in the person of a harlot, yet survives to work 
 other horrors, of which those of the French revolution 
 are but the type. Among a people so generally reli- 
 gious as the American, a disguise must be worn ; but it 
 is the same old threadbare disguise of the advocacy of 
 human rights. From a thousand Jacobin clubs here, as 
 in France, the decree has gone forth which strikes at 
 God by striking at all subordination and law. Availing 
 
SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. G9 
 
 itself of the morbid and misdirected sympathies of men, 
 it has entrapped weak consciences in the meshes of its 
 treachery ; and now, at last, has seated its high-priest 
 upon the throne, clad in the black garments of discord 
 and schism, so symbolic of its ends. Under this spe- 
 cious cry of reform, it demands that every evil shall be 
 •corrected, or society become a wreck — the sun must be 
 stricken from the heavens, if a spot is found on his disk. 
 The Most High, knowing his own power, whicli is 
 infinite, and his own wisdom, which is unfathomable, 
 can afford to be patient. But these self-constituted 
 reformers must quicken the activity of Jehovah, or com- 
 pel his abdication. In their furious haste, tliey trample 
 upon obligations sacred as any which can bind the con- 
 science. It is time to reproduce the obsolete idea that 
 Providence must govern man, and not that man should 
 control Providence. In the imperfect state of human 
 society, it pleases God to allow evils which check others 
 that are greater. As in the physical world, objects are 
 moved forward, not by a single force, but by the compo- 
 sition of forces ; so in his moral administration, there 
 are checks and balances whose intimate relations are 
 comprehended only by himself. But what reck they of 
 this — these fierce zealots who undertake to driA'e the 
 chariot of the sun ? working out the single and false 
 idea which rides them like a nightmare, they dash 
 athwart the spheres, utterly disregarding the delicate 
 mechanism of Providence ; which moves on wheels 
 within wheels, with pivots, and balances, and springs, 
 which the great designer alone can control. This spirit 
 of atheism, which knows no God who tolerates evil, no 
 Bible which sanctions law, and no conscience that can 
 
70 SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 
 
 be bound by oaths and covenants, lias selected us for its 
 victims, and slavery for its issue. Its banner-cry rings 
 out already upon the air — " Liberty, equality, frater- 
 nity," which, simply interpreted, mean bondage, confis- 
 cation and massacre. With its tricolor waving in the 
 breeze, it waits to inaugurate its reign of terror. To 
 the South the highest position is assigned, of defending, 
 before all nations, the cause of all religion and of all 
 truth. In this trust, we are resisting the power which 
 wars against constitutions, and laws and compacts, 
 against Sabbaths and sanctuaries, against the family, 
 the State and the church ; which blasphemously invades 
 the prerogatives of God, and rebukes the Most High for 
 the errors of his administration, which, if it cannot 
 snatch the reins of empire from his grasp, will lay the 
 universe in ruins at his feet. Is it possible that we 
 shall decline the onset ? 
 
 This argument, then, which sweeps over the entire 
 circle of our relations, touches the four cardinal points 
 of duty to ourselves, to our slaves, to the luorld, and to 
 almighty God. It establishes the nature and solemnity 
 of our present trust to jireserve and transmit our ex- 
 isting system of domestic servitude, with the right, 
 tinchanged by inan, to go a7id root itself wherever 
 Providence and nature may carry it. This trust we 
 will discharge in the face of the worst possible peril. 
 Though war be the aggregation of all evils, yet, should 
 the madness of the hour appeal to the arbitration of the 
 sword, we will not shrink even from the baptism of fire. 
 If modern crusaders stand in serried ranks upon some 
 plain of Esdraelon, there shall we be in defence of our 
 trust. Not till the last man has fallen behind the last 
 
SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. Yl 
 
 rampart, sliall it drop from our hands; and then only in 
 surrender to the God who gave it. 
 
 Aoiainst this institution a system of aii'2;rcssion has 
 been pursued through the last thirty years. Initiated 
 by a few fanatics, w^ho were at first despised, it has 
 gathered strength from opposition until it has assumed 
 its present gigantic proportions. No man has thought- 
 fully watched the progress of this controversy without 
 being convinced that the crisis must at length come. 
 Some few, perhaps, have hoped against hope, that the 
 gathering imposthume might be dispersed, and the poi- 
 son be eliminated from the body politic by healthful 
 remedies. But the delusion has scarcely been cherished 
 by those who have studied the history of fanaticism, in 
 its path of blood and lire through the ages of the past. 
 The moment must arrive when the conflict must be join- 
 ed, and victory decide for one or tlie other. As it has 
 been ii war of legislative tactics, and not of physical 
 force, both parties have been maneuvering for a posi- 
 tion ; and the embarrassment has been, while dodging 
 amidst constitutional forms, to make an issue that should 
 be clear, simple and tangible. Such an issue is at length 
 presented in the result of the recent Presidential elec- 
 tion. Be it observed, too, that it is an issue made by 
 the North, not by the South ; upon w^hom, therefore, 
 must rest the entire guilt of the present disturbance. 
 With a choice between three national candidates, who 
 have more or less divided, the vote of the South, the 
 North, with unexampled unanimity, have cast their bal- 
 lot for a candidate who is sectional, who represents a 
 party that is sectional, and the ground of that section- 
 alism, prejudiced against the establislied and constitu- 
 
72 SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 
 
 tional riglits and immunities and institutions of the 
 South. What docs this declare — what can it declare 
 — but that from henceforth this is to be a government 
 of section over section ; a government using constitu- 
 tional forms only to embarrass and divide the section 
 ruled, and as fortresses through whose embrasures tho 
 cannon of legislation is to be employed in demolishini: 
 the o-uaranteed institutions of the South ? What issue 
 is more direct, concrete, intelligible than this ? I thank 
 God that, since the conflict must be joined, the respon- 
 sibility of this issue rests, not with us, who have ever 
 acted upon the defensive ; and that it is so disembar- 
 rassed and simple that the feeblest mind can under- 
 stand it. 
 
 The question with the South to-day is not what issue 
 shall she make, but how shall she meet that which is 
 prepared for lier ? Is it possible that we can hesitate 
 longer than a moment ? In our natural recoil from the 
 perils of revolution, and with our clinging fondness for 
 the memories of the past, we may perhaps look around 
 for something to soften the asperity of this issue, for 
 some ground on which we may defer the day of evil, 
 for some hope that the gathering clouds may not burst 
 in fury upon the land. 
 
 It is alleged, for example, that the President elect 
 has been chosen by a fair majority, under prescribed 
 forms. But need I say, to those who liave read history, 
 that no despotism is more absolute than that of an un- 
 principled democracy, and no tyranny more galling than 
 than that exercised tlirough constitutional formulas ? 
 But the plea is idle, when the very question we debate is 
 the perpetuation of that constitution now converted into 
 
SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 73 
 
 an engine of oppression, and the continuance of that 
 union which is henceforth to be our condition of vas- 
 salage. I say it with solemnity and pain, this union of 
 our forefathers is already gone. It existed but in mu- 
 tual confidence, the bonds of which were ruptured in 
 the late election. Though its form should be preserved, 
 it is, in fact, destroyed. We may possibly entertain 
 the project of reconstructing it ; but it will be another 
 union, resting upon other than past guarantees. "■ In 
 that we say a new covenant, we have made the first old, 
 and that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to 
 vanish away " — " as a vesture it is folded up." For 
 myself, I say, that under the rule which threatens us, I 
 throw off the yoke of this union as readily as did our 
 ancestors the yoke of King George III., and for causes 
 immeasurably stronger tiian those pleaded in their cele- 
 brated declaration. 
 
 It is softly whispered, too, that the successful com- 
 petitor for the throne protests and avers his purpose to 
 administer the government in a conservative and na- 
 tional spirit. Allowing him all credit for personal in- 
 tegrity in these protestations, he is, in this matter, 
 nearly as impotent for good as he is competent for evil. 
 He is nothing more than a figure upon the political 
 clicss-board — whether pawn, or knight, or king, will 
 hereafter appear — but still a silent figure upon the 
 clieckered squares, moved by the hands of an unseen 
 player. That player is the party to which he owes his 
 elevation ; a party that has signalized its history by the 
 most unblushing perjuries. What faith can be placed 
 in the protestations of men who openly avow that their 
 consciences are too sublimated to be restrained by the 
 4 
 
74 SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 
 
 obligation of covenants or by tlie sanctity of oaths ? 
 No : we have seen the trail of the serpent five and 
 twenty years in onr Eden ; twined now in the branches 
 of the forbidden tree, we feel the pangs of death al- 
 ready begun, as its hot breath is upon our cheek, hissing 
 out the original falsehood, ''Ye shall not surely die." 
 
 Anotlier suggests, that even yet the electors, alarmed 
 by these demonstrations of the South, may not cast the 
 black ball which dooms their country to the execution- 
 er. It is a forlorn- hope. Whether we should counsel 
 such breach of faith in them, or take refuge in their 
 treachery — whether such a result would give a Presi- 
 dent chosen by the people according to the Constitution 
 — are points I will not discuss. But that it would 
 prove a cure for any of our ills, who can believe ? It 
 is certain that it would, with some show of justice, ex- 
 asperate a party sufficiently ferocious — that it would 
 doom us to four years of increasing strife and bitter- 
 ness — and that the crisis must come at last, under 
 issues posssibly not half so clear as the present. Let 
 us not desire to shift the day of trial by miserable sub- 
 terfuges of this sort. The issue is upon us ; let us meet 
 it like men, and end this strife forever. 
 
 But some quietist whispers, yet further, this majority 
 is accidental, and has been swelled by accessions of men 
 simply opposed to the existing administration ; the par- 
 ty is utterly heterogeneous, and must be shivered into 
 fragments by its own success. I confess, frankly, this 
 suggestion has staggered me more than any other, and 
 I sought to take refuge therein. Why should we not 
 wait and see the effect of success itself upon a party 
 whose elements might devour each other in the very 
 
SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 75 
 
 distribution of the spoil ? Two considerations liare 
 dissipated the fallacy before me. The first is, that, 
 however mixed the party, Abolitionism is clearly its 
 informing and actuating soul ; and fanaticism is a blood- 
 hound that never bolts its track when it has once lapped 
 blood. The elevation of their candidate is far fi'om 
 being the consummation of their aims ; it is only the 
 beginning of that consummation ; and, if all history be 
 not a lie, there will be cohesion enough till the end of 
 tlie beginning is reached, and the dreadful banquet of 
 slaughter and ruin shall glut the appetite. The second 
 consideration is a principle which I cannot blink. It 
 is nowhere denied that the first article in the creed of 
 the new dominant party is the restriction of slavery 
 within its present limits. It is distinctly avowed by 
 their organs, and in the name of their elected chieftain, 
 as will appear from the following extract from an arti- 
 cle written to pacify the South, and to reassure its 
 fears : — 
 
 " There can be no doubt whatever in the mind of any man, that Mr. 
 Lincoln regards slavery as a moral, social and political evil, and that it 
 should be dealt -with as such by the Federal Government, in every in- 
 stance where it is called upon to deal with it at all. On this point there 
 is no room for question — and there need be no misgivings as to his 
 official action. The whole influence of the Executive Department of the 
 Government, while in his hands, will be thrown against the extension 
 of slavery into the new territories of the Union, and the reopening of 
 the African slave trade. On these points he will make no compromise, 
 nor yield one hair's breadth to coercion from any quarter or in any 
 shape. He does not accede to the alleged decision of the Supreme Court, 
 that the Constitution places slaves upon the footing of other property, 
 and protects them as such wherever its jurisdiction extends ; nor will 
 he be, in the least degree, governed or controlled by it in his executive 
 action. He will do all in his power, personally and officially, by the di- 
 rect exercise of the powers of his office, and the indirect influence in 
 
76 SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST 
 
 separable from it, to arrest the tendency to make slavery national and 
 perpetual, and to place it iu precisely the same position which it held in 
 the early days of the Republic, and in the view of the founders of the 
 Government." 
 
 Now, what enigmas may be couched in this last sen- 
 tence, the sphinx which uttered tliera can perhaps re- 
 solve ; but the sentence in which they occur is as big as 
 tlie belly of the Trojan horse which laid the city of 
 Priam in ruins. 
 
 These utterances we have heard so long, that they 
 fall stale upon the ear; but never before have they 
 had such -significance. Hitherto they have come from 
 Jacobin conventicles and pulpits, from the rostrum, 
 , from the hustings, and from the halls of our national 
 Congress ; but always as the utterances of irresponsi- 
 ble men, or associations of men. But now the voice 
 comes from the throne ; already, before clad with the 
 sanctities of office, ere the anointing oil is poured upon 
 the monarch's head, tlie decree has gone forth that the 
 institution of Southern slavery shall be constrained 
 within assigned limits. Though nature and Providence 
 should send forth its branches like the banyan-tree, to 
 take root in congenial soil, hero is a power superior to 
 both, that says it shall wither and die within its own 
 charmed circle. 
 
 What say you to this, to whom this great providen- 
 tial trust of conserving slavery is assigned ? " Shall 
 tlie throne of iniquity have fellowship with tliee which 
 frameth mischief by a law ? " It is this that makes tlie 
 crisis. Whether we will or not, this is the historic mo- 
 ment when the fate of this institution hangs suspended 
 in the balance. Decide either way, it is the moment of 
 
SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 77 
 
 our destiny — the only thing affected by the decision is 
 tlie complexion of that destiny. If the South bows be- 
 fore this throne, she accepts the decree of restriction 
 and ultimate extinction, which is made the condition of 
 her homage. 
 
 As it appears to me, the course to be pursued in this 
 emergency is that which has already been inaugurated. 
 Let the people in all the Southern States, in solemn 
 counsel assembled, reclaim the powers they have dele- 
 gated. Let those conventions be composed of men 
 whose fidelity has been approved — men who bring the 
 wisdom, experience and firmness of age to support and 
 announce principles which have long been matured. 
 Let these conventions decide firmly and solemnly what 
 they will do with this great trust committed to their 
 hands. Let them pledge each other, in sacred cove- 
 nant, to uphold and perpetuate what they cannot resign 
 without dishonor and palpable ruin. Let them, further, 
 take all the necessary steps looking to separate and in- 
 dependent existence, and initiate measures for framing 
 a new and homogeneous confederacy. Thus, prepared 
 for every contingency, let the crisis come. Paradoxi- 
 cal as it may seem, if there be any way to save, or 
 rather to reconstruct, the Union of our forefathers, it is 
 this. 
 
 Perhaps, at the last moment, the conservative por- 
 tions of the North may awake to see the abyss into 
 which they are about to plunge. Perchance they may 
 arise and crush out forever the Abolition hydra, and 
 cast it into a grave from which there shall never be a 
 resurrection. 
 
 Thus, with restored confidence, we may be rejoined a 
 
l» SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 
 
 united and happy people. But, before God, I believe 
 that nothing will effect this but the line of policy which 
 the South has been compelled in self-preservation to 
 adopt. I confess frankly I am not sanguine that such 
 an auspicious result will be reached. Partly, because I 
 do not see how new guarantees are to be grafted upon 
 the constitution, nor how, if grafted, they can be more 
 binding than those which have already been trampled 
 under foot ; but, chiefly, because I do not see how such 
 guarantees can be elicited from the people at the North. 
 It cannot be disguised that, almost to a man, they are 
 antislavery where they are not Abolition. A whole 
 generation has been educated to look upon the system 
 with abhorrence as a national blot. They hope, and 
 h,>ok, and pray for its extinction within a reasonable 
 time, and cannot be satisfied unless things are seen 
 drawing to that conclusion. We, on the contrary, as 
 its constituted guardian, can demand nothing less than 
 that it should be left open to expansion, subject to no 
 limitations save those imposed by God and nature. I 
 fear the antagonism is too great, and the conscience of 
 both parties too deeply implicated to allow such a com- 
 position of the strife. Nevertheless, since it is within 
 the range of possibility in the providence of God, I 
 would not shut out the alternative. 
 
 Should it fail, what remains but that we say to each 
 other, calmly and kindly, what Abraham said to Lot : 
 " Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and 
 thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen, for 
 we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee ? 
 Separate thyself I pray thee, from me— if thou wilt 
 take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if thou 
 
SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 79 
 
 depart to the right hand, then I will go to the loft." 
 Thus, if we cannot save the Union, we may save tlie 
 inestimable blessings it enshrines ; if we cannot pre- 
 serve the vase, we will preserve the precious liquor it 
 contains. 
 
 In all this, I speak for the North no less than for the 
 South ; for on our united and determined resistance at 
 this moment depends the salvation of the whole coun- 
 try — in saving ourselves we shall save the North from 
 the ruin she is madly drawing down upon her own head. 
 
 The position of the South is at this moment sublime. 
 If she has grace given her to know her hour, she will 
 save herself, the country, and the world. It will in- 
 volve, indeed, temporary prostration and distress ; the 
 dikes of Holland must be cut to save her from the 
 troops of Philip. But I warn my countrymen, the his- 
 toric moment once passed, never returns. If she will 
 arise in her majesty, and speak now as with the voice 
 of one man, she will roll back for all time the curse 
 that is upon her. If she succumbs now, she transmits 
 , that curse as an heir-loom to posterity. 
 
 We may, for a generation, enjoy comparative ease, 
 gather up our feet in our beds, and die in peace ; but 
 our children will go forth beggared from the homes of 
 tlieir fathers. Fishermen will cast their nets where 
 your proud commercial navy now rides at anchor, and 
 dry them upon the shore now covered with your bales 
 of merchandise. Sapped, circumvented, undermined, 
 the institutions of your soil will be overthrowni ; and 
 within five and twenty years, the history of St. Domin- 
 go will be the record of Louisiana. If dead men's 
 bones can tremble, ours will move under the muttered 
 
80 SLAVERY A DIVINE TRUST. 
 
 curses of sons and daughters, denouncing the blhidaess 
 and love of ease which hath left them an inheritance of 
 woe. 
 
 I have done my duty under as deep a sense of re- 
 sponsibility to God and man as I have ever felt. Un- 
 der a full conviction that the salvation of the wliole 
 country is depending upon the action of the South, I 
 am impelled to deepen the sentiment of resistance in 
 the Soutliern mind, and to strengthen the current now 
 flowing toward a union of tlie South in defence of her 
 chartered rights. It is a duty wliich I shall not be re- 
 called to repeat, for such awful junctures do not occur 
 twice in a century. 
 
 Bright and liappy days are yet before us ; and before 
 another political eartliquake shall sliake the continent, 
 I hope to be " where the wicked cease from troubling 
 and where the weary are at rest." 
 
 It only remains to say that, wlmtever be the fortunes 
 of the South, I accept them for my own. Born upon 
 her soil, of a father thus born before me — from an an- 
 cestry that occupied it while yet it was a part of Eng- 
 land's possessions — she is, in every sense, my mother. 
 I shall die upon her bosom ; she shall know no peril 
 but it is my peril — no conflict but it is my conflict — 
 and no abyss of ruin into which I sliall not share her 
 fall. May the Lord God cover her head in this her 
 dav of battle ! 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S BEST MOTIVE FOR PAT- 
 RIOTISM. 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED IN THE COLLEGE CHURCH, HAMPDEN SIDNEY, VA. 
 ON A GENERAL FAST DAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1860. 
 
 BY ROBERT L. DABNEY, D. D. 
 
 •' Because of tlie house of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good." — 
 Psalms cxxii : 9. 
 
 The true Christian feels the claims of patriotism as 
 sensibly as any other man, though he holds them subject 
 to the limitations of justice and charity toothers. Thus, 
 King David resolves that he will seek the peace of Je- 
 rusalem, the capital city of the Hebrew Commonwealth ; 
 not only as a patriotic king, but from an additional re- 
 ligious motive. So the Christian has a motive for pat- 
 riotism far stronger and holier than those of all other 
 men. Additional to theirs, he has this reason to pray 
 for the peace of Jerusalem ; for his brethren and com- 
 panions' sakes, and because of the house of the Lord 
 his God which is in it. The kingdom of Jesus Christ 
 — that blessed kingdom whose sceptre is peace, right- 
 eousness, meekness and truth ; in whose prosperity the 
 hopes of a suffering race are all involved, which alone 
 can arrest the flood of sins and woes which now sweeps 
 generation after generation into ruin — is committed by 
 its Divine Head to human hands, and is partially de- 
 pendent on the course of human events. This spiritual 
 
82 THE christian's best motive 
 
 commonwealth amon<2: us, as is proper, has no legal ties 
 to the secular, and no other relations than those of mu- 
 tual good will and courtesy. But still, inasmuch as 
 Christ is pleased to leave to second causes their natural 
 influence over his Church, it is largely dependent on 
 our secular governments. Now there are few things 
 which can afi^ect the interests of Zion so disastrously as 
 political convulsions and war. Let the Christian weigh 
 their influences. 
 
 First : We are tauglit, even by experience of custom- 
 ary party excitements, that a season of political agi- 
 tation is most unfavorable to spiritual prosperity. Few 
 experienced pastors expect revivals during excited 
 presidential canvasses. The mind is absorbed by agita- 
 ting secular topics, angry and unchristian emotions are 
 provoked, and the tender dew of heavenly-mindedness 
 is speedily evaporated by the hot and dusty turmoil of 
 the popular meeting and the hustings. Few men wdio 
 traffic habitually in such scenes exhibit much grace. We 
 suspect that the Christian, returning from a day of such 
 excitement, is little inclined to the place of secret 
 prayer. But how much must all these evil influences 
 be exasperated when the subjects of political strife as- 
 sume a violent and convulsive aspect ? When every 
 mind is filled by eager, secular concerns — when angry 
 passions rage in every heart, dividing brother against 
 brother in Zion — when unscrupulous haste precipitates 
 multitudes into words and acts of injustice and wrong, 
 agitating and defiling their own consciences, and pro- 
 voking the hot tumults of resentment on either side — 
 what room is there for the quiet and sacred voice of the 
 Holy Spirit ? It has been remarked by wise historians, 
 
FOR PATRIOTISM. 83 
 
 that a time of political convulsions is a time of giant 
 growth for all forms of vice. And just to that degree 
 it is a time of barrenness for the Christian graces, n 
 
 But when political strife proceeds to actual war, then 
 indeed do " the ways of Zion mourn." War is the 
 grand and favorite device of him who was a liar and 
 murderer from the beginning, to obstruct all spiritual 
 good, and to barbarize mankind. To all the above agi- 
 tations, distractions and evil passions, raised now to 
 actual phrenzy, must be added the interruptions of Sab- 
 bath rest and of public worship, while the sacred hours 
 are profaned with the tumult of preparations, march- 
 ings, or actual combats. Domestic life, that most fruit- 
 ful source of all wholesome restraints, is broken up by 
 danger, fear, waste of property and separations. The 
 youth hurry from that peaceful domain of humanizing 
 and pious influences into the rude noise and gross cor- 
 ruptions of camps, whence they return, if they return 
 at all, depraved by military license, unused to peaceful 
 industry, and hardened to all evil, to poison society at 
 home. Colleges and schools are scattered, the voice of 
 science is silenced, the hopes of peaceful industry are 
 violently destroyed, till recklessness and resentment 
 turn the very husbandman into a bandit. And, above 
 all. Death holds his cruel carnival, and not only by the 
 sword, but yet more by destitution, by vice, by pesti- 
 lence, hurries his myriads unprepared, from scenes of 
 guilty woe on earth, into everlasting despair below. 
 Need we wonder that the Heavenly Dove should spx^ead 
 its gentle wings, and fly far from such abhorrent scenes ? 
 
 But civil feud has ever been known as the most bitter 
 of all. " A brother offended is harder to be won than 
 
84 THE christian's best motive 
 
 a strong city : and their contentions are like the bars 
 of a castle." The very tenderness of brothers' love 
 makes them more tender to tlie injury. The strength 
 of the mutual obligations, which should have bound 
 tliem to kindness, enhances the hot indignation at mu- 
 tual outrage. When the twin lands which now lie so 
 intimately side by side, parted by a line so long, so 
 faint, so invisible, that it does not separate, begin to 
 strike each other, the very nearness and intimacy make 
 each more naked to the other's blows. How dire, then, 
 would be the conflagration of battle which would rage 
 along this narrow line across the whole breadth of a 
 continent ? How deadly the struggle, when the repub- 
 lican hardihood and chivalry, the young, giant strength, 
 and teeming wealth, which begin to make the mightiest 
 despots respectful, are turned against each other. Some 
 seem to delight in placing the relative prowess of the 
 North and South in odious comparison. Should we 
 not, my brethren, rather weep tears of blood at the 
 wretched and wicked thought, that the common prow- 
 ess with which the North and South have so often side 
 by side carried dismay and rout into the ranks of com- 
 mon enemies — that terrible prowess which, in North 
 and South alike, withstood the force of the British Lion 
 while we were yet in the gristle of our youth, and 
 which ever since has overthrown and broken every en- 
 emy, with the lion's force and the eagle's swiftness com- 
 bined — should hereafter be expended in fratricidal 
 blows ? And, then, this vast frontier must be forted 
 and guarded. This hostile neighborhood, so dangerous 
 because so intimate, must be watched on either hand by 
 armies ; and these armies become, as among the unhap- 
 
^ FOR PATRIOTISM. 85 
 
 py and suspicious nations of Europe, as much the ma- 
 chines of internal oppression as of outward defence. 
 Our future growth of men and wealth would be swal- 
 lowed up by the devouring maw of strife. These teem- 
 ing fields, whose increase fills the granaries of the fam- 
 ishing nations, and makes their owners' bosoms to over- 
 flow with wealth, must go to feed the barren waste of 
 warlike preparation and labor. The source of half the 
 missionary activities which now gladden the waste pla- 
 ces of the earth would be dried up. Farewell to the 
 benign career of imperial Peace^ by which we had 
 hoped the Empire Republic would teach the angry na- 
 tions nobler triumphs than those of war. A long fare- 
 well to that dream we had indulged — dream not un- 
 worthy surely to have been inspired by the Prince of 
 Peace — that here a nation was to grow up on this soil, 
 wliich God had kept till " the fullness of time was 
 come," wrapped in the mysteries of pathless seas, and 
 untainted by the steps o( civilized despots, or organized 
 crime ; a nation composed of the strong, tlie free, the 
 bold, the oppressed of every people, and, like the Cor- 
 inthian brass, more precious than any that composed it ; 
 which should come, by the righteous arts of peace, to a 
 greatness such as at last to shame and frighten war 
 away from the family of kingdoms ; which should work 
 out the great experiment of equal laws and a free con- 
 science, for the first time, for the imitation of the world ; 
 and from whose bosom a free Church, unstained by the 
 guilt of persecution, and unburdened by the leaden pro- 
 tection of the State, should send forth her light and 
 salvation to the ends of the earth to bring the millenial 
 morning. This cunning machine of law, which now 
 
86 THE christian's best motive 
 
 regulates our rights, would be wrecked amidst the 
 storms of revolution. The stern exigencies of danger, 
 would compel both the rivals, perhaps, to substitute the 
 strong, but harsh will of the soldier, for the mild pro- 
 tection of constitutions. And the oppressors of soul 
 and body, from every stronghold of absolutism througli- 
 out the earth, would utter their jubilant and scornful 
 triumph : " Lo ! the vain experiment of man's self- 
 government has drowned itself in its own blood and 
 ruin ! " The movement of the world's redemption 
 might be put back for ages, and the enthroning of the 
 Prince of Peace over his promised dominion, so long 
 ravaged by sin and woe, would be postponed, while 
 eternal death preyed upon yet more of the teeming gen- 
 erations. 
 
 Now, in view of this tremendous picture of possible 
 crime and misery, would to God that I could reach 
 the ear of every professed servant of Jesus Christ in 
 the whole land ! I would cry to them : Christians of 
 America — Brothers — Shall all this be? Shall this 
 Churoh of thirty thousand evangelical ministers, and 
 four millions of Christian adults — this Church, so 
 boastful of its influence and power ; so respected and rev- 
 erenced by nearly all ; so crowned with the honors of 
 literature, of station, of secular office, of riches ; this 
 Church, which moulds the thought of three-fourtlis of 
 our educated men through her schools, and of all, by her 
 pulpit and her press, this Church ; which glories in hav- 
 ing just received a fresh baptism of the Spirit of Heaven 
 in a national revival — permit the tremendous picture 
 to become reality ? Nay, shall they aid in precipi- 
 tating the dreaded consummation, by traitorously in- 
 
FOR PATRIOTISM. 87 
 
 flaming the animosities wliich they should have allayed, 
 and thus leave the work of their Master to do the 
 Devil's ? Then, how burning the sarcasm, which this 
 result will contain upon your Christianity in the eyes of 
 posterity 1 Why, they will say, was there not enough 
 of the majesty of moral weight in these four millions of 
 Christians, to say to the angry waves, " Peace : be 
 still ? " Why did not these four millions rise, with a 
 LOVE so Christ-like, so beautiful, so strong, that strife 
 should be paralyzed by it into reverential admiration? 
 Why did they not speak for their country, and for the 
 House of the Lord their God which was in it, with a wis- 
 dom before whose firm moderation, righteousness, and 
 clear light, passion and folly should scatter like the mist ? 
 Were not all these strong enough to throw the arms of 
 their loving mediation around their fellow citizens, and 
 keep down the weapons that sought each other's hearts ; 
 or rather to receive them into their own bosoms than 
 permit our mother-country to be slain ? Did this 
 mighty Church stand idly by, and see phrensy immolate 
 so many of the dearest hopes of man, and of the rights 
 of the Redeemer, on her hellish altar ? And this Church 
 knew too, that the fiend had borrowed the torch of dis- 
 cord from the altar of Christianity, and that therefore 
 Christians were bound, by a peculiar tie, to arrest her 
 insane hand, before the precious sacrifice was wrapped 
 in flames. Then, shame on the boasted Christianity of 
 America, and of the nineteenth century ! With all its 
 parade of evangelism, power, and light, wherein has it 
 been less impotent and spurious than tlie effete religion 
 of declining Rome, which betrayed Christendom into 
 the dark ages ; or than the baptized superstitions which, 
 
88 THE CHRISTIAN S BEST MOTIVE 
 
 in those ages, sanctioned the Crusades and the Inqui- 
 sition ? In the sight of Heaven's righteous Judge, I 
 believe that if the Christianity of America now betrays 
 the interest of man and God to the criminal hands which 
 threaten them, its guilt will be second only to that of 
 the apostate Church which betrayed the Saviour of the 
 world ; and its judgment will be rendered in calamities 
 second only to those which avenged the Divine blood 
 invoked by Jerusalem on herself and her children. 
 
 How^ then, shall Christians seek the good of their 
 country, for the Church's sake ? This raises the more 
 practical question of present duty, and introduces the 
 more practical part of my discourse. 
 
 And first — Christians should everywhere begin to 
 pray for their country. " Because of the house of the 
 Lord our God, let us seek its good." The guilty 
 Churches of all our land should humble themselves be- 
 fore a holy God, for their Christian backslidings, and 
 our national sins. " Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify 
 a fast, call a solemn assembly : Gather the people, sanc- 
 tify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the 
 children, and those that suck the breasts ; let the bride- 
 groom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her 
 closet. Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep 
 between the porch and the altar; and let them say, 
 Spare thy people, Lord, and give not thy heritage to 
 reproach." 
 
 And along with this should go humble confessions of 
 our sins, individual and social. And here, let me dis- 
 tinctly warn you, that I am not about to point your 
 attention to sins of fellow-citizens of another quarter of 
 
FOR PATRIOTISM. 89 
 
 the Confederacy, from whose faults some may suppose 
 the present fear arises. Whether they have committed 
 faults, or how great, it is not my present concern to 
 say. Our business is to-day with our own sins. It 
 will do our hearts no good to confess to God the sins 
 of our fellow-men : He already knows them, and esti- 
 mates them more fairly than perhaps our prejudice will 
 permit us to do. It is for our own sins alone that we 
 are responsible to God. It is our own sins alone that 
 we have the means of reforming, by the help of His 
 grace. Let each man then consider, and forsake his 
 personal transgressions ; for as your persons help to 
 swell the aggregate of^his great people, so your indi- 
 vidual sins have gone to form that black cloud of guilt, 
 which threatens to hide from us the favorable light of 
 our Heavenly Father's face. But let us remember, and 
 confess also, our social sins ; that general worldliness, 
 which hath set up the high-places of its covetous idola- 
 tries all over the good land God hath given us ; that 
 selfish profusion and luxury, which have squandered on 
 the pride of life so much of the goods of our steward- 
 ship ; that Heaven-daring profanity and blasphemy by 
 reason of which the land mourneth. And let me not 
 forget faithfully to protest, on such a day as this, against 
 that peculiar sin of the Southern country, the passion 
 for bloody retaliation of personal wrong, which has been 
 so often professed and indulged among us, unwhipped 
 of justice. You have allowed too often the man of 
 violence, the duellist, professing his pretended '' code 
 of honor " — most hateful and deceitful pretence of that 
 Father of Lies, who was a murderer from the beginning 
 — to stalk through the land with wrongs upon his angry 
 
90 THE christian's BEST MOTIVE 
 
 tongue, and blood upon his hand, while his crime was 
 winked at by justice, and almost applauded by a cor- 
 rupt public opinion. " So ye have polluted the land 
 wherein ye are ; for blood, it defileth the land, and the 
 land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is slied there- 
 in, but by the blood of him that shed it." Let us re- 
 member also, that our innocence or rightfulness in the 
 particular point of present differences and anticipated 
 collisions, gives no assurance that God may not chas- 
 tise us for our sins by those very events. Often has His 
 manifold, wise and righteous providence permitted an 
 unjust aggressor to make himself the instrument, where- 
 with to lash His sinning people, even when he after- 
 wards punished the invader himself. 
 
 Second : We would say, with all the earnestness and 
 emphasis which the most solemn feeling can inspire, let 
 each individual Christian in our land, whether he sits 
 in our halls of legislature, or rules as a magistrate, or 
 guides public opinion through the press, or merely fills 
 the station of the private citizen, consider his own per- 
 sonal concern in this matter. We would affectionately 
 individualize each man, and say to him, my brother, 
 " Thou art the man. Consider what would God have 
 you to do ? " Every Christian man, whether law-maker 
 or law-executor or voter, should carry his Christian 
 conscience, enlightened by God's word, into his political 
 duty, in another manner than we have been accustomed 
 to do. We must ask less, what party caucuses and 
 leaders dictate, and more, what duty dictates. For the 
 day is at hand, when we shall be brought to an awful 
 judgment for the thoughtless manner in which we exer- 
 . cise our civic function. My brethren, the Christians of 
 
FOR PATRIOTISM. 91 
 
 this land are able to control the selection of reckless 
 and wicked men for places of trust, if they please, and 
 will do their duty. Here are four millions of men and 
 women, chiefly adults, among a people of twenty-six 
 millions of men, women, children and slaves — four mil- 
 lions who profess to be supremely ruled by principles 
 of righteousness, peace and love, and to be united to 
 each other in the brotherhood of a heavenly birth. If 
 even the voters among these would go together to the 
 polls, to uphold the cause of peace, they would turn the 
 scale of every election. Where is the community in all 
 our land, where the male citizens who are professors of 
 •Christianity would not give the victory to that party to 
 which they gave their united support ? But alas ! how 
 often have we gone on Monday to the hustings, after 
 having appeared on Sabbath as the servants of the 
 Prince of Peace, and brethren of all his servants, and 
 in our political heats speedily forgotten that we were 
 Christians ? Let each Christian citizen have his inde- 
 pendent political predilections, and support them with 
 decision, if you please. Let them, if need be, render 
 that enlightened and moderate allegiance to the party 
 of their choice, which is supposed to be essential in free 
 governments. But when their party demands of them 
 that they shall sustain men of corrupt private morals or 
 reckless passions, because of their supposed party ortho- 
 doxy, let all Christians say : " Nay, verily, we would 
 fain yield all reasonable party fidelity ; but we are also 
 partisans in the commonwealth of King Jesus, and our 
 allegiance to Him transcends all others. Unless you 
 w411 present us a man who to party orthodoxy unites 
 private virtues, we cannot sustain him." Then would 
 
92 THE christian's best motive 
 
 their reasonable demand be potential in every party, 
 and the abuse would be crushed. And this stand, it* 
 taken by Christian citizens, we affirm, would infringe 
 no personal or associated rights. For, is there any 
 party who would admit that it had not a single member 
 respectable, virtuous and sober enough to deserve the 
 suffrages of Christian men ? If there is, surely it is 
 time it should slink away from the arena of political 
 competition, and hide itself in oblivion ! Here, then, is 
 a prominent duty, if we would save our country, that we 
 shall carry our citizenship in the kingdom of Heaven 
 everywhere, and make it dominate over every public act. 
 We must obey the law of God rather than the un- 
 righteous behests of party, to " choose out of all tlie 
 people able ?nen, snch as fear God, men of truth, hatifig' 
 covetovsness, and place such over them to be rulers,'^ 
 or God will assuredly avenge himself for our violated 
 allegiance to him. The Christians of this country must 
 sternly claim that wicked or reckless men shall no lon- 
 ger hold the helm of State ; that political orthodoxy 
 shall no longer atone for that worst ofience against citi- 
 zenship, a wicked life. And along with rulers, I would 
 include the directors of the public press, as being of the 
 general class of " leaders of the people." Even while 
 you boast of the potency of this engine of the nineteenth 
 century, you have allowed it to fall in many cases into 
 most incompetent and dangerous hands. See who have 
 held this responsible lever in our land in these latter 
 days ! Some are honorable and patriotic ; but more are 
 unreliable ; some mere half-educated youths, without 
 any stake of family, estate, or reputation in the commu- 
 
FOR PATRIOTISM. 93 
 
 nity ; some fiery denouncers, some touching the springs 
 of public affairs with a drunken hand, and many the 
 open advocates and practitioners of the duellist's mur- 
 derous code — these men you have permitted and even 
 upheld and salaried, in your easy thoughtlessness, to 
 misrepresent, misdirect and inflame the public sentiment 
 of the nation ! 
 
 There are many reasons which demand of every 
 God-fearing citizen that he shall sustain, directly or 
 indirectly, none but honest and prudent men in places 
 of influence. When you elevate a bad man, you give 
 to him a hundred-fold more power of example to cor- 
 rupt your sons, and your neighbors' sons, by his evil 
 acts. Those acts are a hundred-fold more conspicuous 
 and more weighty to attract notice and imitation, than 
 if you had left him in his deserved obscurity. When 
 you delegate your money, influence, or civic power, to 
 a bad man, you make his wicked official acts and influ- 
 ence your own ; he is your chosen agent, and acts for 
 you, and be assured a jealous God will not forget to 
 visit the people for the guilt thus contracted. 
 
 But especially should you remember, at such a period 
 as this, the boundless mischief wrought by the habit of 
 reckless vituperation, and the political violence, in 
 which bad^and foolish or inexperienced men indulge, to 
 further political ends. It is this which chiefly has cre- 
 ated our present unhappy dangers, by misrepresenting 
 each section to the other. You have heard descriptions 
 of the reign of terror in the first French Revolution, 
 and perhaps as you saw the frightful and murderous 
 violence of political factions there displayed, you have 
 
94 THE christian's best motive 
 
 exclaimed : " Were these men or devils ? " Tliey were 
 men, my brethren ; " men of like passions with us." 
 Read the narrative of the philosophic Thiers^ and you 
 will learn the source of these rivers of blood. Un- 
 scrupulous leaders of parties and presses, in order to 
 carry their favorite projects and overpower political ri- 
 vals, resorted to the trick of imputing odious and ma- 
 lignant motives to all adversaries ; democrats denounc- 
 ing Girondists and royalists as traitorous plotters of 
 foreign invasion, and national sack ; royalists denounc- 
 ing democrats as agrarians and robbers, till by dint of 
 bandying the outrageous charges backwards and for- 
 wards, all minds were gradually embittered and pre- 
 pared to believe the worst. Hence the bloody political 
 proscriptions ; hence the frightful butcheries of the 
 Septembriseurs ; because misguided men were taught tO 
 believe that no less trenchant remedy would anticipate 
 the treason designed against the country. 
 
 Now I say to you in all faithfulness, that the reckless 
 and incapable men whom you have weakly trusted with 
 power or influence, have already led us far on towards 
 similar calamities. They have bandied violent words, 
 those cheap weapons of petulant feebleness ; they have 
 justified agression ; they have misrepresented our tem- 
 pers and principles — answered, alas, by equal misrep- 
 resentations and violence in other quarters — until 
 multitudes of honest men, who sincerely 'suppose them- 
 selves as patriotic as you think yourselves, are really 
 persuaded that in resisting your claims, they are but 
 rearing a necessary bulwark against lawless and arro- 
 gant agressions. Four years ago, an. instance of unjust 
 
FOR PATRIOTISM. 95 
 
 and wicked insolence was avenged, on the floor of tlie 
 Senate of the United States, by an act of violence most 
 unrighteous and ill-judged. And now, not so much that 
 rash and sinful act of retaliation, but the insane, wick- 
 ed, and insulting justification of it generally made by 
 Southern secular prints, directed by reckless boys, or 
 professed duellists, a justification abhorred and con- 
 demned by almost all decent men in our section, is this 
 day carrying myriads of votes, (of men wiio, if not 
 thus outraged, might have remained calm and just 
 towards us,) for the cause whose triumph you depre- 
 cate. Thus the miserable game goes on ; until at last, 
 blood breaks out, and the exhausted combatants are 
 taught in the end, by mutually inflicted miseries, to 
 pause and consider, that they are contending mainly for 
 a misunderstanding of each other. 
 
 Now I well know, my brethren and fellow-citizens, 
 that if I should speak to you in private, you would all 
 concur in my honest reprobation of this folly and in- 
 justice : I know that I have but expressed the common 
 sentiments of all good men among us. Yet, in your 
 dislike to be troubled, in your easy good nature, you 
 let things take their course, under the wretched mis- 
 management of the hands into which they have fallen ; 
 you even permit your money and your influence to. go 
 indirectly, in support of tliese agents of mischief and 
 misrule, who thus misrepresent your characters, and 
 aims, and rights. If the public interests cannot arouse 
 you from this good natured sin, let me see if I cannot 
 touch you more nearly. Whereunto can all this mutual 
 violence grow ? Do not the increasing anger and preju- 
 
96 THE christian's best motive 
 
 dice, which seems so fast ripening on botli sides for a 
 fatal collision, tell you too plainly ? And when these 
 rash representatives of yours in our halls of legislation 
 and our newspapers, shall have sown the wind, who 
 will reap the whirlwind ? When they have scattered 
 the dragon's teeth, who must meet that horrent crop 
 which they will produce ? Not they alone ; but you, 
 your sons, your friends and their sons. So that these 
 niisleaders of the people, while you so weakly connive 
 at their indiscretions, may be indirectly preparing the 
 weapon which is to pierce the bosom of your fair-haired 
 boy ; and summoning the birds of prey, which are to 
 pick out those eyes whose joy is now the light of your 
 happy homes, as he lies stark on some lost battle-field. 
 For God's sake, then — for your own sakes, for your 
 children's sake, arise — declare that from this day, no 
 money, no vote, no influence of yours, shall go to the 
 maintenance of any other counsels than those of mode- 
 ration, righteousness, and manly forbearance. 
 
 Last : Every Christian must study the things which 
 make for peace. All must resolve tliat they will de- 
 mand of others nothing more than their necessary 
 rights, and that, in the tone of moderation and forbear- 
 ance. Yea, that they will generously forego all except 
 wliat duty forbids them to forego, rather than have 
 strife with brethren. We must all be magnanimous 
 enough to forbear the language of threatening and re- 
 proach, (language which evinces no courage,) to ac- 
 knowledge the excesses of ourselves and our friends, 
 and to make reparation for it, whether such reparation 
 be offered on the other side or not. Instead of complain- 
 
FOR PATRIOTISM. 97 
 
 lug ill vindictive and bitter spirit of the extravagances 
 of misguided men on the opposite side, each man should 
 enquire whether there are not sinful extravagances on 
 his own side ; and when it is necessary to remonstrate, 
 do it in the tone of wounded love, rather than of in- 
 sane tlireatening. In one word ; let each one resolve 
 to grant all that is right, and ask nothing else ; " and 
 lo, there will be a great calm." 
 
 [The reader of this sermon will notice that its date, before the late 
 Presidential election, accounts in part for its topics and also for its omis- 
 sions. He is also requested to bear in mind that the professed attitude 
 of the people to whom it was preached, — that of penitents before the 
 Most High, rendered allusions to their own sins alone appropriate at 
 that time ; and hence the sermon contains no implication that they are 
 the only, or the chief offenders, in those particulars. — R. L. D.] 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 
 
 A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT LEXINGTON, KY., ON THE DAY OF THE 
 NATIONAL FAST, JAN. 4, 1861. 
 
 BY ROBERT J. BRECKINRIDGE, D. D. 
 
 It is in circumstances, my friends, of terrible solemni- 
 ty, that this great nation presents herself in an attitude 
 of humiliation before the Lord God of Hosts ; in cir- 
 cumstances of great solemnity, that she stands before 
 the bar of all surrounding nations, under that universal 
 public opinion which gives fame or stamps with infamy, 
 and hardly less solemn than both is her attitude at the 
 bar of distant ages, and especially our own posterity, 
 that awful tribunal whose decrees can be reversed only 
 by the decree of God. 
 
 It is the first of these three aspects, either passing by 
 in silence or touching very slightly the other two, that 
 I am to consider before you now. And what I shall 
 chiefly attempt to show is, that our duties can never be 
 made subordinate to our passions without involving us 
 in ruin ; and that our rights can never be set above our 
 interests without destroying both. 
 
 In taking this direction, let us bear in mind that the 
 proclamation of the Chief Magistrate of the Republic 
 which calls us to this service, asserts, in the first place, 
 that ruin is impending over our national institutions; 
 and asserts, in the second place, that so far as appears 
 
THE \j:uos to be prese.ived. 99 
 
 to him, no limnan resources remain tliat arc adequate to 
 save them ; and, in the third place, that the whole na- 
 tion, according to his judgment, ought to prostrate it- 
 self before God and cry to Him for deliverance. Upon 
 this I have to say, in the great name of God, and by 
 the authority of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world, 
 these two things: 1. That national judgments never 
 come except by reason of national sins ; nor are they 
 ever turned aside except upon condition of repentance 
 for the sins which produced them ; and, 2. That re- 
 pentance for sin, as it is the absolute and universal, so 
 it is the infallible condition of divine pardon and ac- 
 ceptance, not only in the case of individuals, but more 
 obviously still and more immediately in the case of na- 
 tions, since nations, as such, have no existence in a fu- 
 ture life. Wherefore, if we are in the way of fearful 
 evils we are also in the way of clear duty, and therein 
 we may hope for assured deliverance in the degree, 1. 
 That every one will go before another in earnest en- 
 deavors to rectify in himself all that is abominable to 
 God ; and, 2. That every one will evince towards oth- 
 ers the forbearance which he desires that God should 
 extend to him. Wherefore, also we may boldly say 
 that the remedy from God to us need not be expected 
 to manifest itself by means of political parties, or by 
 means of combinations of political leaders, or by means 
 of new political compacts, or by means of additional 
 legal enactments, or by means of more explicit consti- 
 tuti(4ial provisions ; but that it must come from God to 
 us and be^made manifest through a profound movement 
 in the source of all power in free governments, name- 
 ly : 1. In the hearts of individual men turning from 
 
 Lore 
 
100 THE UNION TO BE PHESERVED. 
 
 their sins, tlicir follies and tlieir madness ; and, 2. In 
 the uprising of an irresistible impulse thus created, 
 which over the length and breadth of the land shall ar- 
 ray itself in the power of God against every endeavor 
 to bring upon us the evils which we are imploring God 
 to avert. 
 
 The first and greatest of these evils that we be- 
 seech God to avert, and that we should strive with all 
 our might to prevent, is the annihilation of the nation 
 itself, by tearing it into fragments. Men may talk of 
 rights perpetually and outrageously violated ; they may 
 talk of injuries that are obliged to be redressed ; they 
 may talk of guarantees without which they can submit 
 to no further peace ; and there is doubtless much that 
 has force and much more that is captivating to ardent 
 minds in such expositions of our sad condition ; for 
 what problem half so terrible was ever agitated upon 
 which it was not easy to advance much on every side of 
 it ? I will not consume the short time allowed to me 
 in examining such views. What I assert in answer to 
 them all, is that we have overwhelming duties and in- 
 calculable interests which dictate a special line of con- 
 duct, the chief aim of which should be the preservation 
 of the American Union, and therein of the American 
 nation. 
 
 To be more explicit, it seems to me that there are in- 
 estimable blessings connected with the preservation of 
 our National Union, and that there are intolerable evils 
 involved in its destruction. For the blessings — there 
 is the blessing of peace amongst ourselves ; there is the 
 blessing of freedom to ourselves and to our posterity ; 
 »there is the blessing of internal prosperity secured by 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. lOl 
 
 that peace and freccloin, never before excelled if attain- 
 ed by any people ; there is tlie blessing of our national 
 independence, secured by our invincible strength against 
 all the powers of the earth combined ; there is the 
 blessing of our glorious example to all nations and to 
 all ages ; there is the blessing of irresistible power to 
 do good to all peoples, and to prevent evil over the face 
 of the whole earth ; there is the blessing of an unfet- 
 tered Gospel, and an open Bible, and a divine Saviour, 
 more and more manifested in our whole national life as 
 that life deepens and spreads, subduing and possessing 
 the widest and the noblest inheritance ever given to any 
 people, and overflowing and fructifying all peoples be- 
 sides. It is the problem souglit to be solved from the 
 beginning of time, and, to say the least, the highest ap- 
 proximation made to its solution, namely, the complete 
 possession of freedom united with irresistible national 
 force, and all directed to the glory of God and the good 
 of man. And this is that glorious estate now declared 
 to be. in fearful peril, and which we are called upon to 
 beseech God to preserve unto us. 
 
 On the other hand, the evils of rending this nation : 
 Which of the blessino-s that I have enumerated — and I 
 
 o 
 
 have enumerated only those which appeared to me to 
 be the most obvious — which of these is there, peace, 
 freedom, prosperity, independence, the glory of our ex- 
 ample, the power to do good and to prevent evil, the 
 opportunity to give permanent efficiency all over this 
 continent, and in a certain degree all over this earth to 
 the Gospel of God ; which of these blessings is there 
 t'lat may not be utterly lost to vast portions of the na- 
 tion ; which of them may not be jeoparded over this 
 
102 THE UOTON TO BE PRESERVED. 
 
 whole continent ; which of them is there that may not 
 depart forevermore from us and our posterity, in the 
 attempt to destroy our oneness as a people, and in the 
 results of that unparalleled self-destruction ? Besides 
 all this, how obvious and how terrible are the evils over 
 and above, which the very attempt begets, and which 
 our after progress must necessarily make permanent if 
 that attempt succeeds. 1. We have already incurred 
 the perils of universal bankruptcy before the first act is 
 achieved by one of the least important of the thirty- 
 three States. 2. We have already seen constitutional 
 government, both in its essence and in its form, tram- 
 pled under foot by the convention of that State ; and 
 all the powers of sovereignty itself, both ordinary and 
 extraordinary, assumed by it in such a manner tliat life, 
 liberty and property have no more security in South 
 Carolina than anywhere under heaven where absolute 
 despotism or absolute anarchy prevails, except in the 
 personal characters of the gentlemen who hold the 
 power. 3. We have already seen that small communi- 
 ty preparing to treat with foreign nations, and, if need 
 be, introduce foreign armies into this country, headlong 
 in the career in which she disdains all counsel, scorns 
 all consultation and all entreaty, and treats all ties, all 
 recollections, all existing engagements and obligations 
 as if her ordinance of secession had not only denation- 
 alized that community, but had extinguished all its past 
 existence. 4. We see the glorious flag of this Union 
 torn down and a colonial flag floating in its place ; yea, 
 we see that comnmnity thrown into paroxysms of rage, 
 and the cabinet at Washington thrown into confusion 
 because in the harbor of Charleston our national flajr. 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 103 
 
 instead of being still further dishonored, yet floats over 
 a single tower 1 What, then, did they expect who sent 
 to the harbor of Charleston, to occupy the national for- 
 tresses there, the son of a companion of Washington, a 
 hero whose veins are full of revolutionary blood and 
 whose body is covered with honorable scars, won in the 
 service of his country ? Why did they send that Ken- 
 tucky hero there if they did not intend the place they 
 put into his hands to be kept to the last extremity ? 
 But I need not enlarge upon this terrible aspect of what 
 is coming to us all if the Union is destroyed. Tliese 
 are but the beginnings of sorrows. The men and par- 
 ties who initiate the reign of lawless passion, rarely es- 
 cape destruction amid the storms they create, but are 
 unable to control. Law comes from the depth of eter- 
 nity, and in its sublime sway is the nexus of the uni- 
 verse. Institutions grow ; they are not made. Deso- 
 lated empires are never restored ; all history furnishes 
 no such example. If we desire to perish, all we have 
 to do is to leap into this vortex of disunion. If we 
 have any just conception of the solemnity of this day, 
 let us beseech God that our country shall not be torn to 
 pieces ; and under the power of these solemnities let us 
 quit ourselves like men, in order to avert that most hor- 
 rible of all national calamities. 
 
 Let us consider, in the next place, those rights, as 
 they are called, by means of which, and in their ex- 
 treme exercise, all the calamities that threaten us are to 
 be brought upon us at any moment ; nay, are to be so 
 brought upon us, that our destruction shall be perfectly 
 regular, perfectly legal, perfectly constitutional. In 
 which case a system like ours, a system the most endur- 
 
104 THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 
 
 ing of all others, whether we consider the history of the 
 past, or tlie laws which enter into its composition ; a 
 system the hardest of all others to be deranged, and the 
 easiest of all to be readjusted when deranged ; such a 
 system is alleged to have a secret in it, designed ex- 
 pressly to kill it, at the option of the smallest fragment 
 of it. I allude to the claim of the right of nullification, 
 and the claim of the right of secession, as being Consti- 
 tutional rights ; and I desire to exj^lain myself briefly in 
 regard to them. 
 
 According to my apprehension, there is a thorough 
 and fundamental difference between the two. The 
 power of nullification, supposing it to exist, would be an 
 extreme right within the Union, and is necessarily tem- 
 porary in its effects, and promptly tends to the termina- 
 tion of the difficulty upon which it arises. And this 
 settlement may occur by the action of our complex sys- 
 tem of government in various ways. It may be in the 
 way of some compromise of existing difficulties ; or in 
 the way of repeal, by one party or the other ; or the 
 modification of the obnoxious laws ; or in the way of 
 some judicial decision settling the difficulty or — which 
 is the true remedy — instead of nullification, by an ap- 
 peal to the people at the polls, who are the source of 
 all power in free governments, and by obedience to 
 their decision when rendered by voting instead of by 
 fighting, or, at the worst, by an appeal to arms ; but 
 even in that case the result necessarily secures the con- 
 tinuance of the preexisting system of government on the 
 restoration of peace, let that peace be by victory on 
 which side you please. The doctrine of nullification 
 stands related to the doctrine of State Rights, precisely 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 105 
 
 as tlic doctrine of consolidation stands related to the 
 old Federal doctrine of a strong Central Government. 
 In both cases the theory of a great party has been 
 pushed to a logical absurdity, which subverted our po- 
 litical system. That the will of the greater part should 
 prevail, and that the smaller parts should have the 
 power of appeal to this will, at the polls, and in judg- 
 ment upon every principle of civil and political liberty 
 — was the ultimate form in which this great doctrine 
 entered into the political creed of that old Republican 
 party which came into power with Mr. Jefferson in 
 1801, and was expounded as they held it in those fa- 
 mous resolutions of Kentucky and Virginia in the latter 
 part of the last century. Its connection with the whole 
 theory of every mixed political system is not only abso- 
 lute but is vital. More especially is it so with our 
 complex system. It has been carried — as it stands 
 connected with the constitutional, and much more with 
 the reserved rights of the States, to an extreme on that 
 side — opposite to the extreme of consolidation. But 
 even in its extremest form, it bears no proportion in 
 miscliief to the doctrine of secession. Considered in its 
 true and original form, I judge it to be indispensable to 
 the preservation of our political system ; and that the 
 opposite mode of interpreting our political duties, and 
 rights, and remedies, terminates in subjugating the 
 States to the General Government, and in subjugating 
 both the General Government and the exposition of 
 every political principle to the Supreme Court of the 
 United States. The former system is natural and per- 
 manent, the latter is absurd, and invites rebellion. 
 This great phenomenon has occurred in this country, 
 
106 THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 
 
 that, by reason of the extraordinary ability of some of 
 the advocates of the system which passed away in 1801, 
 it has assumed a new form and a new life in general 
 opinion, and seconded by the peculiar constitution of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, the old Repub- 
 lican or Democratic notions upon this great subject, 
 though constantly triumphant in the country, have been 
 constantly allowed in the interpretations of that Court. 
 I judge that the doctrine of secession is an extreme re- 
 action against this Federal interpretation of the rela- 
 tions of the States to each other and to the nation. For 
 when you arrive at an interpretation which is final, and 
 hateful to immense parties and interests ; and there is 
 no remedy but arms, secession, or absolute submission ; 
 the expression of the popular will against the interpre- 
 tation you have made, brings society to a condition, that 
 in an excitable race and amongst a free people, can 
 liardly be expected to be safe or easy to be managed. 
 You have, therefore, this perilous and extraordinary 
 claim of the right of secession under this extreme reac- 
 tion, differing absolutely from the idea of the old State 
 Rights party, and differing absolutely even from nulli- 
 fication itself. 
 
 Secession is a proceeding which begins by tearing to 
 pieces the whole fabric of Government, both social and 
 political. It begins by rendering all redress of all pos- 
 sible evils utterly impossible under the system that 
 exists, for its very object is to destroy that existence. 
 It begins by provoking war, and rendering its occur- 
 rence apparently inevitable and its termination well 
 nigh impossible. Its very design is not to reform the 
 administration of existing laws, not to obtain their re- 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 107 
 
 peal or modification ; but to annihilate the institutions 
 of the country, and to make many nations out of one. 
 if it is the Constitutional right of any State to do this, 
 then we have no national Government and never had 
 any. Then, also, it is perfectly idle to speak of new 
 Constitutions, since the new Constitutions can have no 
 more force than the Constitution already despised and 
 disobeyed. Then, also, the possibility is ended — 
 ended in the very theory of the case, and illustrated in 
 the utter failure of its practice — of uniting Republican 
 freedom with national strength in any country or under 
 any form of government. But according to my belief, 
 and according to the universal belief Qf the American 
 people but a little while ago, no such right, legal or 
 Constitutional, as that of secession, does or can exist 
 under any form of government, and least of all under 
 such institutions as ours. 
 
 And, first of all, no State in this Union ever had any 
 sovereignty at all, independent of, and except as they 
 were, United States. When they speak of recovering 
 their sovereignty — when they speak of returning to 
 their condition as sovereigns in which they were before 
 they were members of the Confederacy called at first 
 the United Colonies and then the United States ; they 
 speak of a thing that has no existence — they speak of 
 a thing that is historically without foundation. They 
 were not States ; they were colonies of the British, the 
 Spanish, the French, the Dutch Governments; they 
 were colonies granted by Royal charter to particular 
 individuals or particular companies. Pennsylvania was 
 the estate, the property of William Penn ; Georgia, the 
 larger part, perhaps the whole of it, of Gen. Ogle- 
 
108 THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 
 
 tliorpo. Tlicy were settled under charters to iiidivid- 
 uals and to companies — settled as colonies of foreign 
 kings and States by their subjects ; as such they revolt- 
 ed ; as such, before their revolt, they united in a Con- 
 tinental Government more or less complete. As such 
 United Colonies, they pronounced that famous Declara- 
 tion of Independence which, after a heroic struggle of 
 seven years, still as United Colonies, they made good. 
 The great Washington, w^ho led that great war, v/as 
 the Commander-in-Chief for and in behalf of these 
 United Colonies. As such they were born States. 
 The treaty of peace, that made them independent 
 States, was concluded with them all together as the 
 United States. What sovereignty did Kentucky ever 
 have except the sovereignty that she has as a State of 
 these United States, born at the same moment a State 
 of the American Union and a separate sovereign State ? 
 We were a district of Virginia. We became a State, 
 and we became one of the United States at the same 
 moment, for the same purpose, and for good and all. 
 What I mean by this is to point out the fact that the 
 complex system of government which we have in this 
 country, did always, does now, and in the nature of the 
 case, must contemplate these States as united into a 
 common Government, and that common Government as 
 really a part of our political system, as the particular 
 institutions of the separate sovereignties are a part of 
 our political system. And while, as you will observe, 
 I have attempted, while repudiating the doctrine of 
 nullification, to vindicate that doctrine of State rights, 
 which, as I firmly believe, is an integral and indispen- 
 sable part of our political system ; yet on the other 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 109 
 
 hand, that the doctrine that we are a nation, and that 
 we have a national government, is, and always was, 
 just as truly a part of our system as the other. And 
 our political system always stood as much upon the ba- 
 sis that we are a nation, as it stood upon the basis that 
 that nation is composed of sovereign States. They 
 were born into both relations ; so born that each State 
 is equally and forever, by force of its very existence 
 and the manner thereof, both a part of this American 
 nation and also a sovereign State of itself. The peo- 
 ple, therefore, can no more legally throw off their na- 
 tional allcigance than they can legally throw off their 
 State allegiance. Nor can any State any more legally 
 absolve the allegiance of its people to the nation, tlian 
 the nation can legally absolve the allegiance due by tlie 
 people to the State they live in. Either attempt, con- 
 sidered in any legal, in any constitutional, in any his- 
 torical light, is pure madness. 
 
 Now tlie pretext of founding the right of secession 
 upon the right to change or abolish the government, 
 which is constitutionally secured to the people of the 
 nation and the States, seems to me — and I say it with 
 all the respect due to others — to be both immoral and 
 absurd. Absurd, since they who claim to exercise it 
 are, according to the very statement of the case, but an 
 insignificant minority of those in whom the real right 
 resides. It is a right vested by God, and recognized 
 by our Constitutions as residing in the greater part of 
 those who are citizens under the Constitution which 
 they change or abolish. But what in tlie name of God, 
 and all the possible and all the imaginable arrogance of 
 South Carolina, could lead her to believe that she is the 
 
110 THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. ' 
 
 major part of all the people that profess allegiance to 
 the Constitution of the United States ? And it is im- 
 moral, because it is trifling with the sacred rights of 
 otliers, with the most solemn obligations on our own 
 part, and the most vital interests of all concerned. And 
 it is both immoral and absurd in one, because as a po- 
 litical pretext, its use in this manner invalidates and 
 renders perilous and odious, the grandest contribution 
 of modern times to the science of government, and 
 therein to the peace of society, the security of liberty 
 and the progress of civilization ; namely, the giving 
 constitutional validity to this natural right of man to 
 change or to abolish the government under which they 
 live, by voting, when the major part see fit to do so. 
 It is trifling with this great natural right, legalized in 
 all our American Constitutions, fatally caricaturing and 
 recklessly converting it into the most terrible engine of 
 organized legal destruction. More than that ; it is im- 
 possible, in the very nature of the case and in the very 
 nature of government, that any such legal power or any 
 such constitutional right could exist ; because its exis- 
 tence presupposes law to have changed its nature and 
 to have become a mere device ; and presupposes gov- 
 ernment to have changed its nature, and ceasing to be 
 a permanent ordinance of God, to become a temporary 
 instrument of evil in the liands of factions as they suc- 
 cessively arise. Above all places under heaven, no 
 such right of destruction can exist under our American 
 Constitutions, since it is they that have devised this 
 very remedy of voting instead of fighting ; they that 
 have made this natural right a Constitutional right ; 
 they that have done it for the preservation and not for 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. Ill 
 
 the ruin of society. And it has preserved it for more 
 than seventy years the noblest form of human society, 
 inconstant security; and it could, if justly exercised, 
 preserve it forever. 
 
 But let us go a little deeper still. It cannot be de- 
 nied that the right of self-preservation, both in men and 
 States, is a supreme right. In private persons, it is a 
 right regulated by law in all communities that have 
 laws. Amongst nations, there is no common supreme 
 authority, and it must be regulated in their intercourse 
 with each other, by the discretion of each ; and arms 
 are the final appeal. In our system of government, 
 there is ample provision made. In all disputes between 
 any State and foreign nation, the General Government 
 will protect and redress the State. 
 
 In disputes between two States, the Supreme Court is 
 the Constitutional arbiter. It is only in disputes that 
 may arise between the General Government and a par- 
 ticular State, that any serious difference of opinion as 
 to the remedy, has manifested itself in this country ; 
 and on that subject it is the less necessary that I add 
 anything to what has been said when speaking of nullifica- 
 tion, as the grounds of our existing difficulties are not 
 between the disaff'ected States and the General Govern- 
 ment chiefly if at all ; but they are difficulties, rather 
 founded on opposite states of public opinion touching 
 the institution of negro slavery, in the Northern and in 
 the Southern States. It may confidently be asserted that 
 if the power of nullification, or the power of secession, or 
 both of them, were perfectly constitutional rights, neither 
 of them should be, under any circumstances, wantonly ex- 
 ercised. Nor should either of them, most especially the 
 
112 THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 
 
 right of secession, ever be exercised except iiiider ex- 
 treme necessity. But if these powers, or either of 
 them, is a mere usurpation founded upon no right what- 
 ever, then no State may resort to rebellion or revolu- 
 tion, without, in the first place, such a just and neces- 
 sary cause as may not be otherwise maintained ; or, in 
 the second place, without such a prospect of success as 
 justifies the evil of rebellion or revolution ; or else such 
 intolerable evils as justify the most desperate attempts. 
 Now it is my profound conviction that nothing has oc- 
 curred, that nothing exists, which justifies that revolu- 
 tion which has occurred in South Carolina, and which 
 seems to be impending in other Southern States. Be- 
 yond all doubt, nothing has occurred of this description, 
 connected \Wth any other interest or topic, except that 
 of negro slavery ; and connected with that, my deep 
 assurance is, that the just and necessary cause of the 
 slave States, may be otherwise maintained than by se- 
 cession, revolution or rebellion ; nay, that it may be 
 incomparably better maintained otherwise ; nay, that it 
 cannot be maintained in that way at all, and that the 
 attempt to do so will be fatal as regards the avowed 
 object, and pregnant with incalculable evils besides. 
 
 In such discussions as these, the nature of the insti- 
 tution of slavery is perfectly immaterial. So long as 
 the union of the States survives, the constitutional guar- 
 anty and the Federal power, which have proved ade- 
 quate for more than seventy years, are that much added 
 to whatever other force States or sections may possess 
 to protect their rights. Nor is there, in the nature of 
 the case, any reason why States with slaves, and States 
 without slaves should not abide together in peace, as 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESEllVED. 113 
 
 portions of the same great nation, as tlicy have done 
 from the beginning. The unhallowed passions of men, 
 the fanaticism of the times, the mutual injuries and in- 
 sults which portions of the people have inflicted on each 
 other, the cruel use which political parties have made 
 of unnatural and transient popular excitements, and, I 
 must add, the unjust, offensive and . unconstitutional en- 
 actments by various State Legislatures at the North ; 
 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise bj Congress ; 
 the attempt of the Supreme Court to settle political 
 principles, deemed to be of vast importance by all par- 
 ties, in the Dred Scott case, which principles were not 
 in the case at all ; the subsequent conduct of the Fed- 
 eral Government, and of the people in Kansas ; the total 
 overthrow of the Whig and American parties, the di- 
 vision and defeat of the Democratic party, and the tri- 
 umph of the Republican party ; the ordinance of seces- 
 sion of South Carolina ; the agitation pervading the 
 whole nation, especially the greater part of the South- 
 ern States ; and to crown all and if possible, to make 
 all desperate, the amazing conduct of the President of 
 the United States amidst these great disorders. This is 
 the sad outline of this slavery agitation, the posture of 
 which for a moment is thus exhibited, no one knowing 
 how soon new and fatal steps may hurry us still farther. 
 What I assert in the face of so much that is painful and 
 full of peril, and what I confidently rely Avill be the 
 verdict of posterity, is that all this, terrible as it is, af- 
 fords no justification for the secession of any single State 
 of the Union — none for the disruption of the American 
 Union. They who make the attempt will find in it no 
 remedy for the evils from which they flee. They who 
 
114 THE UNION TO BE PRHoEKVED. 
 
 goad others to this fatal step, will find that they have 
 themselves erred exceedingly. They who have had the 
 lead in both acts of madness, have no hope for good 
 from coming ages, half so great as that they may be 
 utterly forgotten. Posterity will receive with scorn 
 every plea that can be made for thirty millions of free 
 people, professing to be Christian, in extenuation of the 
 unparalleled folly of their self-destruction, by reason 
 that they could not deal successfully with three or four 
 millions of African slaves, scattered amongst them. 
 Oh ! everlasting infamy, that the children of Washing- 
 ton did not know how to be free. Oh ! degradation 
 still deeper, that the children of God did not know how 
 to be just and to forbear with one another. 
 
 It is said, however, it is now too late. The evil is 
 already done. South Carolina has already gone ; Flori- 
 da, it is most likely went yesterday, or will go to-day, 
 even while we are pleading with one another, and with 
 God, to put a better mind in her. Soon, it may be })os- 
 sible within the present month, all the cotton States will 
 go. We, it is added, by reason of being a slave State, 
 must also go. Our destiny, they say, our interest, our 
 duty, our all, is bound up with theirs, and we must go 
 together. If this be your mind, distinctly made up, 
 then the whole services of this day are a national mock- 
 ery of God ; a national attempt to make our passionate 
 impulses assume the dignity of divine suggestions, and 
 thus seduce the Ruler of the universe into compli- 
 city with our sins and follies, through which all our 
 miseries are inflicted upon us. Let it be admitted that 
 a certain number of States, and that considerable, will 
 attempt to form a Southern Confederacy, or to form as 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 115 
 
 many new sovereignties as there are seceding States. 
 Let it be assumed that either of those results is achiev- 
 ed, and that either by way of peace or war. Let all be 
 admitted. What then ? Thirteen States by their del- 
 egates formed the present Constitution more than seven- 
 ty years ago. By the terms of the Constitution itself, 
 it was to be enforced when any nine of those thirteen 
 States adopted it, whether by convention of their peo- 
 ple or otherwise, is immaterial to the present matter. 
 Thirteen States made the Constitution by their dele- 
 gates ; a clause is inserted in it that it shall go into ef- 
 fect when any nine of the thirteen States adopt it, let 
 any four refuse as they might. If they had refused 
 what would have happened, would have been, that these 
 four States, born States, and born United States, by the 
 Declaration of Independence, by the war of the revo- 
 lution, by the peace with Great Britain, and by the ar- 
 ticles of confederation, would by a common agreement 
 among the whole thirteen have refused to go further, or 
 to make any stronger national government, while the 
 other nine would have gone further, and made that a 
 stronger national government. But such was the desire 
 of all parties that there should be no separation of the 
 States at all, that the whole thirteen unanimously 
 adopted the new Constitution, putting a clause into it 
 tliat it should not go into effect unless a majority so 
 great as nine to four would sign it. I say if a minority 
 of States had not adopted the new Constitution, it 
 would have occurred that they would have passed, by 
 common consent, into a new condition, and, for the first 
 time, have become separate sovereign States. As you 
 well know, none of them refused permanently. What 
 
116 THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 
 
 I make this statement for, is to sliow that, taking that 
 principle as just and permanent, as clearly laid down in 
 the Constitution, it requires at least eleven States of the 
 existing thirty-three States, to destroy, or affect in the 
 slightest degree, the question as to whether or not tlie 
 remaining States are the United States of America un- 
 der the same Constitution. Twenty-two States, accord- 
 ing to that principle, left after the eleven had seceded, 
 would be as really the United States of America under 
 that Federal Constitution, as they were before, accord- 
 ing to the fundamental principle involved in the origi- 
 nal mode of giving validity to the Constitution. Ken- 
 tucky would still be as really one of these United States 
 of America as she was at first, when, as a district of 
 Virginia, which was one of the nine adopting States, 
 she became, as such district, a part thereof; and, by 
 consequence, a secession of less than eleven States, can, 
 in no event, and upon no hypothesis, even so much as 
 embarrass Kentucky in determining for herself what 
 her duty, her safety and her honor require her to do. 
 
 This fact is so perfectly obvious that, I presume, if 
 the New England States, instead of the cotton States, 
 were to revolt and establish a separate confederacy, there 
 is not a man in the State of Kentucky who would be 
 led thereby to suppose tliat our relations with the Un- 
 ion and the Constitution were in the slightest degree 
 affected ; or that they were on that account under the 
 slightest obligation to revolt also. It may sound har^h, 
 but I am very much inclined to think that there are 
 many thousands of men in Kentucky, who might be 
 apt to suppose that the secession of the New England 
 States would be a capital reason why nobody else should 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 117 
 
 secede. It is the principle, however, which I am at- 
 tempting to explain. 
 
 The answer to this view, I am aware is, that we are a 
 slave State, and that our relations are, therefore, neces- 
 sarily different with respect to other slave States, as com- 
 pared with the free States, or with the nation at largo.' 
 The reply to which is various : First. The institution 
 of slavery as it exists in this country presents a three- 
 fold and very distinct aspect. First, the aspect of it in 
 those States whose great staples are rice, sugar and cotton 
 commonly, and well enough expressed by calling them 
 the cotton States. Then the aspect of it presented 
 by those States in portions of which those fabrics are 
 raised, and in other portions of which they are not, 
 which we may well enough call the mixed portion of 
 the slave States. And then its aspect in those Slave 
 States which are not producers of those great staples, 
 iu the midst of which, and out of which these great 
 commotions come. What I assert is, that the relation 
 of slavery to the community, and the relation of the 
 community by reason of slavery to the General Govern- 
 ment and the world, is widely different in all three of 
 these classes of States. The relation of slavery to the 
 community, to the government and to our future, in 
 Kentucky, in Virginia, in Maryland, in Delaware, is 
 widely different from the relation of slavery in all these 
 respects, in Louisiana, in South Carolina, and in all the 
 other cotton States. In the meantime, also, the relation 
 is different from both of those, wherein it exists in what 
 I have called the mixed States ; in Arkansas, part of 
 which is a farming country, and a part of which tho- 
 roughly planting ; in Tennessee, part cotton, and the 
 
118 THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 
 
 eastern part a mountainous and farming country ; in 
 Texas and North Carolina where similar facts exist, 
 and, perhaps, in some other States. What I desire is 
 that you get the idea I have of the matter ; that while 
 it is true all the slave States have certain ties and sym- 
 pathies between them which are real, and ought not to 
 be broken, yet, on the other hand, it is extremely easy 
 to carry this idea to a fatal and a false extent, and to 
 ruin ourselves forever under the illusion begotten there- 
 by. In Kentucky the institution of slavery exists about 
 in the proportion of one slave to four white people, and 
 the gap between the two races is widening at every cen- 
 sus. In South Carolina there are about five slaves to 
 three white persons, and the increment is on the slave 
 side. In the cotton States I know of no way in which 
 the institution of slavery can be dealt with at all, ex- 
 cept by keeping the relation as it stands, as an integral 
 portion of the body politic, unmanageable except in the 
 present relation of the negro to the white man ; and in 
 this posture it is the duty of the nation to protect and 
 defend the cotton States. In regard to Kentucky, the 
 institution of slavery is in such a position that the peo- 
 ple of Kentucky can do with it whatever they may see 
 fit, both now and at any future period, without being 
 obliged, by reason of it, to resort to any desperate ex- 
 pedient, in any direction. 
 
 The state of things I have sketched, necessarily pro- 
 duces a general resemblance indeed, because slavery is 
 general ; but, at the same time, innumerable diversities, 
 responsive to the very condition of slavery, of its pro- 
 ducts, and of its relative influence in the body politic 
 in the different slave States. And you never commit- 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 119 
 
 ted a greater folly than you will commit, if, disrcgaril- 
 ing these things, you allow this single consideration — 
 that you are a slave State — to swallow up every other 
 consideration, and control your whole action in this 
 great crisis. We in Kentucky are tolerant of opin- 
 ion. Inform yourselves of what is passing of an oppo- 
 site character throughout South Carolina, and reflect on 
 the change that must pass on you, before you would be 
 prepared to tear down the most venerable institutions, 
 to insult the proudest emblems of your country's glory, 
 and to treat constitutions and laws as if they were 
 playthings for children ; before you are prepared to de- 
 scend from your present noble posture, and surrender 
 yourself to the guidance and dictation of such counsels 
 and such statesmen as rule this disunion movement. 
 Nothing seems to me more obvious, and nothing is more 
 important to be pressed upon your attention at this mo- 
 ment, than that the non-cotton States stand in a posi- 
 tion radically different, in all respects, from the posi- 
 tion in which the cotton States stand, both with regard 
 to the institution of slavery, and with regard to the bal- 
 ance of the nation. The result is that all these States, 
 the cotton States, and the mixed States, and the non- 
 cotton slave States, and the free States, may enjoy 
 peace, and may enjoy prosperity under a common gov- 
 ernment, and in a common Union, as they have done 
 from the beginning ; where the rights of all and the in- 
 terests of all may be respected and protected, and yet 
 where the interests of every portion must be regulated 
 by some general consideration of the interests which 
 are common to everybody. On the other hand, in a 
 confederacy where cotton is the great idea and end, it 
 
120 THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 
 
 is utterly impossible for the mixed, much more for the 
 non-cotton States to protect adequately any of their 
 rights, except the right of slavery, to carry out any of 
 their purposes except purposes connected with slavery, 
 to inaugurate any system of policy, or even to be free, 
 otherwise than as they servilely follow tlie lead, and 
 bow to the rule of the cotton States. The very instant 
 you enter a confederacy in which all is regulated and 
 created by the supreme interest of cotton, everything 
 precious and distinctive of you is jeoparded. Do you 
 want the slave trade re-opened ? Do you want free 
 trade and direct taxation ? Do you w^ant some millions 
 more of African cannibals thrown amongst you, broad- 
 cast throughout the whole slave States ? Do you want 
 to begin a war which shall end when you liave taken 
 possession of tlie whole Southern part of this continent, 
 down to the Isthmus of Darien ? 
 
 If your design is to accept the principles, purposes 
 and policy which are openly avowed in the interest of 
 secession, and which you sec exhibited on a small scale, 
 but in their essence, in South Carolina — if that is your 
 notion of regulated freedom and the perfect security of 
 life and property ; if that is your understanding of 
 high national prosperity, where the great idea is more 
 negroes, more cotton, direct taxes, free imports from 
 all nations, and the conquest of all outlying land that 
 will bring cotton ; then, undoubtedly, Kentucky is no 
 longer what she has been, and her new career, begin- 
 ning with secession, leads her far away from her strength 
 and her renown. 
 
 The second suggestion I have to make to you is, that 
 if the slave line is made the line of division, all the 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 121 
 
 slave states seceding from the Union, and all the free 
 States standing united by the Union ; what I assert in 
 that case is, that the possibility of the perpetuity of ne- 
 gro slavery in any border State, terminates at once. In 
 our affected zeal for slavery, we will have taken the 
 most effectual means of extinguishing it ; and that in 
 the most disastrous of all possible ways. On the con- 
 trary, if this Union is to be saved, it is by the cordial 
 sympathy of the border States on the one side and on 
 the other side of the slave line that it must be saved. 
 We have nothing to hope for from the extreme States 
 on either side — nothing from the passionate violence 
 of the extreme South — nothing from the turbulent fa- 
 naticism of the extreme North. It is along that slave 
 line and in the spirit of mutual confidence, and the 
 sense of common interest of tlie people on the North 
 and on the South of that line that the nation must seek 
 the instruments of its safety. It is Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 
 nois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, on the one side ; and 
 Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri — 
 God send that I might add, with confidence, Tennessee 
 and North Carolina, on the other side : these are the 
 States that are competent to save this Union. Nothing, 
 . therefore, can be more suicidal than for the border 
 slave States to adopt any line of conduct which can 
 justly deprive them of the sympathy and confidence of 
 the border free States — now largely possessed by 
 them. And nothing is more certain than that a patri- 
 otic devotion to the Union, and a willingness to do all 
 that honorable men should do, or moderate men ask in 
 order to preserve it, is as strongly prevalent at this mo- 
 ment amongst the people of the border free States as 
 
122 THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 
 
 among those of the border slave States. The great 
 central States I have enumerated, must necessarily con- 
 trol the fate both of the nation and Sf the continent, 
 whenever they act in concert ; and the fate, both of 
 the nation and of the continent, is utterly inscrutable 
 after the division of them on the slave line — except 
 that we know when Sampson is shorn of his strength, 
 the enemies of Israel and of God will make the land 
 desolate. Fronting on the Atlantic Ocean through 
 many degrees of latitude, running back across the con- 
 tinent so as to include an area larger than all western 
 Europe, and finer than any of equal extent upon the 
 globe, embracing a population inferior to none on earth, 
 and sufficiently numerous at present to constitute a great 
 nation, it is this immense power, free, to a great ex- 
 tent, from the opposite and intractable fanaticisms of 
 the extreme States on both sides of it, that is charged 
 with the preservation of our national institutions, and 
 with them our national power and glory. These are 
 two aspects of the case thus put — in either of which 
 secession by peaceful means is impossible : first, if these 
 great central States fail to apprehend this part of the 
 great mission committed to them ; secondly, if the cot- 
 ton States, following the example of South Carolina — 
 or the Northern States adhering to extreme purposes in 
 the opposite direction — by either means render all 
 peaceful adjustment impossible. 
 
 But even in that case, the mission of these great 
 States is not ended. If under the curse of God and 
 the madness of the extreme Northern and Southern 
 States, the preservation of the Union should be impos- 
 sible, then it belongs to this immense central power to 
 
THE UNIOX TO BE PRESERVED. 123 
 
 reconstruct the nation upon the slave line as its central 
 idea, and thus perpetuate our institutions, our princi- 
 ples and our hopes, with an unchanged nationality. For 
 even they wlio act in the mere interests of slavery, 
 ought to see, that after the secession of the cotton 
 States, the border slave States are obliged, even for the 
 sake of slavery, to be destroyed, or to adhere to the 
 Union as long as any Union exists ; and that if tlie 
 Union were utterly destroyed, its reconstruction upon 
 the slave line is the solitary condition on which slaveiy^ 
 can exist in security anywhere, or can exist at all in 
 any border State. 
 
 I have considered three possible solutions of the ex- 
 isting state of things. The preservation of the Union as 
 it is ; the probable secession of tlie cotton slave States, 
 and the effect thereof upon the Union, and upon the 
 course Kentucky ought to take ; the total destruction 
 of the Union, and its reconstruction upon the slave line. 
 I have considered the whole matter, from the point of 
 view understood to be taken by tlie President of the 
 United States, namely : that he judges there is no 
 power in the General Government to prevent, by force, 
 its own dissolution by means of the secession of the 
 States ; and I have done this, because however ruinous 
 or absurd any one may suppose the views of the Presi- 
 dent to be, it is nevertheless under their sway that the 
 first acts of our impending revolutions are progressing. 
 Under the same helpless aspect of the General Govern- 
 ment, there remain two more possible solutions of the 
 posture and duty of Kentucky, and other States simi- 
 larly situated. The first of these is, that in the pro- 
 gress of events, it may well become the border slave 
 
124: THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 
 
 States to unite themselves into a separate confederacy ; 
 the second is, that it may well become Kentucky, under 
 various contingencies, to assume a separate sovereign 
 position, and act by herself. Having clearly stated my 
 own conclusions, I will only say that the first of these 
 two results is not one to be sought as desirable itself, 
 but only as an alternative to be preferred to more dan- 
 gerous arrangements. For my unalterable conviction 
 is, that the slave line is the only permanent and secure 
 basis of a confederacy for the slave States, and espe- 
 cially for the border slave States ; and that the Union 
 of free and slave States, in the same confederacy, is the 
 indispensable condition of the peaceful and secure ex- 
 istence of slavery. As to the possible isolation of Ken- 
 tucky, this also, it seems to me, is not a result to be 
 sought. If it should occur as the alternative to evils 
 still greater, Kentucky ought to embrace it with calm- 
 ness and dignity, and awaiting the progress of events, 
 show by her wisdom, her courage, her moderation, her 
 invincible rectitude, both to this age and to all that are 
 to come, how fully she understood, in the midst of a 
 gainsaying and backsliding generation, that no people 
 ever performed anything glorious who did not trust in 
 God, who did not love their country, and who were not 
 faithful to their oaths. 
 
 It seems to me, therefore, that the immediate duty of 
 Kentucky may clearly be stated in very few words : 
 
 1. To stand by the Constitution and the Union of the 
 country to the last extremity. 2. To prevent, as for 
 the moment the impending and immediate danger, all 
 attempts to reduce her, all attempts to terrify her into 
 the taking of any step, inconsistent with her own Con- 
 
THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 125 
 
 stitution and laws ; any step disrcgarclful of the Consti- 
 tution and laws of the United States ; any step which 
 can possibly compromise her position or draw her on 
 otherwise than by her own free choice, deliberately ex^ 
 pressed at the polls, according to her existing laws and 
 Constitution, whereby she will choose her own destiny. 
 3. To settle on her heart that the rending of this Union 
 on the slave line is, for her, whatever it may be for 
 others, the most fatal issue that the times can have, and 
 the doing this in such a way as to subject her to the 
 dominion of the cotton States for all time to come, is 
 the very worst form of that fatal issue. 
 
 After all, my friends — after all, we have the great 
 promise of God that all things shall work together for 
 good to them that love him. I do not know but that it 
 may be the mind of God, and his divine purpose, to 
 break tliis Union up, and to make of it other nations, 
 that shall at last be more powerful than it, unitedly, 
 would have been. I do not know^, I do not pretend to 
 say, how the Lord will use the passions of men to 
 glorify his name. He restrains the remainder of wrath 
 and will cause the wrath of man to praise Him. We 
 have His divine assurance that all nations that have 
 gone before us, and all that will follow us, and we our- 
 selves, by our rise, by our progress, and, alas ! by our 
 decay and ruin, are but instruments of His infinite pur- 
 pose, and means in His adorable providence, whereby 
 tlie everlasting reign of Messiah, the Christ of God, is 
 to be made absolute and universal. 
 
 Great, then, is our consolation, as we tremble for our 
 country, to be confident in our Lord ! Great is our 
 comfort as wo bewail the miseries which have befallen 
 
126 THE UNION TO BE PRESERVED. 
 
 our glorious inheritance, to know that the Lord God 
 Omnipotent reigneth ! Infinitely precious is the assur- 
 ance, amidst the trials now impending, and the woes 
 which threaten us, that the heroic self devotion with 
 which our personal duty is discharged, is one part of 
 our fitness to become partakers of the inheritance of tli- 
 saints in light ! 
 
THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF ABO- 
 LITIONISM. 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED IN THE FIRST PRE-BYTERIAN CHURCH, BROOKLYN, 
 DECEMBER 9, 1860. 
 
 BY REV. HENRY J. VAN DYKE. 
 
 1. Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own mas- 
 ters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not 
 blasphemed. 
 
 2. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, 
 because they are brethren ; but rather do them service, because they are 
 faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and 
 exhort. 
 
 3. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, 
 even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is 
 according to godliness ; 
 
 4. He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and 
 strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, 
 
 5. Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the 
 truth, supposing that gain is godliness : from such withdraw thyself. — 
 1 Timothy vi : 1-5. 
 
 I propose to discuss the character and influence of 
 abolitionism. With this view, I have selected a text 
 from the Bible, and purpose to adhere to the letter and 
 spirit of its teaching. We acknowledge, in this place, 
 but one standard of morals — but one authoritative 
 and infallible rule of faith and practice; for we are 
 Christians here ; not blind devotees, to bow down to 
 the dictation of any man or church ; not heathen phi- 
 
128 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 losopliers, to grope our way by the feeble glimmerings 
 of the light of nature ; not modern infidels, to appeal 
 from the written law of God to the corrupt and fickle 
 tribunal of reason and humanity ; but Christians, on 
 whose banner is inscribed this sublime challenge : — 
 " To the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not 
 according to this word, it is because there is no light in 
 them." 
 
 Let me direct your special attention to the language 
 of our text. There is no dispute among commentators, 
 there is no room for dispute, as to the meaning of the 
 expression, " servants under the yoke." Even Mr. 
 Barnes, who is himself a distinguished Abolitionist, and 
 has done more, perhaps, than any other man in this 
 country to propagate Abolition doctrines, admits, that 
 ^' the addition of the phrase ' under the yoke,' shows 
 undoubtedly that it (z. e., the original word, doiilos') is 
 to be understood here of slavery."* Let me quote an- 
 
 * Mr. Barnes adopts a most extraordinary method to avoid the force 
 of the precept which commands slaves who have believing masters to "o?o 
 them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the 
 benefit.^'' He says : " The passage before us only proves that Paul con- 
 sidered that a man who was a slaveholder might be converted and be 
 spoken of as a believer or a Christian. Many have been converted in 
 similar circumstances, as many have been in the practice of all other 
 kinds of iniquitxj. What was their duty after their conversion, was an- 
 other question ; and what was the duty of their servants or slaves was 
 another question still." 
 
 Again he says : " The passage does not teach that a man can be a 
 Christian, and continue to hold others in bondage. It does not teach 
 that he ought to be considered as maintaining a good standing in the 
 church if he continues to be a slaveholder. The fact that a man might 
 be converted who was a slaveholder, no more proves that it would be 
 right and desirable that he should continue that relation, than the fict 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 129 
 
 otlier testimony on this point from an eminent Scotch 
 divine. I mean Dr. McKnight, whose Exposition" of 
 
 tliat Saul of Tarsus became a Christian when engaged in persecution 
 proves that it would have been right for him to continue in that business, 
 or that the conversion of the Ephesians, who used ' curious arts,' proved 
 that it would have been proper for them to continue in that employment. 
 Men who are doing wrong, are converted in order to turn them from 
 that course of life, not to justify them in it." Now, in view of these 
 extracts, I have three remarks to make. (1.) They illustrate the pow- 
 er of fanaticism to embitter the heart. Mr. Barnes well knew when he 
 wrote these passages, that multitudes of the noblest and holiest men of 
 this land have been, and are, slaveholders — that many of the founders 
 of our government, with Washington at their head, were slaveholders — 
 that there are now in our Southern States thousands of Christian mas- 
 ters who give every Scriptural evidence of piety ; and yet in a way that 
 is all the more severe, because of its quiet and seemingly gentle manner, 
 he teaches that slaveholding is a crime on a par with the imposture of 
 the Ephesian sorcerers, wi'th the slaughter of Saul the persecutor, a 
 crime so obvious and enormous, that a convert from heathenism, without 
 any inspired instruction upon the subject, at once, and instinctively, 
 abandoned it. (2.) These extracts illustrate most pitiably how fanati- 
 cism warps the human intellect. The inspired Apostle commands that 
 daves who have believing masters (not masters v)ho might become be- 
 lievers, as Mr. Barnes, with an amazing ingenuity, intimates, but be- 
 lieving masters — masters who had been converted) should do them ser- 
 vice. And why? Because they are " fiiithful and beloved, partakers 
 of the benefit, " Because these masters had been converted, were be- 
 loved of God, were faithful in the discharge of their social duties, were 
 partakers of the benefits of Divine grace — therefore, their slaves were 
 to be the more obedient and respectful in their deportment. Now does not 
 any one see that such a precept contemplates the continuance of the re- 
 lation between the Christian master and his slaves ? Would Paul so 
 stultify himself as to give commandments for the regulation of that re- 
 lation, based upon the fact of the master's conversion, if he had expect- 
 ed and known this fact would instantly dissolve the relation itself? When 
 he says, " Children, obey your parents in the Lord," does he not imply 
 that the parental relation is to be continued ? And so when, in the 
 very same passage (Ephesians vi. 1—5), he says, '' Servants {douloi, 
 slaves), be obedient to them that are your masters according to the 
 
loO THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 the Epistles is a standard work in Great Britain and in 
 this country, and whose associations must exempt him 
 from all suspicion of pro-slavery prejudices. He 
 introduces his exposition of this chapter with the fol- 
 lowing explanation: — "Because the law of Moses 
 (Exodus xxi. 2) allowed no Israelite to be made a slave 
 for life without his own consent, the Judaizing teachers, 
 to allure slaves to their party, taught that under the 
 gospel, likewise, involuntary slavery is unlawful. This 
 doctrine the Apostle condemned here, as in his other 
 epistles, (1 Cor. vii. 20 ; Col. iii. 22; Eph. vi. 5,) by 
 enjoining Christian slaves to honor and obey their mas- 
 flesh," does he not intimate, in the strongest foi'm, that he expects that 
 relation to continue ? 
 
 (8.) These passages cast an imputation upon the integrity and can- 
 dor of the great Apostle. I do not say Mr. Barnes meant such an im- 
 putation ; I speak of the effect of such interpretations upon those who 
 imbibe their spirit. Mr. B puts slaveholding on a level with " all other 
 kinds of iniquity," and indicates his estimate of its guilt by choosing 
 persecution and sorcery to illustrate it. Very well, then; if this be 
 true. Paul might treat " all other kinds of iniquity " in the same way. 
 To be consistent, he should have said : " Sorcerers, use your curious 
 arts and practice your impostures in a Christian way. Persecutors, 
 when you hale men and women, and breathe out threatenings and 
 slaughter against the Church, see to it that you strangle and beat and 
 kill the saints in the most gentle and tender manner. Adulterers, give 
 to your paramours that which is just. Adulteresses, be obedient and 
 submissive to those whom you serve. Men who go down from Jerusalem 
 to Jericho, do not despise the thieves among whom you fall, for they 
 'are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit.' " Who does not 
 see the gross impiety of attributing such teaching to the great Apostle ? 
 But upon whom is this impiety chargeable ? Let the text of this dis- 
 course answer the question. Let those who teach that Paul held back 
 the truth in regard to an enormous crime, answer to their own con- 
 science, and to the distracted country which they have embroiled in fra- 
 ternal strife, by their unscriptural dogmas. 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 131 
 
 ters, whether they were believers or unbelievers, and by 
 assuring Timothy that if any person taught otherwise, 
 he opposed the wholesome precepts of Jesus Christ, and 
 the doctrine of the gospel, which in all points is con- 
 formable to godliness or sound morality, and was puffed 
 up with pride, without possessing any true knowledge 
 either of the Jewish or Christian revelation." Our 
 learned Scotch friend then goes on to expound the pas- 
 sage in the following paraphrase, which we commend to 
 the prayerful attention of all whom it may concern : — 
 
 " Let whatever Christian slaves are under the yoke of un- 
 believers pay their own masters all respect and obedience, that 
 the character of God whom we worship may not be calumniat- 
 ed., and the doctrine of the gospel may not be evil spoken of, 
 as tending to destroy the political rights of mankind. And 
 those Christian slaves who have believing masters, let them not 
 despise them, fancying that they are their equals because they 
 are their brethren in Christ ; for^ though all Christians are 
 equal as to religious privileges, slaves are inferior to their mas- 
 ters in station. Wherefore, let them serve their masters more 
 diligently, because they who enjoy the benefit of their service 
 are believers and beloved of God. These things teach, and 
 exhort the brethren to practise them. If any one teach differ- 
 ently, by affirming that, under the gospel, slaves are not bound 
 to serve their masters, but ought to be made free, and does not 
 consent to the wholesome commandments which are our Lord 
 Jesus Christ's^ and to the doctrine of the gospel, which in all 
 points is conformable to true morality, he is puffed up with 
 pride, and knoweth nothing either of the Jewish or the Chris- 
 tian revelations, though he pretends to have great knowledge of 
 both ; but is distempered in his mind about idle questions and 
 debates of words, which afford no foundation for such a doc- 
 trinC; but are the source of envy, contention, evil-speaking, un- 
 
132 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 just suspicion that tlie truth is not sincerely maintained, keen 
 disputings carried on contrary to conscience, by men wholly 
 corrupted in their minds and destitute of the true doctrine of 
 the gospel, who reckon whatever produces most money is the 
 "best religion. From all such impious teachers withdraw thy- 
 self, and do not dispute with them." 
 
 It would be easy for me to confirm the testimony of 
 Dr. McKnight, by extracts from commentators of every 
 name and nation. Suffer me to select a few as repre- 
 sentatives of various religious denominations. 
 
 Dr. Adam Clark, who is the standard of biblical 
 criticism among our Methodist brethren, and perhaps 
 the most learned man that large and zealous denomina- 
 tion has ever produced, gives us the following clear ex- 
 position : — 
 
 " The word douloi (servants) here means slaves converted to 
 the Christian faith ; and the zugon or yoke is the state of sla- 
 very, and by despotai, masters, we are to understand the hea- 
 then masters of those christianized slaves. Even these, in such 
 circumstances, and under such domination, are commanded to 
 treat their masters with all honor and respect, that the name of 
 God by which they were called, and the doctrine of God, Chris- 
 tianity, which they had professed, might not be blasphemed — 
 might not be evilly spoken of in consequence of their improper 
 conduct. Civil rights arc never abolished by any communica- 
 tions from God's Spirit. The civil state in which a man was 
 before his conversion, is not altered by that conversion ; nor 
 does the grace of God absolve him from any claims which eith- 
 er the State or his neighbor miay have on him. All these out- 
 ward things continue unaltered. And they that have believing 
 masters let them not des^nse thetn, supposing themselves to be 
 their eauals because they are their brethren in Christ : and 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 133 
 
 grounding their opinion on this, that in him there is neither 
 male or female, bond nor free : for, although all are equal as 
 to their spiritual privileges and state, yet there still continues in 
 the order of God's providence a great disparity in their station ; 
 the master must ever be, in this sense, superior to the servant. 
 But rather do them service — obey them the more cheerfully, 
 because they are faithful and heloved — faithful to God's 
 grace, beloced by Him and His true followers. Partakers of 
 the benefit. This is generally understood as referring to the 
 master's participation in the services of his slaves ; or it may 
 apply to the servants who are partakers of many benefits from 
 their Christian masters. Others think that benefit here refers 
 to the grace of the gospel, the common salvation of believing 
 masters and slaves." 
 
 Dr. Doddridge, a great light among the English 
 Oongregationalists, whose practical works are in almost 
 every Christian family, and whose precious hymns are 
 sung wherever the name of Christ is known, gives us 
 the following paraphrase : 
 
 "■ Let, therefore, as many servants as are under the yoke of 
 bondage, account their own masters worthy of all that civil 
 honor and respect which suits the station in which they respec- 
 tively are : not taking occasion from their own religious knowl- 
 edge and privilege to despise and rebel against them ; that the 
 name and doctrine of God which they profess may not be 
 blasphemed by their insolence and pride. And as for those 
 servants who are so happy as to have believing masters, let 
 them not presume on that account to despise them because they 
 are brethren, and with respect to sacred privileges equal in 
 Christ their common Lord ; but let them rather serve them with 
 so much the greater care and tenderness, because they are faith- 
 ful and beloved, and partakers with them of the great and glo- 
 rious benefit which the gospel brings to all its professors of 
 whatever rank or station in life," 
 
134 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 I will add one more testimony from Olshausen, (as 
 continued by Wiesinger,) a work which stands deser- 
 vedly high among the most evangelical productions of 
 modern Germany. 
 
 " Vs. 1. * As many under the yoke as are slaves,' — thus 
 De Wette rightly renders the words, taking douloi as the pre- 
 dicate : for the distinction cannot be intended to be drawn be- 
 tween such slaves as are under the yoke and such as are not. 
 A slave is as such under the yoke : the expression therefore 
 does not imply harsh treatment ; nor can it in itself mark the 
 distinction between such slaves as serve heathen and such as 
 serve Christian masters. The expression is rather used by the 
 apostle in opposition to the false ideas that were held on the 
 subject of emancipation. Whosoever is under the yoke is to 
 conduct himself according to this his position. They are to 
 count their masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God 
 and the doctrine be not blasphemed. One can easily conceive 
 what danger there was lest the Christian slave should inwardly 
 exalt himself above his heathen master, and look down upon 
 him. To meet this danger, there is here required of him not 
 merely outward subjection, but inward esteem. 
 
 '' Vs. 2 treats of Christian slaves under Christian masters. 
 Such slaves are not to see in the fact of their masters being 
 their brethren in Christ, a reason for despising them, (for to 
 place themselves on a level with those to whom they owe sub- 
 jection is already to despise them ;) but they are rather to find 
 in this circumstance a motive to serve the more, i. e., to do all 
 the more what their position as slaves lays upon them." 
 
 Dr. Gill, the well known Baptist Commentator, 
 gives us substantially the same exposition. 
 
 The text, as thus expounded by the concurrent testi- 
 mony of all the commentators, is a prophecy written for 
 
OF ABOLITIONISil. 135 
 
 these days, and woiiderfidly applicable to our present 
 circumstances. It gives us a lifelike picture of Aboli- 
 tionism in its principles, its spirit, and its practice, and 
 furnishes us plain instruction in regard to our duty in 
 the premises. Before entering upon the discussion of 
 the doctrine, let us define the terms employed. By 
 Abolitionism, we mean the principles and measures of 
 Abolitionists. And what is an Abolitionist? He is 
 one who believes that slaveholding is sin, and ought 
 therefore to be abolished. This is the fundamental, the 
 cliaracteristic, the essential principle of Abolitionism — 
 that slaveholding is sin — that holding men in involun- 
 tary servitude is an infringement upon the rights of 
 man, a heinous crime in the sight of God. A man may 
 believe, on political or commercial grounds, that slavery 
 is an undesirable system, and that slave labor is not the 
 most profitable ; he may have various views as to the 
 rights of slaveholders under the constitution of the 
 country ; he may think this or that law upon the statute 
 books of the Soutliern States is wrong ; but this does 
 not constitute him an Abolitionist ; to be entitled to 
 this name, he must believe that slaveholding is morally 
 ivrong: The alleged sinfulness of slaveholding, as it is 
 the characteristic doctrine, so it is the strength of Abo- 
 litionism in all its ramified and various forms. It is by 
 this doctrine that it lays hold upon the hearts and con- 
 sciences of men, that it comes as a disturbing force into 
 our ecclesiastical and civil institutions, and by exciting 
 religious animosity, (wiiich all history proves to be the 
 strongest of human passions,) imparts a peculiar inten- 
 sity to every contest into which it enters. And you 
 will perceive it is just here that Abolitionism presents a 
 
136 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 proper subject for discussion in the pulpit : for it is one 
 great purpose of the Bible, and therefore one great duty 
 of God's ministers in its exposition, to show what is sin 
 and what is not. 
 
 Those who hold the doctrine that slaveholding is sin, 
 and ought therefore to be abolished, differ very much in 
 the extent to which they reduce their theory to prac- 
 tice. In some this faith is almost without works. They 
 content themselves with only voting in such a way as in 
 their judgment will best promote the ultimate triumph 
 of their views. Others stand off at what they suppose 
 a safe distance, as Shimei did when he stood on an op- 
 posite hill to curse King David, and rebuke the sin, and 
 denounce Divine judgments upon the sinner. Others, 
 more practical, if not more prudent, go into the very 
 midst of the alleged wickedness, and teach " servants 
 under the yoke " that they ought not to count their 
 own masters worthy of all honor — that liberty is their 
 inalienable right — which they should maintain, if nec- 
 essary, even by the shedding of blood. Now, it is not 
 for me to decide who, of all these, are the truest to 
 their own principles. It is not for me to decide 
 whether the man who preaches this doctrine in brave 
 words, amid applauding multitudes in the city of Brook- 
 lyn, or the one who, in the stillness of the night, and in 
 the face of the law's terrors, goes to practise the 
 preaching at Harper's Ferry, is the most consistent 
 Abolitionist, and the most heroic man. It is not for 
 me to decide which is the most important part of a tree ; 
 and if the tree be poisonous, which is the most injurious, 
 the root, or the branches, or the fruit. But I am here 
 to-night, in God's name, and by His help, to show that 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 
 
 137 
 
 this tree of Abolitionism is evil, and only evil — root 
 and branch, flower, and leaf, and fruit ; that it springs 
 from, and is nourished by, an utter rejection of the 
 Scriptures ; that it produces no real benefit to the en- 
 slaved, and is the fruitful source of division and strife, 
 and infidelity, in both Church and State. I have four 
 distinct propositions on the subject to maintain— four 
 theses to nail up over this pulpit, and defend with the 
 " word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit." 
 
 I. _ Abolitionism has no foundation in the Scriptures. 
 
 II. _ Its principles have been promulgated chiefly by 
 misrepresentation and abuse. 
 
 III. — It leads in multitudes of cases, and by a logi- 
 cal process, to utter infidelity. 
 
 IV._-It is the chief cause of the strife that agitates, 
 and the danger that threatens, our country. 
 
 I. — ABOLITIONISM HAS NO FOUNDATION IN SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Passing by the records of the patriarchal age, and 
 waiving the question as to those servants in Abraham's 
 family who, in the simple, but expressive language of 
 Scripture, '' were bought with his money," let us come 
 at once to the tribunal of that law which God promul- 
 gated amid the solemnities of Sinai. What said the 
 law and the testimony to that peculiar people over 
 whom God ruled, and for whose institutions He has 
 assumed the responsibility? The answer is in the 
 twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, in these words : — 
 
 " And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, 
 and he sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a 
 
138 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 bond-servant ; but as a hired servant and a sojourner lie shall 
 be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee, and 
 then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with 
 him." 
 
 So far, you will observe, the law refers to the chil- 
 dren of Israel, who by reason of poverty were reduced 
 to servitude. It was their right to be free at the year 
 of jubilee, unless they chose to remain in perpetual 
 bondage ; for which case provision is made in other and 
 distinct enactments.* But not so with slaves of foreign 
 birth. There was no year of jubilee provided for 
 them, f For what says the law ? Read the forty- 
 fourth to forty-sixth verses of the chapter. 
 
 " 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 
 
 * Exodus xxi. 5, 6 : "And if the servant (i. e., the Hebrew servant, 
 as the context shows) shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and 
 my children ; I will not go out free ; then his master shall bring him 
 unto the judges ; he shall also bring him to the door or unto the door- 
 post ; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl : and he 
 
 SHALL SERVE HIM FOREVER." 
 
 t The abolitionists have blown this jubilee trumpet with a zeal worthy 
 of a better cause. They have insisted that under the Levitical economy 
 slaves could only be held for fifty years. Now, inasmuch as the average 
 of human life is somewhere between thirty and forty years, some, at 
 least, of these slaves, according to the interpretation of the Abolitionists 
 themselves, must have ended their days in bondage. But the fact is, as 
 any one may see by a candid reading of the twenty-fifth chapter of Le- 
 viticus, the year of jubilee had no reference to bondmen of foreign 
 birth, but only to Hebrew landowners who were " waxen poor and fall- 
 en in decay." " They might purchase bondmen of the heathen nations 
 that were round about them, or of tho^e strangers that sojourned among 
 them, and might claim a dominion over them, and entail them upon 
 their families, as an inhei-itance, /or the year of jubilee should give 
 them no discharge.''^ — Matthew Henrt. 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 189 
 
 children of the strangers that do sojourn among you — of them 
 shall ye buy and of their fLimilies that are with you, which they 
 beget in your land ; and they shall be your possession. And 
 ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, 
 to inherit them for a possession ; they shall be Tjour bondmen 
 forever.'''' 
 
 There it is, plainly written in the Divine law. No 
 legislative enactment, no statute framed by legal skill, 
 v.'as ever more explicit and incapable of perversion. 
 When the Abolitionist tells me that slaveholding is sin, 
 in the simplicity of my faith in the Holy Scriptures, I 
 point him to this sacred record, and tell him, in all can- 
 dor, as my text does, that his teaching blasphemes the 
 name of God and His doctrine. When he begins to 
 dote about questions and strifes of words, appealing to 
 the Declaration of Independence, and asserting that the 
 idea of property in men is an enormity and a crime, I 
 still hold him to the record, saying, " Ye shall take 
 them as an inheritance for your children after you, to 
 inherit them for a possession." When he waxes warm, 
 as he always does if his opponent quote Scripture 
 (which is the great test to try the spirits whether they 
 be of God — the very spear of Ithuriel to reveal their 
 true character) — when he gets angry, and begins to 
 pour out his evil surmisings and abuse upon slavehold- 
 ers, I obey the precept which says, " from such with- 
 draw thyself," comforting myself with this thought: 
 that the wisdom of God is wiser than men, and the 
 kindness of God kinder than men. Philosophers may 
 reason, and reformers may rave till doomsday ; they 
 never can convince me that God, in the Levitical law, 
 or in any other law, sanctioned sin ; and as I know, 
 
140 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 from tlie plain passage I have quoted, and many more 
 like it, that He did sanction slaveholding among His 
 ancient people, I know, also, by the logic of that faith 
 which believes the Bible to be His word, that slavehold- 
 ing is not sin. 
 
 Abolitionists are accustomed to answer this appeal to 
 the Levitical law, by asserting that the Old Testament 
 gives tlie same sanction to polygamy that it does to 
 slaveholding ; and I am sorry to observe tlmt ministers 
 of the gospel make this broad assertion in the pulpit, 
 without condescending to give us the proof-texts. Sup- 
 pose the Old Testament does sanction polygamy, what 
 then ? What is the purpose of the Abolitionist in mak- 
 ing this assertion ? Does he mean to cast contempt up- 
 on the Levitical law, by proving that it sanctions wliat 
 all Christians under the gospel admit to be wrong ? Or 
 does he mean to maintain that both slaveholding and 
 polygamy are relations on which the Divine sanction 
 rests? If it can be proved that the law of God, as 
 promulgated by Moses, did sanction polygamy, I am 
 prepared at once to say that polygamy is in itself no 
 sin ; and if there has been no explicit repeal of that 
 sanction, that it is still right to have a plurality of 
 wives. I know of nothing as sin except that whicli 
 transgresses God's law. But the fact is, this attempt to 
 offset slaveholding with polygamy is mere assertion. 
 We call for the proof. Point us in the divine law 
 which came by Moses, a passage in reference to a plu- 
 rality of wives, clear and explicit, like that we have 
 quoted in reference to the purchase of bondmen from 
 the heathen. It cannot be done. It is true some of 
 the patriarchs had more wives than one ; and this fact 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 141 
 
 is recorded. And so David committed murder and 
 adultery ; and that fact is recorded. But did God 
 sanction these sins for which the sweet singer poured 
 out his broken heart in the jSfty-first Psalm, as He did 
 sanction slaveholding, by inserting in His law express 
 directions as to how they were to be committed ? There 
 cannot be found anywhere in the Levitical law, either a 
 permission that a man may have two wives, or any di- 
 rection as to how he shall obtain them. The nearest 
 approach to such a precept is found in Deut. xxi. 15, 
 where it says, '' if a man have two wives," he shall do 
 thus and so with the children. If a man have two 
 wives ! Is that the same thing as to say a man may 
 have two wives ? When the law says, " if a man 
 smite his servant till he die," is that the same thing as 
 to sanction the beating of a slave to death ? 
 
 The most that has ever been claimed for polygamy 
 under the Levitical Law is a hare toleration. Michael- 
 is, who is the great authority on that side of the ques- 
 tion, says : " It does not appear that Moses permitted 
 polygamy willingly, or as a matter of indifference, in 
 either a moral or political view, but, as Christ express- 
 es it, merely on account of the hardness of their hearts. 
 In other words, he did not approve, but found it advis- 
 able to tolerate it as a point of civil expediency." — 
 Commentaries on the Laivs of Moses, vol. 2, p. 8. 
 
 Now, even if we admit that for expediency sake the 
 inspired lawgiver tolerated polygamy, it must be evi- 
 dent to every candid reader, that slaveholding holds a 
 very different position under the divine law. Slave- 
 holding is there not merely by a silence which gives 
 consent, but it is there as a matter of express enact- 
 
142 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 merit. It was anticipated by the law. It is not tnie, 
 as is so often asserted, i\\dii Moses found slavery among 
 the Israelites. At tlie time when he came to set up 
 their nationality under the most perfect theocracy the 
 world ever saw, they had themselves been slaves for 
 generations. When they went out of Egypt, they had 
 no social or commercial ties to bind them to a relation 
 which the cruelty of their heathen masters had so long- 
 used as an instrument of oppression. There was not 
 one slave in all that mighty host who gathered around 
 Mount Sinai, to receive the law by which their future 
 institutions were to be moulded. 
 
 Regarding Moses (as Michaelis and other rationalis- 
 tic commentators do) merely in the light of a human 
 lawgiver, how easy it would have been for him, by the 
 insertion of one positive prohibition into his code, or 
 even by the preaching of one abolition sermon, to put 
 the stigma of his disapprobation forever upon slavehold- 
 ing ! How easy for him to keep silence, as it is alleged 
 he did, in reference to polygamy, and thus leave slave- 
 holding on the footing of an evil tolerated for expedi- 
 ency sake ! Or to speak more like a Christian minis- 
 ter, how easy it would have been for God, if he regards 
 slaveholding as sinful, in those days when his chosen 
 people trembled before Sinai, under the utterance of 
 that law which was to shape their character and desti- 
 ny as a nation, to write the doctrine of Abolitionism in 
 His lioly law, and grave it indelibly upon the inspired 
 records of the world. The fact that he uttered no suc;]i 
 doctrine, but, on the contrary, instructed the chosen 
 seed to purchase^ and liold^ and bequeath their bondmen 
 to their posteritt/, shuts every man up to the alternative.', 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 143 
 
 either to reject Abolitionism, or reject Moses as an in- 
 spired lawgiver. 
 
 It must be admitted that the Jewish Rabbis, whe 
 tauglit for commandments the doctrines of men, con- 
 strued the law into a sanction of polygamy. But Christ, 
 the true expounder, showed them how their traditions 
 made void the 'law. Read his declaration on this sub- 
 ject in Matt. xix. 3 — 9 ; Mark x. 11 ; Luke xvi. 18. 
 lie admits that Moses suffered a man to marry a second 
 wife, provided he had previously divorced the first ; 
 but declares that even this permission was because of 
 the hardness of their hearts ; and then referring them to 
 the original and model marriage, by which twain were 
 made one flesh, he promulgates that great divine law, 
 which, however it is trampled on now by the legisla- 
 tures of nominally Christian states, was strictly observed 
 in the Apostolic Church, so that a Christian man as well 
 as a Christian minister, was " the husband of one wife." 
 
 Admitting, for the sake of the argument, that the Le- 
 vitical law gives no more sanction to slaveholding than it 
 did to polygamy, we ask the advocates of Abolitionism 
 if Christ ever rebuked the prevailing practice in regard 
 to the one, as he did in reference to the other ? Leav- 
 ing Moses and the Prophets, let us turn now to Jesus 
 and His Apostles. 
 
 There are men, even among professing Christians, 
 and not a few ministers of the gospel, who answer the 
 argument from the Old Testament Scriptures, by a sim- 
 ple denial of their authority. They do not tell us how 
 God could ever or anywhere countenance that which is 
 morally wrong, but they content themselves with saying 
 that the Levitical law is no rule of action for us ; and 
 
144 THE CIIAIIACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 tliey appeal from its decisions to what they consider 
 the higlicr tribunal of the gospel.* Let us, therefore, 
 join issue with them before the bar of the New Testa- 
 ment Scriptures. Here there is no lack of witnesses in 
 the case. It is a historic truth, acknowledged on all 
 hands, that at the advent of Jesus Christ slavery existed 
 all over the civilized world, and was intimately inter- 
 woven with its social and civil institutions. In Judca, 
 in Asia Minor, in Greece, in all the countries where the 
 Saviour or his Apostles preached the gospel, slavehold- 
 ing was just as common as it is to-day in South Caro- 
 lina. It is not alleged by any one, or, at least, by any 
 one having any pretensions to scholarship or candor, 
 that the Roman laws regulating slavery were even as 
 mild as the very worst statutes which have been passed 
 upon the subject in modern times. It will not be denied 
 by any honest and well-informed man, that modern civ- 
 ilization and the restraining influences of the gospel, 
 have shed ameliorating influences upon the relation be- 
 tween master and slave, which were utterly unknown at 
 the advent of Christianity. And how did Jesus and 
 his Apostles treat this subject ? Masters and slaves met 
 them at every step in their missionary work, and were 
 present in every audience to which they preached. 
 The Roman law, which gave the full power of life and 
 
 * Some years since Dr. Wayland publicly asserted that the JVew Tes- 
 tament is the only and sufficient rule of faith for Christians. The 
 editors of the New York Observer challenged this statement ; and, as I 
 have been informed, the late Dr. James Alexander offered to debate the 
 question in the columns of that journal. Dr. Wayland prudently de- 
 clined the discussion, promising, however, that he would, at a conve- 
 nient season, explain and defend his views. The promised explanation 
 has not yet appeared. 
 
OF ABOLITIONIS.V. 145 
 
 death into tlie master's Iiand, was Aimiliar to them ; and 
 all the evils connected with the system surrounded them 
 every day, as obviously as the light of heaven. And 
 yet, it is a remarkable fact, which the Abolitionist does 
 not, because he cannot deny, that the New Testament 
 is utterly silent in regard to the alleged sinfulness of 
 slaveholding. In all the instructions of the Saviour ; 
 in all the reported sermons of the inspired Apostles ; 
 in all the epistles they were moved by the Holy Spirit 
 to write, for the instruction of coming generations — 
 tliere is not one distinct and explicit denunciation of 
 slaveholding, nor one precept requiring the master to 
 emancipate his slaves. Every acknowledged sin is 
 openly and repeatedly condemned, and in unmeasured 
 terms. Drunkenness and adultery, theft and murder — 
 all the moral wrongs which ever have been known to 
 afflict society, are forbidden by name ; and yet, according 
 to the teaching of Abolitionism, this greatest of all sins — 
 this sum of all villanies — is never spoken of except in 
 respectful terms. How can this be accounted for ? 
 
 Let Dr. Wayland, whose work on moral science is 
 taught in many of our schools, answer this question ; 
 and let parents whose children are studying that book, 
 diligently consider his answer. I quote from Wayland's 
 Moral Science, page 213 : — 
 
 " The gospel was designed not for one race or for one time, 
 but for all races and for all times. It looked not to the aboli- 
 tion of slavery for that age alone, but for its universal abolition. 
 Hence the important object of its Author was to gain for it a 
 lodgment in every part of the known world, so that, by its uni- 
 versal diffusion among all classes of society, it might, quietly 
 and peacefully, modify and subdue the evil passions of men. 
 7 
 
140 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 In this manner alone could its object — a universal moral revo- 
 lution — have been accomplished. For if it had forbidden the 
 evil, instead of subverting the principle ; if it had proclaimed 
 the unlawfulness of slavery, and taught slaves to resist the op- 
 pression of their masters, it would instantly have arrayed 
 the two parties in deadly hostility throughout the civilized 
 world ; its announcement would have been the signal of servile 
 war, and the very name of the Christian religion would have 
 been forgotten amidst the agitation of universal bloodshed. 
 The fact, under these circumstances, that the gospel does not 
 forbid slavery, affords no reason to suppose that it does not 
 mean to prohibit it." 
 
 We pause not now to comment upon the admitted 
 fact that the gospel does not forbid slavery, and that 
 Jesus Christ and his Apostles pursued a course entirely 
 different from that adopted by the Abolitionists, includ- 
 ing the learned author himself ; nor to inquire whether 
 the teaching of Abolitionism is not as likely to produce 
 strife and bloodshed in these days as in the first ages 
 of the Church. What we now call attention to, and 
 protest against, is the imputation here cast upon Christ 
 and His Apostles. Do you believe the Saviour sought 
 to insinuate His religion into the earth by concealing its 
 real design, and preserving a profound silence in regard 
 to one of the very worst sins it came to destroy ? Do you 
 believe that when he healed the centurion's servant, 
 (whom every honest commentator admits to have been 
 a slave,*) and pronounced that precious eulogy upon the 
 
 * We know the centurion's servant was a slave, not only from the 
 position and nationality of the master, but fi'om the very name given in 
 the original to the servant. " Doulos " is derived from the verb deo, 
 to bind, and always signifies a bondman. 
 
 Dr. Robinson, whose Lexicon is the great standard upon such qucs- 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 147 
 
 master, " I have not seen so great faith in Israel " — 
 do you believe that Jesus sufiered that man to live on iu 
 sin because he deprecated the consequences of preacli- 
 ing Abolitionism ? When Paul stood upon Mars' Hill, 
 surrounded by ten thousand times as many slaveholders 
 as there were idols in the city, do you believe he kept 
 back any part of the requirements of the gospel be- 
 cause he was afraid of a tumult among the people ? We 
 ask these Abolition philosophers whether, as a matter 
 of fact, idolatry, and the vices connected with it, were 
 not even more intimately interwoven with the social and 
 civil life of the Roman empire than slavery was ? Did 
 the Apostles abstain from preaching against idolatry ? 
 Nay, who does not know that by denouncing this sin 
 they brought down upon themselves the whole power of 
 the Roman empire ? Nero covered the Christian mar- 
 tyrs with pitch, and lighted up the city with their burn- 
 ing bodies, just because they would not withhold or 
 compromise the truth in regard to the worship of idols. 
 In the light of that fierce persecution, it is a profane 
 trifling for Dr. Wayland, or any other man, to tell us 
 that Jesus or Paul held back their honest opinions of 
 slavery in order to avoid " a servile war, in which the 
 very name of the Christian religion would have been 
 forgotten." The name of the Christian religion is not 
 so easily forgotten ; nor are God's great purposes of 
 
 tions, says : " The doulos was never a hired servant, the latter being 
 called by another name — misthios, or misthoios.''^ This testimony is 
 confirmed by every authority, ancient and modern, European and Amer- 
 ican, except a little clique of Abolitionists, who, to siLstain their dogma, 
 would not only wrest the Scriptures, but overturn the very foundations 
 of the Greek language. 
 
148 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 redemption capable of being defeated by an honest de- 
 claration of His truth everywhere and at all times. 
 And yet this philosophy, so dishonoring to Christ and 
 His Apostles, is moulding the character of our young 
 men and women. It comes into our schools, and min- 
 gles with the very life-blood of future generations the 
 sentiment that Christ and His Apostles held back the 
 truth, and suffered sin to go unrebuked to avoid the 
 wrath of man. And all this to maintain, at all haz- 
 ards, and in the face of the Saviour's example to the 
 contrary, the unscriptural dogma that slaveholding is 
 sin. 
 
 But it must be observed, in this connection, that the 
 Apostles went much further than to abstain from preach- 
 ing against slaveholding. They admitted slaveholders 
 to the communion of the church. In our text, masters 
 are acknowledged as " brethren, faithful and beloved, 
 partakers of the benefit." If the New Testament is to 
 be received as a faithful history, no man was ever re- 
 jected by the Apostolic Church upon the ground that he 
 owned slaves. If he abused his power as a master, if 
 he availed himself of the authority conferred by the Ro- 
 man law to commit adultery, or murder, or cruelty, he 
 was rejected for these crimes, just as he would be reject- 
 ed now for similar crimes from any Christian Church in 
 our Southern States.* 
 
 * One of the grossest sins of Abolitionism, and one chief root of the 
 bitterness that has sprung up between the North and the South, is its 
 persistent slander on this subject. For example, some years ago it was 
 asserted, and reiterated by Abolition journals and lecturers, that a min- 
 ister at the South, without injm-y to his character, had tied up his slave 
 on Sabbath morning, and, liaving inflicted a cruel punishment, left him 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 149 
 
 If parents abused or neglected their cliildren, they 
 were censured, not for having children, but for not 
 treating them properly. And so with the slaveholder. 
 It was not the owning of slaves, but the manner in wliich 
 he fulfilled the duties of his station, that made him a 
 subject for cliurch discipline. The mere fact that lie 
 was a slaveholder no more subjected him to censure, 
 than the mere fact that he was a father or a husband. It 
 is, obviously, upon the recognized lawfulness of the rela- 
 tion, that all the precepts regulating the reciprocal du- 
 ties of that relation are based.* 
 
 These precepts are scattered all through the inspired 
 epistles. There is not one command or exhortation to 
 emancipate the slave. The Apostle well knew that for 
 the present emancipation would be no real blessing to 
 
 suspended, while he went to church to preach and administer the Lord's 
 supper, and then returned to inflict additional stripes upon his lacerated 
 victim. This is but a specimen. In regard to crimes against chastity, 
 the Southern churches have been shamefully slandered. What wonder 
 that Christian mothers, and even ministers of the gospel, are roused to 
 a revolutionary indignation by such abuse? 
 
 * It is often said that this argument from the precepts of the apostles 
 proves too much ; that it ma!<es the Bible sanction despotism, even the 
 iltspotism of Nero In reply to this we quote a few sentences from Dr. 
 Hodge's celebrated essay on slavery : " The argument for the lawfulness 
 of slaveholding is not founded on the mere injunction, ' slaves obey your 
 masters,' analogous to the command, ' let every soul be subject to the 
 higher powers,' but on the fact that the apostles did not condemn sla- 
 very ; that they did not require emancipation; and that they recogniz- 
 ei slaveholders as Christian brethren. To make the objection of any 
 force, it m.ust be shown that Paul not only enjoined obedience to a des- 
 potic monarch, but that he recognized JVero as a Christian. When 
 this is done, then we shall admit that our argument is fairly met, and 
 that it is just as true that he sanctioned the conduct of Nero as that he 
 acknowledged the lawfuhiess of slavery," 
 
150 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 him. But the master is exhorted to be kind and con- 
 siderate, and the slave to be obedient, tliat so they 
 might preserve the unity of that Church in which there 
 is no distinction between Greek or Jew, male or female, 
 bond or free. 
 
 It is often said that if the Bible does sanction slavo- 
 holding, it does not sanction American Slavery; tliai 
 it is not against slaveholding abstractly that the Aboli- 
 tionist protests, but against the system of American sla- 
 very taken as a ivhole. 
 
 To this I answer, the Bible does not sanction Ameri- 
 can marinage. The system, taken as a wliole, is full of 
 evil and iniquity. The laws of the several States in re- 
 gard to it, are, many of them, abominable ; and tlie 
 fruits that grow out of it are heart-sickening and dread- 
 ful. Husbands beat and poison their wives. Multi- 
 tudes of parents suffer their children to grow up in filtli 
 and ignorance ; and the details of the divorce cases with 
 which our northern newspapers have been reeking for 
 months past, are enough to poison the fountains of vir- 
 tue in every family where they are read. But is any 
 honest man and woman, who live together according to 
 God's ordinance, to be charged with the iniquity of the 
 statute-book of Indiana, or the misery and crime of the 
 Five Points ? Neither is any honest slaveholder in 
 Virginia to be charged with all the alleged or real evils 
 connected with the system of slavery. And how will 
 you correct the evils connected with marriage ? By i-ail- 
 ing at the whole system as an iniquity? By joining the ad- 
 vocates of Woman's Rights, in their crusade against the 
 divine law upon tlie subject ? By denouncing the relation 
 itself as sinful ? No ! You acknowledge the relation as 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 151 
 
 lawful, and seek to throw around it, and into tlie hearts 
 of those who sustain it, the sanctifying influences of the 
 blessed gospel. Just so, Christian men and ministers 
 are striving to remove the evils connected with slavery 
 in our Southern States. The gospel does not sanction 
 either the system of American marriage or tlie system 
 of American slavery, (if by system be meant everything 
 connected with the practical workings of the two rela- 
 tions ;) but then it did sanction both marriage and 
 slaveholding under a system of laws, and in a condition 
 of public morals, worse than now exist in either New 
 York or Charleston. The Apostles did not endorse 
 wicked laws in regard to slavery : they gave both mas- 
 ter and slave the law of Christ. They did not sanc- 
 tion licentiousness or cruelty in any social relation ; but 
 sought to throw over all the sweet and sanctifying in- 
 fluences of the truth as it is in Jesus. 
 
 Oh, if ministers of the gospel in this land and age 
 had but followed Paul as he followed Christ, and, in- 
 stead of hurling anathemas and exciting wrath against 
 slaveholders, had sought only to bring both master and 
 slave to the fountain of Emanuel's blood ; if the agen- 
 cies of the blessed gospel had only been suffered to 
 work their way quietly, as the light and dew of the 
 morning, into the structure of society, both North and 
 South — how different would have been the position of 
 our country this day before God ! How different would 
 liave been tlie privileges enjoyed by the poor black 
 man's soul, which, in this bitter contest, has been too 
 much neglected and despised ! Then there would have 
 been no need to have converted our churches into mili- 
 tary barracks for collecting fire-arms to carry on war 
 
152 THE CHARACIEIl AND INFLUENCE 
 
 upon a distant frontier. No need for a sovereign State 
 to execute tlie fearful penalty of tlie law upon the in- 
 vader, for doing no more than honestly to carry out the 
 teaching of Abolition preachers, who bind heavy bur- 
 dens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's 
 bhoulders, while they touch them not with one of their 
 fingers. No need for the widow and the orphan to 
 weep in anguish of heart over tliose cold graves, for 
 whose dishonor and desolation God will hold the real 
 authors responsible. No occasion or pretext for slave- 
 holding States to pass such stringent laws for the pun- 
 ishment of the secret incendiary and the prevention of 
 servile war. 
 
 I shall not attempt to show what will be the condition 
 of the African race in this country when the gospel sliall 
 have brought all classes under its complete dominion. 
 What civil and social relations men will sustain in the 
 times of millennial glory, I do not know. I cordially 
 incline to the current opinion of our church, tliat 
 slavery is permitted and regulated by the Divine law, 
 under both the Jewish and Christian dispensations, not 
 as the final destiny of the enslaved, but as an important 
 and necessary process in their transition from heathen- 
 ism to Christianity — a wheel in the great machinery of 
 Providence, by which the final redemption is to be ac- 
 complished. However this may be, one thing I know, 
 and every Abolitionist might know, if he would, that 
 there are Christian families at the South in which a pa- 
 triarchal fidelity and affection subsist between the bond 
 and the free, and where slaves are better fed and 
 clothed and instructed, and have a better opportunity 
 for salvation, than the majority of laboring people in 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 153 
 
 (lie city of New York. If the tongue of Abolitionism 
 had only kept silence these twenty years past, tlie nun> 
 l)er of such families would be tenfold as great. Fanati- 
 cism at tlie North is one chief stumbling-block in tlie 
 way of the gospel at the South. This is one great 
 grievance that presses to-day upon the hearts of our 
 Christian brethren in the Southern States. This, in a 
 measure, explains why such men as Dr. Thornwell, of 
 South Carolina, and Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans — 
 men whose genius and learning and piety would adorn 
 any state or station — are willing to secede from the 
 Union. They feel that the influence of the Christian 
 ministry is hindered, and their power to do good to both 
 master and slave crippled, by the constant agitations of 
 Abolitionism in our national councils, and the incessant 
 turmoil excited by the unscriptural dogma that slave- 
 holding is sin. They hope that under some other gov- 
 ernment they may have that peace for the prosecution 
 of their Master's work, which the Constitution of the 
 United States has hitherto failed to secure for them. 
 Whatever I may think of secession as a remedy for the 
 evils complained of, in my heart I do not blame them. 
 My soul is knit to such men with the sympathy of Jona- 
 than for David. Whatever be the result of this contest, 
 the union between their hearts and mine, cemented by 
 the word and Spirit of God, can never be dissolved. 
 Earth and hell cannot dissolve it. Though my lot is 
 cast in a colder clime, yet in the outgoings of that warm 
 affection to which space is nothing, I will ever say, 
 " Entreat me not to leave thee, for your people shall be 
 my people, and your Cod my God ! " and thougli we 
 may be separated in body for awhile by tlie dark gulf 
 
IS-! THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 of political disunion, and by the absorbing strife for 
 which everj^ sound man at the North will soon be 
 called upon to gird himself — the long, long rest of 
 eternity, will afford abundant opportunity for the inter- 
 change of our mutual charities. 
 
 II. THE PRINCIPLES OP ABOLITION HAVE BEEN PROPA- 
 GATED CHIEFLY BY MISREPRESENTATION AND ABUSE. 
 
 Having no foundation in Scripture, it does not carry 
 on its warfare by Scripture weapons. Its prevailing 
 spirit is fierce and proud, and its language is full of 
 wrath and bitterness. Let me prove this by testimony 
 from its own lips. I quote Dr. Channing, of Boston, 
 whose name is a tower of strength to the Abolition 
 cause, and whose memory is their continual boast. In 
 a w^ork published in the year 1836, I find the following 
 words : — 
 
 ^' The Abolitionists have done wrong, I believe ; nor is their 
 wrong to be winked at because done fanatically or with good 
 intentions ; for how much mischief may be wrought with good 
 designs ! They have fallen into the common error of enthusi' 
 asts, that of exaggerating their object, of feeling as if no evil 
 existed but that which they opposed, and as if no guilt could 
 be compared with that of countenancing and upholding it. The 
 tone of their newspapers, so far as I have seen them, has often 
 been fierce^ bitter, and abusive. They have sent forth their 
 orators, some of them transported with fiery zeal, to sound the 
 alarm against slavery through the land, to gather together young 
 and old, pupils from school, females hardly arrived at years of 
 discretion, the ignorant, the excitable, the impetuous, and to or- 
 ganize these into associations for the battle against oppression. 
 Yery unhappily, they preached their doctrine to the colored 
 people, and collected them into societies. To this mixed and 
 
OF ABOLITIONIS:^!. 155 
 
 excitable multitude, minute, heart-rending descriptions of sla- 
 very were given in piercing tones of passion ; and slaveholders 
 were held up as monsters of cruelty and crime. The Abolition- 
 ist, indeed, proposed to convert slaveholders ; and for this end 
 he approached them with vituperation, and exhausted on them 
 the vocabulary of abuse. And he has reaped as he has sowed." 
 
 Such is the testimony of Dr. Channing, given in the 
 year 1836. What would he have thought and said if 
 he had lived until the year 1860, and seen this little 
 stream, over whose infant violence he lamented, swell- 
 ing into a torrent and flooding the land ? 
 
 Abolitionism is abusive in its persistent misrepresent- 
 ation of the legal principles involved in the relation be- 
 tween master and slave. Its teachers reiterate, in a 
 thousand exciting forms, the assertion that the idea of 
 property in man blots out his manhood, and degrades 
 him to the level of a brute or a stone. " Domestic 
 slavery," says Dr. Wayland, in his work on Moral Sci- 
 ence, " supposes, at best, that the relation between mas- 
 ter and slave is not that which exists between man and. 
 man, but is a modification, at least, of that which exists 
 between man and the brutes." Do not these Abolitiofi- 
 ist philosophers know, that, according to the laws of 
 every civilized country on earth, a man has property in 
 his children, and a woman has property in her husband ? 
 The statutes of the State of New York, and of every 
 other Northern State, recognize and protect this prop- 
 erty, and our courts of justice have repeatedly assessed 
 its value. If a man is killed on a railroad, his wife 
 may bring suit, and recover damages for the pecuniary 
 loss she has suffered. If one man entice away the 
 daughter of another, and marry her, while she is still 
 
loO THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 under age, tlio father may bring a civil suit for dama- 
 ges for the loss of that child's services, and the pecuni- 
 ary compensation is the only redress the law provides.* 
 Thus the common law of Christendom, and the statutes 
 of our own State, recognize property in man. In what 
 does that property consist ? Simply in such services 
 as a man or a child may properly be required to render. 
 This is all that the Levitical law, or any other law, 
 means when it says, " Your bondmen shall be your pos- 
 session, or property, and an inheritance for your chil- 
 dren." The property consists, not in the right to treat 
 the slave like a brute, but simply in a legal claim for 
 such services as a man in that position may properly bo 
 required to render.f And yet Abolitionists, in the face 
 of the Divine law, persist in denouncing the very rela- 
 tion between master and slave " as a modification, at 
 least, of that which exists between man and the brutes." 
 This, however, is not the worst or most prevalent 
 form which their abusive spirit assumes. Their mode 
 of arguing the question of slaveholding, by a pretend- 
 ed appeal to facts, is a tissue of misrepresentation from 
 beginning to end. Let me illustrate my meaning by a 
 parallel case. Suppose I undertake to prove the wick- 
 edness of marriage, as it exists in the city of New 
 
 * If the law went further, as it ought to, and punished the minis- 
 ter who performs the marriage ceremony, the offence would not be so 
 often repeated in this community. 
 
 t With a manifest design to prejudice the student iigaiust the idea 
 of property in man, Dr. Wayland adopts a marvellous " Definition of 
 the right of Property." Let Christian parents and teachers look at it. 
 " The abstract right of property is the right to vse something in such 
 manner as I choose. But inasmuch as this right of use is common to 
 all men, and as one may choose to use his pi^operty in such a way as to 
 deprive his neighbor of this or of some other right, the right to use as I 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 157 
 
 York. Ill this discussion suppose the Bible is exclud- 
 ed, or, at least, that it is not recognized as having ex- 
 clusive jurisdiction in the decision of the question. My 
 first appeal is to the statute law of the State. 
 
 I show there enactments which nullify the law of 
 God, and make divorce a marketable and cheap com- 
 modity. I collect the advertisements of your daily pa- 
 pers, in which lawyers offer to procure the legal sepa- 
 ration of man and wife for a stipulated price, to say 
 nothing in this sacred place of other advertisements 
 wiiich decency forbids me to quote. Then I turn to the 
 records of our criminal courts, and find that every day 
 some cruel husband beats his wife, or some unnatural pa- 
 rent murders his child, or some discontented wife or hus- 
 band seeks the dissolution of the marriage bond. In the 
 next place I turn to the orphan asylums and hospitals, 
 and show there the miserable wrecks of domestic ty- 
 ranny, in wives deserted and children maimed by drunk- 
 en parents.* In the last place, I go through our 
 
 choose is limited by the restriction that I do not interfere with the rights 
 of my neighbor. The right of property, therefore, when thus restrict- 
 ed, is the right to use something as I chooae, provided I do not use it so 
 as to interfere with the rights of my neighbor.''— VugQ 229. Is that 
 so. Dr. Wayland ? Has a man a right, if he chooses, to take his horse 
 into the woods, where his neighbors will not be disturbed by his cruelty, 
 and there torture or starve the poor beast ? Does the master's claim to 
 property in his servant involve a claim to use that servant just as he 
 chooses, with no other restriction than the one you mention ? No, sir, 
 the abstract right of property, is the right to use some thing or person 
 according to the nature of that thing or person, and under all the re- 
 strictions Avhich the Divine law imposes, which restrictions go much fur- 
 ther than ray neighbor's rights. This is Christian philosophy. Your 
 definition would come with better grace from a heathen. 
 
 * There is in the Brooklyn Orphan Asylum, a little child who was 
 thrown into the fire, and almost roasted to death, by its father. If that 
 
153 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 streets, and into our tenement houses, and count the 
 thousands of ragged children, who, amid ignorance and 
 filth, are training for the prison and gallows. 
 
 Summing all these facts together, I put them forth as 
 the fruits of marriage in the city of New York, and a 
 proof that the relation itself is sinful: If I were a nov- 
 elist, and had written a book to illustrate this same 
 doctrine, I would call this array of facts a " Key." In 
 this key I say nothing about the sweet charities and af- 
 fections that flourish in ten thousand homes, not a word 
 about the multitude of loving-kindnesses that charac- 
 terize the daily life of honest people, about the instruc- 
 tion and discipline that are training children at ten 
 thousand firesides for usefulness here and glory hereaf- 
 ter ; — all this I ignore, and quote only the statute 
 book, the newspapers, tlie records of criminal courts, 
 and the miseries of the abodes of poverty. Now, what 
 have I done ? I have not misstated or exaggerated a 
 single fact. And yet am I not a falsifier and a slan- 
 derer of the deepest dye ? Is there a virtuous woman 
 or an honest man in this city, whoso cheeks would not 
 l)urn w^ith indignation at my one-sided and injurious 
 statements ? But this is just what Abolitionism has 
 done in regard to slaveholding. It has undertaken to 
 illustrate its cardinal doctrine in works of fiction ; and 
 then, to sustain the creation of its fancy, has attempted 
 to underpin it with an accumulation of facts. These 
 facts are collected in precisely the way that I have de- 
 scribed. The statute books of slaveholding Slates are 
 searched, and every wrong enactment collated, newspa- 
 
 child had been a slave in Charleston, how the sad story would have rung 
 throuo;h the land ! 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 159 
 
 per reports of cruelty and crime on the part of wicked 
 masters are treasured up and classified, all the outrages 
 that have been perpetrated " by lewd fellows of the 
 baser sort," — of whom there are plenty, both North 
 and South — are eagerly seized and recorded ; and this 
 mass of vileness and filth, collected chiefly from the 
 kennels and sewers of society, is put forth as a faitliful 
 exhibition of slaveholding. Senators in the forum, and 
 ministers in the pulpit, distill this raw material into the 
 more refined slander " that Southern society is essen- 
 tially barbarous, and that slaveholding had its origin in 
 hell." Legislative bodies enact and re-enact statutes 
 which declare that slaveholding is such an enormous 
 crime, that if a southern man, under the broad shield 
 of the constitution, and with the decisions of the Su- 
 preme Court of the country in his hand, shall come 
 within their jurisdiction, and set up a claim to a fugi- 
 tive slave, he shall be punished with a fine of $2,000 
 and fifteen years imprisonment. And this method of 
 argument has continued until multitudes of honest 
 Christian people in this and other lands, believe that 
 slaveholding is the sin of sins, the sum of all villanies. 
 Let me illustrate this by an incident in my own experi- 
 ence. A few years since I took from the centre-table 
 of a Christian family in Scotland, by whom I had been 
 most kindly entertained, a book entitled, " Life and 
 Manners in America." On the blank leaf was an in- 
 scription, stating that the book had been bestowed up- 
 on one of the children of the family, as a reward of 
 diligence in an institution of learning. The frontispiece 
 was a picture of a man of fierce countenance beating a 
 naked woman. The contents of the book were profess- 
 
160 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 edly compiled from the testimony of Americans upon 
 the subject of slavery. I dare not quote in this place 
 the extracts which I made in my memorandum. It will 
 be sufficient for mo to say that the book asserts as un- 
 doubted facts, that the banks of the Mississippi are 
 studded with iron gallows for the punishment of 
 slaves — that in the City of Charleston the bloody 
 block on which masters cut off the hands of disobedi- 
 ent servants may be seen in the public squares, and that 
 sins against chastity are common and unrebuked in pro- 
 fessedly Christian families. 
 
 Now in my heart I did not feel angry at the author 
 of that book, nor at the school-teacher who bestowed 
 it upon his scholar ; for in Christian charity I gave them 
 credit for honesty in the case. But standing there a 
 stranger among the martyr memories of that glorious 
 land, to which my heart had so often made its pilgrim- 
 age, I did feel that you and I, and every man in Amer- 
 ica, was wronged by the revilers of their native land, 
 who teach foreigners that hanging, and cutting off 
 hands, and beating women, are the characteristics of 
 our life and manners. 
 
 But we need not go to foreign lands for proof that 
 Abolitionism has carried on its warfare by the language 
 of abuse. The annual meeting of the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society brings the evidence to our doors. We 
 have been accustomed to laugh at these vernal exhibi- 
 tions of fanaticism, not thinking, perhaps, that what 
 was fun for us, was working deatli to our brethren, 
 whose property and reputation we are bound to protect. 
 The fact is, we have sufiered a fire to be built in our 
 midst, whose sparks have been scattered far and wide ; 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 161 
 
 and DOW wlien the smoke of the conflagration comes 
 back to blind our ejes, and the heat of it begins to 
 scorch our industrial and commercial interests, it will 
 not do for us to say that the utterances of that Society 
 are the ravings of a fanatical and insignificant few ; for 
 the men who compose it are honored in our midst with 
 titles and with offices. The ministers wdio have 
 thrown over its doings tlie sanction of our holy religion, 
 are quoted and magnified over the land as the represen- 
 tative men of tlie age ; and the man who stood up in 
 its deliberations in the year 1852, and exhausted the 
 vocabulary of abuse upon the compromise measures, 
 and the great statesmen who framed them, is now a 
 judge in our courts and the guardian of our lives and 
 property. 
 
 It will, doubtless, be said that misrepresentation and 
 abuse have not been confined, in the progress of this 
 unhappy contest, to the Abolitionists of the North ; that 
 demagogues and self-seeking men at the South have 
 been violent and abusive, and that newspapers profes- 
 sedly in the interest of the South, with a spirit which 
 can be characterized as little less than diabolical, have 
 circulated every scandal in the most aggravated and 
 irritating form. Eut suppose all this to be granted — 
 what then ? Can Christian men justify or palliate the 
 wrath and evil-speaking which are at their own doors, 
 i)y pointing to the retaliation which it has provoked 
 from their neighbors ? If I were preaching to-day to a 
 Southern audience, it would be my duty, and I trust 
 God would give me grace to perform it, to tell them of 
 their sins in this matter. And especially would it be 
 
1G2 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 my privilege, as a minister of the gospel of peace — a 
 privilege from wliicli no false views of manhood should 
 prevent me — to exhort and beseech them as brethren. 
 I would assure them, that there are multitudes here who 
 still cherish the memory of the battle-fields and coun- 
 cil-chambers where our fathers cemented this Union of 
 States, and who will stand by the compact of that con- 
 stitution to the utmost extremity. I would tell the 
 thousands of Christian ministers, among whom are some 
 of the brightest ornaments of the American pulpit, and 
 the tens of thousands of Christian men and women, 
 toward whom, while the love of Christ burns in me, my 
 heart never can grow cold, that if they will only be pa- 
 tient, and hope to the end, all wrongs may yet be right- 
 ed. Therefore, I would beseech them not to put a great 
 gulf between us, and cut off the very opportunity for 
 reconciliation upon an honorable basis, by a revolution 
 whose end no human eye can see. But, then, 1 am not 
 preaching at the South. I stand here, at one of the 
 main fountain-heads of the abuse we have complained 
 of. 
 
 I stand here to rebuke this sin, and exhort the guilty 
 parties to repent and forsake it. It is magnanimous 
 and Christ-like for those from whom the first provoca- 
 tion came, to make the first concessions. 
 
 The legislative enactments which are in open and ac- 
 knowledged violation of the constitution, and whose 
 chief design is to put a stigma upon slaveholding, must 
 and will be repealed. Truth and justice will ultimately 
 prevail ; and God's blessing, and the blessings of gen- 
 erations yet unborn, will rest upon that party, in this 
 unhappy contest, who first stand forth to utter the Ian- 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 163 
 
 giiage of conciliation, and proffer the olive-branch of 
 peace. The great fear is, that the reaction will come 
 too late ; but sooner or later it ivillcome. Abolitionism 
 ought to, and one day will, change the mode of its war- 
 fare, and adopt a new vocabulary. I believe in the lil)- 
 erty of the press, and in freedom of speech ; but I do 
 not believe that any man has the right, before God, or 
 in the eye of civilized law, to speak and publish what 
 he pleases, without regard to the consequences. With 
 the conscientious convictions of our fellow-citizens, nei- 
 ther we, nor the law, have any right to interfere ; but 
 the law ought to protect all men from the utterance of 
 libellous words, whose only effect is to create division 
 and strife. 
 
 I trust and pray, and call upon you to unite with me 
 in the supplication, that God would give Abolitionists 
 repentance and a better mind, so that in time to come 
 they may, at least, propagate their principles in decent 
 and respectful language. 
 
 III. ABOLITIONISM LEADS, IN MULTITUDES OF CASES, AND 
 
 BY A LOGICAL PROCESS, TO UTTER INFIDELITY. 
 
 On this point I would not, and will not, be misunder- 
 stood. I do no not say that Abolitionism is infidelity. 
 I speak only of the tendencies of the system, as indi- 
 cated in its avowed principles and demonstrated in its 
 practical fruits. 
 
 One of its avowed principles is, that it does not try 
 slavery by the Bible ; but as one of its leading advo- 
 cates has recently declared, it tries the Bible by the 
 principles of freedom. It insists that the word of God 
 must be made to support certain human opinions, or 
 
164 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 forfeit all claims' upon our faith. That I may not be 
 suspected of exaggeration on this point, let me quote, 
 from the recent work of Mr. Barnes, a passage which 
 may well arrest the attention of all thinking men : — 
 
 " There are the great principles in our nature, as God has 
 made us, which can never be set aside by any authority of a 
 professed revelation. If a book claiming to be a revelation 
 from God, by any fair interpretation, defended slavery, or plac- 
 ed it on the same basis as the relation of husband and wife, pa- 
 rent and child, guardian and ward, such a book would not, and 
 could not, be received by the mass of mankind as a Divine 
 revelation." — Barnes on Slavery and the Church, p. 193. 
 
 This assumption, that men are capable of judging be- 
 forehand what is to be expected in a Divine revelation, 
 is the cockatrice's Qgg^ from which, in all ages, heresies 
 have been hatched. This is the spider's web which men 
 have spun out of their own brains, and clinging to 
 which, they have attempted to swing over the yawning 
 abyss of infidelity.* Alas, how many have fallen in, 
 and been dashed to pieces ! When a man sets up the 
 
 * It is not denied that man, as originally constituted by his Creator, 
 "was capable of discerning for himself between good and evil Even 
 since the fall the law of God is still written in the heart, (Rom. ii. 3., 
 and would be a sufficient guide, if there were nothing to blot and per- 
 vei't it. But what says the Apostle in regard to the whole world who 
 have not the Scriptures? " They have become vain in their imagina- 
 tions, and their foolish heart is darkened," &c., (Rom. i. 21 — 25). What 
 are the principles by which, according to Mr. Barnes's theory, these 
 men are to try •' the authority of a supposed revelation? " Their prin- 
 ciples teach them ihat human sacrifices, and all kinds of uncleanness, 
 are right. Must a supposed revelation conform to these principles in 
 order to secure their acceptance of it ? 
 
 Mr. Barnes well knows, that in Christian lands the ablest and best 
 men differ as to what are the principles of our natui-e. Who will as- 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 165 
 
 great principles of our nature (by which lie always 
 means his own preconceived opinions) as tlie supreme 
 tribunal before which even the law of God must be 
 tried — when a man says " the Bible must teach Abo- 
 litionism, or I will not receive it," he has already cut 
 loose from the sheet-anclior of faith. True belief says, 
 " Speak, Lord, thy servant waits to hear." Abolition- 
 ism says, " Speak, Lord, but speak in accordance with 
 tlie principles of human nature, or thy w^ord cannot be 
 received by tlie great mass of mankind as a Divine 
 revelation." The fruit of such principles is just what 
 we might expect. Wherever the seed of Abolitionism 
 has been sown broadcast, a plentiful crop of infidelity 
 has sprung up. Li the communities where anti-slavery 
 excitement has been most prevalent, the power of the 
 gospel has invariably declined ; and when the tide of 
 fanaticism begins to subside, the wrecks of church order 
 and of Christian character have been scattered on the 
 shore. I mean no disrespect to New England — to the 
 good men who there stand by the ancient landmarks, 
 and contend earnestly for the truth — nor to the illus- 
 trious dead whose praise is in all the churches ; but 
 
 sume to be the oracle on this subject ? The Abolitionist will declare that 
 hoslility to slavery on moral grounds, is one of these principles. But 
 the great mass of mankind, including just as wise and good men as he 
 is, do not admit any such principle, and are not willing that he should 
 be dictator in morals. Besides, this whole appeal to natural principles 
 presents a false and deceitful issue. The Bible is admitted to be a Di- 
 vine revelation. The simple question is, what docs the Bible teach ? 
 Mr, Barnes, while professedly expounding the Scriptures, finds certain 
 texts, which, by every fair construction of words, seem to put God's 
 sanction on slaveholding. From these texts he desires to extort a differ- 
 ent meaning ; to justify which procedure, he appeals to the principles 
 of our (i. e., his) nature. 
 
166 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 who does not know that the States in which Abolition- 
 ism has achieved its most signal triumphs, are at the 
 same time the great strongholds of infidelity in the land ? 
 I have often thought that if some of those old pilgrim 
 fathers could come back, in the spirit and power of 
 Elias, to attend a grand celebration at Plymouth Rock, 
 they might well preach on this text : — ''If ye were 
 Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abra- 
 ham." The effect of Abolitionism upon individuals, is 
 no less striking and mournful than its influence upon 
 communities. 
 
 It is a remarkable and instructive fact, and one at 
 which Christian men would do well to pause and con- 
 sider, that, in this country, all the prominent leaders of 
 Abolitionism, outside of the ministry, have become 
 avowed infidels ; and that all our notorious Abolition 
 preachers have renounced the great doctrines of grace 
 as they are taught in the standards of the reformed 
 churches — have resorted to the most violent processes 
 of interpretation to avoid the obvious meaning of plain 
 Scriptural texts, and ascribed to the Apostles of Christ 
 principles from which piety and moral courage instinc- 
 tively revolt. They make that to be sin which the 
 Bible does not declare to be sin. They denounce, in 
 language such as the sternest prophets of the Law never 
 emj)loyed, a relation which Jesus and his Apostles re- 
 cognized and regulated. They seek to institute terms 
 and tests of Christian communion utterly at variance 
 witli the organic law of the Churcli, as founded by its 
 Divine Head ; and, attempting to justify this usurpation 
 of Divine prerogatives by an appeal from God's law to 
 the dictates of fallen human nature, they would set up 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 1G7 
 
 a spiritual tyranny more odious and insufferable, be- 
 cause more arbitrary and uncertain in its decisions, 
 than Popery itself. And as the tree is, so have its 
 fruits been. It is not a theory, but a demonstratedj 
 fact, that Abolitionism leads to infidelity. Such men 
 as Garrison, and Giddings, and Gerrit Smith, have 
 yielded to the current of their own principles, and 
 thrown the Bible overboard. Thousands of humbler 
 men who listen to Abolition preachers, will go and do 
 likewise. x\nd whether it be the restraints of official 
 position, or the preventing grace of God, that enables 
 such preachers to row up the stream and regard the 
 authority of Scripture in other matters, their influence 
 upon this one subject is all the more pernicious, because 
 t1iey prophesy in the name of Christ. In this sincere 
 and plain utterance of my deep convictions, I am only 
 discharging my conscience toward the flock over which 
 I am set. When the shepherd seeth the wolf coming, 
 he is bound to give warning. 
 
 IV. ABOLITIONISM IS THE CHIEF CAUSE OF THE STRIFE 
 
 THAT AGITATES AND THE DANGER THAT THREATENS 
 OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 Here, as upon the preceding point, I will not be mis- 
 understood. I am not here as the advocate or opponent 
 of any political party ; and it is no more than simple 
 justice for me to say plainly, that I do not consider 
 Republican and Abolitionist as necessarily synonymous 
 terms. There are tens of thousands of Christian men 
 who voted with the successful party in the late election, 
 who do not sympathize with the principles or aims of 
 
168 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 Abolitionism. Among these are some beloved members 
 of my own flock, who will not hesitate a moment to put 
 the seal of their approbation upon the doctrine of this 
 discourse. And what is still more to the point, there 
 seems to be sufiBcient evidence that the man wdio has 
 just been chosen to be the head of this nation, is among 
 the more conservative and Bible-loving men of his party. 
 We have no fears that if the new administration could 
 be quietly inaugurated, it would or could Abolitionize 
 the government. There are honest people enough in 
 the Northern States to prevent such a result. But, 
 then, while this is admitted, as a simple matter of truth 
 and justice, it cannot be denied, on the other hand, that 
 Abolitionism did enter with all its characteristic bitter- 
 ness into the recent contest; that the result never 
 could have been accomplished without its assistance, 
 and that it now appropriates the victory in words of 
 ridicule and scorn that sting like a serpent. Let me 
 give you, as a single specimen of the spirit in which 
 Abolitionism has carried on its political warfare, an ex- 
 tract from a journal which claims to have a larger 
 circulation than any other religious paper in the land. 
 I quote from the New York Independent^ of September, 
 1856: — 
 
 "■ The people will not levy war nor inaugurate a revolution, 
 even to relieve Kansas, until they have first tried what they can 
 do by voting. If this peaceful remedy should fail to be applied 
 this year, then the people will count the cost wisely, and decide 
 for themselves boldly and firmly, which is the better way, to 
 rise in arms and throw off a government worse than that of old 
 King George, or endure it another four years, and then vote 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 169 
 
 Such is the spirit — such the love to the constitution 
 and Union of these States, with which this religious 
 element has entered into and seeks to control our party 
 politics. 
 
 This passage is not quoted as an extraordinary one 
 for the columns of the Independent, for that paper is 
 accustomed to breathe out threatenings and slaughter. 
 It is but a fair illustration of the fierce spirit which this 
 so-called religious journal infuses into the families 
 where it is a weekly visitor, and of the opinions con- 
 cerning the United States government it seeks to dis- 
 seminate. The passage quoted has a special significance, 
 however, in view of its date, Septetnber, 1856. The 
 opinions of the Editors appear to liave undergone a 
 wonderful change in four years ; and forgetting that 
 they have been the violent advocates, not only of dis- 
 union but of civil war, they have become loud in 
 rebuking secession at the South. The genius of the 
 constitution might well say to such defenders, '' What 
 hast tliou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou 
 shouldst take my covenant in thy mouth ? " 
 
 But we deceive ourselves, if we suppose that our pres- 
 ent dangers are of a birth so recent as 1856. As the 
 questions now before the country rise in their magnitude 
 above all party interests, and ought at once to blot out 
 all party lines, so their origin is found far back of all 
 party organizations as they now exist. 
 
 An article published twenty years ago in the Prince- 
 ton Review, contains this remarkable language : — 
 
 " The opinion that slaveholding is itself a crime must ope- 
 rate to produce the disunion of the States and the division of 
 8 
 
170 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 «11 ecclesiastical societies in this country. Just so far as this 
 opinion operates, it will lead those who entertain it to submit to 
 any sacrifices to carry it out and give it effect. We shall be- 
 come two nations in feeling, which must soon render us two na- 
 tions in fact." 
 
 These words are wonderfully prophetic, and they who 
 read the signs of the times must see that the period of 
 their fulfilment draws near. In regard to ecclesiastical 
 societies, the division foretold is already in a great 
 measure accomplished. Three of our great religious 
 denominations have been rent in twain by the simple 
 question, " Is slaveholding a sin ? " 
 
 It yet remains to be seen whether the American Tract 
 Society, and the American Board of Foreign Missions, 
 will be revolutionized and dismembered by a contest 
 which, we are told, is to be annually renewed. In re- 
 gard to the Union , of these States, there is too much 
 reason to fear that " we are already two nations in 
 feeling," and to anticipate the near approach of the 
 calamity which shall blot out some of the stars in our 
 ensign, and make us two nations in fact. 
 
 And what has brought us to the verge of this preci- 
 pice ? What evil spirit has put enmity between the 
 seed of those whom God, by his blessing on the wisdom 
 and sacrifices of our fathers, made one flesh ? What 
 lias created and fostered this alienation between the 
 North and the South, until disunion — that used to be 
 whispered in corners — stalks forth in open daylight, 
 and is recognized as a necessity by multitudes of think- 
 ing men in all sections of the land ? I believe before 
 God, that this division of feeling, of which actual dis- 
 union will be but the expression and embodiment, was 
 
OP ABOLITIONISM. 171 
 
 begotten of Abolitionism, lias been rocked in its cradle 
 and fed with its poisoned milk, and instructed by its 
 ministers, until, girded with a strength which comes not 
 altogether of this upper world, it is taking hold upon 
 the pillars of the constitution, and shattering the nolde 
 fabric to its base. 
 
 There was a time when the constitutional questions 
 between the North and South •— the conflict of materi- 
 al interests growing out of their differences in soil and 
 production — were discussed in the spirit of statesman- 
 ship and Christian courtesy. Then such men as Dan- 
 iel Webster on the one side, and Calhoun on the other, 
 stood up face to face, and defended the rights of their 
 respective constituency, in words which will be quoted 
 as long as the English tongue shall endure, as a model 
 of eloquence and a pattern of manly debate. But 
 Abolitionism began to creep in. It came first as a 
 purely moral question. But very soon its doctrines 
 were embraced by a sufficient number to hold the bal- 
 ance of power between contending parties in many 
 districts and States. Aspirants for the Presidency 
 seized upon it as a weapon for gratifying their ambition 
 or avenging their disappointments. Under the shadow 
 of their patronage, sincere Abolitionists became more 
 bold and abusive in advocating their principles. The 
 unlawful and wicked business of enticing slaves from 
 their masters was pushed forward with increasing zeal. 
 Men who, in the better days of the republic, could not 
 have obtained the smallest office, were elected to__ Con- 
 gress upon this single issue ; and ministers of the gospel 
 descended from the pulpit to mingle religious animosity 
 with the boiling caldron of political strife. Nor was 
 
172 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 this process confined to one side in tlie contest. Abuse 
 always provokes recrimination. So long as human 
 nature is passionate, hard words will be responded to 
 by harder blows. And now behold the result ! In the 
 halls where Webster and Calhoun, Adams and McDuffie, 
 rendered the very name of American statesmanship 
 illustrious, and revived the memory of classic eloquence, 
 we have heard the outpouring of both Northern and 
 Southern violence from men who must be nameless in 
 this sacred place ; and in the land where such slave- 
 holders as Washington and Madison united with Ham- 
 ilton and Hancock in cementing the Union, which they 
 fondly hoped would be perpetual, commerce and manu- 
 fjictures, and all our great industrial and governmental 
 interests, are trembling on the verge of dissolution. 
 And as Abolitionism is the great mischief-maker be- 
 tween the North and South, so it is the great stumbling- 
 block in the way of a peaceful settlement of our 
 difficulties. Its voice is still for war. The spirit of 
 conciliation and compromise it utterly abhors ; and, 
 mingling a horrid mirth with its madness, puts into the 
 hands of the advocates of secession the very fans with 
 which to blow the embers of strife into a flame. One 
 man threw a torch into the great temple of the Ephe- 
 sians, and kindled a conflagration which a hundred 
 thousand brave men could not extinguish. One man 
 fiddled and sang, and made his courtiers laugh amid 
 the burning of Rome. And so, the Abolition preacher 
 "feels good" and overflows with merriment, when he 
 sees our merchants and laboring men running after their 
 chests and the bread of their families, " as if all crea- 
 tion was after them," and snuff's on the Southern breeze 
 
OP ABOLITIONISir. 173 
 
 the scent of servile and civil war. Oh, shame — shame 
 that it should come to this, and the name of our holy 
 religion be so blasphemed ! Let us hope, in Christian 
 charity, that such men do not comprehend the danger 
 that stares them in the face. Indeed, who of us does 
 fully comprehend it ? In the eloquent words of Daniel 
 Webster, " While the Union lasts, we have high, excit- 
 ing, gratifying prospects spread out before us — for us 
 and for our children. Beyond that I seek not to pene- 
 trate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that 
 curtain may not rise." I repeat the noble sentiment; 
 God grant that in my day the curtain may not rise ! Let 
 the niglit of the grave envelop these eyes in its peace- 
 ful sleep, ere their balls are seared with the vision of 
 dissolution and civil war. He must be blind who does 
 not perceive that such a vision is just ready to burst 
 upon us. 
 
 A kind and wonderful Providence has so tempered 
 the body of these States together, so bound and inter- 
 laced them with commercial and social ties, to say noth- 
 ing of legal obligations, that no member can be severed, 
 and especially no contest can be waged among the 
 members, without a quivering and anguish in every 
 nerve, and a stagnation in the vital currents of all. 
 Let one star be blotted out from our ensign, and the 
 moral gravitation which holds all in their orbits will be 
 paralyzed, if not utterly destroyed. The living exam- 
 ple of successful secession for one cause, will suggest 
 the same course for another ; and unless God gives our 
 public men a wisdom and forbearance of which the past 
 few years have aftbrded too little evidence, tlie dissolu- 
 tion of this Union will be the signal for the disintegra- 
 
174 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 
 
 tion of its elements. In sucli a cliaos, let us not flatter 
 ourselves that we shall be in entire peace and safety. 
 The contest, on whose perilous edge we stand, cannot 
 be merely sectional — all the North on the one side, 
 and all the South on the other. It is a conflict that 
 will run the ploughshare of division through every 
 State and neighborhood in the land. Abolition orator.- 
 may talk about what " we of the North " will do, and 
 will not do, as though all the people had bowed down 
 to worship the image they had set up ; but other men 
 besides them will claim the right to speak — other in- 
 terests will need to be conserved besides the cause upon 
 which they arrogantly assume that victory perches and 
 the smile of heaven rests. " Let not him who putteth 
 on his armor boast as he that putteth it off." 
 
 When the thousands of working-men whose subsis- 
 tence depends upon our trade with the South, many of 
 whom have been deluded by Abolition demagogues, 
 shall clamor in our streets for bread, free labor may pre- 
 sent some problems which political economy has not 
 solved. And when the commerce of this cosmopolitan 
 city is paralyzed, and all her benevolent and industrial 
 institutions are withering in the heat of this unnatural 
 contest, it may become a question — nay, is it not al- 
 ready whispered in your counting-houses — whether this 
 great metropolis can be separated from the people with 
 ^w^hom her interests and her heart is bound up, and con- 
 tinue to be controlled by a legislative policy against 
 which she is continually protesting ; or whether, follow- 
 ing the great lights of history, she will, at all hazards, 
 set up for herself, and, unbolting the gateway of her 
 magnificent harbor, invite the free trade of the world 
 
OF ABOLITIONISM. 1"^ 
 
 to ],onr its riclics into lier bosom. Such, arc a few of 
 the problems which bring the question of a dissolution 
 of the Union home to us. If we were sure of a peace- 
 ful solution, at whatever pecuniary or social sacrihce, 
 we would not feel so deeply nor speak so earnestly. 
 But who knows that it will be peaceful ? Where is the 
 sur<reon who can sever even one member from this body 
 pontic without the shedding of blood ? Where is the 
 statesman or political economist who will undertake to 
 control the parties, or direct the industrial interests of 
 any one State, amid the confusion and alarm of dissolu- 
 tion '^ Let us not deceive ourselves. The chasm be- 
 fore us is a yawning abyss, into whose depths no eye 
 but God's can penetrate. Other men may cry, '''A\ ho s 
 afraid ? " and whistle to keep their courage up ; but i 
 confess my fears. Through the curtain that is about to 
 rise, I see shadows at which the horror of a great dark- 
 ness settles down upon my spirit, and the hair of my 
 flesh stands up. Oh, my country ! I have loved thee 
 with an affection passing the love of woman ! The glo- 
 ries of thy historv, mingled with the life-blood of my 
 childhood ; thy prosperity has been the pride and boast 
 of my riper years ; and mingling in my heart the love 
 of country with the love of Christ, 1 have cherished the 
 hope that thy brightness would never be diminished un- 
 til it blended with the glories of the millennial day ; 
 that thy consummation would be like the settme; of the 
 morning star, 
 
 " Which goes not clown 
 Behind the darkened west, nor hides obscured 
 Among the tempests of the sky, but melts away 
 Into the light of heaven." 
 
176 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF ABOLITIONISM. 
 
 And must this precious hope be dispelled ? Must this 
 light go out, and the brightest prospect the world ever 
 beheld disappear amid confused noise, and garments 
 rolled in blood ? Must the interest of thirty millions 
 of white men be sacrificed, and the sun of civilization 
 be turned back upon the dial of the world's history, by 
 a fanaticism which all experience proves to be the black 
 man's bitterest enemy ? Let us appeal to the God of 
 peace, in whose hands are the hearts of all men, to dis- 
 pel the fearful vision, to infuse His loving Spirit into 
 our national councils, to give our public men the meek- 
 ness of wisdom, and to bind the hearts of all the people 
 once more in bonds of brotherly kindness. 
 
 But, if we would have these supplications answered, 
 let us prove our faith by our works ; take the beam out 
 of our own eye, and obey the two-fold precept of the 
 text : " These things teach and exhort ; and if any 
 man teach otherwise, from such withdraw thyself." 
 
PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE NO 
 ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 
 
 PUBLISHED IN '* THE WORLD" IN BEPLY TO THE PRECEDING SERMON OF 
 REV. HENRY J. VAN DYKE. 
 
 BY PROF. TAYLER LEWIS, D. D., 
 
 To the Editor of The World : 
 
 May I ask for such space as may be convenienily 
 given in your columns, to a reply to the late pro-slavery 
 sermon of the Rev. Henry J. Van Dyke ? The term 
 pro-slavery is used, not by way of reproach, but as ex- 
 pressing, in the briefest terms, the true efiect, as well 
 as description, of the discourse. It is apparently aim- 
 ed at the abolitionists, but, taken in connection with 
 the times, it is a strong defence of slavery as it now ex- 
 ists in these United States ; it is a defence of the men, 
 who, for the sake of slavery, are breaking up the Union ; 
 it is a defence of slavery as it is now held by southern 
 clergymen, as a normal, a perpetual, a divine institu- 
 tion ; it would logically justify its unlimited extension ; 
 it is a giving ease to the consciences of its more ultra 
 advocates ; it is a virtual justification of their proceed- 
 ings ; it is condemnatory of that great vote in the North, 
 wliich men as orthodox as Mr. Van Dyke, as sound on 
 the Scriptures, as free from all fanaticism, cannot help 
 regarding as a popular decision, as intelligent, as con- 
 8* 
 
178 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 scientioiis, as sublime, as any that was ever before ren- 
 dered bj man upon this earth. 
 
 Not to waste time in preliminaries, I must notice a 
 pervading fallacy which is to be found, not only in Mr. 
 Van Dyke's sermon, but in most of similar productions 
 in the Northern States. To take the extremest ground 
 of the extremest South would be too odious. Hence, 
 although the argument is almost wholly against the one 
 side, and ever palliative of the other, there is still as- 
 sumed something like the appearance of a via 7?iedia. 
 There is a charm in such a position for many readers. 
 It seems an easy way of getting near the trutli with- 
 out the labor and difficulty of ascertaining its real place. 
 In medio est Veritas. We distrust the maxim. It is as 
 likely to be false as true. It is not scriptural. Truth 
 may not be in the middle. It seldom is precisely in the 
 middle. It is more likely to be nearer to one side than 
 it is to the other. It is sometimes, as history has well 
 shown, far to the one side. But even admitting the 
 maxim, still it may be said that, in the present argu- 
 ment, there is something utterly fallacious in the appli- 
 cation of it. The gravitation to error, as Mr. Van 
 Dyke would doubtless admit, being ever the strongest 
 in this evil world, there is ever a demand for a new via 
 media, running somewhere between the old one and the 
 side to which the worldly current strongest tends, and 
 then another, and still another, like that eternal sub- 
 division of a mathematical space, wiiich is ever ap- 
 proaching one extreme limit without ever exactly meet- 
 ing it. It is so here. To make this easy middle path, 
 we have placed before us, on one side, the abolitionists 
 of the North ; on the other, the " fire eaters," as they 
 
NO ARGUJIENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 179 
 
 arc called, of the South. But there is forgotten, or 
 wholly overlooked, what is very essential to a right un- 
 derstanding of the true bearing of this very plausible 
 " middle way." The abolitionists proper, against whom 
 Mr. Yan Dyke's sermon would seem to be chiefly di- 
 rected, are a mere handful of men ; they have becii 
 growing smaller ever since the formation of the repub- 
 lican party gave a constitutional and conservative vent 
 to the anti-slavery feeling ; they are men without influ- 
 ence, without office, mostly without votes, without the 
 shadow of political power. But what do we find in the 
 other extreme, as it is so plausibly called ? We find 
 men who rule their states ; men who are in Congress, 
 in the\Senate, on the bench, holding chief places in suc- 
 cessive cabinets ; men who for long years have been the 
 predominant power of the very government they are 
 now seeking so unnaturally to destroy. Instead of 
 running due east between two extremes, such a via me- 
 dia is, in fact, a line bearing E. 80° S., and nothing is 
 more unfair than to represent such a course as justice 
 to the North, or as giving a fair position for rebuking 
 every rational and religious objection to slavery as the 
 fruit of Northern fanaticism. Time has proved the 
 truth of our statement. Every new move of the strong- 
 er extremist has drawn the mediist after him ; so that 
 what was once thought a remote pro-slavery position is 
 now claimed as a compromising middle way. 
 
 This is alluded to here because Mr. Van Dyke's ser- 
 mon carries the form of an argument against the abo- 
 litionists. There can be no doubt that such men as are 
 generally understood by this term have not treated 
 slavery as the apostles treated it. It is true, as Mr. 
 
180 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 Yan Dyke says, that there is everywhere in this ex- 
 treme class an anti-biblical and an infidel tendency. It 
 is true that their mode of attacking slavery on the 
 ground of mere natural right, their view of man as con- 
 fined chiefly to his secular destiny, and their consequent 
 attempt to secularize the philanthropy of the Gospel, 
 have produced this tendency — first to undervalue, and 
 finally to reject the authority of revelation. There 
 may be other causes in the Christianity of the times 
 that might afford a palliation, if not a defence, of some 
 of these men. But Mr. Van Dyke is right in the fact 
 stated, and if these were the enemies now chiefly de- 
 manding attention, it might be said that he has borne 
 himself right valiantly. It is easy to answer the abo- 
 litionists ; they are poor interpreters of Scripture ; the 
 chief among them do not pretend to interpret Scripture 
 at all. As against them, then, we should concur, at 
 least exegetically, in Mr. Yan Dyke's view of 1 Tim. 
 vi., and other passages of the New Testament. There 
 is, however, something in the more interior spirit of 
 those texts that he fails to see ; he does not take the 
 apostle's stand point ; he does not take into view the 
 vastly changed condition of the world ; he does not 
 seem to consider that whilst truth is fixed, eter- 
 nal, immutable as God himself, its application to 
 distant ages, aiid differing circumstances, is so vary- 
 ing continually that a wrong direction given to the 
 more truthful exegesis may convert it into the more 
 malignant falsehood, making it, in fact, "the letter that 
 killeth instead of the spirit that giveth life." It is vain 
 to say that this is a mere transcendental fancy, by 
 which the force of Scripture irjay be ever turned aside. 
 
NO ARGUxMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 181 
 
 The danger we speak of is one against whicli inspira- 
 tion itself expressly warns us. The Bible is for all 
 ages, but there is a " letter that killeth ;" there is an 
 " accommodation " that is true and holy. 
 
 I. THE PATRIARCHAL SERVITUDE. 
 
 But, to take Mr. Yan Dyke's interpretations in their 
 Scriptural order : His argument from the Old Testa- 
 ment we are compelled to pronounce utterly worthless, 
 even as against the abolitionist. The change that has 
 taken place — the difference, both in form and spirit, 
 betsveen what was called servitude in the days of the 
 patriarchs and slavery as it exists in the modern states 
 of Mississippi and Texas, is so immense that no fair 
 comparison can be made between them. The wholly 
 domestic character of the former, the total absence of 
 that feeling of caste, which is the curse of American 
 slavery, the feudal or tribal form which gave it more 
 the aspect of government than of properti/, the com- 
 plete subordination of this latter idea rendering it, in 
 this respect, the reverse of the modern servitude, the 
 absence of the faintest Scriptural intimation that any 
 patriarch (though he might buy) ever sold, or thought 
 of selling, for money, the humblest of his dependent 
 vassals — all these considerations make a difference so 
 wide, so essential we may say, that the unselfish patri- 
 archal and the mercenary American slavery should nev- 
 er be mentioned together. 
 
 Take the latter as defined so carefully by the South 
 Carolina judge, Ruffin. We would quote it in full were 
 it not probably well known to most of our readers. 
 Take that stern denial of all human rights, not merely 
 social or political, but such as belong to the very essence 
 
182 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 of humanity, and without which one ceases to be a man 
 in aught except his homo-animal life ; take that out- 
 casting from the State consummated in the late Dred 
 Scott decision, and which is so different from the close 
 ties that bound the ancient lord to his poorest follower 
 
 — that utter crushing out of humanity which the serious 
 Carolina judge is compelled to pronounce most cruel ; 
 while he sternly deduces it as the inevitable conse- 
 quence of the peculiar form of property servitude ; take, 
 in short, that absolute reduction of a person to a thing', 
 a " chattel," an organon empeuchon, or " animated 
 tool," as Aristotle defines it, and compare it with the 
 relation existing between Abraham and Eliezer, or any 
 one, the poorest of" that cherished clan which so prompt- 
 ly followed their aged leader to the rescue of Lot. 
 Four thousand years ! Have we, indeed, made progress 
 in this matter ? Have we steadily elevated the idea of 
 servitude, if we are not yet able to dispense with it 
 from the world ? Have we been constantly improving 
 it by giving it more of the social and less of the merce- 
 nary ; more of the humanizing and less of the dehu- 
 manizing character ; more of the fraternal and less of 
 the caste aspect ? Then may we quote the patriarchs 
 
 — if not to the honor, at least not the shame of our 
 Christianity. 
 
 Is the Texan slaveholder, or the Georgian cotton- 
 grower, more of the social lord, and less of the money 
 making oicmer, than in the days of Abraham ? It is a 
 vital question. Both ideas, lordship and ownership, 
 enter into slavery. Though actually mingled they are 
 logically distinct, and according as the one or the other 
 becomes predominant, so does the whole character of 
 
NO ARGUMEXT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 183 
 
 the nation undergo an essential moral cliangc. The 
 claim of power, even where wrongful, is perfectly con- 
 sistent with human dignity. There is no degradation 
 in subjection to government of any form, even though it 
 be of the most despotic kind. Frenchmen are still men 
 — high spirited, intelligent men — though under the 
 unlimited domination of Napoleon. Some of them, and 
 not absurdly, do even find their glory in the very gran- 
 deur of its absoluteness. Power is not degrading. A 
 man is still a man — he may be a man in his sublimest 
 aspects, though the subject of an. authority that places 
 him at the cannon's mouth. The reason of this is found 
 in tlie glory of the idea ; in the essential assumption, 
 although it may be false in practice, that government, 
 as government, is ever unselfish — ever for the good of 
 the governed. 
 
 But to be oivned is degrading ; to be property, and 
 nothing more, is dehumanizing. The ideas are insepa- 
 rable. It is degrading both ways. In the absence or 
 subserviency of the other principle, a man cannot oivn 
 hisfelhiv man, a being like himself, without degrading 
 himself. His own debasement is involved in the de- 
 ' basement of his race. Men feel this before they have 
 objectively thought it, or reasoned about it. Hence it 
 is, that in a Christianized slave holding community there 
 is, there always must be, more or less of a hidden 
 trouble of conscience. There is an obscure feeling, not 
 allowed to come out in distinct thought, but which tells 
 them there is, somewhere, something wrong about it. 
 Hence, too, the never ceasing heave of unrest, that 
 pervades such society. Hence the exfravagant acts of 
 their politicians, the extravagant doctrine of their cler- 
 
more honorable, althouk hI V° '"'° ^'y''- '''''^ 
 
 to find an ass„„'ed S '^J^ f '^«' 7-^'"=". '^ 
 er principle, or the un.Plfl . "'■' "'"^«'" 'he high- 
 
 hard pushed Wit ,r2^: f;--»-t idea. Wh^en 
 «;«- of carrying the^ptop frr' t' ^-^-' '"e 
 J'ke any other property" and k1^. '"'° ^«"^='^' ".i"^«t 
 ionize about he bleiin" „??" .™'"'''''''"«'^ '" ^er- 
 
 «>-e.-, only adapted to a ^mZ ' ^' '"' '""'^- 
 
 lief failing here it i. n "°''"^ "^ ""'"ds. Re- 
 
 "■g ahont,"o„ ;, : ot ^r tlV;"'''^"'^ ^^°"8'U by east, 
 throw the slave fro ell'e ;,"'«''""" '^ '^ «''-h to 
 be so bad if we can n ^^e """"^■- ^' ^^■" "«' 
 
 that he -is not a „,an ' AnH /'^' P''"- to ourselves 
 of human nature as it ha7fo° ^^ "'"^^ '^'' forking 
 ^t the South, and penet it r^" u'" «™"''"=^ 
 alarming feature in the whr,]^ "e Aorth. It us the most 
 
 -- - a son of Ada'^ T en """• '' "'^ '^g- « 
 are all degraded by his'beinr 7" T '^"Sraded ; we 
 «ni"al, or a thing."^ j "."f "f, ^-^''^^d *« the rank of an 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 185 
 
 in SO vile a state. We must either do something for 
 our " poor relation," or disown and cast him out. It 
 is this innate sense of what he would regard as due to 
 himself that has led the modern slaveholder, the poli- 
 ticians, if not yet the clergymen, to dehumanize the ne- 
 gro. We would solemnly warn our churches in this 
 respect. They are on the brink of an awful precipice. 
 The politicians are controlling our Christianity, instead 
 of being controlled by it. They are aided by certain 
 scientific tendencies, and such is the evident course of 
 things that but a short time will elapse before an ortho- 
 dox clergyman at the South, who holds " the unity of 
 the race " as belonging truly to the very heart of our 
 theology, will be deemed as much a " fanatic " as any 
 of his anti-slavery brethren at the North. The moral 
 question, the theological question, the ethnological ques- 
 tion, will stand no compromises. The course of things, 
 both North and South, shows that this new doctrine of 
 slavery as the " normal condition " of its subjects, as 
 something perpetual, never to be yielded, never relaxed, 
 except in some remote millenium, as Mr. Yan Dyke 
 would savingly fancy in his sermon — that this new 
 doctrine of slavery, we say, which has sprung up with- 
 in the last thirty years, is utterly at war with the proper 
 humanity of its victims. The negro must be dehuman- 
 ized ; and he is blind indeed who cannot see how rapid- 
 ly, unless checked, everything is tending to that issue. 
 
 Now can we, as Christians, bear this thought ? Can 
 we think without pain of the brutalizing of our race, or 
 any portion of our race ? Every Christian man, as far 
 as he is a Christian man, must feel it. What thus de- 
 grades the negro, hurts him too, just as that which 
 
186 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 touches the remotest member pains the whole body. It 
 hurts him when the brutal politician at the South com- 
 pares him with the horse or the " alligator ; " it hurts 
 him when the manufacturer of vile amusements at the 
 North makes a beastly caricature of the poor African in 
 his ribald minstrelsy. It touches the heart, the cor, or 
 core^ of our humanity ; it reaches that deep spot where 
 we are all one in Adam, and hope to be one in Christ. 
 May we not say with all reverence, He feels it, too, that 
 Ineffable One who took our sin-degraded nature and 
 now bears it in the highest heavens ? In view of the 
 amazing thought that Christ should stoop so low to lift 
 us up ; how strange that we should be then thrusting 
 down a portion of our fallen brotherhood, that we 
 should be making castes, and hunting out arguments for 
 slavery, instead of feeling that it is each man's highest 
 interest, conservative of his own truest worth, as well 
 as his most solemn duty, to raise to the common level 
 of humanity, and if possible, above the common level 
 of humanity, the lowest of those degraded tribes that 
 still bear the form and the nature, though it be the 
 poorest nature of a man. 
 
 The sinking of a portion of the human race to this 
 low level of property^ degrades us all. The truth is so 
 important that we must be pardoned for dwelling upon 
 it. It is an inevitable effect of the abominable doctrine 
 which would make some men semi-human, that it takes 
 away from the evidence of our highest human hopes. 
 It makes an inclined , plane, or rather a gradation of 
 steps, between us and the brutes. It thus links us on 
 with all the animality that is below us. It destroys the 
 distinction on which we build our chief psychological 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 187 
 
 argument for immortality. It weakens in our minds 
 that other great argument from revelation, derived from 
 the incarnation, or Christ's taking our one common, uni- 
 versal humanity. What a coming down was there ! In 
 view of it, how unchristianlike when worldliness and 
 selfishness lead us to degrade ourselves by casting out 
 of the bound of human brotherhood any whose nature 
 Christ assumed, and for whose salvation He gave his 
 own human life. Yet all this is the inevitable tendency 
 of the property idea, when it becomes predominant. 
 Are our churches prepared for the issues it must in time 
 create ? 
 
 It is not the mere presence, but the predominance of 
 the one or the other of these ideas, the property or the 
 government idea, which gives its chief moral character 
 to servitude. In the patriarchal, we venture to affirm, 
 the former was altogether subordinate, or rather almost 
 wholly unknown, according to the modern mercantile 
 conception of it. There is mention of persons " bought 
 with money." It was, as we have said, an evidence of 
 the social cliange. With the heathen sellers it might 
 have had all the nature of mercenary traffic. That so 
 it was regarded by the patriarchs themselves, there is 
 not a particle of proof. There is the strongest inferen- 
 tial evidence to the contrary. We boldly challenge any 
 man to produce one line or word of Scripture to show, 
 directly or indirectly, that any patriarch ever sold a 
 slave to the heathen, or to any other patriarch ; that 
 ever a Jew, in later times, sold a bondman to a heathen 
 or to any other Jew. There may have been transfers 
 of neighborhood, or convenience, but nothing like traffic^ 
 in our modern sense of the word. They were bought 
 
188 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 with money, and, doubtless, in this way many a poor 
 stranger escaped death, or exchanged a hard vassalage 
 for a blessed patriarchal home ; but there was no do- 
 mestic slave trade. Neither are slaves ever mentioned 
 as articles of " property." They are never mentioned 
 in the Jewish statistics along with " the corn, the wine, 
 and the oil, the barley, the flocks, and the herds." 
 They are enumerated in the census of the household ; 
 and in this way are named in connection sometimes with 
 lower things, but never as articles of traffic or mer- 
 chandise. They are mentioned, sometimes, as evidence 
 of their lord's power and greatness, but rather as fol- 
 lowers and vassals than as slaves. It is said " Thou 
 shalt not covet thy neighbor's man servant," and the 
 text is often quoted to prove the scriptural lawfulness 
 of the modern human bondage ; but so is it also said, 
 " Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife." He who 
 would pervert the guileless scriptural language in the 
 one case, may do so with equal justice in the other. 
 Wives were sometimes bought with money ; wives are 
 mentioned among the items of household prosperity ; the 
 argument is as good in the one case as in the other. In 
 neither does it present anything more than the painted 
 outside resemblance to our modern trafficking, whilst in 
 spirit it is as remote from it as the ages are from each 
 other. 
 
 There was, doubtless, more of this property idea in 
 the ancient slavery as it existed in other nations — if 
 we may leave our Christianity, and go so far back for 
 conscience-silencing precedents — but this we may say, 
 that the eldest servitude, as it existed in the Homeric 
 age, and long after, was comparatively, if not wholly, 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 189 
 
 free from that peculiar species of degradation, that 
 odious caste feeling which is so prominent a feature of 
 our modern, and — shall we call it so ? — Christianized 
 bondage. In those early times it was a misfortune, a 
 loss, like the calamities of war ; it was a subjection, a 
 restraint, a toil ; there was much harshness in it, but 
 little or no degradation, such as we have been chiefly 
 regarding in these remarks in respect to its painful de- 
 basement of our common human nature. All were alike 
 in the risk. It might be the fate of any man to be 
 taken in war. It consequently retained a manliness 
 which is utterly wanting in our depredations upon the 
 miserable African. Every man can have his chance. 
 The master of to-day might be the doulos, the demos, 
 the subdued man, the subject of to-morrow. If the 
 chivalrous Carolinian would thus run the risk of becom- 
 ing a slave himself, he might hold his captive as proudly 
 as any Ishmaelite of the desert, or any roving filibuster 
 of the Homeric age. Hence, the ancient servitude, 
 though severe, was not mean, as we think our modern 
 slavery is. It was consistent, too, with a social free- 
 dom neither awed by haughtiness nor insulted by a 
 liumbling condescension. The old servant of Ulysses, 
 like the Eliezer of Abraham, was the trusted, confiden- 
 tial friend, at whose board his lord — the spirit of the 
 noble passage would rebuke us should we say owner — 
 sat and conversed without the least feeling of incon- 
 sistency or dishonor. It was like the feudal relation 
 of the middle ages ; harsh in some of its features, des- 
 potic, perhaps, to a degree beyond the condition of some 
 modern servants, but nothing degrading. It was power, 
 strong power, protection, mutual dependence, exacted 
 
190 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 servitude, obedience, fealty — all dignified ideas, — and 
 capable of growing, as tliey have grown in later times, 
 into dignified social and political relations. But in 
 the other, or caste aspect, all is base and debasing. 
 The slaveholder, as the only way to get himself a quiet- 
 ing plea, must regard himself, not as the lord, or even 
 the despoies, in its best sense, but as the owner of 
 property that rises and falls with the times, and with 
 the stocks. If he is a ruler, he is a ruler of chattels, 
 of brutes, or of seeming men, who have only a half hu- 
 manity. The whole scale sinks, the master as well as 
 the slave. Beings that look like us, though brutalized 
 in appearance, as we would be after generations of ani- 
 malizing bondage ; beings that talk and think like us ; 
 that are wonderfully like us in all our appetites and 
 passions — such beings, treated as t/iing's, bought and 
 sold continually, denied a political status, even the poor 
 dignity of a local serfdom, claimed as property every- 
 where, property in presently property in Juturo, bar- 
 gained for before they are born, classed with the animals 
 in the ignoble maxim partus sequitur ventrem — be- 
 yond all, doomed to this as their true and " normal '* 
 condition, from which they are never more to rise ! It 
 degrades us all, we say. It is no mere transcendental 
 conceit of human dignity that prom.pts the assertion, 
 but a just appreciation of that ruined, yet costly nature, 
 for which Christ died. There is no true parallel be- 
 tween the cases. Whoever reasons thus, whether in 
 the pulpit, or elsewhere, from the patriarchal servitude, 
 or even the most ancient heathen servitude, to the 
 modern mercantile or mercenary slavery, is utterly de- 
 ceiving both himself and his hearers. 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 191 
 
 Wc have given the more attention to this subject of 
 the patriarchal slavery, because the argument is so 
 often employed, and with such a conceit of its being 
 unanswerable. There is another view of Jewish sla- 
 very, which we deem most important, and which may 
 be presented in reply to Mr. Yan Dyke's, and the com- 
 mon argument from the Old Testament ! We make no 
 other apology for the length or manner of this commu- 
 nication, than the great importance of the subject. If 
 ever the moral aspects of the slavery question are to be 
 discussed in its very roots, this would seem a proper 
 time for such discussion. There is a right and a wrong, 
 somewhere, in this matter ; and we think they can be 
 found. Too long has the appeal been made to every- 
 thing else but truth. The writer may have overrated 
 his own powers for the task, but it is certainly high 
 time that from some quarter there should be addressed 
 the intellect and the conscience as well as the passions 
 and prejudices of the nation. 
 
 II. — THE JEWISH SERVITUDE. 
 
 Mr. Yan Dyke next proceeds to what has been com- 
 monly regarded the scriptural Gibraltar of the slavery 
 cause. It has been deemed so fundamental to the argu- 
 ment as to have a place in a late Carolina manifesto. 
 We refer to the 25th chapter of Leviticus. What is 
 there said of the servitude of Jew to Jew, Mr. Yan 
 Dyke sees at once cannot be employed in defence of 
 southern slavery. " But not so," he says, '' with those 
 of foreign birth ; there was no year of jubilee for them. 
 For what says the law ? " It is quoted as triumphantly 
 as thoup^h he were citino; a section of the Drcd Scott 
 
192 PATRIARCHAL OR JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 decision. " For what says the law ? " Read the 44th 
 and 46th verses of the same chapter: 
 
 Both thy bondmen and bondmaids which thou shalthave shall 
 be of the heathen that are round about you. Of them may ye buy 
 bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of strangers 
 that do sojourn among you — of them may 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 as an 
 inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a pos- 
 session ; they shall be your bondmen forever. 
 
 *' There it is," he tells us like a triumphant advocate 
 who has made out his case from the statute and the re- 
 ported decisions ; " there it is, plainly written in the 
 Divine law. No legislative enactment, no statute 
 framed by legal skill was ever more explicit or in- 
 capable of perversion." We do not mean to pervert it, 
 and yet we would say to Mr. Van Dyke, very plainly, 
 though with all respect for his religious character as 
 well as his legal sharpness, that we do not think much 
 of his argument. It has some force against those fool- 
 ish people who contend that slavery, meaning thereby 
 the binding of one man to the authority of another, is 
 sin per se, but it is a very poor defence of those other 
 still more foolish people who maintain that slavery is 
 right per se, good per se, as well as divine by direct 
 statute enactment. There are two answers to this ar- 
 gument. There is one that greatly weakens any infer- 
 ences to be drawn from it to our present times; there 
 is another that renders it utterly worthless. 
 
 As a preliminary to the first, we must express our 
 astonishment at the importance that some attach to 
 
NO ARCUMEXT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 193 
 
 this passage of Scripture. Some of its phases sound 
 like modern ones, and may, therefore, suggest modern 
 ideas ; and yet, even in respect to them, the great re- 
 moteness of the times, and manners changing, more or 
 less, the meaning of language, would lead a careful critic 
 to suspect any such modern application as is sometimes 
 given to them. But look again, and see how many 
 things are lacking to complete the wanted parallel. 
 How different the state of the Jews, lying in the midst 
 of heatliendom, and that of our slaveholding communities, 
 lying in the midst of an all-surrounding Christendom ! 
 'Kow far-fetched any comparisons between that purely 
 secluded nation, that agricultural, domestic, un trafficking 
 theocracy, and our commercial, cotton-growing States ! 
 How different the condition of the masters — how dif- 
 ferent must have been the condition of the servants, 
 how remotely diverse the two relations — the simple, 
 social status in the one case, and the growing property 
 notion, with all its commercial adjuncts in the other. 
 
 But let us look at the passage closely, and even the 
 seeming resemblances will begin to disappear. There is 
 permission to buy. That looks mercantile. But does 
 Mr. Van Dyke need to be told that in the old world, 
 buying, in such cases, meant the payment of ransom — 
 and the service to be returned was its equivalent recom- 
 pense ; implying no idea of selling, unless with the con- 
 sent of the boifg-ht. It was sometimes the ransom of 
 the life, and tlien the service for such a costly favor 
 might justly be for life — in perpehwm, indefinitely, or 
 forever, as the guileless Hebrew word expresses it. 
 
 Again, tliey are permitted to bi(7/, but not a word of 
 selling', either to the heathen, or to any other Jew. 
 
194 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 That is implied, it might be said. Not so certain, how- 
 ever. We must take care how we carry a familiar 
 modern notion into ancient law and ancient language. 
 If we tuill thus employ Scripture, we must take the hx 
 scripla as we find it, just " that w^hich is written, and 
 nothing more." There is no such implication. Not 
 only the whole style of the language, but also all we 
 know of the ancient state, as well as the total absence 
 of anything in subsequent Jewish history recognizing 
 any sudi right to sell or trade, are all against it. Mr. 
 Van Dyke quotes with an air of certainty. There can 
 be no doubt about it. " There it is," says he, " plainly 
 written in the divine law." '' To the law and the tes- 
 timony," he says, in another place, " if they speak not 
 according to this w^ord, it is because there is no light in 
 them." To say nothing of his misunderstanding and 
 misinterpretation of this latter passage, we will simply 
 reply to him in his own style of challenge. The per- 
 mission to sell is not in the ivriting-, that is clear ; we 
 mean, by way of traffic, as distinct from the original 
 purchase from tlie heathen or the parent. Now, let 
 him give us an adjudged case, an implication from any 
 thing in the actual Jewish jurisprudence, a particle of 
 inference from Jewish history, that there was a traffic 
 in slaves, or anything like it, in Israel, even in its cor- 
 ruptest times. There is no evidence that any such traf- 
 fic, any such selling, by a Jew to a heathen, or by Jew 
 to Jew, was allowed, or would have been deemed repu- 
 table. There is no evidence as to the tenure or manner 
 in which these bondmen were held, whether by individu- 
 als or by the nation, as was the case with the Grideon- 
 ites and the public servants in Solomon's days. 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 195 
 
 Servants are reckoned among the elements of house- 
 hold state and grandeur, but they are not mentioned as 
 property or income in the Jewish statistics. They are 
 not reckoned thus, as has been already remarked, with 
 " the corn, the wine, and the oil," the " flocks and the 
 herds," the " wine presses and the barns." Servitude 
 was, in short, a purely social status, that might have its 
 inception in the payment of money. It was a protect- 
 ing authority, reciprocally beneficial to both parties, but 
 designed, benevolently, for the good of the servant. 
 But all tliis falls short of the property idea in the mod- 
 ern sense. To make it perfect there must be sale, and 
 not only that, but the unlimited power of sale. Pro- 
 perty is not simply that which is bought, but that which 
 is vendible, merchantable, marketable, and thus having 
 a market value. Property rises and falls ; is governed 
 by current standards of exchange, with its laws of sup- 
 ply and demand. That such is the predominant idea 
 in modern slavery (or the slavery of civilization, even 
 so much more mercenary and degrading than that of 
 barbarism or semi-barbarism) is evident from the fact 
 that it is essential to its existence. Take away this pre- 
 dominant idea of marketable property, and no pleas for 
 christianizing Africa would cause it to last a generation 
 in our cotton growing states. 
 
 Such lias become the character of slave property 
 among us. Is there a syllable of evidence that there 
 was anything like it in the secluded, domestic, imtrad- 
 ing Israel ? It is this distinction, too, that shows the 
 absurdity of Mr. Van Dyke's argument, that " a man 
 has property in his wife and in liis child." Just so a 
 wife has property in her husband, and a child in its 
 
196 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 father. Would lie concede the same reciprocity between 
 the slave and his master ? and would he give the slave, 
 notwithstanding the Dred Scott decision, the right to 
 sue in our courts for damages sustained in having a 
 master killed upon a railroad ? If not, his parallel is 
 good for nothing. It is only a deluding sophism, just 
 adapted to the moral and intellectual state of any of 
 his hearers, if he has any such, who might want to re- 
 open the African slave trade for the benefit of Christi- 
 anity. He might as well maintain that a man has pro- 
 perty in every one of his neighbors. We are all bound 
 together. There is something valuable to us in all our 
 relations. They may have cost us money, too, or labor 
 to obtain them. But here is the distinction between 
 this kind of " property," if a man will allegorically 
 call it so, and what the slaveholder means when he 
 claims the right of carrying his slave to Nebraska, or 
 insists upon the domestic slave trade between Virginia 
 and Georgia ; it is the lack of vendibility. These re- 
 lations are not vendil)le property, marketable property. 
 They are not things that we buy to sell, even if we had 
 power to sell, or it were reputable to sell them, or they 
 had any market value as salable commodities. But the 
 southern slave is thus regarded as property ; as their 
 laws now stand, he is property in the most commercial 
 sense, as much so as cotton or sugar. 
 
 This is getting, too, to be not merely an incidental 
 but the predominant idea, and so, as we have shown be- 
 fore, completely changes the essential moral aspect of 
 the whole matter. But Mr. Van Dyke's notion of 
 property, absurd as it is, suggests the most unanswerable 
 of fact-ar2-uments aa-ainst him. The Jewish servitude 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 197 
 
 luiviiig little or nothing of the mercaiitilo aspect, could^ 
 with some show of decency, be compared to the filial 
 relation ; the cotton-growing slavery,if it ever had any, 
 is fast losing every feature of resemblance. And this 
 is the mighty difference between them. 
 
 The Jewish servitude may have tended in time to 
 diange its character, and to approach nearer the idea 
 of traffic. If so, it was only in accordance with that 
 strange yet most sure law, that slavery ever becomes 
 worse — more degrading, at least, if not more cruel — 
 with the advance of civilization. There are intimations 
 in the Jewish history that it was at certain times more 
 mercenary, and therefore more oppressive, than at oth- 
 ers. But whenever it thus departed from the primitive 
 mild idea, then we hear the thunderings of the pro- 
 phets. No conservatism prevented their denouncing 
 the vengeance of the Lord upon the whole thing. Read 
 Isaiah Iviii. 7 : "Is not this the fast day I have chosen, 
 to loose your wicked bonds, to unbind the servile knots, 
 to set free the oppressed, and to break asunder every 
 yoke.^'' We have no right to limit the language. The 
 term " the yoke," is the same with the Hebraism by 
 which the common servile condition is denoted in the 
 New Testament. 
 
 But how is this, some may say, are you not making 
 one part of Scripture contradict another ? Is it con- 
 sistent that God should give a permission, and then re- 
 buke men so sweepingly for taking the benefit of it ? 
 He could not denounce it more sternly if it was a sin 
 per ^e, which surely it cannot be, since it had his own 
 divine sanction. Read Scripture more carefully, my 
 orthodox friend. Read it not to get permits for this or 
 
198 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 that, but to study humanity, to learn the dark mystery 
 of our fallen nature, to read ourselves, and the charac- 
 ter and purposes of God as revealed in this human mir- 
 ror. " The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." 
 God does permit — we have like warrant foi; saying it 
 — God does permit what he rebukes men for doing. 
 He permitted Balaam to go to Balak, and then sharply 
 rebuked him for going. How much hair-splitting 
 verbal commentary has there been to reconcile the sup- 
 posed discord in this passage ? But take it aright, and 
 what a glorious truth comes out of the apparent contra- 
 diction ! God gave him permission to go that he might 
 bless^ but Balaam went to curse ; and so " the anger of 
 the Lord was kindled against him because he went^^ 
 the Scripture says, and the unreasoning beast was made 
 to rebuke the madness of the prophet in his unholy per- 
 version of the divine word. The passage has been an 
 offendiculum, a stumbling block to the vulgar caviler 
 and to some of the vulgar learned, and this, both on 
 account of the miracle and the doctrine ; to the spirit- 
 ual discernment it is indeed a glorious passage, not only 
 in the light it sheds upon the divine ways, but in its 
 most fitting and rational mode of rebuking irrational 
 men. " God's ways are not as our ways, his thoughts 
 are not as our thoughts." ^' God is wiser than men," 
 says Mr. Yan Dyke, in one place where he would re- 
 buke the abolitionists. We have no thought at all of 
 disputing the truth of that proposition, but might think 
 it capable of some application to others, who assume so 
 boldly to be the exclusive defenders of Deity. 
 
 Any one acquainted with the spirit of those times 
 must recognise, in this " permission," a merciful provis- 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 199 
 
 ion, intended, not for the selfish interest of the Jews 
 (they are too often reminded of the fact of their own 
 long bondage to allow that thought), but as a metliod 
 by which a person taken in war, liable to be put to 
 death, or to be sold into a far worse bondage might 
 find a refuge in Israel. There is no permission to mako 
 slave hunts in Moab and Idumea. Solomon sent ships 
 to Opkir (the root, according to pretty good philology, 
 of our word Africa ;) yet he never thouglit that the 
 divine grant allowed him to bring home a cargo of hu- 
 man chattels along with his " gold dust, asses and 
 ivory." If any one wishes to discover a more selfish, 
 or less merciful reason, let him hunt the letter until he 
 finds it. The one we have given, is in harmony with 
 the inward and outward life of ancient Israel ; it is in 
 harmony with the declared destiny of the chosen peo- 
 ple, as the light, the hope, the refuge, the ultimate bless- 
 ing of a lost humanity. 
 
 The truth is, this perniission was a branch of the 
 same humane law, Deut. xxiii., 15, 16, that forbids a 
 fugitive slave or servant to be delivered up to his mas- 
 ter. This is on the supposition that the injunction ap- 
 plies only to those that escaped from heathen masters, 
 and such is the view the writer was once inclined to 
 take of the text. He must confess, however, that a 
 close examination has led him strongly to doubt its cor- 
 rectness. Many commentators have adopted it, be- 
 cause they have thought that, otherwise, the lawgiver 
 would seem to nullifj'- in one clause what had been per- 
 mitted in another. We must not however judge it by 
 modern ideas. If the above view be correct, the per- 
 mission to hold bondmen was a permission '-^ to he con- 
 
200 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 stnied strictly " as our lawyers would say, in favor of 
 tlie servant. If the master could not keep him, either 
 by force or kind treatment, he was to have no help from 
 his neighbor; he was not to put to trouble distant 
 tribes. The Hebrew word here rendered " escaped," 
 is a strong one. It implies an escape made with diffi- 
 culty — '' hath torn himself away!'^ " Thou shalt not 
 shut him up ; he shall dwell with thee where he choos- 
 es ; thou shalt not be hard upon him," or "distress 
 him." There is no qualification. We might say to 
 Mr. Van Dyke — in his own cliosen style — ita scrip- 
 turn est ; Thou shalt not surrender to his master the 
 servant that is escaped from his master unto thee ; thou 
 shalt not trouble him. 
 
 " There it is plainly ivritten in the divine lajv ; no 
 legislative enactment, no statute framed by legal skill 
 was ever more explicit." We might rest on this mere 
 absence of qualifying words, but the more the passage 
 is studied, the more it is seen that there is something 
 stronger. The expression, "from the nations that are 
 round thee," is expressly inserted in the. other law, 
 which Mr. Yan Dyke so exultingly quotes, and every 
 lawyer will tell him that, therefore, its absence in a per- 
 fectly similar enactment, where, if intended, it is equally 
 demanded, is equivalent to an express exclusion. " Who 
 shall have escaped unto thee from his master.'' Had it 
 meant from the heathen, the language would not have 
 been personal and specific, as it is, but general and col- 
 lective — " who shall have escaped from any of the na- 
 tions tliat are round about thee." Besides, there 
 would have been no need of such a law. There is no 
 evidencj of any national comity between the Jews and 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 201 
 
 the suiToiinding Moabites and Philistines, witli whom 
 they were continually at war, which would have led 
 them to deliver up fugitive slaves without a divine law 
 forbidding it. We do not urge this at all as against 
 our duty to surrender fugitive slaves to the South ; for 
 we iiave a lex scripla, though a hard one ; we have a 
 constitution and a law, clear and explicit, and we are 
 bound, in truth and honesty, to execute it in spite of 
 feeling and in spite of provocation. But as against Mr. 
 Van Dyke, it is a perfect answer to the use he would 
 make of the old Jewish servitude. 
 
 God may grant a permission for many reasons, and 
 yet regard it as right and praiseworthy that men should 
 relax the extreme license that he himself may have giv- 
 en. The praise ever bestowed on liberation shows that 
 even the permitted bondage was regarded as an evil — 
 in one sense " a statute not good " (Ezek. xx. 25), such 
 as were made to " try Israel." Hence, in the early 
 Christian church, it was esteemed a meritorious act to. 
 " redeem the slave ; " it was thought a " good work," 
 if we may use such a term without being suspected of 
 Pelagian heresy — a " good work " that Christ might 
 remember in the day of the world's last reckoning, to 
 " break the bars of the yoke and let the bound go free." 
 It is affecting, too, to find how often this is mentioned 
 in the Koran. To redeem a slave might pay for the 
 neglect of fasting ; it would do much to atone for not 
 making a pilgrimage to Mecca. 
 
 It is in the light of this feeling, too, that we must 
 read the language of the Jewish prophets before refer- 
 red to. To this vehemence of style they are doubtless 
 excited by the most remarkable recollection in their 
 
 9* 
 
202 PATRIARCHAL AXD JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 own national history, as well as by that remarkable lan- 
 guage frequently repeated in the law, and one instance 
 of which lies overlooked so very near tlie text Mr. Van 
 Dyke has so carefully quoted. — Remember that ye ivere 
 bondmen once yourselves. To what purpose this admoni- 
 tion, coming so often and so close home ? Its nearest 
 relation is, perhaps, to the milder servitude of a Jewish 
 brother, but, in spirit^ it applies to all ; for they are al- 
 so told, with equal force and pathos, to " remember the 
 stranger, for ye were strangers once " in a foreign land, 
 as well as bondmen. 
 
 We have said that there are two views that may be 
 taken of Mr. Van Dyke's and the common argument 
 from Jewish servitude. One has already been given. 
 It seems to us, to say the least, greatly to weaken the 
 position. There is another that renders it utterly 
 worthless. It is that derived from the relation of the 
 Jewish to tlie Christian church, or rather the respective 
 relation of each to the world. 
 
 III. — JEWISH SERVITUDE NO ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIAN 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 The view already presented is certainly sufficient to 
 make one very cautious in applying to American slavery 
 any argument drawn from what is called the Jewish 
 servitude. But there is a second reply which, we are 
 bold to say it, utterly sweeps away this stronghold of 
 the pro-slavery cause. The Jew was secluded from the 
 world. It was a nation kept apart, not for its own 
 sake, but as the repository of special blessings for the 
 race. It was a trustee for humanity. It was the first 
 born, witli the rights of primogeniture until the other 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 203 
 
 nations of the earth had closed their long minority. In 
 defence of this position they had many straitening pro- 
 hibitions. As a Divine signal, too, that they were the 
 princely, the conservative nation of the world, they had 
 some peculiar privileges, which may be considered as 
 types, or signs of fealty from other races to the chosen 
 people. It was in pursuance of the blessing of Jacob : 
 " Let people serve thee, and nations bow down unto 
 thee ; be lord over thy brethren (the children of Esau, 
 Lot and Ishmael,Moab,Edom, the tribes of the desert), 
 and let thy kindred bow down to thee." — Gen. xxvii. 
 29. ^'It figured," says Mathew Henry, with his deep 
 spiritual discernment, " the bringing in of the Gentiles 
 to the service of Christ and His church." Thus Isaiah 
 says, Ixi. 5 : " Strangers shall stand and feed your 
 flocks, and the sons of the alien be your vine dressers." 
 " It was a people by itself." — Num. xxiii. 9. Solns 
 habitabU, et inter gentes no n repntabitur — "it shall 
 dwell alone, it sliall not be reckoned among the na- 
 tions." 
 
 Israel, with all its imperfections, was the type of the 
 better humanity to come. It was the last refuge of the 
 world, and thus it was to be kept apart, in character 
 and in privilege, until the "desire of all nations" 
 should be born. Up to this period of time, Jew was to 
 Jew as he was not to the other peoples. The national 
 feeling, the sectional feeling, was to be preserved as 
 conservative of the great good it not only prefigured 
 but actually had in store for humanity. Hence Jew 
 was nearer to Jq^v than to an}^ other race. Now, we 
 invite Dr. Tan Dyke's attention to this point. As a 
 Christian, standing in a different position from his 
 
204 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 Jewish co-laborer, Dr. Rapliall ; as a Christian man, 
 valuing all that is most precious in Christianity, let him 
 see if he can detect any fallacy in the use we are about 
 to make of tlic great distinction. The Jew was allowed 
 to liold bondmen from the heathen ; whether as a mer- 
 ciful or a punitive provision ; whether for his own 
 mercenary profit, or for a higher reason, we will not, in 
 this stage of our argument, inquire. But here is the 
 vital question : wlio are heathen now ? We once were 
 such ; our fathers once were such — " strangers to the 
 covenant of promise, and aliens from the commonwealth 
 of Israel." If, however, there is in Christianity one 
 truth more prime than another, it is that " this wall of 
 partition has been broken down," clean gone forever. 
 There is no longer Jew nor Gentile, though Dr. Rap- 
 hall may assert it on the one side and Dr. Van Dyke 
 still plead for it in behalf of slavery, on the other. In 
 Christ Jesus all are one — all are free — free spiritually, 
 free socially, from all that degrades or casts out of the 
 one common family of man ; free from ownership, each 
 one because he is a man and belongs to Christ, though 
 subject to government, however imperial, as an institu- 
 tion truly ordained of God. We still speak of heathen, 
 using the term geographically, and, to some extent, eth- 
 nologically ; but theologically, ecclesiastically, Christ- 
 ianly, there are no heathen. The term was the antithesis 
 of Jew J not of Christian ; and it is only for the Jew, at 
 the present day, to maintain it. As anciently, Israelite 
 to Israelite, so in the " new covenant " with humanity, 
 is every man to every man. All are brethren now. 
 The language may sound radical, fanatical, some might 
 say, but it is a precious truth — to us, practically, the 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 205 
 
 most precious of all Bible truths, inasmuch as it is the 
 most conservative of all real philanthropy. Reform, 
 progress, philanthropy, are all but empty words, mock- 
 ing delusions, without the doctrine of the incarnation 
 and its kindred dogma, the life or blood unity of tlie 
 race. Let us look again, then, to the old " statute," 
 and see how it reads in the new version — "But of 
 your brethren, the sons of Israel, ye shall not make 
 bondmen ; for ye are all my servants, whom I brought 
 from the land of Egypt." Translate it fairly into the 
 language of the more glorious dispensation, and it can 
 have but one meaning. To the Christian it says: 
 " Of your fellow men, your brethren, the sons of Adam, 
 your brethren redeemed by Christ, ye sliall not make 
 ^.^laves." Ye may rule them, sternly if necessary, but 
 yo may not own them. To treat them as chattels, to 
 hold slaves for gain (as a defending Presbyterian cler- 
 gyman of late has boldly defined it), is a sin per se ; a 
 sin in the thouglit, yes, in that which is deeper than the 
 thought, in tiie prime action, the mainspring, or prirnum 
 mobile of the soul. You may establish your political 
 and social relations with a wise or an unwise expedien- 
 cy, but you may not hold men, it seems to say to us, 
 you may not hold men as mercenary property, " for 
 they are my servants wdiom I have redeemed, saith the 
 Lord." Tlie old seclusion has been broken up, " the 
 law has gone forth from Zion, the word of the Lord 
 from Jerusalem." It is long, long since the redemption 
 era was announced by the heavenly messenger. 
 
 The year of jubilee has come, 
 Retin'n ye ransomed millions home. 
 
 The temple was for one people ; tlie Church is for all 
 
206 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 nations, and it has no " inner or outer court." We 
 have all one mother now, one home, one brotherhood, 
 as well as one Saviour. 
 
 " And they shall be your possession,'' says the old 
 " statute," that '' skillfully prepared enactment," wliich 
 Dr. Van Dyke and Dr. Raphall so proudly quote. But 
 that statute has been long since superseded by a new 
 grant. Ye cannot now plead it any more to make 
 bondmen of the nations that are round about you. God 
 has given them to Clirist — '^ the heatlien for an inheri- 
 tance, the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession.'' 
 The modern rabbi may not hold to this, but the Christ- 
 ian doctor must certainly recognize the validity of the 
 grant. Well might the apostle say, in view of this 
 heavenly manumission, " Ye are bought with a price ; 
 be ye not tlie servants of men." But of that pregnant 
 text in another place. There is light enough on this 
 subject, even in the Old Testament, if we were but to 
 look for it. 
 
 God has given to Christ " the heathen for a posses- 
 sion." It is our duty now to go in and occupy in His 
 name — in the old apostolical method, as bishops and 
 stewards, not as bailies or marshals. It is our hidi 
 privilege to bring to the Saviour his promised servants, 
 not by joining company with the King of Dahomey, or 
 forming a transportation partnership with the Sheik of 
 Borneo, but by going with the noble Livingstone into 
 the very center of that vast continent, carrying the Bi- 
 ble in the one hand and the instruments of civilization in 
 the other. It is ours to make tlicm good servants of 
 Christ by christianizing them trhere they are^ in that 
 home which was given to the Afi'ican, and fitted for liim 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 207 
 
 when '' God made of one blood all nations of men to 
 dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined 
 the times appointed and tlie bounds of their habitation." 
 God meant there should be nationalities (see Dent, 
 xxxii. 8 ; Acts xvii. 26) as a better thing, and more 
 conservative of a hearty human brotherhood, than cos- 
 mopolitanism, whether it be that of an unscriptural rad- 
 ical philanthropy, or of a false conservatism, that would 
 break up this ancient " Divine constitution " by unnat- 
 urally bringing the labor of one part of the world to 
 raise cotton and sugar in another. Neither is this at 
 all opposed to what was said before about the common 
 life and brotherhood of the race. Cosmopolitanism will 
 not promote love. There is more unity in diversity 
 than in sameness ; there is more true brotherhood in 
 separate nationalities than in a forced amalgamation, 
 whether it be that of radicalism or of conmierce. God 
 hath not only " made of one blood all nations," but he 
 hath " made them to dwell on all the face of the 
 earth, having determined," by his own wisdom, " their 
 times and the bounds," that is tlie climatic tempera- 
 ments and local fitness " of their habitations." When 
 we shall have at length discovered the enormous evils 
 interfering with these divine arrangements, we may ap- 
 preciate the wisdom of the saintly missionary who would 
 Christianize and civilize the African in his appointed 
 home, instructing him in the pure gospel without the 
 contamination of a degraded foreign life, and teaching 
 him to plant his own cotton fields on the banks of his 
 native Chadda and Zambesi. 
 
 Then let us go and tell him what we have so long 
 known, and so unfaithfully, but he has never heard, that 
 
208 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 Christ has bought him; that there is a divine Goel, a 
 Redeemer, who claims him as his own " near kinsman," 
 though dwelling far away, even in the " uttermost parts 
 of tlie earth." This is the scriptural mode of bringing 
 the world to Christ, and giving to him " the fruits of 
 his inheritance." How different from the proposed 
 method of Christianizing Africa by the slave trade. 
 Let us away with the impious cant, and all that is col- 
 lateral or consequential to it. The false, mercenary 
 spirit that prompts it is even more unchristian than the 
 cruelty. Every one knows that there would be neither 
 slavery nor the slave trade if the only reason for them 
 were the evangelizing of the negro, and every Chris- 
 tianized conscience must feel that the falsehood and 
 meanness of the assumed advocate of such a proceed- 
 ing is really more odious to the Holy Saviour than the 
 undissembling barbarian ferocity which is stimulated by 
 it. How humiliating, as well as how sad, the thought 
 that, after the sun of Christianity has been shining on 
 us for nearly nineteen hundred years, there is still need 
 to contend against a plea so false, a doctrine so atro- 
 cious ! What a commentary, too, on the world's ethi- 
 cal progress, that the enslaving of those called heathen 
 should be justified by going back to this old Jewish 
 " statute," and perverting it to an end historically so 
 remote from anything intended by the ancient law-giver ! 
 It might do for Dr. Raphall, for he is still a Jew — we 
 say it not offensively — he is still a Jew, with that "veil 
 upon the heart " in the reading of the Old Testament 
 which the recollection of Israel's ancient bondage and 
 long centuries of modern degradation has not been able 
 to take away. The Christian teacher has a higher law, 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 209 
 
 not an opposing revelation, but one that gives him the 
 key to the right interpretation of the Old. 
 
 The trite argument from Ham, Dr. Van Dyke has 
 wisely left out, though we see that his colleague in the 
 slavery cause still employs it. Without a particle of 
 authority from the text, he applies to the sons of Gush 
 and Mitszalim, a prediction which the Scripture express- 
 ly pronounces against Canaan, and which was fulfilled 
 when Dr. Raphall's ancestors reduced the Canaanites 
 to subjection, oi- drove them from their land. But even 
 as a prophecy against the Africans, would he as an in- 
 terpreter of Scripture contend that it justified the acts 
 and agents by which it had been fulfilled ? We will 
 cite him, then, another ancient prophecy, Deut. xxviii. 
 0'4, &c. — *' And the Lord shall scatter thee among all 
 people, and among these nations shalt thou find no ease, 
 neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest, but the Lord 
 shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of 
 eyes, and sorrow of mind ; and thou shalt fear day and 
 night and shalt have no assurance of thy life ; and thou 
 shalt come down very low : And the Lord shall bring 
 thee into Egypt again, and there shall ye be sold unto 
 your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen and no man 
 shall buy you." The same justification that this pro- 
 phecy gives the Spaniard, the Saracen, the mad Egyp- 
 tian Caliph Hakim, or to the cruel Plantagenet, in the 
 oppression and bondage of the Jew, — just that same 
 justification does the prediction in Genesis, even if it 
 had any relation to Africa, afford to the slave trans- 
 porter and slaveholder of modern times. 
 
 A few words more respecting this text. Lev. xxv. 44, 
 45. Carry out the common argument from it, and it 
 
210 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 lands US in utter absurdity. If the Christian church 
 now stands to any, in any sucli relation as the Jqw to 
 the heathen, who shall dare to say that this divine right 
 of enslavement now belongs to all the vile and ungodly 
 men within its visible nominal pale ? And how more 
 revolting still the absurdity to claim it as a special priv- 
 ilege for the truly spiritual, the elect of God ! Be- 
 sides, when any one of those enslaved heathen becomes 
 a baptized Christian — wliat tlien ? Is he by fair im- 
 plication of this " enactment," entitled to his freedom 
 if he wishes for it ? Will it be to him the year of his 
 social as well as his spiritual jubilee ? It may be said 
 that that would be advancing Christianity by an appeal 
 to mercenary motives. There would be some force in 
 such an objection ; but one should be careful in stating 
 it, lest he affront the men who talk so plausibly of mak- 
 ing the growing of cotton in America a means for Chris- 
 tianizing Africa. Still, it is a point we must meet in 
 the fair interpretation of the text. Many of these poor 
 enslaved beings do become Cliristians — all praise for 
 it to the prayers and exertions of many faithful pious 
 men and women in our southern states — and when any 
 one is truly such, will he still be a heathen ? Will he 
 still be subject, himself and his unborn posterity, to the 
 right of enslavement given by virtue of this '' enact- 
 ment " to his irreligious master ? Or, instead of being 
 entitled to his emancipation, as he would be by becom- 
 ing a believer in some Mohammedan countries, would 
 his value as a slave be increased by his Christianity, 
 and the measure — we must present the query, though 
 shrinking from it as impious and revolting — the meas- 
 ure of divine grace that is supposed to be in him ? 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 211 
 
 These are home questions. We cannot perceive their 
 impertinency, and we ask Mr. Van Dyke, or any of our 
 religious advocates of modern slavery, to give them an 
 attentive study and a serious answer. 
 
 IV. — SLAVERY AND THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 As preparatory to the argument from the New Tes- 
 tament, we would call attention again to those two con- 
 stituent ideas that enter into slavery. They may be 
 variously named, as poiver and property — the jus do- 
 minii and jus proprii — the governmental^ as distin- 
 guislied from the mercenary idea. According to the 
 predominance of the one or the other of these ideas, the 
 relation changes. The parties change. The one be- 
 comes a lord or an oiuner^ a rider or a trader^ the other 
 a subject or a slave, a doulos or an andra podon, a man 
 ""^r a chattel, a person or a thing. The contract is fun- 
 damental to any right understanding of the morality of 
 slavery, either in itself or as deduced from the silence 
 of the Christian Scriptures. 
 
 But these are shadows, some might say, abstractions, 
 ideas ; give us something practical. And are we yet to 
 learn that ideas have power ? They will force us to 
 recognize them, whether we would or not. Abstractions 
 are, in the long run, the most practical of all things, the 
 most ofiicious, as well as the most efficient. They will 
 not be put by. A southern abstraction is bringing this 
 nation to the brink of ruin, whilst a northern abstrac- 
 tion is fiercely contending against it. It is a Titan war 
 of ideas. We must make definitions as well as conces- 
 sions, distinctions as well as compromises, if we would 
 save the Constitution. What is property ? What is 
 
212 PATRIARCHAL OR JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 local or territorial power ? What is property natural 
 and universal ? The great reasoner, Time, has brought 
 out these abstractions which are now agitating the very 
 heart of the nation, and they must be settled. 
 
 The two constituent ideas of slavery may be practi- 
 cally confounded, but, they are legally distinct. We 
 may not be able always to trace them in the individual 
 action, but, in the long run, they manifest their power 
 and predominance in tlie collective life. We take them, 
 therefore, and reason from them in their essential as- 
 sumptions. The first, or government idea, is essentially 
 unselfish. It claims to be ever for the good of the gov- 
 erned. The despotes^ whether of the empire, the clan, 
 or the plantation, must make this assumption if he 
 would justify himself to the world, or even to his own 
 conscience. He claims to be " the father," the patron, 
 the protector of his people. He rules for them, not for 
 himself. The other idea is inseparable from selfishness, 
 both logically and actually. The property holder can 
 make no other or higher claim. He never does make any 
 other claim, until the pressing odiousness of the naked 
 idea drives him to seek shelter from it by some false 
 hiding under the better principle. 
 
 In individual cases we cannot certainly know which 
 of the two ideas, by its predominance, actually deter- 
 mines the moral character of the nation. We may form 
 a safe judgment in regard to the slavery of an age, or 
 of a nation, viewed in its general aspects, and in refer- 
 ence to its general results. But with the individual 
 holder, the right or wrong is a matter which can only 
 be judged in foro conscientice. The two elements are 
 ever ideally distinct to our logic ; they are only actually 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 213 
 
 distinct to tlio interior liglit. He who stands in the 
 rehition can alone certainly know, for himself, wdiether 
 he regards himself as the man-oivner or the ma/^-ruler ; 
 as the true despotes — a stern one it may be, and right- 
 ly so ; or the capitalist, the trader, the trafficker, buy- 
 ing, holding, using, breeding, selling his kind — that is, 
 his A^m — for gain. His political duties as a citizen, 
 if he has any such, in regard to the general known bear- 
 ings of the system of wdiich he forms a part, present a 
 consideration by itself. But the law of the land having 
 given to one man authority over other men (a proceed- 
 ing which lies certainly within every form of state sove- 
 reignty, and wdiose wisdom is not for tlie individual 
 conscience), then the man who has this authority is to 
 determine for himself, in foro conscieniice, and at his 
 peril, whether he holds it unselfishly, Christianly, for 
 the good of the governed, and, for this exacting service, 
 or selfishly, unchristianly, solely or predominantly for 
 his own gain. This he must decide for himself; and 
 when he has thus decided, cautiously, self-dcnyingly, 
 conscientiously, then he may be a ruler " ruling over 
 men justly and in the fear of God." He may be an 
 emperor, a king, a lord, a despotes, holdiug the reins of 
 power that have been put into his hands with a clean 
 conscience, and without regard to the fanaticism that 
 may assail him on eitlier side of the relation. As a ruler, 
 to his own high Ruler he standeth or falleth. He is 
 not bound to be as cruel as the law permits, nor as 
 mercenary as the law would tempt. The statute may 
 call him oivner, but he determines his 230sition, as well 
 as his duties, by a higher law. 
 
 He may tlius rule men, as doubtless the righteous 
 
214 PATRIARCHAL OR JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 centurion in the Gospel ruled Lis soldiers — it being 
 very far from certain whether his " boy " (ho pais an- 
 ion)^ out of which Mr. Van Dyke has made such nota- 
 ble argument for slavery, was really an andra podon^ 
 or even a doulos, in the servile sense of the word. He 
 may rule men as Cornelius ruled them, or the Christian 
 dcspotai, whom Paul addressed as " believing and be- 
 loved." He may not shut his eyes to the manifest effects 
 of a similar power in others around him. He may not 
 ignore the facts which go to show that the relation, as 
 generally held, is predominantly mercenary. He may 
 not, as a citizen, ignore his own duties, growing out of 
 such knowledge, nor the vast difference, in this respect, 
 between himself and those old non-voting Christian 
 masters with whom the pro-slavery advocate compares 
 him. Still, while a member of such government, con- 
 ferring upon him such responsible powers, his benevo- 
 lent or mercenary, his Christian or unchristian exercise 
 of them is a question solely for his own private con; 
 science, into which no other man has a right to intrude. 
 There is a path, then, which will guide us through 
 this vexed question. The moral character of slavery 
 may be theoretically determined. It depends on the 
 absence or presence, the predominance or subordinance, 
 of the one or the other of those two constituting ideas. 
 In regard to himself, each man judges from the intui- 
 tive glance which lights up the inner world of the true 
 conscience. For the study of the system at large he 
 employs an outward light. He must judge this pre- 
 dominant character from apparent motives and results, 
 as determined by a cautious, and yet, it may be, a very 
 safe and accurate induction. Under the one light he 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 215 
 
 acts as an individual rider ^ clothed with a power for 
 which he is morally responsible ; by the other, he di- 
 rects his political action as a member of a larger civil 
 organism. 
 
 Guided by such a rule, we look at servitude in differ- 
 ent ages of the world, and the broad inductions of 
 history enable us to judge of its general character in an 
 age or nation. We take four prominent divisions. 
 There is, 1st, the patriarchal or most ancient ; 2d, the 
 Jewish ; 3d, the Roman, and 4th, the modern form, 
 with its caste and its commerce — that strange modern 
 form which, in these latter days, has come up again, 
 and grown exceedingly bold and strong, after Christi- 
 anity had slain all the rest. Now in applying our test, 
 it may be said, that in the patriarchal the mercenary 
 idea existed as a minimum^ the other, or ruling idea, 
 w^as at a maximum. In the Jewish servitude, the pro- 
 perty notion had assumed a larger proportion, but the 
 jus dominii in distinction from mere oimiership was 
 still predominant. In the Roman, the mercenary idea 
 had obtained the principal place, although in many, es- 
 pecially the eastern parts of the empire, the other still 
 kept the preeminence. The modern slavery is tlie an- 
 tipodes of the patriarchal. The property idea has be- 
 come not only predominant, but a maxunum ; the other 
 exists, not for its own sake, as the principal thing, but 
 almost wholly as subordinate and subservient to the for- 
 mer, or the essentially selfish principle. Not but that 
 the patriarchal relation may still be found in individual 
 cases or localities — we hope there are many of them 
 — but the predominant character of slavery, especially 
 within the past tliirty years, or since the full establish- 
 
216 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 ment of the Calhoun doctrine, is doubtless mercenary, 
 mercantile, trafficking, used for gain, for producing 
 gain, and for gain per se, to an extent which it never 
 exhibited in the world before. We need bring no bet- 
 ter proof of this than the fact that our present national 
 troubles have come out of this change in slavery, this 
 predominant property claim, and the difficulty of set- 
 tling it, whilst the other idea, such as was more talked 
 of and more truly existed thirty years ago, did not then 
 produce, and would not now have produced, any such 
 effect. A social status, a governmental relation, could 
 have given no such trouble, because, every one sees at 
 once, and without argument, that it must be the crea- 
 tion of local law. It has a home, and stays at home. 
 Property is roving and trafficking ; it seeks extension ; 
 it must have a supply and demand ; it must have an 
 outlet, and, of consequence, an inlet. Hence the con- 
 fusion in which Ave are involved. This predominance 
 of the purely mercenary principle has greatly compli- 
 cated the political question ; and hence, too, the diffi- 
 culty which many minds encounter in determining the 
 political as well as the moral boundaries of these two 
 ^eas. 
 
 We have placed the Roman above the modern sla- 
 very. Some may object to this. Mr. Yan Dyke re- 
 gards tlie former as much worse, and hence deduces an 
 a fortiori argument from the silence of Christianity i-e- 
 specting it. If it were so, it would not affect our posi- 
 tion that the enjoining of submission is not a justifica- 
 tion of the wrong to be submitted to. But we would 
 take issue with Mr. Van Dyke on this point. There 
 are two things in which modern American slavery differs, 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 217 
 
 to its discredit, from tho Roman. It is more mercena- 
 ry ; it has more of caste. In this, we may say, it is 
 almost exclusive, beyond any known slavery that ever 
 existed upon earth. The Roman lawyers ever declared 
 that slavery was against natural right, and it is the civil 
 law, with that maxim, that has kept it out of Christian 
 Europe. No Roman court ever made a decision so cast- 
 ing a man out of the state, and out of the pale of hu- 
 manity, as the Dred Scott. Hence we are prepared to 
 say tliat, though the Roman servitude gave a more des- 
 potic power to the master, it was not so debasing to the 
 slave. It was more cruel, perhaps, but less dehumaniz- 
 ing. It did not leave such a long taint behind it after 
 emancipation. The freed man was but little affected 
 by the servile condition ; his cliildren rose up to the 
 common level, and moved on, afterwards, without any 
 degrading distinction in the common stream of social 
 life. Horace's father was a freed man ; Horace him- 
 self took rank with the noblest of his day. Teachers, 
 artists, took their places in society, though coming from 
 tlie servile ranks. From " being servants of man/' 
 others rose to be " freed men of Christ," and even 
 Christian bishops. 
 
 Roman slavery may have been more cruel, we say, 
 but it was less degrading. In other words, though it 
 hurt the individual more, it hurt humanity less. This 
 deep debasement has been reserved for tlie Christian 
 slavery, and we have already given a reason for it in 
 that trouble of conscience, or that troubled self-respect, 
 which must either make a man let go the oicnership of 
 his kirid^ or get a plea for casting it down among the 
 lower and animal races. We have divine authority for 
 10 
 
218 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 saying, that what Christianity does not make better, it 
 makes worse. If it is not a savor of life to an institu- 
 tion, it is a savor of death. So the actors in the old 
 Roman drama were a higher class of men than our 
 nominally Christian politicians. The reason is obvious 
 enough. Where they are not true and hearty Chris- 
 tians, the hollowness of the common profession has 
 taken away the native manhood which appears so grand 
 in these old heathen, whilst the counterfeit Christianity 
 has given no compensating grace. As with men, so it 
 is with institutions. Christianity healed the old slave- 
 ry ; the modern, which has come up in defiance of it, 
 may be left to die of its own mercenary corruptions. 
 This is doubly true of what may be called, not simply 
 the modern, but the most modern slavery, with the new 
 features it has assumed within the past thirty years. 
 The Roman servitude was bitter enough ; it was Pan- 
 dora's box of woes, but still with hope remaining at the 
 bottom. Emancipation might speedily restore the dou- 
 los, or his children, to the level of society. It was, 
 therefore, a better thing than this Calhoun, Hamitic 
 bondage, " normal," endless, hopeless, to which no 
 year of jubilee shall ever come. 
 
 We ask the reader's indulgence for dwelling on this 
 distinction of property and power, of ovmership and 
 rule. Besides the other use we have made of it, it is 
 vital to a true interpretation of those passages in the 
 New Testament that, when taken without discrimina- 
 tion, have led some to such fearfully unchristian conclu- 
 sions. To these passages, therefore, let us immediately 
 proceed : Dr. Van Dyke gives us tlie leading one from 
 1 Timotliy vi. 1-5. Servants, donloi, persons '' under 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 219 
 
 the yoke," are enjoined to obey their masters, their be- 
 lieving masters, to count it as a gain to themselves that 
 they have such, that they are '' sharers in such a bene- 
 fit." Persons who teach otherwise (and there must 
 have been some such officious philanthropists) are con- 
 demned as conceited, ignorant, doting about logoma- 
 chies or word battles — " making godliness gain " — in 
 other words, secularizing Christianity, as many radicals, 
 and, we may also say, many conservatives, so called, 
 are now doing. It is, in short, a pretty fair picture of 
 some modern abolitionists, and Dr. Yan Dyke's exege- 
 sis in these respects, or as against them, will pretty fair- 
 ly stand the test of criticicm. We do not think he 
 enters enough into the meaning of the expression, 
 " partakers of the benefit," or tells us wliat was that 
 peculiar change in the relation which necessarily arose 
 out of the master's conversion, and made so different 
 the relation of the doiilos. 
 
 Right here, we think, is found the key tliat unlocks 
 the whole difficulty. A believing master never could 
 regard his l)elieving doidoi as properly to be held for 
 his gain. And why do we say this? Simply because, 
 in tlie utter absence of anything affirming it, in view, 
 also, of our Saviour's golden rule, and the loving lan- 
 guage of St. Paul throughout his epistles, the thing is 
 Christianly inconceivable. They were brethren under 
 his social rule. He remained despotes, though not in 
 the harsh sense we give the term, but oivner no longer 
 — trader, buyer, above all, seller no longer. The 
 property idea had not only been reduced to a minimimi, 
 but had vanished altogether. lie could rule them, but 
 he could no longer own them, because tlioy were his 
 
220 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 kind, Aclaniically and Christianly, his kin, his " very 
 dear brethren," yea, himself, even as they were all one 
 in Christ Jesus. It is yet to be proved that, in teach- 
 ing servants to be obedient, and masters to rule kindly, 
 the mercenai-y idea, the idea of property, of one man's 
 ovming' another, above all, of one Christian oivning- 
 another Christian, ever came into the apostle's mind, 
 ever could have had room among the unselfish, loving 
 thoughts, that dwelt in that holy place. This is no 
 mere sentimentality, but a direct aj^plication of the 
 golden rule of Christ — that law of love which is per- 
 fectly consistent with the governmental relation, wheth- 
 er imperial or domestic, but ever presents the most dis- 
 tinct repulsion to the mercenary idea. 
 
 Masters and servants continued in their social rela- 
 tions. They were exhorted by the apostle to do so. 
 The great despotism of the Roman empire oversluxdow- 
 ed them all. Political changes, even if practicable, 
 could have been of no avail. There were no duties of 
 citizenship in the modern sense — no voting, no political 
 i-igiits — as there were no political duties but obedience 
 and patience, until, in God's good time, this very obedi- 
 ence and patience would be found to be a power in the 
 world vastly stronger than any seditious or revolution- 
 ary resistance. How utterly different the state of the 
 world then ! Plow absurd to reason from it to the mod- 
 ern in regard to any of those social rights and social 
 duties that are so boasted of in our proud democracy ! 
 " Let every man continue in that condition wherein 
 he is called." Masters and servants were to remain 
 together. If both were converted, then there arose a 
 new and holy brotherhood, having the outward sem- 
 
NO ARGUMEXT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 221 
 
 blancc of the relation as it existed among the unoodly 
 but oil ! how different in its spirit ! Masters, it is^often' 
 said, were not commanded to emancipate their slaves. 
 So, neither, was Nero enjoined to abdicate the Roman 
 empire. Even if the tyrant had become a Christian 
 muler Paul's preaching, we doubt very much whether 
 he would have commanded him to turn democrat, and 
 j.-roclaim a popular election. Masters were not told to 
 disperse their servants ; but, can a case be found in 
 which they were ever permitted to sell them, and put 
 the money in their pockets ? There is not a sentence, 
 not a word or syllable, from which it can be inferred 
 that evangelist or apostle ever conceived it possible that 
 one Christian man could ever think of selling another, 
 or that such a question of discipline or Christian morals 
 could ever arise among them. It is astonishing, the one- 
 sidedness in this matter, which has kept the clerical pro- 
 slavery advocate from seeing that this is the real issue 
 and that here proof is utterly wanting. It is barely 
 possible that there might have been, in certain cases 
 something with a resemblance of a sale, but which was 
 merely a method taken by one brother for placin- an- 
 other brother in a better condition. Tliere is not a 
 particle of evidence, even, of this ; but of traffic, that 
 poisonous idea which underlies all American slavery — 
 of traffic in men, of traffic in one another ! — the thing 
 IS inconceivable ; the very imagination of it is an insult 
 to the blessed memory of our early Christianity. They 
 had their imperfections ; they were tempted by the old 
 sensuality; they had a hankering, sometimes, for the 
 showy scenes of the old idolatry ; but this heavenly 
 
222 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 law of love, this " new commandment " in the earth, 
 which had come as a new life into their souls — they 
 could not so soon have turned traitors to it. 
 
 There is not a word in the New Testament about buy- 
 ing and selling slaves, not a word that would justify a 
 Christian man in doing the one or the other, except in 
 some possible sense that would take the transaction out 
 of the mercantile idea. No such cases ever seem to 
 have arisen in the church's discipline, or to have been 
 regarded as conceivable. The thought is at war with 
 the precepts of Christ and the loving spirit that runs 
 through all Paul's epistles. Patience is enjoined upon 
 the poor, submission is taught to the enslaved, loving 
 kindness to the masters, ivho still remained in that so- 
 cial relation ; contentment and quiet are preached to 
 all, on the ground of earth's small value as compared 
 with the spiritual glory. 0, how far is this from mak- 
 ing out a defense, much less a " sanction,''^ for our 
 modern slavery — our most modern slavery — that 
 which Mr. Van Dyke means, or he means nothing. 
 
 We are astonished at this pretended argument from 
 the New Testament. It amounts to nothing, even in 
 the strongest light in which they can put it. " If a 
 man smite thee on the one cheek, turn to him the oth- 
 er." Does that justify the smiter and the smiting ? 
 " Honor the King." Does that prove monarchy ? 
 " Submit yourselves ; " " resist not evil." It is some- 
 times the case in the Scriptures, that the severest re- 
 buke to oppression is found in the very precept of pa- 
 tience and submission under it. " Let every soul be 
 subject to the higher powers." Why, in view of our 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 223 
 
 benign, genial government, is not that a good text 
 for the rebellious clergymen who have so long been 
 preaching '' submission," '' submission," to the slave ? 
 
 Much learning has been exhibited in respect to the 
 word doiihL There is no doubt that it may denote the 
 servile condition. It is equally clear that" it is a term 
 of government, and may signify a subject from the 
 highest to the lowest rank. It may imply both ideas. 
 But there is a word in the Greek language that has the 
 one, the lowest one, exclusively and forever. It is 
 always servile. It is ever used to denote slaves as 
 properfT/, and in a property sense. As thus employed, 
 It is exceedingly common in the classical Greek — 
 always used, we may say, when the servile notion is to 
 be expressed simple and unmixed. It must have been 
 very familiar throughout Asia Minor, and wherever 
 Paul found the reality or the semblance to the relation. 
 It is the word andra podon. It is of the neuter form, 
 to express vileness, to denote that that to which it is 
 applied is regarded as a thing: or chattel, without will, 
 or a true acknowledged personality. When slaves are 
 statistically enumerated as property, they are called 
 andra poda, just as cattle or flocks are called by similar 
 neuters, ta kteno, ktenea, ktemata, probata. It is an 
 interesting query: why is this servile word, so common 
 in Athenian Greek, never found in the New Testament ? 
 It is because there is no idea acknowledged there which 
 it could properly express. The subject to which it had 
 been applied was there, but the servile thought was 
 gone. It could not live in the atmosphere of the 
 Christian life ; and, therefore, the apostle, though so 
 
224 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE 
 
 often having tlio occasion, avoids it, we were going to 
 say ; but no, that would be injustice to the holy Paul. 
 He does not avoid it. It never came into his mind, 
 though the word itself was as well known to him as 
 any term from the Grecian games. Property and a 
 brother Christian was an association of ideas that for 
 liim had no existence. 
 
 There is once used in the New Testament a deriva- 
 tive of this word (1 Timothy, i. 10), but in such a way 
 that it will do the man who is hunting scriptural pleas 
 for slavery no good. It is ayidra podisles, rendered 
 man stealer^ but clearly wrong. The form of the end- 
 ing shows that it does not denote an occasional act, an 
 occasional theft, but a business, an occupation. Aiidra 
 podlstes is not a man-thief^ but a man-trader^ a slave- 
 trader, or a slave-dealer ; one whose business is to sell 
 an andra podon. Just as kermatistes (John ii. 14) does 
 not denote moneu -stealer, but money-seUer, broker, 
 '''-money-changer'' So in the Memorabilia, Socrates 
 metaphorically calls the Sophists who took pay for their 
 lectures andra podlstes, men who sold themselves for 
 servile hire. Will Mr. Van Dyke look at tlie associa- 
 tion, in which this term is found (1 Tim. i. 10), and 
 then judge for himself whether the idea of that thing 
 in which the andra podistes dealt, or the idea of human 
 property, could ever have been applied by the apostle 
 to a man, much less a Christian brother. What an un- 
 godly crew! — "the unholy and profane murderers, 
 fornicators, slave-traders, liars, perjurers, and all else 
 that is opposed to pure doctrine." 
 
 These injunctions to patience and submission to 
 
NO ARGUMENT FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 225 
 
 kindly treatment and gentle ruling, are frequent in the 
 New Testament. Instead of shunning them as favoring 
 the pro-slavery cause, we should be glad, if space pei^ 
 mitted, to set them forth in all that loving fullness of 
 style in which the apostle's noble heart indulged itself. 
 It is in such passages, in truth, we find the richest in- 
 ternal evidence of the super-human origin of the Scrip- 
 tures. When faith is failing at the thought of man's 
 unnumbered wrongs and truth's slow progress in tlio 
 earth, in some dark hour of unbelief, when shades of 
 skepticism are falling on the soul, it is here we may go 
 for relief and reassurance. Open to these words of 
 love, see how the heavenly light is streaming from 
 them; what an unearthly spirit is breathing from them ! 
 '^For perhaps he, therefore, departed for a season, that 
 thou should'st receive him back forever ; not now as a 
 slave," an andrapodon,or a doulos even — " not now as 
 a servant, but as more than a servant, as a brother, a 
 brother beloved, both in the flesh and in the Lord" — 
 both in thine old and in thy new humanity. This is 
 not of the worid ; it is " from above, where Christ 
 dwelleth" — our human, sympathizing Saviour. 
 
 And now, to take these holy thing's, and make from 
 them an argument in favor of slavery as it exists in 
 these United States, of cotton-growing slavery, our 
 trafficking, mercenary, property claiming slavery, that 
 will sell a man, his children and his children's children 
 for its own worldly gain, and then content itself with 
 the poor, conscience soothing plea that, perhaps he may, 
 somehow, get Christianized in the process ! It is rank 
 sacrilege. No other name can be given to it, unless we 
 10* 
 
226 PATRIARCHAL AND JEWISH SERVITUDE, &C. 
 
 suppose that they who thus abuse the Scripture are 
 more the victims of an idea, a false idea, a foolish, false 
 conservatism, more secular in its spirit than the un- 
 christian radicalism with which it so vehemently con- 
 tends. 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT THE JEWISH SYNAGOGUE, NEW YORK, ON 
 THE DAY OF THE NATIONAL FAST, JAN. 4, 1861. 
 
 BY REV. M. J. RAPHALL, M. A. PH. DR. 
 
 *' The people of Nineveh believed in God, proclaimed a fast, and put 
 on sackclotli from the greatest of them even to Ishe least of them. For 
 the matter reached the King of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, 
 laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and seated himself 
 in aslies. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through 
 Nineveh, by decree of the King and his magnates, saying : Let neither 
 man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything ; let them not feed nor 
 drink any water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and 
 cry with all their strength unto God ; and let them turn eveiy individ- 
 ual from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands. "VVho 
 knoweth but God may turn and relent ; yea, turn away from his fierce 
 anger, that we perish not. And God saw their works, that they turned 
 from their evil way ; and God relented of the evil which he had said that 
 he would inflict upon them ; and he did it not." — Jonah iii. 5—10. 
 
 1. My Friends — We meet here tins day under cir- 
 cumstances not unlike those described in my text. Not 
 many weeks ago, on the invitation of the Governor of 
 this State, we joined in thanksgiving for the manifold 
 mercies the Lord had vouchsafed to bestow upon us 
 during the past year. But " coming events cast their 
 shadows before," and our thanks were tinctured by the 
 foreboding of danger impending over our country. 
 The evil we then dreaded has now come home to us. 
 As the cry of the prophet, " Yet forty days and Nine- 
 
228 BIBLE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 veil shall be overthrown," alarmed that people, so the 
 proclamation, '' tlie Union is dissolved," has startled 
 the inhabitants of the United States. The President 
 — the chief officer placed at the helm to guide the ves- 
 sel of the commonwealth on its course — stands agliast 
 at the signs of the times. Pie sees the black clouds 
 gathering overhead, he hears the fierce howl of the tor- 
 nado, and the hoarse roar of the breakers all around 
 him. An aged man, his great experience has taught 
 him that " man's extremity is God's opportunity ; " and 
 conscious of his own inability to weather the storm 
 without help from on high, he calls upon every individ- 
 ual " to feel a personal responsibility towards God," 
 even as the King of Nineveh desired all persons " to 
 cry unto God with all their strength " — and it is in 
 compliance with this call of the Chief Magistrate of 
 these United States that we, like the many millions of 
 our fellow-citizens, devote this day to public prayer and' 
 humiliation. The President, more polished, though 
 less plain-spoken than the King of Nineveh, does not 
 in direct terms require every one to turn from his " evil 
 way, and from the violence that is in their hands." 
 But to me these two expressions seem in a most signal 
 manner to describe our difficulty, and to apply to the 
 actual condition of things both North and South. The 
 " violence in their hands " is the great reproach we 
 must address to the sturdy fire-eater who in the hear- 
 ing of an indignant world proclaims " Cotton is King." 
 King indeed, and a most righteous and merciful one, 
 no doubt, in his own conceit ; since he only tars and 
 feathers the wretches who fall in his power, and whom 
 he suspects of not being sufficiently loyal and obedient 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 229 
 
 to Lis sovereignty. And tlie " evil of his ways " is tlie 
 reproach we must address to the sleek rhetorician 
 who in tlie hearing of a God-fearing world declares 
 " Thought is King." King indeed, and a most mighty 
 and magnanimous one — no doubt — in his own con- 
 ceit ; all-powerful to foment and augment the strife, 
 thougli powerless to allay it. Of all the fallacies coin- 
 ed in the north, the arrogant assertion that " Thought 
 is King" is the very last with which, at this present 
 crisis, the patience of a reflecting people should have 
 been abused. For in fact, the material greatness of the 
 United States seems to have completely outgrown the 
 grasp of our most gifted minds ; so that urgent as is 
 our need, pressing as is the occasion, no man or set of 
 men have yet come forward capable of rising above the 
 narrow horizon of sectional influences and prejudices, 
 and with views enlightened, just, and beneficent, to em- 
 brace the entirety of the Union and to secure its pros- 
 perity and preservation. No, my friends, " Cotton " is 
 not King, and '' Human thought " is not King. Ado- 
 nai Meleck. The Lord alone is King ! Vmalkootlio 
 bakol mushaJa, and His royalty reigneth over all. This 
 very day of humiliation and of prayer — what is it but 
 the recognition of His supremacy, the confession of His 
 power and of our own weakness, the supplications 
 which our distress addresses to His mercy ? But in or- 
 der that these supplications may be graciously received. 
 that His supreme protection may be vouchsafed unto 
 our Country, it is necessary that we should begin as the 
 people of Nineveh did ; we must " believe in God " 
 And when I say " we," I do not mean merely us hand- 
 ful of peaceable Union-loving Hebrews, but I mean the 
 
2^0 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 wliole of the people throughout the United States : the 
 President and his Cabinet, the President elect and his 
 advisers, the leaders of public opinion. North and 
 South. If they truly and honestly desire to save our 
 country, let them believe in God and in His Holy word ; 
 and then when the authority of the Constitution is to 
 be set aside for a higher Law, they will be able to ap- 
 peal to the highest Law of all, the revealed Law and 
 Word of God, which affords its supreme sanction to the 
 Constitution. There can be no doubt, my friends, that 
 however much of personal ambition, selfishness, pride, 
 and obstinacy, there may enter into the present unhai> 
 py quarrel between the two great sections of the Com- 
 monwealth — I say it is certain that the origin of the 
 quarrel itself is the difference of opinion respecting 
 slaveholding, which the one section denounces as sinful 
 — aye, as the most heinous of sins — while the other 
 section upholds it as perfectly lawful. It is the prov- 
 ince of statesmen to examine the circumstances under 
 which the Constitution of the United States recognizes 
 the legality of slaveholding ; and under what circum- 
 stances, if any, it becomes a crime against the law of 
 the land. But the question whether slaveholding is a 
 sin before God, is one tliat belongs to the theologian. 
 I have been requested by prominent citizens of other 
 denominations, that I should on this day examine the 
 Bible view of slavery, as the religious mind of the 
 country requires to be enlightened on the subject. 
 
 In compliance with that request, and after humbly 
 praying that the Father of Truth and of Mercy may 
 enlighten my mind, and direct my words for good, I am 
 about to solicit your earnest attention, my friends, to 
 
, BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 231 
 
 this serious subject. My discourse will, I fear, take up 
 more of your time than I am in the habit of exacting 
 from you ; but this is a day of penitence, and the hav- 
 ing to listen to a long and sober discourse must be ac- 
 counted as a penitential infliction. 
 
 The subject of my investigation falls into three 
 parts : — 
 
 First, How far back can we trace the existence of 
 slavery ? 
 
 Secondly, Is slaveholding condemned as a sin in sa- 
 cred Scripture ? 
 
 Thirdly, What was the condition of the slave in 
 Biblical times, and among the Hebrews; and sayino; 
 with our Father Jacob, -for Thy help, I hope, 
 i-ord ! I proceed to examine the question, how far 
 back can we trace the existence of slavery ? 
 
 ^ I. It is generally admitted, that slavery had its ori- 
 gin in war, public or private. The victor having it in 
 his power to take the life of his vanquished enemy 
 prefers to let him live, and reduces him to bondao-e 
 The life he has spared, the body he might have mutilat- 
 ed or destroyed, becomes his absolute property He 
 may dispose of it in any way he pleases. Such was, 
 and through a great part of the world still is, the bru- 
 tal law of force. When this state of things first began, 
 It IS next to impossible to decide. If we consult Sa- 
 cred Scripture, the oldest and most truthful collection 
 of records now or at any time in existence, we find the 
 word Ngebed -slave," which tlie English version ren- 
 ders - servant," first used by x\oah, who, in Genesis 
 IX. 25, curses the descendants of his son Ham, by say- 
 ing they should be Ngebed N^abadbn, tlie - meanest 
 
232 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 of slaves," or as the English version has it, " servant 
 of servants." The question naturally arises how came 
 Noah to use the expression ? How came he to know 
 anything of slavery ? There existed not at that time 
 any human being on earth except Noah and his family 
 of tliree sons, apparently by one mother, born free and 
 equal, with their wives and children. Noah had no 
 slaves. From the time that he quitted the ark he could 
 have none. It therefore becomes evident that Noah's 
 acquaintance with the word slave and the nature of 
 slavery must date from before the Flood, and existed in 
 his memory only until the crime of Ham called it forth. 
 You and I may regret that in his anger Noah should 
 from beneath the waters of wrath again have fished up 
 the idea and practice of slavery ; but that he did so is 
 a fact which rests on the authority of Scripture. I am 
 therefore justified when, tracing slavery as far back as 
 it can be traced, I arrive at the conclusion, that next to 
 the domestic relations of husband and wife, parents and 
 children, the oldest relation of society with which we 
 are acquainted is that of master and slave. 
 
 Let us for an instant stop at this curse by Noah with 
 which slavery after the Flood is recalled into existence. 
 Among the many prophecies contained in the Bible and 
 having reference to particular times, persons, and 
 events, there are three singular predictions referring to 
 three distinct races or peoples, which seem to be intend- 
 ed for all times, and accordingly remain in full force to 
 tliis day. The first of these is the doom of Ham's de- 
 scendants, the African race, pronounced upwards of 
 4000 years ago. The second is the character of the 
 descendants of Ishmael, the Arabs, pronounced nearly 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 233 
 
 4,000 years ago ; and the third aud last is the promise 
 of continued and indestructible nationality promised 
 to us, Israelites, full 2,500 years ago. It has been said 
 that the knowledge that a particular prophecy exists, 
 helps to work out its fulfilment, and I am quite willing 
 to allow that with us, Israelites, such is the fact. The 
 knowledge we have of God's gracious promises renders 
 us imperishable, even though the greatest and most 
 powerful nations of the olden time have utterly perish- 
 ed. It may be doubted whether the fanatic Arab of 
 tlie desert ever heard of the prophecy that he is to be 
 a " wild man, his hand against every man, and every 
 man's hand against him." (Gen. xvi. 12.) But you 
 and I, and all men of ordinary education, know that 
 this prediction at all times has been, and is now, lite- 
 rally fulfilled, and that it has never been interrupted. 
 Not even when the followers of Mahomet rush*!;d forth 
 to spread his doctrines, the Koran in one hand and the 
 sword in the other, and when Arab conquest rendered 
 the fairest portion of the Old World subject to the em- 
 pire of their Calipli, did the descendants of Ishmael 
 renounce their characteristics. Even the boasted civi- 
 lization of the present century, and frequent intercourse 
 with Western travellers, still leave the Arab a wild 
 man, " his hand against every man, and every man's 
 hand against him," a most convincing and durable proof 
 that the Word of God is true, and that the prophecies 
 of the Bible were dictated by the Spirit of the Most 
 High. But though, in the case of the Arab, it is bare- 
 ly possible that he may be acquainted with the predic- 
 tion made to Hagar, yet we may be sure that the fetish- 
 serving benighted African has no knowledge of Noa'h's 
 
234 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY 
 
 prediction ; which, however, is nowhere more fully or 
 more atrociously carried out than in the native home of 
 the African. Witness the horrid fact, that the king of 
 Dahomy is, at this very time, filling a large and deep 
 trench with human blood, sufficient to float a good-sized 
 boat ; that the victims are innocent men, murdered to 
 satisfy some freak of what he calls his religion : and 
 that this monstrous and most fiendish act has met with 
 no opposition, either from the pious indignation of 
 Great Britain, or from the zealous humanity of our 
 country. 
 
 Now I am well aware that the Biblical critics called 
 Rationalists, who deny the possibility of prophecy, 
 have taken upon themselves to assert, that the predic- 
 tion of which I have spoken was never uttered by Noah, 
 but was made up many centuries after him by the He- 
 brew writers of the Bible, in order to smooth over the 
 extermination of the Canaanites, whose land was con- 
 quered by the Israelites. With superhuman knowledge 
 like that of the Rationalists, who claim to sit in judg- 
 ment on the word of God, I do not think it worth while 
 to argue. But I would ask you how is it that a predic- 
 tion, manufactured for a purpose — a fraud in short, 
 and that a most base and unholy one, should neverthe- 
 less continue in force, and be carried out during four, 
 or three, or even two thousand years ; for a thousand 
 years more or less can here make no difference. Noali. 
 on the occasion in question, bestows on his son Shem a 
 spiritual blessing : "Blessed be tlie Lord, the God of 
 Shem," and to this day it remains a fact which cannot 
 be denied, that whatever knowledge of God and of re- 
 ligious truth is possessed by the human race, has been 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 235 
 
 promulgated by the descendants of Shem. Noali l,c 
 stows on lus son Japheth a blessing, chiefly temporal, 
 but partaking also of spiritual good. « May God en- 
 large Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem " 
 and to this day it remains a fact which cannot be de- 
 nied, that the descendants of Japheth (Europeans and 
 their olTspring) have been enlarged so that they possess 
 dominion in every part of the earth ; while, at the same 
 .me they share in that knowledge of religious truth which 
 the descendants of Shem were the first to promulgate. 
 Ivoah did not bestow any blessing on his son Ham, but 
 uttered a bitter curse against his descendants, and to this 
 day It remains a fact which cannot be gainsaid that in 
 l"s own native home, and generally throughout the 
 world, the unfortunate negro is indeed the meanest of 
 slaves. Much has been said respecting the inferiority 
 ot his intellectual powers, and that no man of his race 
 has ever inscribed his name on the Pantheon of human 
 excellence, either mental or moral. But this is a sub- 
 ject I will not discuss. I do not attempt to build up a 
 tlieory, nor yet to defend the moral government of Pro- 
 vidence. I state fiicts ; and having done so, I remind 
 you that our own fathers were slaves in Egypt, and af- 
 flicted four hundred years; and then I bid you reflect 
 on the words of inspired Isaiah (Iv. 8.), " My thoughts 
 are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my wavs 
 saith the Lord." •' ^ . > 
 
 II. Having thus, on the authority of the sacred Scrip- 
 ture, traced slavery back to the remotest period, I next 
 request your attention to the question, " Is slaveholding 
 condemned as a sin in sacred Scripture ? " How this 
 question can at all arise in the mind of any man that 
 
230 BIBLE VIEW OF SLxiVEUY. 
 
 has received a religious education, and is acquainted 
 with the history of the Bible, is a phenomenon I cannot 
 explain to myself, and which fifty years ago no man 
 dreamed of. But we live in times when we must not 
 be surprised at anything. Last Sunday an eminent 
 preacher is reported to have declared from the pulpit, 
 '' That the Old Testament requirements served their 
 puspose during the physical and social development of 
 mankind, and were rendered no longer necessary now 
 when we were to be guided by the superior doctrines 
 of the New in the moral instruction of the race." I 
 had always thought that in the " moral instruction of 
 the race," the requirements of the Jewish Scriptures 
 and Christian Scriptures were identically the same ; 
 that to abstain from murder, theft, adultery, that " to 
 do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with 
 God," were " requirements " equally imperative in the 
 one course of instruction as in the other. But it ap- 
 pears I was mistaken. " We have altered all that 
 now," says this eminent divine, in happy imitation of 
 Moliere's physician, whose new theory removed the 
 heart from the left side of the human body to the right. 
 But when I remember that the " now" refers to a pe- 
 riod of which you all, though no very aged men, wit- 
 nessed the rise ; when, moreover, I remember that the 
 '' we" the reverend preacher speaks of, is limited to a 
 few impulsive declaimers, gifted with great zeal, but 
 little knowledge ; more eloquent than learned ; better 
 able to excite our passions than to satisfy our reason ; 
 and when, lastly, I remember the scorn with wliich sa- 
 cred Scripture (Dent, xxxii. 18) speaks of " new- 
 fangled notions, lately sprung up, which your fathers 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 237 
 
 esteemed not ;" when I consider all this, I think you 
 and I had rather continue to take our " requirements 
 for moral instruction " from Moses and the Prophets 
 than from tlie eloquent preacher of Brooklyn. But as 
 that reverend gentleman takes a lead among those who 
 most loudly and most vehemently denounce slavehold- 
 ing as a sin, I wished to convince myself whether he 
 had any Scripture warranty for so doing ; and whether 
 such denunciation was one of those " requirements for 
 moral instruction " advanced by the New Testament. 
 I have accordingly examined the various books of 
 Christian Scripture, and find that they afford the reve- 
 rend gentleman and his compeers no authority what- 
 ever for his and their declamations. The New Testa- 
 ment nowhere, directly or indirectly, condemns slave- 
 holding, which, indeed, is proved by the universal prac- 
 tice of all Christian nations during many centuries. 
 Receiving slavery as one of the conditions of society, 
 the New Testament nowhere interferes with or contra- 
 dicts the slave code of Moses ; it even preserves a let- 
 ter written by one of the most eminent Christian teach- 
 ers to a slaveowner on sending back to him his runaway 
 slave. And when we next refer to the history and 
 " requirements " of our own sacred Scriptures, we find 
 that on the most solemn occasion therein recorded, 
 when God gave the Ten Commandments on Mount 
 Sinai — 
 
 There where His finger scorched, the tablet shone; 
 There where His shadow on his people shone 
 His glory, shrouded in its garb of fire. 
 Himself no eye might see and not expire. 
 
 Even on that most solemn and most holy occasion, 
 
tlSb BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 slaveholding is not only recognised and sanctioned as 
 an integral part of the social structure, when it is com- 
 manded that the Sabbath of tlie Lord is to bring rest to 
 Ngahdecha ve Amatheclia^ " Tliy male slave and thy 
 female slave" (Exod. xx. 10; Deut. v. 14). But the 
 property in slaves is placed under the same protection 
 as any other species of lawful property, when it is said, 
 '' Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, or his 
 field, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, 
 or his ass, or aught that belongeth to thy neighbor." 
 (Ibid. XX. 17 ; v. 21). That tlie male slave and female 
 slave here spoken of do not designate the Hebrew 
 bondman, but the heathen slave, I shall presently show 
 you. That the Ten Commandments are the word of 
 God, and as such, of the very highest authority, is ac- 
 knowledged by Christians as well as by Jews. I would 
 therefore ask the reverend gentleman of Brooklyn and 
 his compeers — How dare you, in the face of the sanc- 
 tion and protection afforded to slave property in the 
 Ten Commandments — how dare you denounce slave- 
 holding as a sin ? When you remember that Abraham, 
 Isaac, Jacob, Job — the men with whom the Almighty 
 conversed, with whose names he emphatically connects 
 his own most holy name, and to whom He vouchsafed to 
 give the character of " perfect, upright, fearing God 
 and eschewing evil " (Job i. 8) — that all these men 
 were slaveholders, does it not strike you that you are 
 guilty of something very little short of blasphemy ? 
 And if you answer me, " Oh, in their time slaveholding 
 was lawful, but now it has become a sin," I in my turn 
 ask you, " When and by what authority you draw the 
 line?" Tell us the precise time when slaveholding 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 2o9 
 
 ceased to be permitted, and became sinful?" Wlien 
 we remember the mischief which this inventino- a new 
 sin, not known to the Bible, is causing; how it has ex- 
 asperated the feelings of the South, and alarmed the 
 conscience of the Nortli, to a degree that men who 
 should be brothers are on the point of imbruing tlieir 
 liands in each other's blood, are we not entitled^'to asli 
 tiie reverend preacher of Brooklyn, '' What right have 
 you to insult and exasperate thousands of God-fearing, 
 law-abiding citizens, whose moral worth and patriotism' 
 whose purity of conscience and of life, are fully equal 
 to your own ? What right have you to place yonder 
 grey-headed philanthropist on a level witli a murderer, 
 or yonder virtuous mother of a family on a line with an' 
 adulteress, or yonder honorable and honest man in one 
 rank with a thief, and all this solely because they exer- 
 cise a right which your own fathers and proo-enitors, 
 during many generations, held and exercised\vithout 
 reproach or compunction? You profess to frame your 
 ^' moral instruction of the race " according to the '^ re- 
 quirements" of the New Testament — but tell us where 
 and by whom it was said, " Whosoever shall say to his 
 neighbor, Raca, (worthless sinner), shall be in danger 
 of the council ; but whosoever shall say, thou fool, sh^iill 
 be in danger of the judgment." My friends, I find, 
 and I am sorry to find, that I am delivering a pro-sla- 
 very discourse. I am no friend to slavery^in the ab- 
 stract, and still less friendly to the practical workings 
 ot slavery. But I stand here as a teacher in Israel; 
 not to place before you my own feelings and opinions,' 
 but to propound to you the word of God, the Bible view 
 of slavery. With a due sense of my responsibility I 
 
240 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 must state to you the truth and no tiling but the truth, 
 however unpalatable or unpopular that truth may be. 
 III. It remains for me now to examine what was the 
 condition of the slave in Biblical times and among the 
 Hebrews. And here at once we must distinguisli be- 
 tween the Hebrew bondman and the heathen slave. 
 The former could only be reduced to bondage from two 
 causes. If he had committed theft and had not wliere- 
 withal to make full restitution, he was "sold for his 
 theft." (Exod. xxii. 3.) Or if he became so miser- 
 ably poor that he could not sustain life except by beg- 
 ging, he had permission to " sell " or bind himself in 
 servitude. (Levt. xxv. 39 et seq.} But in either case 
 his servitude was limited in duration and character. 
 " Six years shall he serve, and in the seventh lie shall 
 go out free for nothing." (Exod. xxi. 2). And if even 
 the bondman preferred bondage to freedom, he could 
 not, under any circumstances, be held to servitude 
 longer than the jubilee then next coming. At that pe- 
 riod the estate which liad originally belonged to his 
 father, or remoter ancestor, reverted to his possession, 
 so that he went forth at once a freeman and a landed 
 proprietor. As his privilege of Hebrew citizen was 
 thus only suspended, and the law, in permitting him to 
 be sold, contemplated his restoration to Ids full rights, 
 it took care that during his servitude his mind should 
 not be crushed to tlio abject and cringing condition of a 
 slave. " Ye shall not rule over one another with 
 rigor," is tlie provision of the law. (Lev. xxv. 46.) 
 Thus lie is fenced round with protection against any 
 abuse of power on the part of his employer; and tradi- 
 tion so strictly interpreted the letter of the law in his 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 241 
 
 favor, that it was a common saying of Biblical times and 
 homes, which Maimonides lias preserved to us, that '' he 
 who buys an Hebrew bondman gets himself a master." 
 Though in servitude, this Hebrew was in nowise exempt 
 from liis religious duties. Therefore it is not for him or 
 his that the Ten Commandments stipulated for rest on 
 tlie Sabbath of the Lord ; for his employer could not 
 compel him to work on that day ; and if he did work 
 of his own accord, he became guilty of death, like any 
 other Sabbatli-breaker. Neither does the prohibition, 
 " thou shalt not covet the property of thy neighbor," 
 apply to him, for he was not the property of his em- 
 ployer. In fact, between the Hebrew bondman and the 
 Southern slave there is no point of resemblance. There 
 were, however, slaves among the Hebrews, whose gen- 
 eral condition was analogous to that of their Southern 
 fellow sufferers. That was the heathen slave, who was 
 to be bought " from the heathens that were round 
 about the land of Israel, or from the heathen strangers 
 that sojourned in the land ; they should be a possession, 
 to be bequeathed as an inheritance to the owner's chil- 
 dren, after his death, for ever." (Levit. xxv. 44 — 46.) 
 Over these heathen slaves the owner's property was 
 absolute ; he could put them to hard labor, to the ut- 
 most extent of their physical strength ; he could inflict 
 on them any degree of chastisement short of injury to 
 life and limb. If his heathen slave ran away or strayed 
 from home, every Israelite was bound to bring or send 
 him back, as he would have to do with any other por- 
 tion of his neighbor's property that had been lost or 
 strayed. (Deut. xxii. 3.) 
 
 Now, you may, perhaps, ask me how I can reconcile 
 11 
 
242 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 this statement with the text of Scripture so frequently- 
 quoted against the Fugitive Slave Law, " Thou shalt 
 not surrender unto his master the slave who has escap- 
 ed from his master unto thee" (Deut. xxiii. 16). I 
 answer you that, according to all legists, this text ap- 
 plies to a heathen slave, who, from any foreign country 
 escapes from his master, even though that master be an 
 Hebrew, residing out of the land of Israel. Such a 
 slave — but such a slave only — is to find a permanent 
 asylum in any part of the country he may choose. 
 This interpretation is fully borne out by the words of 
 the precept. The pronoun " thou," is not here used in 
 the same sense as in the Ten Commandments. There 
 it designates every soul in Israel individually ; since 
 every one has it in his power, and is in duty bound to 
 obey the commandments. But as the security and pro- 
 tection to be bestowed on the runaway slaves are be- 
 yond the power of any individual, and require the con- 
 sent and concurrence of the whole community, the pro- 
 noun " thou" here means the whole of the people, and 
 not one portion in opposition to any other portion of 
 the people. And as the expression remains the same 
 throughout the precept, '' With thee he shall dwell, 
 even among ye, in the place he shall choose in one of 
 thy gates where it liketh him best," it plainly shows 
 that the whole of the land was open to him, and the 
 whole of the people were to protect the fugitive, which 
 could not have been carried out if it had applied to the 
 slave who escaped from one tribe into the territory of 
 another. Had the precept been expounded in any oth- 
 er than its strictly literal sense, it would have caused 
 great confusion, since it would have nullified two other 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 243 
 
 precepts of God's law ; that wlncli directs that " slaves, 
 like lands and houses, were to be inherited for ever," 
 and that which commands " property, lost or strayed, 
 to be restored to the owner." Any other interpetation 
 would, moreover, have caused heartburning and strife 
 between the tribes, for men were as tenacious of their 
 rights and property in those days as they are now. 
 But no second opinion was ever entertained ; the slave 
 who ran away from Dan to Beersheba had to be given 
 up, even as the runaway from South Carolina has to be 
 given up by Massachusetts ; whilst the runaway from 
 Edom, or from Syria, found an asylum in the land of 
 Israel, as the runaway slave from Cuba or Brazil would 
 find in New York. Accordingly Shimei reclaimed and 
 recovered his runaway slaves from Achish, king of 
 Gath, at that time a vassal of Israel (Kings ii. 39, 40). 
 And Saul of Tarsus sent back the runaway slave Ones- 
 imus, unto his owner Philemon. But to surrender to a 
 rutliless, lawless heathen, the wretched slave who had 
 escaped from his cruelty, would have been to give up 
 the fugitive to certain death, or at least to tortures re- 
 pugnant to the spirit of God's law, the tender care of 
 which protected the bird in its nest, the beast at the 
 plough, and the slave in his degradation. Accordingly, 
 the extradition was not permitted in Palestine any 
 more than it is in Canada. While thus the owner 
 possessed full right over and security for his property, 
 the exercise of that power was confined within certain 
 limits which he could not outstep. His female slave 
 was not to be the tool or castaway toy of his sensuali- 
 ty, nor could he sell her, but was bound to " let her go 
 free," " because he had humbled her" (Deut. xxi. 14). 
 
244 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 His male slave was protected against excessive punish- 
 ment ; for if the master in any way mutihated his slave, 
 even to knock a single tooth out of his head, the slave 
 became free (Exod. xxi. 26, 27). And while thus two 
 of the worst passions of human nature, lust and cruel- 
 ty, were kept under due restraint, the third bad pas- 
 sion, cupidity, was not permitted free scope ; for the 
 law of God secured to the slave his Sabbaths and days 
 of rest; wliile public opinion, which in a country so 
 densely peopled as Palestine must have been all-power- 
 ful, would not allow any slave- owner to impose heavier 
 tasks on his slaves, or to feed them worse than his 
 neighbors did. This, indeed, is the great distinction 
 which the Bible view of slavery derives from its divine 
 source. The slave is a person in whom the dignity 
 of human nature is to be respected ; he has rights. 
 Whereas, the heathen view of slavery which prevailed 
 at Rome, and which, I am sorry to say, is adopted in the 
 South, reduces the slave to a things and a thing can 
 have no rights. The result to which the Bible view of 
 slavery leads us, is — 1st. That slavery has existed 
 since the earliest time ; 2d. That slaveholding is no sin, 
 and that slave property is expressly placed under the 
 protection of the Ten Commandments ; 8d. That the 
 slave is a person, and has rights not conflicting with 
 the lawful exercise of the rights of his owner. If our 
 Northern fellow-citizens, content with following the 
 word of God, would not insist on being " righteous 
 overmuch," or denouncing" sin " which the Bible knows 
 not, but which is plainly taught by the precepts of men 
 they would entertain more equity and and less ill feel- 
 ing towards their southern brethren. And if our 
 
BIBLE VIEW OP^ SLAVERY. 245 
 
 Southern fellow-citizens would adopt tlie Bible view of 
 slavery, and discard that heathen slave code, which per- 
 mits a few bad men to indulge in an abuse of power 
 tliat throws a stigma and disgrace on the whole body 
 of slaveholders — if both North and South would do 
 what is right, then " God would see their works and 
 tliat they turned from the evil of their ways ;" and in 
 their case, as in that of the people of Nineveh, would 
 mercifully avert the impending evil, for with Him alone 
 is the power to do so. Therefore let us pray. 
 
 Almighty and merciful God, we approach Thee tliis 
 day, our hearts heavy with the weight of our sins, our 
 looks downcast under the sense of our ingratitude, na- 
 tional and individual. Thou, Father all bounteous, 
 hast in Thine abundant goodness plentifully bestowed 
 upon us every good and every blessing, spiritual, men- 
 tal, temporal, that in the present state of the world men 
 can desire. But we have perverted and abused Thy 
 gifts ; in our arrogance and selfishness we have contriv- 
 ed to extract poison from Thy most precious boons ; 
 the spiritual have degenerated into unloving self-righte- 
 ousness ; the mental have rendered us vain-glorious and 
 conceited, and the temporal have degraded us into 
 Mammon-worshipping slaves of avarice. Intoxicated 
 with our prosperity, we have forgotten Thee ; drunken 
 with pride, we reel on towards tlie precipice of disunion 
 and ruin. What hand can stay us if it be not Thine, 
 God ! Thou who art long-suffering as Thou art 
 almighty, to Thee we turn in the hour of our utmost 
 need. Hear us. Father, for on Thee our hopes are 
 fixed. Help us, Father, for thou alone canst do it. 
 Punish us not according to our arrogance ; afflict us 
 not according to our deserts. Bemove from our breasts 
 
246 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 the heart of stone, and from our minds the obstmacy 
 of self-willed pride. Extend Thy grace unto us, that 
 we may acknowledge our own transgressions. Open 
 our eyes tliat we may behold and renounce the wrong 
 we inflict on our neighbors. God of justice and of 
 mercy, suffer not despots to rejoice at our dissensions, 
 nor tyrants to triumph over our fall. Let them not 
 point at us the finger of scorn, or say, " Look there at 
 the fruits of freedom and self-government — of equal 
 rights and popular sovereignty — strife without any 
 real cause — destruction without any sufficient motive." 
 Oh, let not them who trust in Thee be put to shame, or 
 those who seek Thee be disgraced. Almiglity God, 
 extend Thy gracious protection to the United States! 
 pour out over the citizens thereof, and those whom they 
 have elected to be their rulers, the spirit of grace and 
 of supplication, the spirit of wisdom and brotherly 
 love, so that henceforth, even as hitherto, they may 
 know that union is strength, and that it is good and 
 pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity. And 
 above all this, Lord merciful and gracious, avert the 
 calamity of civil war from our midst. If in Thy su- 
 preme wisdom Thou hast decreed that this vast com- 
 monwealth, which has risen under Thy protection, and 
 l)rospered under Thy blessing, shall now be separated, 
 then we beseech Thee let that separation be peaceable ; 
 tliat no human blood may be shed, but that the canopy 
 of Thy peace may still remain spread over all the land. 
 May we address our prayers to Thee, Lord, at an 
 acceptable time ; mayest Thou, God, in Thy abun- 
 dant mercy, answer us with the truth of Thy salvation. 
 Amen. 
 
TREELIGION, CORRUPTION AND FANATICISM 
 REBUKED. 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED IN TRINITY CHURCH, NEW YORK, ON THE DAY OF THE 
 NATIONAL FAST, JAN. 4, 1861. 
 
 BY REV. FRANCIS VINTON, D. D. 
 
 The people came to the house of God, and abode there till even before 
 God ; and lifted up their voices and wept sore, and said. Lord God of 
 Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to-day 
 one tribe lacking in Israel ? — Judges xxi. 2, 3. 
 
 The text acquaints us with a time of great distress 
 among the tribes of Israel. It was an era of lawless- 
 ness and confusion, when public sentiment was deprav- 
 ed ; when personal safety was endangered ; w^hen law 
 was dishonored and set at naught ; when piety ^was rare 
 and worship of God neglected ; when good men retired 
 into the sanctuary of their private and domestic fire- 
 sides for the security and comforts of life which society 
 denied them ; when the Commonwealth was abandoned 
 to the control of " the sons of Belial," who, in the pas- 
 sionate rioting of pampered appetites and ravenous 
 lusts, committed atrocities that appaled the community. 
 (Judges xix. xx.) It was one of these horrible crimes 
 that roused the tribes against the tribe of Benjamin, and 
 gathered the congregation together as one man, from 
 Dan to Beersheba. Ambassadors were sent to the -of- 
 fendinof tribe to demand the surrender of the children 
 
248 FANATICISM REBUKED. 
 
 of Belial for pimisliment. But the tribe of Benjamin 
 "would not hearken to the voice of their brethren," but 
 made common cause with the offenders, and " gathered 
 themselves together to go out to battle against the chil- 
 dren of Israel." Civil war was the consequence, and 
 the tribe of Benjamin was ruined nearly to extermina- 
 tion. 
 
 Those fearful times are described in the last verse of 
 the Book of Judges, in these few emphatic words : — 
 " In those days there was no king in Israel ; every man 
 did that which was right in his own eyes." It was only 
 when the fatal issue of that civil war was felt in the be- 
 reavements and desolation which ensued, that the pious 
 sentiment was roused in the public heart and God was 
 remembered. Under the pressure of the common woe, 
 and in view of the impotency of mortal strife, " the 
 people came to the house of God, and abode there till 
 even before God, and lifted up their voices and wept 
 sore ; and said, Lord God of Israel, why is this come 
 to pass in Israel, that there should be to-day one tribe 
 lacking in Israel." 
 
 My brethren, your thoughts doubtless anticipate the 
 suggestion of a likeness between the dark and revolting 
 era of Israel's lawlessness and this present epoch in our 
 country's history. We have not yet reached the ex- 
 treme of wickedness, where law and government and 
 public virtue and private security, wrecked and aban- 
 doned, were left a prey to the surging billow^s of a 
 stormy sea of wild passions and slimy lusts ; but we 
 hear the storm howling around our ship of State, and 
 behold confusion and dismay in those appointed to the 
 command and pilotage of the Constitution, wherein we 
 
FANATICISM REBUKED. 249 
 
 are all embarked with life's choice treasures. And while 
 the staunch vessel is yet sound, we are summoned by 
 the President, in one national voice of prayer to Him 
 " who hath gathered the wind in His fists," (Prov. xxx. 
 4,) " who stilleth the voice of the seas, the noise of 
 their waves, and the tumult of the people," (Ps. Ixv. 
 7,) to implore His divine guidance and protection and 
 deliverance, that, as in the ark, the world's hopes may 
 be saved and we may come forth upon the mount, under 
 the sunshine of His smile, united once more around the 
 altar of thanksgiving. 
 
 The one bright spot that illumined Israel's night is 
 reflected here to-day, and throughout the land, from 
 ocean to ocean, where, with the single exception of one 
 tribe — a loved one to whom our love w^ould fain give 
 Benjamin's fivefold portion — an united people acknowl- 
 edge allegiance to the nation's law and render obedi- 
 ence to the nation's Chief Magistrate, in gathering our- 
 selves together in the house of God, and lifting up our 
 voices, saying — " O Lord God of our fathers, why is 
 this come to pass in these United States, that there 
 should be to-day one State lacking in our Union ? " 
 Let us listen to the oracle of God's word. Let each 
 consult the testimony of his conscience and obser- 
 vation, and trace the sure line of effect and cause in 
 the law of Divine retribution. And let your preacher 
 try to guide your meditations in humble dependence on 
 the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, with all soberness 
 and truth. 
 
 Why, then, is this come to pass, that there should 
 be to-day one State lacking in our federal Union ? 
 1. My first answer to this inquiry is another question : 
 
250 FANATICISM REBUKED. 
 
 Why should we expect God's blessing on our Union 
 as one nation ? There is one constitutional defect in 
 our organic law. It contains no acknowledgment of 
 God ; no recognition of Jesus Christ. I am aware of 
 only one provision in our Constitution which distinguish- 
 es our civil polity from a heathen organization — that 
 provision is the oath of office. It has been noticed that 
 the normal principle of a nation's polity is stamped on 
 its coins. Look at the coins of Europe and you ob- 
 serve the legend, Dei Gratia — "by God's grace." 
 Look at our's and you read " Liberty " — man's inde- 
 pendent free agency. In colonial times in this country^ 
 the bills of lading were printed with a recognition Of 
 dependence on God for the ship's favorable voyage ; 
 but nowadays the bills of lading express trust in the 
 strong bolts and timbers of the craft and on the skill 
 of the shipmaster. But the scorner will ask: — What 
 profit is there in the acknowledgment of God in the fun- 
 damental Constitution of a nation and in the ordinary 
 ventures of commerce ? Are the old nations any the 
 better for their pious formulas and pretended recogni- 
 tion of God ? I answer, the profit is in telling the 
 truth and not hiding it. The profit is in keeping before 
 the eye of the nation the truth of God's presence and 
 power in the world, and thus educating the people so far 
 as a witness for God may. And if you ask if the old 
 nations are any better for it, I answer, how came they 
 to be old nations ? With governments oppressive to 
 life and depressive of liberty and enterprise, they are 
 yet old nations whose cup of iniquity is not yet full, 
 while 'We are not yet out of the first century — the very 
 childhood of natural life — and are suddenly threaten- 
 
FANATICISM REBUKED. 251 
 
 ed with dissolution. But the best answer to the scof- 
 fing against the duty of a national acknowledgment of 
 Almighty God may be witnessed in this national fast 
 day, when trouble that no human wisdom has guarded 
 against and no human foresight can foil, drives the na- 
 tion to the mercy seat and compels the utterances of 
 faith in God's presence and power and goodness. For 
 if it be right and proper and conservative of our na- 
 tional being to confess God to-day, as a nation, it is 
 riglit, proper and conservative to confess Him, not mere- 
 ly in a spasmodic way, but on principle, and in the so- 
 lemnity of a constitutional act. But our fathers, in 
 their opposition to a union of Church and State, with 
 just apprehensions of the domineering exactions of 
 bigotry and the predominance of sectarian intolerance, 
 swung back on the extreme opposite of ignoring God as 
 the Ruler of the nation. 
 
 It is a hopeful sign of the influence of Christianity 
 that the laws and practices of most States and of the 
 United States observe the Divine law of a Christian 
 Sunday. And it is an omen of dark portent that the 
 convention of the seceding State of South Carolina pro- 
 faned the Lord's day in not observing it. For if there 
 be any truth in physiology, it is that the seventh day's 
 rest is wholesome and necessary to man. And when 
 Robespierre and his godless and bloody band ventured 
 to amend the Divine law, by appointing the tenth day 
 as the decade of rest, the French army, both man and 
 beast, fainted and succumbed under oppressive toil, com- 
 pelling the First Consul to restore the seventh day Sab- 
 bath. And among the practical truths of Christianity 
 is the fact that the people who, in the spirit of Jesus, 
 
252 FANATICISM REBUKED. 
 
 observe the Sunday for worship, for rest and for deeds 
 of necessity and charity, are blessed of God, both in 
 health of body and in cheerful piety of heart. Let it 
 be a lesson of this Fast day of the nation to train a pub- 
 lic sentiment for the acknowledgment of God and Christ 
 in our civil constitutions and in the mandates of our 
 rulers and in the habits of the people. 
 
 Second. — A further cause of our national trouble 
 may be traced to our social and political corruption. 
 Pride and boasting, self-reliance and individual inde- 
 pendency ; self-will and liberty,sprouting into licentious- 
 ness ; violent competition in trade and in politics ; cove- 
 tousness for money and for place ; reluctance to the 
 slow processes of labor in agriculture and in the me- 
 chanic arts; enterprise, pushed into impatience, through 
 haste to be rich. These are our national characteristics, in 
 some of which we observe virtues inordinately exercised 
 till they become perverted into vices. 
 
 But the crowning shame and the damning stigma on 
 the fore front of the Republic is Bribery. It is historical 
 that the decay of every repul)lic has begun in the form 
 of a corruption most subtle, by influencing magistrates 
 and legislators and judges through some kind of pur- 
 chase. It was the case, as every classical boy knows, 
 in tlie beginning of the downfall of the republics of 
 Greece and Rome. It was the premonitory symptom 
 of the end of the theocratic republic of Israel. When 
 good old Samuel resigned his vicegerency, he appealed 
 to the people to attest his personal fidelity : " Of whose 
 hand have I received a bribe to blind mine eyes there- 
 with ? " And they said, " Thou hast not taken aught 
 of any man's hand." And he said to them, " The Lord 
 
FANATICISM REBUKED. 253 
 
 is witness against you this day tliat ye have not found 
 aught in my hand." And they answered, " He is wit- 
 ness." (1 Samuel, xii. 3—5.) So boldly and solemnly 
 did that public officer purge himself from any suspicion 
 of a crime which he considered the fatal blemish of 
 character in a public man. But of the sons of Samuel 
 it is written, that '' his sons walked not in his ways, 
 but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes and per- 
 verted judgment." (1 Sam. viii. 3.) And with this 
 record, it follows, in the next verse, that the nation re- 
 jected God. - The Lord said to Samuel, they have 
 not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I 
 should not reign over them." In this short history is 
 not the portrait of our country sketched ? Our fathers 
 like Samuel, could call God and the people to witness 
 that no bribe had ever blinded their eyes to pervert 
 judgment; while their degenerate sons, in the hio-h 
 places of tlie nation, in the halls of the State and of 
 the city — and, shall I say, in the tribunals of an elec- 
 tive and poorly paid judiciary — are, like the sons of 
 Samuel, charged with turning aside after lucre, and tak- 
 ing bribes, and perverting judgment. The subtle temp- 
 tation appears not at first in the glitter of gold, but in 
 an agreement between parties to help one another in 
 some favorite measure - the price is demanded and 
 paid for a vote. This is bribery. Next, the promise or 
 the hope of reward in some place of profit, is the mo- 
 tive to a vote. And by this selfish aim the heart is cor- 
 rupted with bribery. At last the conscience gets hard- 
 ened, and the people yield to the apparent necessity, 
 and the public sentiment becomes defiled, and the itch- 
 ing palm of a covetous hand is overlaid with the bribe 
 
254 FANATICISM REBUKED. 
 
 according to a tariff of each man's price. Alas ! are 
 not these things notorious ? Where is the pure man in 
 public life who exclaims, " Lord, I have loved the habi- 
 tation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honor 
 dwelleth. Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my 
 life with bloody men, in whose hands is mischief, and 
 their right hand is full of bribes. But as for me, I will 
 walk in mine integrity. My foot standeth in an even 
 place ; in the congregation will I bless the Lord." (Ps. 
 xxvi. 8 — 12.) Where is such a man ? Here and 
 there he stands in his uprightness, " the observed of all 
 observers," " the cynosure of every eye," revered and 
 hated ; a pattern of incorrupt virtue, sending forth the 
 beams of his light over the dark mass of people, like 
 the light-house on the headlands of the coast, to foil 
 the wreckers and to guide the voyagers in society. My 
 brethren, when an honest public agent becomes con- 
 spicuous and is praised for his fidelity, it is because of 
 a contrast with prevailing dishonesty. That he should 
 " be righteous in his generation," is to fix on him the 
 eulogium accorded to Noah in the Scriptures, because 
 of simple virtue in the midst of conmion wickedness. 
 And when such a state of society exists, God comes 
 with his deluge to destroy them all. God complains of 
 us in pathetic strains : — '• How is the faithful city be- 
 come an harlot ! It was full of judgment ; righteous- 
 ness lodged in it ; but now murderers. Thy silver is 
 become dross, thy wine mixed with water ; thy princes 
 are rebellious and companions of thieves ; every one 
 loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards ; they judge 
 not the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow 
 come unto them. Therefore, saith the Lord, the Lord 
 
FANATICISM REBUKED. 255 
 
 of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, ah ! I will case me 
 of mine adversaries, and I will avenge me of mine ene- 
 mies." (Isaiah, i. 21—24.) 
 
 Such is the language of passing events, interpreted 
 as Divine visitations. And when, as at this day, the pub- 
 lic conscience becomes hardened, in tolerating bribery 
 and in ministering to corruption, the nation is surprised 
 only for a moment, at the discovery of fraud among the 
 subordinates. And so we are startled at the tidings of 
 a wholesale plunder of the national treasury, of nearly 
 a million of securities, held in trust for the poor Indian 
 tribes — a sacred fund, more sacred than any deposit in 
 the nation's exchequer. Men are startled, I say, and 
 then turn to their strong box to examine their securities ; 
 and if there be no individual loss, we hear feeble rep- 
 robation of the public theft. These tokens are amongst 
 us of a loss of virtue and integrity, which may w^ell go 
 to explain why God has permitted one star to be dim- 
 med in the galaxy of our nation's flag. 
 
 3. But I now reach a third cause of the nation's 
 woe. It is the question of slavery. I should be remiss 
 if on such ah occasion as to-day, I should avoid a ques- 
 tion that so absorbs the public thought, and is freighted 
 with such momentous issues. It is a problem which 
 must be solved, for weal or for woe, and when the pul- 
 pit speaks according to the oracles of God, we may ex- 
 pect the Divine blessing, in the reconciling of opinions 
 mto a common faith. 
 
 In the extremes of abolitionism and propagandism, 
 slavery is distorted. On the one side it is represented 
 as the token of " the highest condition of Christian 
 civilization ; " on the other, as " the sum of all iniqui- 
 
256 FANATICISM REBUKED. 
 
 ties." These extremes are seemingly irreconcilable, 
 and yet, like single truths, made errors by lack of union 
 with other truths, wedded by Divine appointment, they 
 may be seen to coalesce, when their affinities are devel- 
 oped and made manifest by tlie chemistry of God's 
 word. It will be found, I think, that the Northern abo- 
 litionist reproaches the abuse of slavery, while the 
 Southern propagandist confines his admiration to the 
 spectacle of the benignant aspect of the institution. 
 And if such be the case, then the remedy for the evil 
 will be to correct the abuse ; and the point of coales- 
 cence will be the mutual efibrt, by moral and Christian 
 persuasion, to redress the wrongs of the servant by the 
 justice of the master, according to the golden rule of 
 " doing to others what we would they should do to us," 
 under like circumstances of relationship. 
 
 With this view, I proceed to the Divine law and to 
 the testimony. Section 1. And noticing, first, God's 
 constitution of society, we observe inequality. There 
 are, everywhere, the relations of subordination and au- 
 thority, whether in tlie family, or in the State, or in the 
 church. But the characteristic of society, according to 
 the Divine idea and Divine appointment, is mutual 
 rights and correlative obligations. There is no such 
 monstrous thing as an individual's prerogative that car- 
 ries with it no corresponding duty ; but society is fram- 
 ed on the principle of mutual benefit, both to him who 
 governs, and to him who is governed. So that, if it be 
 the duty of the ruler to administer government as the 
 Lord's vicegerent, it is the right of the subordinate to 
 be ruled accordingly ; and if it be the right of the su- 
 perior to receive the homage and obedience of the infe- 
 
FANATICISM REBUKED. 257 
 
 rior, it becomes the duty of the inferior to render duo 
 homage and obedience to the superior, as to " God's 
 minister to him for good." In these social relations we 
 observe differences, both in degree and in the period of 
 time, of the mutual service. In the relation of husband 
 and wife, the bonds are for life, and dissoluble only for 
 one cause. In the relation of parent and child, the 
 rights and obligations are, in some respects, for life, and 
 in others, for a term of years. In the relation of master 
 and apprentice, the tenure of the relation is by agree- 
 ment, for a specific time and purpose. In the relation 
 of master and servant, the relation is for a specified 
 time, or at will, or for life. When the term of service 
 is for life, and with the condition of inheritance attach- 
 ed to property, the tenure is that of slavery. But in 
 each of these relationships the principle of mutual bene- 
 fit, to either party, is the ordained and unrevoked con- 
 stitution of social life. In none is either party inde- 
 pendent of the other; in none is either party competent 
 to take counsel only of his own self will. But each is 
 servant to the other — bound by the sanctions of Divine 
 authority to study each other's good, and to be govern- 
 ed by the principle of mutual benefit. All are, in some 
 sense and degree, governors and masters ; all are, in 
 some sense and degree, servants and subjects. Such is 
 the Divine constitution of society. And if any man 
 should rebel against it, through the arrogancy of self- 
 will, he would be rushing on " the thick bosses of Je- 
 hovah's buckler," and would be crushed between tlie 
 upper and nether mill-stones of the social rights and 
 obligations of mankind. 
 
 If, then, slavery be sulrject to this law of God, where- 
 
258 FANATICISM REBUKED. 
 
 in the master must govern with an eye to the servant's 
 good as well as for his own interest, it will come to 
 pass that emancipation may be wrong, because unkind 
 and unjust to the slave. When not for the slave's 
 benefit, abolitionism would be a sin and a cruel thing. 
 And hence the question of emancipation can never be 
 determined justly as a ^ew^ra/ proposition, but must be 
 dealt with in each particular case. So neither does the 
 responsibility of determining this question of emanci- 
 pation belong to any person but the master or some 
 superior authority that represents the master. Any for- 
 eign interference is, of necessity, obtrusive and tyranni- 
 cal, and subversive of society, except such persuasions as 
 are derived from the Gospel of righteousness and peace, 
 which the master is willing to hear. For if the mas- 
 ter's ear be heavy or his heart be hardened, it is no 
 apology for resorting to force to pierce the ear and 
 break the heart. We must trust in God to awaken and 
 convince him. John the Baptist might rebuke Herod 
 on his throne. But it was not every body's right and 
 duty in Judea to usurp the office of John the Baptist. 
 And so likewise, on the other hand, if the master hold 
 the slave for tlie master's exclusive interest ; if he deny 
 him the privileges of mental, moral and religious cul- 
 ture ; if he fail to recognise his manhood and withhold 
 the right of manliood to be trained for the service of 
 God and for the happiness of heaven ; if he treat him 
 only as a brute or as a chattel inanimate ; if he pro- 
 fane the relationship of marriage and violate the sanc- 
 tity of the family, by violently sundering the ties that 
 God has instituted in Paradise, and which Jesus Christ 
 has restored to mankind in their sacredness and their 
 
FANATICISM REBUKED. 259 
 
 purity — if in any of these things, or others, the mas- 
 ter deprives the bond servant of that which is "just and 
 equal," governing, for his sole, exclusive benefit, tlien 
 he abuses the power which God has given him, and the 
 cry of the oppressed shall reach the ears of the Lord 
 God of Sabaoth, appealing for deliverance and for jus- 
 tice. Such is a view of God's Providence. 
 
 2. Let us now resort to God's written words, 
 and then regard the conduct of Jesus and his Apostles 
 as the law and the testimony. The relation of appren- 
 ticeship was allowed among the Hebrews for a period 
 of six years. " If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six 
 years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out 
 free for nothing." (Exod. xxi., 2). But emancipa- 
 tion was prohibited if the servant chose to remain for 
 life. *' And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my 
 master, my wife and my children ; I will not go out 
 free ; then his master shall bring him unto the judges ; 
 he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door 
 post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an 
 awl, and he shall serve him forever." (Exod. xxi., 5, 
 6 ; Deut. xv., 12 — 18.) Voluntary slavery was thus 
 permitted out of regard to the slave's will and prefer- 
 ence. In allusion to this fact and ceremony, the Spirit 
 of prophecy, speaking in the name of Christ and fore- 
 telling His voluntary servitude for our salvation, de- 
 scribes Him as saying, " Sacrifice and offering thou 
 didst not desire ; mine ears hast thou opened ; burnt 
 offering and sin offering hast thou not required ; then 
 said I, lo, I come to do thy will, my God." (Psalms, 
 xL, 6 — 8 ; compare Hebrews x., 5 — 9). The Apos- 
 tle to tlie Hebrews employs this prophecy and its fami- 
 
260 FANATICISM REBUKED. 
 
 liar illustration to exemplify the voluntary mediatorial 
 suffering of the Messiah. The slave, among God's 
 ancient people, was as one of the family to whom priv- 
 ileges were allowed, not granted to the guest nor to the 
 hired servant. As an example, the priest's portion of 
 the sacrifices and the shew bread, " which it was not 
 lawful for any to eat but the priest" and his family, 
 was the meat of the bond slave. " There shall no 
 stranger eat of the lioly thing ; a sojourner of the priest, 
 or an liired servant shall not eat of the holy thing. But 
 if the priest buy any soul with his money he shall eat 
 of it, and he that is born in his house, they shall eat of 
 his meat." (Levit. xvii., 10, 11.) The special enact- 
 ment which authorized bondage for life is in these 
 words : — ^' Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which 
 thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are rouad 
 about you ; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bond- 
 maids ; 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 begat in your 
 land, and they shall be your possession. And ye shall 
 take them as an inheritance for your children after you, 
 to inherit them for a possession : they shall be your 
 bondmen forever." (Levit. xxv., 44 — 46). 
 
 Taking these permissive laws into one view, we see 
 the institution of domestic slavery undoubtedly autho- 
 rized ; but in every case the condition of the servant 
 was improved by his servitude. It was an institution 
 for the mutual benefit of the master and slave ; for, in 
 the case of the voluntary slave, it was to gratify his 
 affections, and in the case of the heathen slave it was to 
 bring him into tlie midst of civilizing culture, both in 
 
FANATICISM REBUKED. 261 
 
 mind and spirit. It was eminently a domestic institu- 
 tion. Yet, the Word of God does not fail to represent 
 the condition of the slave as a hardsliip when the civil- 
 ized man is reduced to bondage; for it is among the 
 dreary punishments denounced against the apostate 
 tribes, that they should be sold into bondage : — '' Thou 
 Shalt be brought again into Egypt, and tliere ye shall 
 be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen. 
 In the morning thou shalt say, would God it were even, 
 and at even thou shalt say would God it were niorn- 
 ing." (Deut. xxviii., 68, 69). In all this we recog- 
 nise a certain autliority for slavery which it would be 
 uncandid to deny. 
 
 Yet it remains to examine the question by the light 
 of tlie New Testament. And it is admitted on all sides 
 that the institution of slavery was universal during the 
 human life of Jesus and His Apostles. Yet we °ead 
 of no instance where our Lord changed the ancient 
 laws on the subject; but he taught those principles and 
 precepts of equal love, which, if obeyed, would miti- 
 gate, if not bless, tlie relationship of master and ser- 
 vant. Idolatry was forbidden in the Old Testament, 
 while slavery was permitted. And the Saviour and His 
 Apostles denounced idolatry, but tolerated slavery. 
 The Apostles, inspired on the day of Pentecost, taught 
 bond slaves the Christian duty of obedience to thdr 
 masters, and enjoined masters to '' give unto their ser- 
 vants that which is just and equal." " Let as many 
 servants as are under the yoke count their own masters 
 worthy of all honor, that the name of God and His doc- 
 trine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing 
 masters, let them not despise them, because they are 
 
2G2 FANATICISM REBUKED. 
 
 brethren, but rather do them service." (1 Thn. vi. 1, 
 2.) " Masters give unto your servants that which is 
 just and equal ; knowing that ye have also a Master in 
 heaven." " And there is no respect of persons with 
 Him." (Col. iii. 22 ; Eph. vi. 5, 9 ; Col. iv. 1.) Com- 
 mentators of every complexion of religious persuasion 
 express no doubts that the " servants under the yoke " 
 were bondmen and bondwomen, the slaves of the Ro- 
 man empire. And there is, moreover, a fugitive slave 
 law of the New Testament, in the Epistle of St. Paul to 
 Philemon. Onesimus, a fugitive slave^ of Philemon, 
 flees to Rome, where he is converted by St. Paul. 
 (Verse 10.) The Apostle sends him back to his mas- 
 ter (verse 12) ; for he would not keep him to serve 
 himself, out of regard to the master's right and the 
 slave's duty (verses 13, 14.) He enjoins Philemon to 
 treat him as a better servant than ever, even as a Chris- 
 tian brother (verses 15, 16) ; and he offers to pay Phil- 
 emon all damage. (Verse 19.) If we believe this 
 Scripture and acknowledge the authority of this exam- 
 ple, we must admit that it is a violation of the Chris- 
 tian law to retain fugitives from their masters, and for 
 the masters to treat them cruelly on their return. Such, 
 my brethren, is the statement of Holy Scripture as it 
 appears to your preacher, on this question of domestic 
 slavery. 
 
 Have the Southern States complied with the law of 
 God when they refuse to their servants manhood rights ; 
 when they profane the sacred bonds of marriage ; when 
 they separate a family in the tenderness of their age ? 
 Have Northern fanatics fulfilled the Christian law when 
 they proclaim unqualified abolition, and lure servants 
 
FANATICISM REBUKED. 263 
 
 from their masters, or interpose hindrances to the fugi- 
 tive's rendition ? 
 
 Public sentiment at the Soutli is fast reaching the 
 truth that separation of families is wrong, and some 
 States have already forbidden the outrage by their stat- 
 ute law. Public sentiment at the North is sober and 
 just and scriptural on the question of slavery, and pro- 
 foundly respects the responsibilities, the rights, and the 
 duties of master and servant. But passion has now 
 usurped the throne of reason on both sides. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States still spreads 
 its majestic folds around our country ; it regards slaves 
 as persons having human rights of protection and of 
 representation, yet as servants owing a life service to 
 their masters. But the fury of political partisans has 
 transferred a question purely spiritual from out of the 
 moral code into the arena of a sordid calculation of 
 selfish profit and sectional pre-eminence. And in that 
 lustful controversy, the Battle of the Tribes is re-enacted 
 in our country, and one fair State is lacking in our 
 Union. Shall other States follow in the wake of that 
 one ? I saw the meteor of last summer evening rise in 
 light from the horizon to the zenith ; and at its highest 
 ascension it exploded into two beauteous but divergent 
 spheres ; and then they were both quenched in night. 
 Was that the omen that presaged our country's doom ? 
 Have we reached the height of our grandeur and pros- 
 perity to break and be extinguished ? No, no ; my 
 brethren. The lacking tribe of Benjamin was not lost 
 to Israel, but came back reformed and purified. And 
 the eleven tribes, who, like us to-day, wept sore before 
 God and asked of Him wisdom and forgiveness, learned 
 
264 FANATICISM REBUKED. 
 
 to be considerate and kind to tlieir seceding brethren. 
 So, if it please God that we study the lesson of that 
 record, shall our present disturbances promote our fu- 
 ture welfare, as re-United States in the more perfect 
 bonds of Christian brotherhood. I do not, I will not, 
 despair of the Republic. Collisions of flint and steel 
 produce sparks of light. The storm purifies the air. 
 The very lightning whose voice is thunder, devours the 
 vapors of miasma. This day's piety, at the behest of 
 the Chief Magistrate of the nation, shall command 
 God's blessing. And our children's children, in that 
 better civilization which is in prospect, shall recur to 
 these times as to a beacon which both warns and guides 
 the pilgrim traveller to Eternity. 
 
 [I He was a slave under the Phrygian code, which gave the master 
 the power of life and death, without recurring to the magistrate. 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH, BROOKLYN, ON THE DAY OF 
 THE NATIONAL FAST, JAN. 4, 1861. 
 
 BY REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 " And there ai'ose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the 
 ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, 
 asleep on a pillow : and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, car- 
 est thou not that we perish ? And he arose and rebuked the wind, and 
 said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the mud ceased, and there was 
 a great calm." — Mark iv. 37 — 39. 
 
 At the close of a laborious day, our Saviour entered 
 a ship, upon the lake of Gennesaret, to cross to tlie oth- 
 er side. Wearied by his great tasks of mercy, which 
 had filled tlie day, he fell asleep. Meantime, a sudden 
 and violent wind, to which that lake is even yet subject, 
 swept down from the hills, and well-nigh overwhelmed 
 them. They were not ignorant of navigation, nor un- 
 acquainted with that squally sea. Like good men and 
 true, doubtless, they laid about them. They took in 
 sail, and put out oars, and, heading to the wind, val- 
 iantly bore up against the gale, and thought nothing of 
 asking help till they had exerted every legitimate power 
 of their own. But the waves overleaped their slender 
 bulwarks, and filled the little vessel past all bailing. 
 
 Then, when they had done all that men could do, ^ 
 but not till then, they aroused the sleeping Christ and 
 12 
 
266 PEACE, BE STILL. 
 
 implored his succor. Not for coming to him, did he 
 rebuke tliem ; but for coming with such terror of de- 
 spair, saying, Why are ye so fearful ? How is it that 
 ye have no faith ? He outbreathed upon tlie winds, 
 and their strength quite forsook them. Ho looked upon 
 the surly waves, and they hasted back to their caverns. 
 There is no tumult in the heavens, on the earth, nor up- 
 on the sea, that Christ's word cannot control. When 
 it pleases God to speak, tempestuous clouds are peace- 
 ful as flocks of doves, and angry seas change all their 
 roar to rippling music. 
 
 This nation is rolling helplessly in a great tempest. 
 The Chief Magistrate in despair calls us to go to the 
 sleeping Saviour, and to beseech his Divine interference. 
 It may be true that the crew have brought the ship into 
 danger by cowardice or treachery ; it may be true that 
 a firm hand on the wdieel would even yet hold her head 
 to the w^ind, and ride out the squall. But what of 
 that ? 
 
 Humiliation and prayer are never out of order. This 
 nation has great sins unrepented of; and whatever may 
 be our own judgment of the wisdom of public men in 
 regard to secular affairs, we cannot deny that in this 
 respect they have hit rarely well. Instead of finding 
 fault with the almost only wise act of many days, let 
 us rather admire with gratitude this unexpected piety 
 of men in high places. 
 
 This government is in danger of subversion ; and sure- 
 ly, while the venerable Chief ^lagistrate of this nation, 
 and all the members of his Cabinet, are doubtless this 
 day religiously abstaining from food, according to their 
 proclamation and recommendation to us, and humbly 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 267 
 
 confessing their manifold sins, it would ill become ns to 
 go unconcerned and negligent of such duties of piety 
 and patriotism. Nor need we be inconveniently frank 
 and critical. What if some shall say that fasting is a 
 poor substitute for courage, and prayer a miserable 
 equivalent for fidelity to duty ? What if the national 
 authorities had not only appointed the Fast, but afford- 
 ed sufficient material in their own conduct for keeping 
 it ? It is all the more necessary on that account that 
 we should pause, and humble ourselves before God, and 
 implore his active interference. 
 
 But however monstrous the pretence of trouble may 
 be, the danger is the same. Government is in danger 
 of subversion. No greater disaster could befal this con- 
 tinent or the world ; for such governments fall but once, 
 and then there is no resurrection. Since there is no 
 famine in the land, no pestilence, no invasion of foreign 
 foe, no animosity of the industrial classes against each 
 other, or against their employers, whence is our danger ? 
 from what quarter come these clouds, drifting with bolts 
 of war and destruction ? Over the Gulf the storm 
 hangs lurid ! From the treacherous Caribbean sea 
 travel tlie darkness and swirling tornadoes ! 
 
 What part of this complicated Government has at 
 last broken down ? Is it the legislative ? the judicial ? 
 the executive ? Has experience shown us that this 
 costly machine, like many another, is more ingenious 
 than practicable ? Not another nation in the world, not 
 a contemporaneous government, during the past seventy- 
 five years, can compare, for regularity, simplicity of 
 execution, and for a wise and facile accomplishment of 
 the very ends of government, with ours. And yet, 
 
268 PEACE, BE STILL. 
 
 wliat is tlie errand of this day ? Why are we observ- 
 ing a sad Sabbath ? a day of humiliation ? a day of 
 supplication ? It is for the strangest reason that the 
 world ever heard. It is because the spirit of liberty 
 has so increased and strengthened among us, that the 
 Government is in danger of being overthrown ! There 
 never before was such an occasion for fasting, humilia- 
 tion, and prayer! Other nations have gone through 
 revolutions to find their liberties. We are on the eve 
 of a revolution to put down liberty ! Other people 
 have thrown off their governments because too oppres- 
 sive. Ours is to be destroyed, if at all, because it is 
 too full of liberty, too full of freedom. There never 
 was such an event before in history. 
 
 But however monstrous the pretence, the danger is here. 
 In not a few states of this Union reason seems to have 
 fled, and passion rules. To us who have been bred in 
 cooler latitudes and under more cautious maxims, it 
 seems incredible that men should abandon their callings, 
 bieak up the industries of the community, and give them- 
 selves up to the wildest fanaticism, at the expense of 
 (iViM-y social and civil interest, and without the slightest 
 renson or cause in their relations to society and to the 
 country, past or future. 
 
 Comnmnities, like individuals, are liable to aberra- 
 tions of mind. Panics and general excitements seem 
 to move by laws as definite as those which control epi- 
 demics or the pestilence. And such an insanity now 
 rules in one portion of our land. Cities are turned in- 
 to camps. All men are aping soldiers. For almost a 
 thousand miles there is one wild riot of complaint and 
 boasting. Acts of flagrant wrong are committed against 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 269 
 
 the Federal Government. And tliesc tilings are but the 
 prehide. It is plainly declared that this Government 
 shall be broken up, and many men mean it ; and that 
 the President-elect of this great nation shall never come 
 to the place appointed by this people. Riot and civil 
 war, with their hideous train of murders, revenges, and 
 secret villanies, are gathering their elements, and hang 
 in ominous terror over the capital of this nation. 
 
 Meanwhile, we have had no one to stand up for order. 
 Those who should have spoken in decisive authority 
 have been — afraid I Severer words have been used : 
 it is enougli for me to say only that in a time when God, 
 and providence, and patriotism, and humanity demand- 
 ed courage, they had nothing to respond but fear. The 
 heart has almost ceased to beat, and this Government 
 is like to die for want of pulsations at the centre. While 
 the most humiliating fear paralyzes one part of the 
 Government, the most wicked treachery is found in oth- 
 er parts of it. Men advanced to the highest places by 
 the power of our Constitution, have employed their 
 force to destroy that Constitution. They are using their 
 oath as a soldier uses his shield — to cover and protect 
 them while they are mining the foundations, and open- 
 ing every door, and unfastening every protection by 
 which colluding traitors may gain easy entrance and fa- 
 tal success. Gigantic dishonesties, meanwhile, stalk 
 abroad almost without shame. And this Puritan land, 
 this free Government, these United States, like old 
 Rome in her latest imperial days, helpless at the court, 
 divided among her own citizens, overliung by hordes of 
 Goths and Barbarians, seem about to be swept away 
 with the fury of war and revolution. 
 
270 PEACE, BE STILL. 
 
 If at such a solemn crisis as this, men refuse to look 
 at things as they are ; to call their sins to remembrance ; 
 to confess and forsake them ; if they shall cover over 
 the great sins of this people, and confess only in a sen- 
 timental way, (as one would solace an evening sadness 
 by playing some sweet and minor melody,) then we may 
 fear that God has indeed forsaken his people. But ii 
 we shall honestly confess our real sins ; if we propose 
 to cleanse ourselves from them ; if we do not make 
 prayer a substitute for action, but an incitement to it ; 
 if we rise from our knees this day more zealous for tem- 
 perance, for honesty, for real brotherhood, for pure and 
 undefilcd religion, and for that which is the sum and 
 child of them all, regulating liberty to all men, then 
 will the clouds begin to break, and we shall see the blue 
 shining through, and the sun, ere long, driving away 
 the tumultuous clouds, shall come back in triumph, and 
 like one for a moment cast down but now lifted up for 
 victory. 
 
 1. It is well, then, that every one of us make this 
 day the beginning of a solemn review of his own life, 
 and the tendencies of his own conduct and character. 
 A general repentance of national sins should follow, 
 rather than precede, a personal and private conviction 
 of our own individual transgressions. For it has been 
 found not difficult for men to repent of other people's 
 sins ; but it is found somewhat difficult and onerous to 
 men to repent of their own sins. We are all of us 
 guilty before God of pride, of selfishness, of vanity, of 
 passions unsubdued, of worldliness in manifold forms, 
 and of strife. We have been caught in the stream, 
 and swept out into an ocean of thoughts and feelings 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 271 
 
 wliicli cannot bear the inquest of God's judgment-day. 
 And we have lived in them almost unrebuked. Each' 
 man will find his own life full of repentablc sins unrc- 
 pented of. 
 
 2. We should take solemn account of our guilt in 
 the great growth of social laxity, and vice, and crime, 
 in our great cities. We have loved ease rather than 
 duty. Every American citizen is by birth a sworn offi- 
 cer of State. Every man is a policeman. If bad men 
 have had impunity ; if the vile have controlled our mu- 
 nicipal affairs ; if by our delinquencies and indolence 
 justice has been perverted, and our cities are full of 
 great public wickedness, then we cannot put the guilt 
 away from our own consciences. We have a partner- 
 ship in the conduct of wicked men, unless we have ex- 
 hausted proper and permissible means of forestalling 
 and preventing it. And I think every citizen of such a 
 city as this, looking upon intemperance, upon vice, up- 
 on lewdness, upon gambling, upon the monstrous wick- 
 ednesses that ferment at the bottom of society, should feel 
 that he has some occasion to repent of his own delin- 
 quency and moral indifference. 
 
 3. We may not refuse to consider the growth of cor- 
 rupt passions in connection with the increase of com- 
 mercial prosperity. Luxury, extravagance, ostentation, 
 and corruption of morals in social life, have given 
 alarming evidence of a premature old age in a young 
 country. The sins of a nation are always the sins of 
 certain central passions. In one age they break out in 
 one way, and in another age in another way ; but they 
 are the same central sins, after all. The corrupt pas- 
 sions which lead in the Southern States to all the gigan- 
 
272 PEACE, BE STILL. 
 
 tic evils of slavery, in Northern cities break out in oth- 
 er forms, not less guilty before God, because of a less 
 public nature. The same thing that leads to the op- 
 pression of the operative, leads to oppression on the 
 plantation. The grinding of the poor, the advantages 
 which capital takes of labor, the oppression of the 
 farm, the oppression of the road, the oppression of the 
 shop, the oppression of the ship, are all of the same 
 central nature, and as guilty before God as the more 
 systematic and overt oppressions of the plantation. It 
 is the old human heart that sins, always. North or 
 South ; and the nature of pride and of dishonesty are 
 universal. Therefore we have our own account to ren- 
 der. 
 
 4. There is occasion for alarm and for humiliation 
 before God, in the spread of avarice among our people. 
 The intense eagerness to amass wealth ; the growing 
 indifference of morals as to methods ; the gradual cor- 
 ruption of moral sense, so that property and interest 
 supersede moral sense, and legislate and judge what is 
 right and wrong ; the use of money for bribery, for 
 bribing electors and elected ; the terrible imputations 
 which lie against many of our courts, that judges walk 
 upon gold, and then sit upon gold in the judgment-seat ; 
 the use of money in legislation ; and the growing rot- 
 tenness of politics from the lowest village concern to 
 matters of national dimension, from constables to the 
 Chief Magistrate of these United States — is this all to 
 be confessed only in a single smooth sentence ? 
 
 Such is the wantonness and almost universality of av- 
 arice as a corrupting agent in public affairs, that it be- 
 hooves every man to consider his responsibilities before 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 273 
 
 God ill tliis matter. Tho very planks between us and 
 the ocean are worm-eaten and rotting, when avarice 
 takes hold of public integrity ; for avarice is that sea- 
 Avorm, ocean-bred, and swarming innumerable, that will 
 pierce the toughest planks, and bring the stoutest ships 
 to foundering. Our foundations are crumbling. Tiie 
 sills on which we are building are ready to break. We 
 need reformation in the very beginnings and elements 
 of society. If in other parts of our land they are in 
 danger of going down by avarice in one form, we are 
 in danger of going down by avarice in another form. 
 
 Our people are vain, and much given to boasting ; and 
 because they love flatteries, those deriving from them 
 honor and trust, are too fond of feeding their appetite 
 for praise. Thus it comes to pass that we hear the fa- 
 vorable side of our doings and character, and become 
 used to a flattering portrait. Men grow popular wlio 
 have flowing phrases of eulogy. Men who speak un- 
 palatable truths are disliked ; and if they have power 
 to make the public conscience uncomfortable, they are 
 said to abuse the liberty of free speech — for it is the 
 liberty of fanning men to sleep that is supposed to be 
 legitimate : the liberty of waking men out of sleep is 
 supposed to be license ! And yet we shall certainly die 
 by the sweetness of flattery ; and if we are healed, it 
 must be by the bitterness of faithful speech. There is 
 tonic in the things that men do not love to hear ; and 
 there is damnation in the things that wicked men love 
 to hear. Free speech is to a great people what winds 
 are to oceans and malarial regions, which waft away 
 the elements of disease, and bring new elements of 
 12* 
 
274 PEACE, BE STILL. 
 
 health. And where free speech is stopped miasma is 
 bred, and death comes fast. 
 
 5. But upon a day of national fasting and confession, 
 we are called to consider not alone our individual and 
 social evils, but also those which are national. And 
 justice requires tliat we should make mention of the 
 sins of this nation on every side, past and present. I 
 should violate my own convictions, if, in the presence 
 of more nearly present and more exciting influences, I 
 should neglect to mention the sins of this nation against 
 the Indian, who, as much as the slave, is dumb, but who, 
 unlike the slave, has almost none to think of him, and 
 to speak of his wrongs. We must remember that we 
 are the only historians of the wrongs of the Indian — 
 we that commit them. And our history of the Indian 
 nations of this country, is like the inquisitor's history 
 of his own trials of innocent victims. He leaves out 
 the rack, and the groans, and the anguish, and the un- 
 utterable wrongs, and puts but his own glozing view in 
 his journal. We have heaped up the account of treach- 
 ery and cruelty on their part, but we have not narrated 
 the provocations, the grinding intrusions, and the mis- 
 understood interpretations of their policy, on our part. 
 Every crime in the calendar of wrong which a strong 
 people can commit against a weak one, has been com- 
 mitted by us against them. We have wasted their sub- 
 stance ; we have provoked their hostility, and then chas- 
 tised them for their wars ; we have compelled them to 
 peace ignominiously ; we have formed treaties with 
 them only to be broken ; we have filched their posses- 
 sions. In our presence they have wilted and wasted. 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 275 
 
 A heathen people have experienced at the side of a 
 Christian nation, almost every evil which one people 
 can commit against another. 
 
 Admit the laws of race ; admit the laws of advanc- 
 ing civilization as fatal to all barbarism ; admit the in- 
 docility of the savage ; admit the rude edges of violent 
 men who form the pioneer advance of a great people, 
 and the intrinsic difficulties of managing a people whose 
 notions and customs and laws are utterly different from 
 our own, and then you have only explained how the 
 evil has been done, but you have not changed its guilt, 
 nor fact. The mischief has been done, and this is sim- 
 ply the excuse. It is a sorry commentary upon a Chris- 
 tian nation, and indeed, upon religion itself, that the 
 freest and most boastfully religious people on the globe 
 are absolutely fatal to any weaker people that they 
 touch. What would be thought of a man who, when 
 he became converted to Christianity, was dangerous to 
 the next man's pocket ? What would be thought of a 
 man who, when he became perfect, was a swindler and 
 a robber ? And what must be the nature of that Chris- 
 tianization which makes this Republic a most dangerous 
 neighbor to nations weaker than ourselves ? We are 
 respectful to strength, and thieves and robbers to weak- 
 ness. It is not safe for any to trust our magnanimity 
 and generosity. We have no chivalry. We have av- 
 arice ; we have haughty arrogance ; we have assump- 
 tive ways ; and we have a desperate determination to 
 live, to think only of our own living, and to sweep with 
 the besom of destruction whatever happens to be where 
 we would put our foot. 
 
 Nor is this confined to the Indian. The Mexicans 
 
■216 
 
 have felt the same rude foot. This nation has employ- 
 ed its gigantic strength witli almost no moral restric- 
 tion. Our civilization has not begotten humanity and 
 respect for others' rights, nor a spirit of protection to 
 the weak. 
 
 It is quite in vain to say that the land from whicli 
 we sprung did the same as we are doing. A wicked 
 daughter is not excused because she had a wicked moth- 
 er. We boast of the Anglo-Saxon race ; and if bone 
 and muscle, an indomitable sense of personal liberty, 
 and a disposition to do what we please, are themes for 
 Christian rejoicing, then the Anglo-Saxon may well re- 
 joice. There are sins tliat belong to races ; there are 
 sins that belong to peoples ; there are sins that belong 
 to generations of the same people ; and the sins that I 
 have enumerated, are sins that belong to our stock, to 
 our kind. 
 
 But God never forgets what we most easily forget. 
 Either the moral government over nations is apocry- 
 phal, or judgments are yet to be visited upon us for the 
 wrongs done to the Indian. 
 
 6. But I am now come to the most alarming and 
 most fertile cause of national sin — slavery. We are 
 called by our Chief Magistrate to humble ourselves be- 
 fore God for our sins. This is not only a sin, but it is 
 a fountain from which have flown so many sins that we 
 cannot rightly improve this day without a consideratiou 
 of them. 
 
 In one and the same year, 1620, English ships landed 
 the Puritans in New England, and negro slaves in Vir- 
 ginia — two seeds of the two systems that were destined 
 to find here a growth and strength unparalleled in his- 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 277 
 
 tory. It would have seemed almost a theatric arrano-e- 
 ment, had these oppiignant elements, Puritan liberty 
 and Roman servitude — (for, whatever men may say, 
 American slavery is not Hebrew slavery ; it is Roman 
 slavery. AVe borrowed every single one of the elemen- 
 tal principles of our system of slavery from the Roman 
 law, and not from the old Plebrew. The fundamental 
 feature of the Hebrew system was that the slave was a 
 man, and not a chattel, while the fundamental feature 
 of the Roman system was that he was a chattel, and not 
 a man. The essential principle of tlie old Mosaic ser- 
 vitude made it the duty of the master to treat his ser- 
 vants as men, and to instruct them in his own religion, 
 and in the matters of his own household; while ilie 
 essential principle of Roman servitude allowed the mas- 
 ter to treat his servants to all intents and purposes as 
 chattels, goods) — it would have seemed, I say, almost 
 a theatric arrangement had these oppugnant elements, 
 Puritan liberty and Roman servitude, divided the land 
 between them, and, inspiring different governments, 
 grown up diflerent nations, in contrast, that the world 
 might see this experiment fairly compared and worked 
 out to the bitter end. 
 
 But it was not to be so. The same Government has 
 nourished both elements. Our Constitution nourished 
 twins. It carried Africa on its left bosom, and Anglo- 
 Saxony on its right bosom ; and these two, drawing 
 milk from the same bosom, have waxed strong, and 
 stand to-day federated into the one republic. One side 
 of the body politic has grown fair, and healthy, and 
 strong: the other side has grown up as a wen grows, 
 and the wart, vast, the vaster tlie w^eaker. And this 
 
Zib PEACE, BE STILL. 
 
 nation is like a strong man with one side paralyzed, 
 but nourished and carried along by the help of the other 
 side. 
 
 We who dwell in the North are not without respon- 
 sibility for this sin. Its wonderful growth, and the 
 arrogance of its claims, have been in part through our 
 delinquency. And our business to-day is not to find 
 fault with the South, I am not discussing this matter 
 with reference to them at all, but only witli reference 
 to our own individual profit. Because the South loved 
 money, they augmented this evil ; and because the 
 North loved money, and that quiet which befits indus- 
 try and commerce, she has refused to insist upon her 
 moral convictions, iff days past, and yielded to every 
 demand, carrying slavery forward in this nation. You 
 and I are guilty of the spread of slavery unless we have 
 exerted, normally and legitimately, every influence in 
 our power against it. If we have said, " To agitate the 
 question imperils manufacturing, imperils shipping, im- 
 perils real estate, imperils quiet and peace," and then 
 have sacrificed purity and honesty ; if we have bought 
 the right to make money here by letting slavery spread 
 and grow there, we have been doing just the same thing 
 that they have ; for they have held slaves for the sake 
 of money, and we have permitted them to hold them for 
 just the same reason — money, money. It has been 
 one gigantic bargain, only working out in different 
 ways, North and South. It is for us just as much as 
 for them that the slave works ; and we acquiesce. We 
 clothe ourselves with the cotton which the slave tills. 
 Is he scorched ? is he lashed ? does he water the crop 
 with his sweat and tears ? It is you and I that wear 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 279 
 
 the sliirt and consume the luxury. Our looms and our 
 factories are largely built on the slave's bones. We 
 live on his labor. I confess I see no way to escape a 
 part of the responsibility for slavery. I feel guilty in 
 part for this system. If the relinquishment of the arti- 
 cles which come from slave labor would tend even re- 
 motely to abridge or end the evil, I would without 
 hesitation forego every one ; but I do not see that it 
 would help the matter. I am an unwilling partner in 
 the slave system. I take to myself a part of the sin ; I 
 confess it before God ; and pray for some way to be 
 opened by which I may be freed from that which I hate 
 bitterly. 
 
 But this state of facts makes it to-day eminently 
 proper for us to confess our wrong and sin done to the 
 slave. All the wrongs, the crimes of some, the abuse 
 of others, the neglect, the misuse, tlie ignorance, the 
 separations, the scourgings — these cannot be rolled 
 into a cloud to overhang the South alone. Every one 
 of us has something to confess. Those who have been 
 most scrupulous, if God should judge their life, their 
 motives, and their conduct, would find that they, too, 
 had some account in this great bill of slavery. The 
 whole nation is guilty. There is not a lumberman on 
 the verge of Maine, not a settler on the far distant 
 northern prairies, not an emigrant on the Pacific, that 
 is not politically and commercially in alliance with this 
 great evil. If you put poison into your system in any 
 way, there is not a nerve that is not touched by it ; 
 there is not a muscle that does not feel it ; tliere is not 
 a bone, nor a tissue, nor one single part nor parcel of 
 your whole body, that can escape it. And our body 
 
280 PEACE, BE STILL. 
 
 politic is pervaded with this black injustice, and every 
 one of us is more or less, directly or indirectly, willingly 
 or unwillingly, implicated in it. And when it comes 
 to the question of confession, we have a great deal to 
 confess before we cast reproaches upon the South. And 
 while I hold Southern citizens to the full and dreadful 
 measure of their guilt before God, and would, if I were 
 settled there, tell them their sin as plainly as I tell you 
 your sin, it is for us to-day, and here, to consider our 
 own part in this matter ; and to that I shall speak 
 during the residue of my remarks. 
 
 Originally, we were guilty of active participation in 
 slavery. It seems very strange to take up the old Bos- 
 ton books, and read the history of slavery in Boston. 
 Not that they have not slaves there now ; but they are 
 white ! Once they were African and involuntary : now 
 they are political and voluntary. We of the North 
 early abandoned the practice of holding slaves. But it 
 is said that ours is a cheap philanthropy ; that having 
 got quit of our slaves by selling them, we turn round 
 and preach to the South about the sin of holding theirs. 
 There is nothing more atrociously false than such a 
 charge as that. There is nothing more illustrious in 
 the history of the state of New York, and of the North- 
 ern states generally, than the method by which they 
 freed themselves from slavery. This state decreed lib- 
 erty at a certain period, and then passed a most strin- 
 gent act making it an offence, the penalty attached to 
 which no one would willingly inherit, for a man to 
 convey away, or in any manner wdiatsoever to sell out 
 of the State, a person held as a slave ; and if a man, 
 anticipating the day of emancipation, wished to make a 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 281 
 
 journey to the South with his slaves, ho had to give 
 bonds for their return before he went away, and had to 
 give an account when he came back, if they did not 
 come with him. Nothing could have been more hu- 
 mane than the provision that the slave should not be 
 sold out of the state of New York, but should be eman- 
 cipated in it. And wdiat is true of New York in this 
 respect, is true of the States generally that emancipated 
 their slaves. 
 
 But we of the North participated in the beginnings, 
 and we are in part guilty of the subsequent* spread of 
 the system of slavery. When our Government came 
 into our hands, after the struggle of the Revolution, we 
 had gone through such a school in order to assert our 
 political independence, that the head, the conscience, 
 and the heart of this nation, in the main, were right on 
 the subject of human liberties. And at the adoption 
 of the Federal Constitution, nearly seventy-five years 
 ago, it might be said that, with local and insignificant 
 exceptions, there was but one judgment, one wish, and 
 one prophetic expectation — namely, that this whole ter- 
 ritory should be dedicated to liberty, and that every 
 compliance or compromise was not to be made in the 
 interest of oppression, but was to be made only to give 
 oppression time to die decently ; and that was the spirit 
 and intent of every compliance or compromise that was 
 made. 
 
 The schools, the academies, the colleges, the intelli- 
 gence, the brain o^ this nation, at that time, were in the 
 North — and in the North I include all the territory 
 this side of Mason's and Dixon's line. We w^ere then 
 the thinking part of this country. The church, the 
 
282 
 
 religious institutions, the moral elements tliat never 
 parted from tlie posterity of the Puritans, were then, 
 also, in the North. When our Constitution was adopt- 
 ed ; when the wheels of our mighty confederacy were 
 adjusted, and the pendulum began to swing — at that 
 time the public sentiment was in favor of liberty. All 
 the institutions were prepared for liberty, and all the 
 public men were on the side of liberty. And to the 
 North, because she was the brain ; to the North, be- 
 cause she was the moral centre and heart of this con- 
 federacy, w^as given this estate — for in the first twenty- 
 five or thirty years the North predominated in the 
 counsels of the nation, and fixed the institutions, as the 
 South have fixed their policy since. What, then, hav- 
 ing this trust put into her hands, is the account of her 
 stewardship w4iich the North has, to render ? If now, 
 after three-quarters of a century have passed away, 
 God should summon the North to his judgment-bar, and 
 say, " I gave you a continent in which, though there 
 was slavery, it was perishing ; I gave you a nation in 
 which the sentiment was for liberty and against oppres- 
 sion ; I gave you a nation in which the tendencies were 
 all for freedom and against slavery ; I gave you the su- 
 preme intelligence ; I gave you the moral power in a 
 thousand pulpits, a thousand books, a thousand Bibles ; 
 and I said, ' Take this nation, administer it, and render 
 up your trust'" — if now, after three-quarters of a 
 century have passed away, God should summon the 
 North to his judgment-bar and say this, what would be 
 the account which she would have to render — the 
 North, that was strongest in the head and in the heart, 
 and that took as fair a heritage as men ever attempted 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 283 
 
 to aclminii^tcr ? To-daj, liberty is bankrupt, and sla- 
 very is rampant, in this nation. And do you creep out 
 and say, " We are not to blame " ? What liave you 
 been doing with your intelligence, yonr books, your 
 schools, your Bibles, your missionaries, your ministers ? 
 Where, where is the artillery tliat God xilmighty gave 
 you, park upon park, and what has become of this nation 
 under your care, that were provided and prepared for 
 that special emergency ? I take part of the blame to 
 myself. Much as I love the Nortli — (and I love every 
 drop of Puritan blood that the world ever saw ; because 
 it seems to me that Puritan blood means blood touched 
 with Christ's blood)— I take to myself part of the 
 sliame, and mourn over the delinquency of the North, 
 tluit having committed to it tlie eminent task of pre- 
 serving the liberties of this nation, they have sacrificed 
 them. For to-day there are more slave states than 
 there were states confederated when tliis nation came 
 together. And instead of having three or four hun- 
 dred thousand slaves, we have more than four millions; 
 instead of a traffic suppressed, you and I are witnesses 
 to-day of a traffic to be reopened — of rebellion, trea- 
 sonable war, bloodshed, separate independence, for the 
 sake of reopening tlie African slave-trade. So came 
 this country into the liands of the North in the begin- 
 ning, and so it is going out of her hands in the e'lid. 
 There never was such a stewardship : and if this con- 
 federacy shall be broken up ; if the Gulf states shall 
 demand a division of the country, and the intermediate 
 states shall go off, and two empires shall be estal)lished, 
 no steward that has lived since God's sun shone on the 
 earth, will have such an account to render of an estate 
 
284 PEACE, BE STILL. 
 
 taken under such favorable auspices, as the North will 
 have to render of this great national estate which was 
 committed to her trust. It is an astounding sin ! It is 
 an unparalleled guilt ! The vengeance and zeal of our 
 hearts toward the South might be somewhat tempered 
 by the reflection that we have been so faithless, so 
 wicked, and that our account must stand before God 
 in tlie end, as it does stand, for delinquency in our 
 duty. 
 
 That is not the wprst. That is the material side. 
 The next step is this : that we have stood in the North 
 with all the elements of power, boasting of our influ- 
 ence, and really swaying, in many respects, the affairs 
 of this continent ; and yet we have not only seen this 
 tremendous increase of slavery, but we have permitted 
 the doctrines of liberty themselves to take paralysis and 
 leprosy. And to-day, to-day^ to-day, if you were to 
 put it to the vote of this whole people, I do not know 
 as you could get a majority for any doctrine of liberty 
 but this : tliat each man has a right to be free himself. 
 The great doctrine of liberty is concisely expressed by 
 the Declaration of Independence ; and it is this : that 
 all men are free ; born with equal political rights, of 
 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And tlicre 
 is no true right that is not founded on this doctrine : 
 " That liberty which is good for me, is indispensable 
 for everybody." A right love of liberty inspires a man 
 to say, "I will have it, and everybody shall have it." 
 That is a poor love of liberty that makes a man a cham- 
 pion for the liberty of those that are capable of assert- 
 ing their own liberty. But I doubt whether, so corrupt 
 are the times, you could get a popular vote for the liber- 
 
PEACE, 
 
 285 
 
 ty of all men. Why should you ? I am ashamed of 
 what I must speak. The pulpit has been so prostituted, 
 and so utterly apostatized from the very root and sub- 
 stance of Christianity, that it teaches the most heathen 
 notions of liberty ; and why should you expect that the 
 great masses of men would be better informed on this 
 subject than they are ? Do you believe that George 
 Washington, were he living, would now be able to live 
 one day in the 'city of Charleston, if he uttered the 
 sentiments that he used to hold ? He would not. He 
 would be denounced as a traitor, and swung up on the 
 nearest lamp-post. Do you suppose that one single man 
 that signed the Declaration of Independence, if living, 
 could go through the South to-day, repeating the senti- 
 ments contained in that document ? The lives of the 
 signers of the Declaration of Independence would not 
 be worth one day's lease in Alabama, Louisiana, Caro- 
 lina, or Florida, if they were there to say the things 
 plainly which they said when they framed this govern- 
 ment, so utterly have the South vomited up their politi- 
 cal views ; so radically have they changed their notions. 
 Was this country committed to our care ? and is such 
 the lesson that we have taught our pupils ? Shall the 
 schoolmaster render back the scholars that he undertook 
 to teach, with their minds debauched, and say that he 
 was not responsible for what they learned ? And if 
 any part of the country was responsible for the educa- 
 tion of the whole, it was the free-schooled, million- 
 churched North. And the result of our instruction is 
 this : slavery has spread gigantically, and the doctrine 
 of liberty is so corrupted, that to-day nothing is more 
 disreputable in the high places of this nation, than that 
 
286 PEACE, BE STILL. 
 
 very doctrine. And at last, when the sleeper, long 
 snoring, having been awaked, raised himself up, and 
 like all new zealots, somewhat intemperately made cru- 
 sade for liberty, the land was so agitated, and with 
 such surprise was this expression of the public senti- 
 ment of the North received, that the Chief Magistrate 
 of this nation declared that we were the cause of all 
 the trouble ! 
 
 But this is not all. The most serious, the most 
 grievous charge, is yet to be made upon the North. So 
 far have we been delinquent in the trust that God com- 
 mitted to us, that the very centre of hope and expecta- 
 tion of success for humanity has been burned out ; that 
 from the very fountain out of which flowed, as from the 
 heart of Christ, the first drops that were to cleanse men 
 from oppressions, has been extracted in our day, and in 
 our North very largely, the whole spirit of humanity 
 which breathes freedom. 
 
 It ill becomes, I think, one profession to rail against 
 another, or the members of the same profession to rail 
 against each other. I have no accusations to make 
 against any ; but I will forsake my profession, for the 
 time being, and stand as a man among men, to lift up 
 my voice, with all my heart and soul, against any man 
 wlio, professing to be ordained to preach, preaches out 
 of Christ's Gospel the doctrines of human bondage. 
 When the Bible is opened that all the fiends of hell 
 may, as in a covered passage, walk through it to do 
 mischief on the earth, I say, blessed be infidels ! Where 
 men take the Bible to teach me to disown childhood ; 
 where men take the Bible to teach me that it is lawful 
 to buy and sell men, that marriage is an impossible 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 28T 
 
 state, that laws cannot permit it, and tliat customs can- 
 not permit it ; where the Bible is held as the sacred 
 document and constitutional guarantee of a system 
 Tvliich makes it impossible that a man should go up on 
 the path of development ; where the Bible is made to 
 stand and uphold one man in saying to another, " You 
 are good for me in that proportion in which you are 
 able to use the spade and the hoe, and I forbid you to 
 read and expand your mind because knowledge will 
 render you unmarketable ; " where, according to the 
 Bible, men, women, and children are legal tenders in 
 the market, and anytliing that lessens their value there 
 is an impediment, so that marriage and its sanctities are 
 regarded as over-refinements ; where a man takes the 
 Bible and lays it in the path over which men are at- 
 tempting to walk from Calvary up to the gate of heav- 
 en — I declare that I will do by the Bible what Christ 
 did by the temple : I will take a whip of cords, and I 
 wnll drive out of it every man that buys and sells men, 
 w^omen, and children ; and if I cannot do that, I will let 
 the Bible go, as God let the temple go, to the desolating 
 armies of its adversaries. And I do not wonder that af- 
 ter so long an experience of the world, men who bombard 
 universal humanity, men who plead for the outrage of 
 slavery, men who grope to find under crowns and sceptres 
 the infamous doctrines of servitude — I do not wonder 
 that they are pestered with the idea of man's individu- 
 ality. Why, that minister who preaches slavery out of 
 the Bible is the father of every infidel in the communi- 
 ty I I tell you that the most intelligent people in the 
 world are infidels. In Germany I will pick out nine- 
 teen out of every twenty democrats who are infidels. 
 
2S8 
 
 And why ? Not because they do not believe really in 
 the Bible, but because the priests that the kings ordain 
 in Germany have built up the whole kingly fabric and 
 the archepiscopal throne on the Bible ; and when tlie 
 democrat sees the oppression of the king, and feels the 
 yoke of the priest, and protests against them, they stop 
 his mouth by sticking the leaves of the Bible into it ! 
 So he comes to hate the Bible, not for what it is in re- 
 ality, but because it is made the bulwark of oppression ; 
 and he spurns it that he may answer the call of God in 
 his own nature — for to be free is a part of the sovereign 
 call and election that God has given to every man who 
 has a sense of his birthright and immortality. And in 
 a community where the minister finds reason in the Bi- 
 ble for slavery, you may depend upon it that one of 
 two things will take place : either there will be an in- 
 quisition to redeem the Bible from such abominable 
 prostitution, or else the Bible will be spurned and kick- 
 ed from under the feet of men, as it ought to be. 
 
 "I came to open the prison-doors," said Christ; and 
 that is the text on which men justify shutting them and 
 locking them. " I came to loose those that are bound ; " 
 and that is the text out of which men spin cords to bind 
 men, women, and children. " I came to carry light to 
 them that are in darkness, and deliverance to the op- 
 pressed ; " and that is the Book from out of which they 
 argue, with amazing ingenuity, all the infernal meshes 
 and snares by which to keep men in bondage. It is 
 pitiful. 
 
 A hunter scorns a pigeon-roost ; because he would 
 fain have some reward in skill and ingenuity ; and he 
 feels that to lire into a pigeon-roost is shocking butchery. 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 280 
 
 But for that feoliug I sliould like no better amusement 
 than to answer the sermons of men who attempt to es- 
 tablish the right of slavery out of the. Bible. It would 
 be simple butcliery ! A man must be addicted to blood 
 who would fire a twenty-four pounder into a flock of 
 blackbirds or crows ! 
 
 Now what lias been tlie history of the Book but this : 
 that wherever you have had an un trammeled Bible, you 
 have had an untrammeled people ; and that wherever 
 you have had a trammeled Bible, you have had a tram- 
 meled people ? Where you have had a Bible that the 
 priests interpreted, you haA^e had a king : where you 
 have had a Bible that the common people interpreted ; 
 where the family has been the church ; where father 
 and mother have been God's ordained priests ; where 
 they have read its pages freely from beginning to end 
 without gloss or commentary, without the church to tell 
 tliem how, but with the illumination of God's Spirit in 
 their hearts ; where the Bible has been in the house- 
 hold, and read without hindrance by parents and chil- 
 dren together — there you have had an indomitable 
 yeomanry, a state that would not have a tyrant on the 
 throne, a government that would not have a slave or a 
 serf in the field. Wherever the Bible has been allow- 
 ed to be free ; wherever it has been knocked out of the 
 king's hand, and out of the priest's hand, it has carried 
 light like the morning sun, rising over hill and vale, 
 round and round the world ; and it will do it again ! 
 And yet there come up in our midst men that say to us 
 that the Bible is in favor of slavery. And as men that 
 make a des}>erate jump go back and run before they 
 jump, so tlicse men have to go back to the twilight of 
 13 
 
290 
 
 creation and take a long run ; and when they come to 
 their jump, their strength is spent and they but stum- 
 ble ! " 
 
 It is in consideration of this wanton change which 
 has taken place (and which ought never to have boen 
 permitted to take place, in view of the instruments that 
 God put into our hands, and in view of the solemn re- 
 sponsibility that he has put upon us) — it is in consid- 
 eration of tliis change which has taken place in the ma- 
 terial condition of the country, and in the opinions of 
 this people respecting the great doctrine of liberty, and 
 the worse change which has corrupted in part the 
 church at its very core, that I argue to-day the necessi- 
 ty of humiliation and repentance before God. 
 
 I shall first confess my own sin. Sometimes men 
 think I have been unduly active. I think I have been 
 indolent. In regard to my duty in my personal and 
 professional life, I chide myself for nothing more than 
 because I have not been more alert, more instant in sea- 
 son and out of season. If sometimes in intemperate 
 earnestness I have wounded the feelings of any ; if I 
 have seemed to judge men harshly, for that I am sorry. 
 But for holding the slave as my brother ; for feeling 
 that the Spirit of God is the spirit of liberty ; for lov- 
 ing my country so well that I cannot bear to see a stain 
 or a blot upon her ; for endeavoring to take the raiment 
 of heaven wherewith to scour white as snow the morals 
 of my times, and to cleanse them to the uttermost of 
 all spot and aspersion — for that I have no tears to 
 shed. I only mourn that I have not been more active 
 and zealous, and I do not wish to separate myself froai 
 my share of the responsibility. I am willing to take 
 
PEACE, BE STILL. 291 
 
 my part of the yoke and burden. I will weep my tears 
 before God, and pray my prayers of sincere contrition 
 and penitence, that I have not been more faithful to 
 liberty and religion in the North and the whole land. 
 And you must make this a day of penitence. You must 
 do your part. 
 
 But be sure of one thing : He that would not come 
 when the sisters sent, but tarried, has come, and the 
 stone is rolled away, and he stands by the side of the 
 sepulchre. He has called, " Liberty, come forth ! " 
 and, bound yet hand and foot, it has come forth ; and 
 that same sovereign voice is saying, " Loose him, and 
 let him go ! " and from out of the tomb, the dust, the 
 night, and the degradation, the better spirit of this peo- 
 ple is now emerging at the voice of God. We have 
 heard his call, we know tlie bidding, and Death itself 
 cannot hold us any longer ; and there is before us, we 
 may fain believe, a new lease of life, a more blessed na- 
 tional existence. That there will not be concussions, 
 and perhaps some garments rolled in blood, I will not 
 undertake to say : there may be some such things as 
 these ; but, brethren, this nation is not going to perish. 
 This confederacy is not going to be broken and shiver- 
 ed like a crystal vase that can never be put together 
 again. We are to be tested and tried ; but if we are 
 in earnest, and if we stand as martyrs and confessors 
 before us have stood, bearing witness in this thing for 
 Christ, know ye that ere long God will appear, and be 
 the leader and captain of our salvation, and we shall 
 have given back to us this whole land, healed, restored 
 to its right mind, and sitting at the feet of Jesus. 
 
 Love God, love men, love your dear fatherland ; to- 
 
292 PEACE, BE STILL. 
 
 day confess your sins toward God, toward men, toward 
 your own fatherland ; and may that God that loves to 
 forgive and forget, hear our cries and our petitions 
 which we make, pardon the past, inspire the future, and 
 bring the latter-day glory through a regenerated zeal 
 and truth, inspired by his Spirit, in this nation. Amen, 
 and amen. 
 
THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED AT ALL SOULS CHURCH, NEW TORK, ON THE 
 DAY OF THE NATIONAL FAST, JAN. 4, 1861. 
 
 BY REV. HENRY W. BELLOWS, B. D. 
 
 " These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome 
 them ; for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings ; and they that are 
 with him are called and chosen and faithful." — Rev. xvii. 14. 
 
 These words fitly describe the eternal conflict going 
 on in the world between the false principles, the organ- 
 ized sins, the political errors and mistakes of our com- 
 mon humanity, and the eternal laws of God and his 
 Clirist. The truth is always charged with creating the 
 violence that opposes its progress, while really it is 
 always the Lamb on whom the Wolf is making war, but 
 who is destined by God to overcome and convert liim. 
 At this moment our institutions, in their legitimate ope- 
 ration, are the Lamb, on whom Error and Wrong and 
 Ignorance are making war, and it remains to be seen 
 whether now, as always before, the Lamb shall overcome 
 them. If our country be Christ's true heritage, in as- 
 sailing it, he is assailed, and in that case we have 
 nothing to fear ; for he is Lord of lords, and King of 
 kings, and they that are with him are called and chosen 
 and faithful. 
 
 We have come together, Christian brethren, in obe- 
 
294 THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 
 
 dience to the proclamation of tlie President of these 
 United States, backed by the proclamation of the Gov- 
 ernor of New York, to fulfil the duties of a day of 
 Special Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer, in view of 
 the distracted and perilous condition of our country. 
 A proper respect for the recommendations of our rulers 
 obliges us to join our fellow-citizens in the religious 
 observance of this day. Humiliation before God, and 
 prayer to the Divine Majesty and Fatherhood, are 
 always in season ; fasting, as a religious service, never, 
 and particularly not when all our bodily vigor and en- 
 durance may so shortly be required to meet the enemies 
 of our national existence. But it would be gross hy- 
 pocrisy in me to leave it to be inferred that I share any 
 of the feelings or opinions, political or religious, which 
 are avowed in the call for this special fast. 
 
 Tlie proclamation of the President assumes that our 
 present difficulties and perils are the result of some spe- 
 cial wickedness on the part of the people at large — of 
 some recent guilt in our conduct as citizens, that we 
 have suddenly fallen under the higli displeasure of 
 the Almiglity, and that nothing but confession of guilt 
 and implorations for mercy can produce that interposi- 
 tion from his holy hand, without which we are inevitably 
 ruined. I believe, on the contrary, that our present 
 difficulties and perils grow out of the awakening virtue 
 and increasing humanity of the people at large; that a 
 stronger and more efficient desire to keep the Divine 
 commandments — to fulfil tlie precepts, and realize the 
 spirit of the Gospel — is the moving cause of the agita- 
 tion and conflict whicli threatens the stability of our 
 Union. I see no evidence of any Divine displeasure in 
 
THE CRISIS OP OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 295 
 
 the commotion ^Yllicll rocks our Government ; nor do I 
 believe that vague confessions of a guilt we do not feel, 
 and formal prayers for an interposition we do not ex- 
 pect, are likely to produce anything but the ordinary 
 fruits of hypocrisy. 
 
 The cause of our present agitation and insecurity, as 
 it has been the cause of all the political trials and griefs 
 of our whole history as a nation, is the anomalous ex- 
 istence in a republican and democratic Government, 
 based on respect for human rights, political equality, 
 universal representation, free speech, public discussion, 
 general enlightenment, and progressive reform, of an 
 institution for maintaining and perpetuating the bond- 
 age of one vast portion of the human family — an 
 institution upholding and strengthening, in the freest 
 country in the world, the most abject and mercenary 
 system of domestic slavery — exactly contradicting 
 every principle and sentiment in our Declaration of 
 Independence, and reversing, in its spirit, operation, 
 and tendencies, the theory, objects, and working of our 
 Constitution and our National inspiration. 
 
 Whatever necessities, accidents, or antecedents plant- 
 ed slavery in the nation, however innocent and pardon- 
 able its heirs and present representatives may be, its 
 own essential character is not changed, nor its anoma- 
 lous position and influence altered. It remains what it 
 always was and always must be — an abuse of tlie 
 natural rights of man, a denial of real and proper hu- 
 manity to beings in the human form, a state of war upon 
 its subjects which brute force and nearly absolute power 
 can alone render successful, and of irresponsible, cor- 
 rupting, and debilitating influence on the dominant race 
 
29G THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 
 
 who uphold it. Slavery is not a new thing in the 
 world ; its nature and effects are not open questions. 
 It has proved the ruin of all the ancient and modern 
 states that have yielded to its seducing temptations, 
 until its quality and consequences are stamped by the 
 liistoric, the political, the social, the religious experience 
 and wisdom of the wide world, with fixed, decisive, and 
 unalterable abhorrence. 
 
 And here is this instituted outrage upon God and man 
 — upon the spirit of Christianity and the ethics and po- 
 litical instincts of the nineteenth century — planted in 
 the capital of American liberty, become the foundation 
 of fifteen sovereign States of this Union, wielding the 
 authority of our Senate, the chief solicitude of the head 
 of the Government, and menacing the downfall of our 
 Nationality, if the majority of the American people do 
 not disown their disgust, retract their reprobation, and 
 pronounce property in man not a local and legal fiction, 
 but a national fact, and the fundamental and permanent 
 article of our political creed. 
 
 In a nation founded on the supposed intelligence of 
 the people, the diffusion of intelligence has become, un- 
 der this condition of things, the worst injury one part 
 of the country can commit against the other ; in a na- 
 tion where labor was to be honored as nowhere else in 
 the world, as the necessary corollary of universal equal- 
 ity, it has been degraded into a menial and servile ne- 
 cessity ; in a land of free speech and free discussion, 
 the safety of our institutions is endangered by the ut- 
 terance of the veriest common-places of political thought, 
 and the first principles of Christianity, and no crime is 
 so great as humanity and justice ! The noble system 
 
THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 297 
 
 of government which invites into the free States of tliis 
 Union ahnost the whole emigration of Europe, is a high 
 ofience against this anomalous system of slavery in tlie 
 South ! Our growth in numbers, intelligence, equality ; 
 our progress in morals, civilization, and religion — all, 
 in short, that wins to us the respect and admiration of 
 the rest of the world, increases the fear, the antipathy, 
 and the jealousy of the slave power. Our purest mor- 
 als are pronounced fanaticism ; our most efficacious pi- 
 ety, infidelity ; our most civilized and enlightened com- 
 munities, hot-beds of treason and error. We cannot 
 exercise, develop, and enjoy the very principles, ideas, 
 rights, and feelings, which this free government was es- 
 tablished to embody and protect, without imperilling 
 the lives and fortunes of our fellow-citizens in that por- 
 tion of our country whose domestic institutions are bas- 
 ed on negro slavery. Our press, if it meets and repre- 
 sents the honest feelings of the civilized world, becomes 
 a fire-brand at the South, and cannot be permitted to 
 circulate there. Our most acceptable and advanced lit- 
 erature is dangerous to the peace of that community. 
 The most legitimate exercise of our political rights is, 
 as we are now seeing, the highest injury and most in- 
 tolerable insult we can olTer to our Southern country- 
 men ! 
 
 How idle it is, in this state of things, to look for any 
 other cause of disaffection, agitation, and conflict than 
 the simple fact that the natural and inevitable progress 
 of civilization on this contiiicnt is essentially threaten- 
 ing to the barbarous institution of slavery, and that the 
 only real issue before the country and the world is this : 
 S'hall modern civilization and free institutions deny 
 
298 THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 
 
 themselves and lose their nature ? or shall slavery ac- 
 cept its doom as a temporary and decaying institution, 
 under the rightful censure of Christendom, and beneath 
 the crushing feet of human progress ? In pronouncing 
 this the real moral issue now open, I am far from say- 
 ing or allowing that this is the political issue. There 
 is not a handful of Northern citizens who would con- 
 sent, under any temptations or circumstances, to inter- 
 fere with the existence of slavery in the States. It is 
 not party power, or direct action of any sort, now or 
 at any future time, which threatens slavery. It is sim- 
 ply civilization in its necessary progress which is doom- 
 ing it to ruin, as the steady rising of the sun drives 
 night away. 
 
 You will observe that I am bringing no charges 
 against slaveholders — pronouncing no sentence on them. 
 They are, for the most part, the innocent and helpless 
 victims of an hereditary system, and their existing 
 opinions the inevitable opinions of men in their cir- 
 cumstances. It is against slavery itself, considered as 
 a terrible social wrong, and a friglitful political error, 
 and an essential immorality, that I bring the accusation 
 of being the cause of all our national troubles. So far 
 from blaming the slaveholder as such, I hold him to be 
 the most unfortunate and pitiable of men — the imper- 
 illed victim of a system which wrongs equally the bonds- 
 men and their masters. It is the greatest of mistakes 
 to confound hatred of slavery with hatred for slave- 
 holders. It is the love of the slaveholder which in- 
 spires our hatred for what is ruining him, as it is God's 
 love for sinners which animates his wrath against sin. 
 There is no proper conflict between the Northern free- 
 
THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 299 
 
 man and the slaveholder. They have identical inter- 
 ests, if they did but know it. It is only between Civi- 
 lization and the barbarous institution of Slavery that 
 an irrepressible enmity exists, and this enmity is imper- 
 sonal, compatible with the most fraternal and the most 
 Christian feelings toward our Southern brethren. I 
 know the incredulousness with which such professions 
 are received, and I do not forget that Jerusalem cruci- 
 fied Him who wept over it, while he condemned its 
 blindness. But I believe that it will one day be known 
 to the South, as it is now known to God and the world, 
 that it is love for man, white and black — love for man, 
 slaveholding or otherwise — love for man, South or 
 North of the Potomac — that creates the ever-growing 
 and ever-blessed hatred of slavery, whicli is the neces- 
 sary accompaniment, in those not blinded by immediate 
 interest, of the love of liberty, of Christ, and of God. 
 The real issue, then, is an issue between the Christian 
 civilization recognized by all the rest of the civilized 
 world, and a false, pernicious, and wicked institution 
 called domestic slavery, upheld by a minority of our 
 countrymen, in the face of tlie moral sentiments and 
 political convictions and Christian scruples of all men 
 besides. As to the final result of such an unequal con- 
 troversy — a controversy of opinion and sentiment 
 merely — not admitting of direct or political interfer- 
 ence, nor aiming at any result which is not accomplislicd 
 by moral suasion and public opinion — but, ncvertlie- 
 less, armed with tremendous powers of reason, justice, 
 Christian truth, and Divine will — there can be no dif- 
 ference of opinion, outside of the immediate domain of 
 slavery — and there was, till very lately, little dififer- 
 
oOO THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 
 
 ence of opinion even there. Of the final result — the 
 destruction of slaveholcliug witli the glad consent of the 
 slaveholder himself — no student of history, no philoso- 
 pher, no wise observer of the providence of God, can 
 doubt. The immediate and practical question for us is, 
 How is this to be permitted to bring itself about (for I 
 propose and desire no action to precipitate, or even in- 
 terfere with its self-destroying energies) with the least 
 injury to all concerned — the country, the North, the 
 South, the slaveholder, the slave — in the present 
 providential circumstances and dispositions to which 
 the nation is brought ? 
 
 There are many of our best and wisest men who have 
 come to the conclusion that the only possible course open 
 to us now is absolute and final separation between those 
 States of the Union who choose slavery for their first 
 and highest good, and the rest of the Confederacy. 
 They think that the public sentiment of the political 
 majority will inevitably become more and more impa- 
 tient of the complicity of the Federal Government with 
 slavery, and that the Southern States are justified in 
 their fears that their position will thus become more 
 and more uncomfortable. What the slave power, as 
 represented by its most intelligent leaders, apprehends, 
 is not the seizure of any unconstitutional power, or the 
 enactment of any illegal measures by the Free States, 
 but the dangers to them proceeding from the growth of 
 their legal power, and the exercise of their Constitution- 
 al rights, and the embodiment in thoroughly orderly ways 
 of their honest and conscientious conviction. They fear 
 the effects of the Constitution and the Union in their most 
 legitimate operations. And there cannot be the small- 
 
THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 301 
 
 est question, that witliont the least wish to interfere 
 with slavery in the States where it is established by law, 
 and without the smallest infringement of tlie Constitu- 
 tion, and after the most complete and persistent fulfil- 
 ment of the Fugitive Slave Law, and every other con- 
 stitutional obligation, slavery is in the greatest peril 
 from the public opinion, from the example, from the 
 contagious sympathy, from the actual and irrepressible 
 moral reprobation of the free States, and most of all 
 from their prosperity and their glorious destiny. Tiie 
 steps made necessary at the South to defend slavery 
 from these influences — namely, the exclusion of our 
 newspapers, the greater stringency of police regula- 
 tions, a more active jealousy of all private opinions at 
 home, and a tyrannical espionage over all travellers — 
 will only increase this danger, by making the contrast 
 between the slave and the free States more offensive 
 and intolerable. 
 
 Sagacious and candid men at the South say what they 
 feel, that the necessary and inevitable progress of civi- 
 lization in the free States is the real peril of slavery, 
 as it is the inexpiable offence of the North. They say, 
 and say sagaciously, therefore, No more mock compro- 
 mises ! no more impracticable engagements ! Slavery 
 cannot live safely, comfortably, permanently, with free 
 discussion, free thought, free institutions — cannot live 
 under the same government, in short, as that which the 
 North glories in and can alone endure. " Let us peace- 
 fully separate. We will form a great Gulf Republic — 
 where your political power and influences cannot touch 
 us further. We will trade with you, but we cannot any 
 longer live under the same flag and the same Constitu- 
 
302 THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 
 
 tion." If I were a Southern man, a slaveholder, and 
 entertained the opinions which seem inevitable in tliat 
 state of society, I do not doubt that would be the 
 ground I should take. The frightful unanimity of the 
 population of the extreme Southern States — of all the 
 States permanently committed by circumstances to sla- 
 very — on the doctrine of secession, shows how clearly 
 they agree with us in perceiving that this Government 
 cannot go on treating slavery and liberty as twin child- 
 ren of the Constitution ; that either slavery or liberty 
 must be nationalized — either slaves must be universally 
 recognized as property in the ordinary sense of that 
 word, with all the rights of property, or an entire check 
 must be put to the extension of slavery, and its ultimate 
 extinction recognized as the policy and hope of the fu- 
 ture. That they do not expect the first to be granted, 
 and that they are not disposed to submit to the second, 
 is sufficiently proved by the fact that they demand the 
 right of peaceable secession. Their leaders have been 
 plotting it these twenty years, as the only refuge from 
 the intolerable pressure of the preponderant national 
 sentiment. 
 
 Why not, then, consent to wliat they so necessarily 
 demand ? We know in our hearts that they are justi- 
 fied in their fears of Northern sentiment — and that if 
 they stay in the Union, they are in a Union whose le- 
 gitimate and constitutional action henceforth will be 
 and must be damaging to slave property, and perpetu- 
 ally favorable to emancipation ! Why not consent, 
 then, to pacific and amicable and just terms of separa- 
 tion ? Are we prepared to hold them to the Union by 
 the exercise of perpetual force ? are we prepared to 
 
THE CllISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 
 
 303 
 
 enter into a state of civil war in defence of a Constitu- 
 tion which is hateful to fifteen States of the Confede- 
 racy ? 
 
 I say, No ! When it is proved that fifteen States of 
 this Confederacy prefer slavery to the Constitution and 
 Union as it is ; when it is proved that they agree in 
 thinking that they need new securities for their domes- 
 tic institution, and are not willing that the political 
 majority, necessarily opposed to the least extension of 
 slavery, should govern and shape the public policy of 
 the nation ; when it is proved that new compromises 
 are required by them to stay in the Union, they ought 
 to be permitted to go out of it in peace. They should 
 not be bribed to stay by concessions on paper which 
 cannot be carried out. They should not be seduced by 
 political trickery into new complications, destined to 
 increase these difficulties. Anything more than the 
 Constitution as it is cannot honestly be granted or sup- 
 ported. It could not be re-created, were it to be done 
 over, in a shape even as fa,vorable as it now is to the 
 Slave power. But the people, in their reverence for 
 its framers and their respect for its age, can be made, 
 and will be found faithful to its letter and its spirit. 
 Anything beyond it granted to the slave power, I fear, 
 would be a fraud on Southern credulity, because a po- 
 litical misrepresentation of the actual and growing sen- 
 timent of the North and North-west. 
 
 Standing on the Constitution, unchanged, and, I be- 
 lieve, unchangeable ; ready to fulfil all its obligations, 
 painful as they are, for the sake of union and peace ; 
 unwilling to yield, however, an inch of constitutional 
 ri<'-ht in favor of a local institution which we hold to be 
 
304 THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 
 
 a curse to its own people, a scandal to civilization, and 
 an eye-sore to Christendom ; determined to concede 
 nothing to the threats or the delusions of slaveholders — 
 I declare unhesitatingly in favor of allowing the Slave 
 States to secede, if they deliberately, formally, and uni- 
 tedly prefer and desire to do so. I admit no right of se- 
 cession. I acknowledge no theory of State sovereign- 
 ties as coequal with or superior to the national sove- 
 reignty of the people. It is merely a question of ex- 
 pediency, of tlie least of two evils — separation, or a 
 long and bloody civil war ! It is the numbers, the ex- 
 tent, the power, of the fifteen slave States, if united 
 among themselves, wdiich makes it so frightful an alter- 
 native to enter upon a civil war, of indefinite extent 
 and inevitable and unspeakable horrors, in vindication 
 of the Federal Union, or to allow them peaceably to re- 
 tire. I consider separation the least of the three evils 
 before us : 1. War with the united slave power — in- 
 volving, as I believe it would, ruin to the South — 
 frightful insurrections, terrible slaugliter of the people 
 and desolation of their property — with universal eman- 
 cipation as its only blessing. 2. Further concessions 
 to the principle of slavery — which I hold to be im- 
 moral, fatal to our national honor and character, ruin- 
 ous to our prospects as a Government, and to our du- 
 ties as custodians of modern and Christian civilization 
 on this continent. 3. Peaceable separation, a serious 
 blow to our national pride and prosperity, but which 
 might end, after a shorter or longer experiment, in re- 
 union on a basis more favorable to Liberty and Right. 
 
 But now returns the question of fact. Are the fifteen 
 Slave States unitedly and deliberately in favor of seces- 
 
THE CRISIS OF OUll NATIONAL DISEASE. oU.) 
 
 sioii ? If Slavery cannot receive new guarantees, are 
 they — the obligations of the Constitution being punc- 
 tiliously fulfilled — desirous of going out of the Union ? 
 I have very serious doubts of this. From the best of 
 the information I can obtain, most diligently sought, the 
 present monstrous unanimity, even in the Gulf States, 
 is artificial and temporary, the result of misrepresenta- 
 tion, ignorance, and conspiracy among a few interested 
 and ambitious political leaders, who, for party purposes, 
 have, in the recent campaign, disseminated falsehoods 
 which have produced a conflagration of popular feeling 
 utterly uncontrollable by those who kindled it — such 
 as that the President elect would, on the 4th of March, 
 proclaim universal emancipation ; that the Vice-Presi- 
 dent elect was a mulatto ; and that the victorious party 
 in the election intended to violate the constitutional 
 rigiits of the Slave States ! A reign of terror evidently 
 prevails in South Carolina, where the earlier scenes of 
 the French Revolution are already repeated in forced 
 loans, in the proscription of suspected citizens, and in 
 the threatened confiscation of property, to say nothing 
 of treasonable seizure of the Federal structures and 
 functions. If, as is surmised, a few doctrinaires of the 
 Callioun school are seizing the occasion of a sectional 
 defeat in a political canvass to further certain long- 
 cherished schemes of local independence — if, playing 
 upon the ignorance and passions of the populace (the 
 so-called mean whites, who, having nothing to lose, are 
 the most intemperate and reckless material in the 
 South), they are really nullifying the actual wishes and 
 opinions of the larger slaveholders, thought to be con- 
 servative of necessity, as property always is, whether in 
 
806 THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 
 
 slaves or money, then tliis alleged and seeming una- 
 nimity, even in the Gulf States, is an appearance and a 
 spectre that will shortly be laid. 
 
 I suppose it to be a great mistake to imagine the 
 present conflict one between slaveholders considered as 
 representatives of property, and Northern sentiment. I 
 doubt not the four hundred thousand slaveholders of the 
 South are really tlie sincerest lovers of the Union in 
 that whole country, and that it is the ambition and 
 jealousy of those who for fifty years have been using 
 the peculiar institution as an engine of their political 
 schemes, gradually making of the non-slaveholding mil- 
 lions of the South ignorant, inflamed, and misguided 
 constituency, who are represented in Congress by new 
 men like Hammond and Keitt, who are at the bottom 
 of this dreadful conspiracy. If, moreover, as is thought 
 by the wise, the border Slaves States are favoring the 
 Gulf States only for the purpose of working sufficiently 
 on the fears and patriotism of the North to secure new 
 and more favorable terms for Slavery, then unflinching 
 firmness in the North will soon develop their ultima- 
 tum and we sliall know whether we have to deal with 
 politicians, factions, schemers, and conspirators, or with 
 a great and united people, convinced of the inexpe- 
 diency of union with us. To this great and united 
 people, when their wishes for separation are in proper 
 and unmistakable form made known, I see nothing to 
 !)o said but. Be it so ! and be the consequences on your 
 mistaken and deluded heads ! But to the politicians, 
 factions, schemers, conspirators, or to individual States 
 attempting secession, or little coteries of States propos- 
 ing or enacting it, I see no dignified, safe, constitutional, 
 
THE CIUSIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 307 
 
 and Christian mctliod of dealing witli tlicm, but witli all 
 the authority and force of tlie Federal Government. 
 Great revolutions must, in modern times, be made 
 peaceful revolutions ; little revolutions must be instant- 
 ly quenched. If this Union is to be — I will not say 
 dissolved — but divided, it must be done by mutual 
 consent, after comparison of views, and a formal ex- 
 pression of the w^ill of the people on both sides, made 
 known in legal ways. To break up in caprice, wilful- 
 ness, and passion, without form of law, and in unconsti- 
 tutional ways, can never, ouglit never to be submitted 
 to ; for there is something more than union and nation- 
 ality involved in such proceedings, viz. : the very exist- 
 ence of civil society — the sanctity of government itself. 
 Those who do not much value the Union at the 
 North, value law and order ; and they are determined 
 to maintain it. It must not be supposed that it is the 
 enemies of Slavery-extension alone who have the cus- 
 tody of order, and the maintenance of Federal authority 
 on their consciences. Many who are perfectly ready to 
 let the South go wdiere she pleases when she makes her 
 wishes known in a proper and orderly manner, will not 
 consent, cost what it will, that the Federal authority of 
 the nation shall be trampled upon by any or all the 
 Slave States while the compact is in force. It will not 
 be a war for or against slavery — a war between one 
 party and another party, or one section and another 
 section, wdiich will be precipitated, if the Federal and 
 Constitutional authorities of the United States are 
 gravely insulted and despised ; but a war in defence of 
 civilization against anarchy — a war of law and order 
 upon piratical and barbarous assailants of the public 
 
308 THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 
 
 peace and security, which could not fail to be short, 
 bloody, and decisive I Already the indecision of the 
 National Executive has obliterated party lines, and 
 united in a new party of order and civilization the com- 
 plete North. How vast must be the sympathy secretly 
 felt by all property-holders and patriots in the Soutli, 
 with such conservators of all the precious interests of 
 civilization ! This party must grow. Its issue must, 
 for the time, supersede every other. Are we a nation ? 
 Have we a Government? Is the Constitution to be 
 respected by its own subjects ? These are questions, in 
 my judgment, which will be positively and finally set- 
 tled, if necessary, with any cost of blood and treasure — 
 settled afiBrmativcly, before the secondary questions of 
 the union or separation of the States will admit of de- 
 bate and adjustment. 
 
 Let us not make a false issue with our exasperated 
 and unhappy fellow-citizens of the Slave States about 
 the Union. We are not going to war, I trust, to force 
 fifteen States to live under a Government they hate. 
 But we will go to war to save order and civilization, 
 with any faction, conspiracy, rabble, or political party 
 that strives, in illegal and treasonable ways, to break 
 up the Government. We owe it to tlie intelligence and 
 worth of the South, to believe that they are silenced 
 and tyrannized over by a mob that does not understand 
 nor value their interests and wishes. The sobriety and 
 sense of that region has a right to be heard. They are 
 entitled to the protection of the General Government, 
 and to the evidence that the}^ live under a Constitution 
 and an Executive capable of enforcing the laws of the 
 land. We are not to believe, until we have made the 
 
THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 309 
 
 experiment, that Federal authority would not be obeyed, 
 and that a dignified demonstration of national force 
 would not restore order and peace. Who knows how 
 the hearts of the real patriots and real men, even in 
 South Carolina, may be even now anxiously expecting 
 efficient interference from the General Government? 
 To assume the weakness, the inadequacy, the unpopu- 
 larity of the Federal power, is to invite contempt, re- 
 bellion and secession. I would not harshly judge the 
 Executive of the Union. The vast responsibilities of 
 his position, the varied means of his information, the 
 contrariant influences brought to bear upon him, entitle 
 him to our utmost charity. We may possibly see, in 
 due time, that his policy has been wiser and more pa- 
 triotic than it appears. But there can be no difference 
 of opinion on one point. The National Government 
 must be not merely submitted to, but obeyed, or we are 
 in a state of revolution and anarchy, and in a little 
 while shall be cutting each other's throats, beginning in 
 South Carolina, where anarchy commenced, and ending 
 at Washington, where liberty will be buried in the 
 bloody waters of the Potomac, and lapse away to stain 
 the sods of Washington's grave. 
 
 In the providence of God, and in the natural course 
 of affairs, we have been brought to this crisis. It could 
 not have been avoided. With such an anomalous ele- 
 ment as Slavery in the Constitution, a tremendous trial 
 of its strength, and of the strength of the Union and the 
 Government, was inevitable, sooner or later. It has not 
 come an hour too soon. If we are not strong enough in 
 our centripetal principles to hold together upon the origi- 
 nal compact, if the Federal power is inherently too weak 
 
310 THE CRISIS OF OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 
 
 for the State powers, it is better to know it now — better 
 abandon a Union which will presently, with increased 
 weight, fall upon our children's heads, and destroy our 
 successors. But I will believe in no such weakness until 
 it is proved. The Government is strong in the hearts 
 and in the interests of the vast majority of the people. 
 The Constitution is strong enough to outlive its one 
 congenital disease. The Union is strong enough to 
 bear even the tremendous strain now trying its hoops. 
 We want only faith in the Constitution as it is ; faith in 
 the right of political majorities to exercise their legiti- 
 mate power ; faith in the original wisdom of our 
 fathers ; faith in humanity ; faith in Christ and in God, 
 to carry us triumphantly through this glorious but awful 
 hour, when the grandest political structure the provi- 
 dence of God ever allowed to be erected is to be finally 
 tested by earthquake, and to prove, I doubt not, that it 
 rests on the rock of ages, and will endure while time 
 shall last. 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS, OR, DUTY OF CHRH- 
 TIAN PATRIOTS. 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED IN THE MADISON SQUARE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 NEW YORK, ON THE DAY OF THE NATIONAL FAfcT, JAN. 4, 18G1. 
 
 BY REV. WILLIAM ADAMS, D. D. 
 
 • I exhort, therefore, that first of all supplications, prayers, interces- 
 sions and giving of thanks, be made for all men ; for Kings, and for 
 a that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in 
 all godliness and honesty." — ! Timothy ii. 1, 2. 
 
 Appropriateness is the first lavY of discourse. My 
 theme, on this occasion, has been chosen for me by the 
 circumstances which have called us together. The Pres- 
 ident of the United States, and the Chief Magistrate of 
 this Commonwealth, have recommended that this day 
 be observed as one of humiliation, fasting, and prayer, 
 in view of the present distracted and perilous condition 
 of the country. Such a recommendation from such a 
 source cannot be disregarded by the Christian ministry. 
 For one, I confess to a feeling of humiliation already. 
 Less than two months ago I returned from a visit to 
 foreign countries on the other side of the sea. Travel- 
 ling under despotic governments, where the Press is 
 stifled, and speech is guarded, and your persqnal move- 
 ments subject to espionage, I had prided myself much 
 
312 PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 on the privileges of an American citizen ; and as our 
 noble ship entered the bay of New York, on one of the 
 brightest days of our golden Autumn, it was with a 
 swelling heart and a suffused eye that I exclaimed, 
 " How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy taberna- 
 cles, Israel" — believing that the sun that day did 
 not shine upon a people having more of real prosperity 
 and happiness and peace than our own. Less than for- 
 ty days ago we had our annual festival of Thanksgiv- 
 ing, to consider the bounties of Providence towards us 
 as a nation, when I endeavored to guide your thoughts 
 into the channels of gratitude. To-day we are summoned 
 to the altars of religion to humble ourselves, to fast and 
 pray, in view of public calamities. A reversal so sudden, 
 so entire, so unnecessary, so gratuitous, so unreasonable, 
 as we should say, brought upon us by no descent of fire 
 or pestilence from heaven — by no invasion of a foreign 
 foe — but altogether engendered within our own bor- 
 ders — is itself enough to afflict and mortify us. Hu- 
 miliated we are before the world, by anything which 
 touches the honor or integrity of our nationality, or im- 
 plies the weakness of our much-boasted form of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 We are assembled also to pray in behalf of our coun- 
 try. But to pray intelligently we should comprehend 
 the import of our prayers. There is need, therefore, 
 of instruction concerning the proper objects of prayer. 
 To give that instruction in the spirit of Christian pat- 
 riotism is the duty we have undertaken, in coincidence 
 with the appointment of this day. On the Christian 
 Sabbath we occupy ourselves chiefly and directly with 
 those topics which concern man in his higher and spi- 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS. 313 
 
 ritual relations. Not that these are without their influ- 
 ence upon man as a citizen of this present worM, for 
 our belief is that tlie indirect effect of Christianity on 
 human society has more potency than all the direct ef- 
 forts of mere human politics ; that liberty and law, and 
 restraint, and Governments, and civilization — all these 
 and more are included in and spring from the central 
 doctrines of the Gospel. For this very reason, and for 
 others which are infinitely higher and greater, the per- 
 tinency of our Sabbath instructions is directly with the 
 spiritual and eternal relations of man, from that point 
 of perspective which constitutes the peculiar character- 
 istic of the Christian ministry. There are other topics 
 concerning wliich every minister of religion, in common 
 with his fellow-citizens, has his personal opinions. His 
 own self-respect would be wounded if he were not able, 
 in the proper place and in the proper manner, to hold 
 his own independent judgment on all these subordinate 
 sul)jects. It does not follow from this that he should 
 make use of his official position on the day which Christ 
 has hallowed for a specific purpose, to enforce his pri- 
 vate interpretations of irrelevant matters. I hold to 
 the right and duty of preaching politics — as that ex- 
 pression is properly defined — meaning not the squab- 
 bles of party, but the application of Christian truth to 
 every relation and duty of life, just as the duty and the 
 relation are presented in the New Testament. But this 
 sliould be done with appropriateness, with sound judg- 
 ment, and with proper regard to relevancy and edifica- 
 tion, and the due proportion of faith. I have never 
 felt, for example, that it was wisdom or dut}^ for me to 
 discourse, directly and frequently, on the subject of 
 14 
 
314 PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 American Slavery — not that I ever so much as imagin- 
 ed there was any disposition on the part of the pews to 
 restrict the liberty of the pulpit — not that I have not 
 my own opinions on the subject, as a citizen — nay more, 
 my own opinions as a student of Providence and the 
 Bible — but because I have never judged that it was for 
 edification to insist upon this subject before those who 
 constitute this pastoral charge. Had it been my lot in 
 life, as a Christian minister, to preach to those who 
 were personally related to Slavery, I should have en- 
 deavored, to the best of my ability, to instruct them on 
 the subject, as every other, with pertinence and direct- 
 ness. There is no preaching which is so easy, meas- 
 ured by the time and intellectual effort of preparation, 
 as controversial preaching in regard to matters on which 
 the public mind is already inflamed ; and one's manli- 
 ness and Christian wisdom are often more demonstrated 
 by holding himself in restraint concerning many politi- 
 cal topics, rather than falling in with prevalent opinion, 
 and riding along on the wave of popular excitement. 
 While, therefore, pertinency and appropriateness re- 
 quire us, on the Sabbath day, to hold our minds in 
 contact with our own bosom sins, and our personal re- 
 lations to Christ and eternity, the same law of appro- 
 priateness makes it necessary for me, on this occasion, 
 to speak with direct reference to the circumstances 
 which have led to our convocation. 
 
 We are invited by magistrates to pray for our coun- 
 try ; to pray for our rulers ; and the text before us 
 enjoins it upon us, for a reason annexed, to do the same 
 thing. Perhaps some may think that it would be wiser 
 to do nothing but pray. I am myself reminded of what 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS. 315 
 
 was once said by the pious and discreet Fenelon, in a 
 time of great trouble and turbulence : " Parlez a Dieu 
 pour la paix de PEglise et ne parlez point aux homines'' 
 — " Speak to God for the peace of the Church, and 
 speak not to men." But we are safe always when we 
 speak in accordance with the letter and spirit of the 
 Scriptures. Our text is, ''Pray for Kings and for all 
 those in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peace- 
 able life." The emphasis given to this matter shows 
 that there were special reasons which led the Apostle 
 to give it the prominent place which it holds in this 
 epistle. Any one informed as to the state of the Chris- 
 tian mind at the time this epistle was written, in regard 
 to the heathen magistracy, under which Christianity 
 was born and developed, and especially the deluded ex- 
 pectations of the Judaist mind in reference to what was 
 about to ensue, can understand how pertinent this coun- 
 sel was. Then there is a design in the accumulation of 
 expressions — supplications, prayers, intercessions, and 
 giving of thanks. All the synonyms of the language in 
 reference to the subject are employed, inculcating prayer 
 in all its forms, looking to the supply of what is need- 
 ed, the averting of what is evil, and the obtaining of 
 what is good. Not only have we this emphatic form of 
 expression in reference to prayer for the civil magistra- 
 cy, but the reason is appended why we should thus 
 pray. Not for what will inure to the benefit of the 
 magistrates themselves — not merely for the conversion 
 of the men thus described ; but this is the end, the ob- 
 ject of our prayer in behalf of the civil power : That 
 we may lead a quiet, peaceable life, in all godliness and 
 honesty. This latter expression, " in all godliness and 
 
316 PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 propriety of conduct,'' denoting the ultimate end, of 
 which a quiet, peaceable life is the condition. Wo' 
 have outlived the old error which was installed in an- 
 cient treatises on government, that, because the Holy 
 Scripture refers to Kings, requiring men to pray for 
 Kings, and to honor the King, therefore monarchy was 
 the only form of magistracy which had the Divine sanc- 
 tion, for the scriptural injunction making reference to 
 the form of government which then and there existed is 
 not even thus restricted, but includes all forms of au- 
 thority and magistracy. Such a form of government as 
 our own was not in existence when Holy Scripture was 
 written, but never was there one under which prayei 
 had such scope and pertinency, for the very reason that 
 those who pray are the source of all power and sover- 
 eignty. 
 
 To give some order to our thoughts, let me say, in 
 the first place, as explanatory of all the empliasis giv- 
 en to this subject, that the reason here assigned wliy 
 we should pray for such as arc in authority lays bare at 
 once the whole design and office of civil government : 
 " That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life.''' We 
 present this as the very best definition that can be giv- 
 en of the province and end of the civil power. Writ- 
 ers on political economy have fallen upon manifold mis- 
 takes by assigning to the ruling authority prerogatives 
 which do not belong to it at all. A most notable in- 
 stance of the kind comes to mind in the very clever 
 book written by Mr. Gladstone, then a member of the 
 British Parliament, some twenty years ago, entitled, 
 The State in its Relations ivith the Church. The ob- 
 ject at which he aims is, to prove that one of the prin- 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS. 317 
 
 cipal ends of civil government, as such, is to propagate 
 religious truth ; and that, as a means to this, it is obli- 
 gatory on every Government to profess and support a 
 religion. Once allow the premises from which he 
 starts, in his logic, and you cannot escape his conclu- 
 sion. The error lies in the very foundation of his ar- 
 gument. He assumes a major premise which is too 
 large, and includes too much. He begins with affirm- 
 ing that it is the province of government to attend to 
 all which is vital to human interests. This would seem 
 to be very plausible and very good. But it contains 
 the mischief of a tremendous sophistry. We join issue 
 at the very beginning, and deny that such is the prov- 
 ince of civil government. Ten thousand things vital to 
 the happiness of individuals and families there are 
 which do not pertain to the civil magistracy at all. 
 The province of government is not universal, but limit- 
 ed and restricted. We should say that this was the de- 
 sign of government, that we may lead a quiet and 
 peaceable life, or, to expand the definition somewhat — 
 government is to protect our lives, our persons and pro- 
 perty, as inhabitants of this present world. It is to 
 help men to settle their difficulties, not by individual 
 force, but by processes of law and justice ; to protect 
 from violence and invasion — in short, to furnish a sub- 
 stratum on which the social system may stand and de- 
 velop itself. This is not to affirm, as some good people 
 have feared, that the temporal interests of man are of 
 greater consequence than his spiritual. Far from this. 
 But it is the province of government to care for one, 
 but not for the other. Men of all religions and of no 
 religion have an equal interest in this, that life, and 
 
318 PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 person, and rights bo protected by the civil powers. 
 Men holding opinions the most antagonistic that can be 
 conceived on many subjects — Gentile and Jew, Papist 
 and Protestant — all agree in this, that they need the 
 protection of a good government. Whether they have 
 any faith in a future world or not — whether they can 
 harmonize on this or that theory of morals or not — 
 here is something which is admitted by all, there must 
 be a ruling power in this world, or we could not live at 
 all. The right conception of the province of govern- 
 ment is very important, since it has always been true 
 that men are in danger of extending the civil power 
 over and beyond its just limits. We are jealous of 
 such encroachments. We are unwilling that affairs 
 should be thrust into the province of government which 
 do not belong to it. This definition of government, its 
 use and object, has another advantage. It meets the 
 scruples of such as have conscientious objections to be- 
 ing associated in the same government with those whose 
 opinions and practices, on many subjects, they disap- 
 prove and detest. The Apostle instructs us on this 
 very point : " I wrote unto you," says he, " in an epis- 
 tle, not to company with fornicators ; yet not alto- 
 gether with the fornicators of this ivorld, for then 
 must ye needs go out of the world. But if any man 
 that is called a brother be a fornicator or an idol- 
 ater," then withdraw from him. Within your own 
 conniiunion of the church you may have laws of fellow- 
 ship which you cannot apply to the social organization 
 at large. Idolaters and Christians, pure and impure, 
 sober and drunken, whatever are men's notions or hab- 
 its in reference to other matters, in this tliey have all a 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS. 319 
 
 common interest and necessity, that they should be pro- 
 tected by the ruling power from rapine, and violence, 
 and carnage. Starting, tlien, with this object and end 
 of government full in our eye, that we may lead a quiet 
 and peaceable life^ as the result for which we are to 
 pray, let me remind you that this is an object of vast 
 importance, of indispensable necessity. We have fallen 
 upon the evil habit of speaking slightingly of govern- 
 ment. In the too common custom of abusing the men 
 who administer government, many have come to think 
 and speak disparagingly of government itself, as though 
 we could do as well or better without it. Without it, 
 not to speak of living quietly and peaceably, we could 
 not live at all. Government is God's ordinance for hu- 
 man protection. The word does not define the form, 
 the mode, in which the governing power shall be ad- 
 ministered ; but there is, in the very nature of things a 
 necessity for some government — the worst is better 
 than none — and in this sense the powers that be are 
 ordained of God. And by government we do not mean 
 a fortuitous assemblage of forces, but an organized form, 
 adequate for the purpose ; not an accidental conveni- 
 ence, but a stable power on which society may repose 
 and develop itself safely and happily, and the Church 
 of God may build her nest and lay her young. Gov- 
 ernment, as an ordinance of God, is a power. De- 
 signed for this very end to keep impulses and passions 
 under restraint, within legal processes, it must have the 
 means of protecting itself, and enforcing its own enact- 
 ments. Without this it is a nullity — it is nothing. 
 Therefore says the Scripture, the magistrate beareth the 
 sword, and not in vain, a sword not made of a shingle, 
 
320 PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 but the veritable symbol of a veritable power, able to 
 accomplish the legitimate object for which government 
 was instituted. 
 
 Surely here is something worth praying for. That 
 government is the best in kind which, like the great 
 forces of nature, works so smoothly and quietly that we 
 take but little notice of its working. If ours has been, 
 and is a government, which is adapted to secure for us 
 a quiet, peaceable life, then it is a government which 
 ought to be preserved ; and for this end prayer should 
 invoke Divine aid, and the hearts and hands of all pa- 
 triots should be combined in one. Greatly mistaken 
 shall I be, if the result of events now in progress in our 
 country is not to diffuse wider than ever the conviclion 
 that government, organized government, is with us a 
 most benignant thing, to be valued for time to come as 
 it has never been valued before. Men have been tri- 
 fling, in both extremes, with most sacred interests, till 
 we are in danger, at last, of being consumed. Without 
 a government, a power worthy of the name, able to 
 protect us, where are we ? What becomes of us and 
 our children ; if society is to become disintegrated, if 
 theories are to be allowed which, carried out to their 
 legitimate consequences in States, and counties, and 
 cities, and families, would destroy the very idea of 
 government, and leave us altogether at the mercy of 
 passion, the power of mobs, and the turbulence of phy- 
 sical strength? The r'l^ht of revolu Hon — that word 
 of hope and of terror — remains with every people, as 
 the last resort of necessity ; otherwise we should be 
 forced to blush at the bend of illegitimacy and shame 
 in our own coat armorial ; but that right can be justified 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS. 321 
 
 only after all legal methods of redress have been ex- 
 hausted, and the power which resorts to it must first 
 plead before the bar of reason and the judgment of 
 the civilized world, that it has been compelled to this 
 (iiinl and dread necessity in view of a greater good, 
 which thereby, and thereby only, it is sure to accom- 
 plish. It is time for this subject to be taken out from 
 the sway of passion into the domain of Christian rea- 
 son. The time has come for all party and sectional 
 lines to be effaced in the broad claims of patriotism. 
 All subordinate matters, prejudices and antipathies, 
 must give way before this simple question, Whether we 
 have, and are to have, a Government beneath which, as 
 the ordained protection of God, we can lead honest, 
 and quiet, and peaceful lives ? When all irrelevant 
 matters are brushed away, and that simple question is 
 presented naked and alone in its own merits, the heart 
 of this whole American people will be found to be true, 
 and sound, and loyal. God grant that this question 
 may be settled in his own wise and blessed way — by 
 inclining the hearts of a praying people to consider 
 candidly, seasonaljly, and wisely what is meant by his 
 ordination of civil government as the means of securing 
 for all quiet and honest lives. 
 
 With this reason which inspiration has assigned as 
 the result and object of prayer, we come next, by a 
 natural order, to consider why we should pray, in a 
 special manner, in behalf of our rulers. Such an act 
 of prayer, let me say, promises two results, and is to be 
 justified by two reasons : 1st, The persuasive power of 
 prayer in the way of securing for those in authority, as 
 a gift from God, what is needful to the discharge of 
 14* 
 
822 " PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 their duty ; 2d, The reactive influence of prayer on 
 the minds of those who offer it, as the best mode of ad- 
 justing all perilous and difficult questions of polity. 
 Let us consider these in their order. 
 
 All but Atheists believe that God presides over na- 
 tions and individuals, and that by means and influences 
 beyond our sight he can turn the hearts of men as 
 rivers of water are turned. Now by fears and terrors 
 as he did the heart of Pharaoh, and now by gentler 
 processes as he did the hearts of Dartus and Cyrus. 
 Who that has read history aright can doubt the power 
 of the Almighty higher, stronger, and mightier than 
 that of kings and cabinets ? It was God who bestowed 
 wisdom on Solomon — a wisdom so singularly displayed 
 in his first judicial act, before he had reached his ma- 
 jority — with no intention of cruelty to a living child, 
 yet proposing its dismemberment, that he might test the 
 instinct of maternity, discovering which of the two 
 claimants would first cry out against the violent divi- 
 sion ; and God it was who turned the counsel of Ahith- 
 OPHEL into foolishness. He it is who still instructs 
 us to pray for our rulers as dependent for success in 
 their office upon Him. Let us pray that our " officers 
 may be peace, and our exactors righteousness." That 
 those who are invested with autliority may be firm and 
 faithful to their trusts : administering government witli- 
 out fear or favor. That they may be inspired with that 
 wisdom which is profitable to direct, that they may fear 
 God and do justly, and hate bribes, and remember their 
 obligations to Him who has said : " Counsel is mine and 
 sound wisdom. I am understanding, I have strength. 
 By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS. 323 
 
 princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the 
 earth." And prayer of this description should go up 
 from unfeigned lips. Never should devotion be subsi- 
 dized to prejudice, nor partisanship make use of prayer 
 for expressing its own pique. These are the prayers 
 which have been prepared for us by the Divine Spirit, 
 and such we should unceasingly offer in public worship, 
 in true loyalty, and Christian patriotism. 
 
 Times like these lay bare to our eye the weaknesses 
 and perils of our Government, as storms expose the 
 leaks of a ship. We are wise if we come to see that 
 our rulers are subject to manifold dangers, from which 
 notliing but Divine wisdom can shield them. We boast 
 much before the world of the freedom of our institu- 
 tions, of the perfect equality of our citizenship, so that 
 no man is debarred from office by the accident of birth 
 and condition. But we must remember that there is 
 another side and aspect to this subject. If there is an 
 advantage of this kind, there are many disadvantages 
 and dangers connected with it. If all offices of trust 
 and power are open to all, then all may seek them, and 
 there will be scrambling and corruption, and most un- 
 worthy rivalries. The frequency of our popular elec- 
 tions multiplies the miscliief from this source, and so- 
 ciety is upturned from its discolored depths. It is not 
 strange in such a state of things, that we are shocked 
 by revelations of fraud, and dishonesty, and corruption. 
 Men will intrigue for office for selfish ends, who are not 
 fitted for it by education or character. They will em- 
 ploy methods which ought never to be used. It has 
 come at last — it humbles us before God and man to 
 admit it — to be understood that all is fair in politics. 
 
324 PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 Nothing can be more unscrupulous tlian the strictly 
 party Press of this country. So strong have become 
 the chains of party, that the last thing to be expected 
 of a political opponent is chivalric fairness and candor 
 and courtesy and truth. An irreparable mischief has 
 been done to the morals of the country by this shame- 
 less perversion and falsehood, which waxes worse and 
 worse. The public conscience is debauched. Nor can 
 I see relief from all this mischief in any quarter but 
 this one : — a deeper sense of religion, such as is im- 
 plied in the act of prayer to Almighty God. Some put 
 their trust in universal education ; but intelligence is 
 not the thing which is wanting in such a crisis ; for who 
 is so shrewd as your thorough-bred politician ? The 
 more you educate the faculties in the wisdom of this 
 world, without the virtuous restraints of religion, the 
 more you sharpen tlie edge which will wound and kill us. 
 
 " Yon Cassius thinks too much ; 
 Such men are dangerous." 
 
 Our safety lies in that acknowledgment of Divine 
 control, of obligation and modest trust which finds ex- 
 pression for itself in holy prayer, without " wrath and 
 doubting." 
 
 Beyond all this power of prayer, considered as a 
 means of helping our rulers to act wisely and faithfully, 
 working their deliverance from all selfishness and parti- 
 sanship and venality, there remains a most important 
 and blessed effect of prayer, as it is reflected upon the 
 hearts of those who offer it. If prayer had no power 
 nor promise of securing a gift of light from the Throne, 
 its influence would be immeasurably good and great 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS. 325 
 
 upon those who offer it. It calms the passions, clarifies 
 the judgment, enlightens the intellect, composes the 
 spirit, and pervades the conduct with serenity, and 
 charity, and patience, and meekness, and hope. 
 
 Does any one doubt that the causes which more than 
 any endanger our institutions proceed from excited pas- 
 sion rather than sober reason ? That at this very mo- 
 ment our peril is from exasperated feeling, from threats, 
 and wrath, and bitterness, and menaces, and taunts, 
 and objurgations, and not from the spirit which would 
 refier all matters of difference to legal adjudication, and 
 to the wisdom and guidance which are never withheld 
 from filial prayer ? 
 
 Not for the purpose of recrimination, of which we 
 have had so much, but for the very opposite — of sup- 
 pressing it, and fostering a better temper — let me 
 come at once to the very subject, which, more than any 
 other, has occasioned the present embarrassment. I 
 shall trust to your candor to say, when I have finished, 
 whether the statement of the case has been made in 
 truth and fairness. 
 
 Anterior to our own time and generation, without 
 personal complicity of our own, by the persistent agen- 
 cy of the mother country, African Slavery was intro- 
 duced and entailed upon this country. In the original 
 draft of the Declaration of American Independence, by 
 the hand of Mr. Jefferson, himself a slaveholder, one 
 of the reasons alleged for the act was that Great Brit- 
 ain, notwithstanding the remonstrances and expostula- 
 tions of the Colonies, had persisted in forcing upon 
 them this very system. The time was, and not so long 
 ago, when, throughout the whole of this country, and 
 
326 PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 especially in the Southern States, which, in the ori- 
 gin and prosecution of measures at emancipation, an- 
 ticipated others, and outstripped others in the amount 
 of costs and sacrifices looking to that end — the time 
 was, I say, when throughout the whole country there 
 was a remarkable unanimity in reference to Slavery, as 
 a political, social, and moral evil. Legislatures of 
 States where it existed, and ecclesiastical bodies more 
 immediately connected with it, scarcely without an ex- 
 ception, took action, looking to its gradual and ultimate 
 removal. I shall not undertake to describe the manner 
 in which a change in regard to the treatment of the 
 subject was effected ; enough to know, what cannot be 
 denied, that a change has taken place, and that this has 
 led to extreme views, acrimony, and active antagonism. 
 Men have driven each other wide apart by contrary 
 opinions, as ivory balls are separated by concussion. 
 On the one hand are those who regard the act of slave- 
 holding as necessarily and unexceptionably sinful. 
 They pronounce those who are involved in this relation 
 as the greatest of criminals. Churches in the Northern 
 interior, who never saw either a slaveholder or a slave, 
 and were never in the way of such a probability, took 
 action, denouncing this relation as one of the most atro- 
 cious of all crimes, forbidding any one connected with 
 it to approach their communion. Epithets could not 
 be found too strong by way of expressing detestation 
 of this particular act, and those there are who have 
 publicly avowed their purpose to put the Constitution 
 and the Bible under their feet for a supposed complici- 
 ty with this one unpardonable sin. In the opposite ex- 
 treme are those who now assert that this relation is of 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS. 327 
 
 Divine origin and sanction, and that to " conserve, ex- 
 tend, and perpetuate it," after the same manner as the 
 relation between parent and child, to the end of time, 
 is a Christian duty. Moreover, the proposal has been 
 made and publicly advocated, in consistency with this 
 sentiment, to reopen and legalize the African Slave- 
 trade, which the whole civilized world, and none more 
 emphatically than our own country, has stigmatized as 
 piracy. 
 
 But these, you say, are extreme views. Certainly 
 they are. I describe them as such. I refer to them as 
 such. But do you not know that these are the very agen- 
 cies which work mischief; for that which is ultra — be- 
 yond fairness and truth — is the parent of fanaticism ; 
 and fanaticism is a fire which, once kindled, burns you 
 know not where or what. I use that word with pliilo- 
 sophical accuracy. Enthusiasm is a noble quality. We 
 all admire earnestness and zeal ; the expression of one's 
 own sentiments w^ith an honest heartiness. But fanati- 
 cism has this peculiarity, that always it has in it an el- 
 ement of malignity ; a spirit that would do harm to its 
 object after some form or method ; a spirit which 
 would lift its hands and sharpen its tongue in wrath ; 
 which would strike, and bite, and retaliate, and devour. 
 Extremes to be sure. But does any one question that 
 it is these extreme notions which are now flying through 
 tlie troubled air ; w^hich are repeated backwards and 
 forwards, exasperating a bad temper ? Is not this spir- 
 it, wherever it has existed, the parent of misapprehen- 
 sion, and prejudice and hate ? If Sir Walter Raleigh 
 found it so difficult to arrive at the exact truth of facts, 
 occurring almost under his own eye, in his own castle- 
 
328 PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 yard, what may truth expect when the very air is full 
 of a malign spirit, excited to a most inflammable and 
 explosive pitch ? The consequence has been, that while 
 the extremists on either wing have understood each oth- 
 er well, and hated each other heartily, the great body 
 lying between, on both sides, have not known and un- 
 derstood each other at all. When, at length, the 
 subject became involved with political legislation, 
 then a thousand other forces came in to intensify the 
 feeling. Now it was that legislative acts themselves 
 partook of the prevalent sentiment on either side, in- 
 creasing the exasperation. The real cause which made 
 the Fugitive Slave Law so obnoxious to many in the 
 North was, that they interpreted it as containing a 
 crack and a jeer which was intended to humiliate them : 
 while the people of the South, in their turn, put the 
 same interpretation upon every Northern Liberty Bill, 
 its animus, whatever ingenuity may have been in the 
 letter, being understood as one of defiance and insult. 
 And so it is that the great mass of the nation, innocent 
 of all evil designs, intending no wrong, and doing no 
 wrong, are yet, by the great law of social liabilities, in- 
 volved in perils engendered by others, which threaten 
 now the whole domain. The question now before us, 
 is whether it is possible for this matter to be lifted up 
 and lifted out from this region of distemper into the 
 court of reason, and before the supremacy of providen- 
 tial facts ? The stars in their courses fought against 
 Sisera — and there is no place for passion, or impa- 
 tience, or fretfulness, when we put ourselves in contact 
 with the great calm facts of Nature, and Providence, 
 and Revelation. Our hope is not so much in legislation 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS. 329 
 
 and discussion, for it has long been our national vice to 
 legislate and talk too much, for mere effect, on abstract 
 questions, instead of meeting each and every case up- 
 on its own merits. In cases of disputed rights, let su- 
 preme law be arbiter, — and I believe there are many 
 questions of law in connexion with this subject which 
 should employ the highest legal talent of the country 
 — and every citizen be prompt to recognize its solemn 
 authority. Though it is the most difficult of all condi- 
 tions in which to act wisely and freely when put under 
 threats, yet it is a token for good, that, already in our 
 own Northern community, there is a disposition to re- 
 peal whatever may have been judged in its spirit and 
 intention to be contrary to faith, and honesty, and law. 
 I speak of the spirit and the temper, for this is the 
 whole matter. If by any process, if, by a special an- 
 swer to special prayer, there could be such a return to 
 a reasonable and charitable temper, in which all shall 
 be convinced that nothing is intended, and nothing will 
 be tolerated which is not right, then, indeed, fear would 
 give place to hope, and apprehension to peace. 
 
 How is this subject presented to us in the New Tes- 
 tament ? Perhaps we shall see the better if we look 
 first at the Christian method of treating another sub- 
 ject which is free from all doubt in our minds. I refer 
 to despotic Government, the object of our implacable 
 abhorrence. When Christ and his Apostles were upon 
 the earth, they lived under Roman despotism ; and w^hat 
 that was, a superficial acquaintance with history will 
 suffice to show. Did they ever make a direct assault 
 upon this tremendous power ? Did they excite to in- 
 surrection ? Did they draw the sword against it ? Did 
 
66{J PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 they arm the tongue against it ? Never. The very op- 
 posite. '' Render unto Caesar the things that are 
 Caesar's " was the rule of Christ. It was in regard to 
 this old Heathen despotism that Paul counselled his 
 contemporaries to be obedient and loyal, recognizing 
 its authority himself, and appealing to its jurisdiction. 
 Are we, then, to infer that Christianity sanctions irre- 
 sponsible and cruel tyranny, aiming to extend and per- 
 petuate it ? Never, never ! For its own spirit fosters 
 justice. It looks at the universal diffusion of what is 
 right. Tell us, then, why the New Testament does not 
 contain one direct assault upon those ancient and stub- 
 born-tyrannies. Some reason there must have been, 
 and that reason the very best. Do you say that it 
 would have done no good ; that it would have reacted 
 upon the heads of those who took part in it, and, there- 
 fore, it was deferred till a more auspicious opportunity ? 
 Tlien you admit that there is such a thing as wise expe- 
 diency, and that this is a Christian virtue, employing 
 the best means and occasions for its own good ends. 
 So we believe. Like the sun in the heaven, Christian- 
 ity lifts itself up to its central position, and its warmth 
 melts the ice, and its attractions gradually, but certain- 
 ly, draw all lesser orbs around itself obediently. 
 Would you know what Slavery was in the days of the 
 Cassars ? Read Tacitus, the contemporary of Paul. 
 Yet you do not find in the New Testament one direct 
 ssauU upon it, as a thing to be overthrown by instan- 
 laiieous violence. The relation is recognized as an ex- 
 isting fact. Masters and slaves — there is no mistake 
 ing the word — those that were under the yoke, are in- 
 structed in their relative duties ; while the hand is not 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS. 3B1 
 
 once lifted to sever at a blow the relation itself. What, 
 then ? Must we infer that this is a relation whicli 
 Christianity ordains, and conserves, and perpetuates, as 
 one of her own institutions ? By no means. Read the 
 epistle of Paul to Philemon ; a most extraordinary 
 thing it is that such an epistle, from such a man, to such 
 a man, on such a subject, should have been handed 
 down to us — and 1 confess to you that I find it always 
 hard to read that epistle, so full of the very spirit of 
 Christian gentleness and courtesy, without a moistened 
 eye — and you need not wonder long or be in doubt as 
 to the process by which the religion of Christ reforms 
 abuses and removes evils. Men may be impatient, fret 
 and goad themselves and others into madness, but God 
 has his own time and method, and we do well some- 
 times to think of the slow yet certain processes of his 
 Spirit and Providence. 
 
 On the one hand, we of the North — I say ice, since 
 I speak of a prevalent habit — must cease from all vi- 
 tuperation and angry reproaches. We must not speak 
 of our southern brethren as oppressors and barbarians, 
 nor vilify them, nor taunt them, nor goad tlicm, as if 
 they were sinners above all others. We must bear in 
 mind that had we been born in the same circumstances 
 with themselves, in connexion with a system which 
 sends its roots through the whole social structure, there 
 is no reason to suppose that we should have been more 
 humane, more kind, more wise than they. We must 
 acknowledge that among them, familiar with this rela- 
 tion, are some of the best specimens of philanthropy and 
 religion the world can furnish, men and women worthy to 
 stand by the side of the man in the New Testament, 
 
332 PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 who held the same relation to a doulos, whom Christ 
 healed, of whom Christ said, " I have not seen so great 
 faith, no, not in Israel." 
 
 On the other hand, we say to our brethren of the 
 South, while we acknowledge and defend every right 
 guaranteed to you by the Constitution, you must not 
 take new ground which is untenable ; you must not 
 force us to join a new issue ; nor give resurrection to 
 questions which have long ago been considered as set- 
 tled by the civilized world ; you must not resort to vio- 
 lence ; if the solemn tramp of the census instructs you 
 as to the certainty of prospective changes, you must 
 meet the fact as an appointment not of man, by which 
 to be irritated, but of God, with acquiescence, with 
 equanimity ; you must not forswear reason, nor put 
 the torch to that edifice which we occupy in common, 
 and in which we and our children, and children's chil- 
 dren, have such incomparable and ineffable advantages. 
 
 Surely, then, we find abundant occasion for prayer, 
 full of faith in God, and charity for our fellow men, in 
 the presence of this great embarrassment. If any man 
 pretends to know by what method this great problem 
 of our history is to be solved without detriment to ei- 
 ther race, our own or the African, for as Christians our 
 regard is for all, in Christ all are our brethren ; if any 
 one, I say, pretends to know the future of this history, 
 without aid from divine wisdom, I pity his self-sufficien- 
 cy and arrogance. No man can look with indifference 
 upon that which in any way affects the prosperity of 
 the country or any part of it. We may have no direct 
 personal relation to this or that system. But here 
 comes in the great law of organic life and social liabili- 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS. 333 
 
 ties. We may be innocent, and yet sulTer the conse- 
 sequences of others' actions. Children may be harm- 
 less as doves, but they are involved in tlie results of 
 their parents' conduct. Our fathers were immediately 
 related to the introduction and extension of slavery. 
 If wrath, and bitterness, and objurgations could produce 
 any good, they would be most inappropriate and unbe- 
 coming in us. Then we have a real interest in every- 
 thing which concerns the welfare of every part of our 
 Confederacy. The whole is our country. There is not 
 a right which belongs to any State which we would not 
 defend. Not a wrong can be inflicted upon one which 
 all the rest do not suffer. Whatever infidels may say 
 on the subject, objecting to the ethics of the New Tes- 
 tament, that it omits from its injunctions this virtue of 
 patriotism, we know that there is such a thing as pat- 
 riotism, a true love for country, a sentiment which may 
 run to excess and folly in the absence of Christianity, 
 but which Christianity cherishes, and fosters, and mod- 
 erates, infusing into it her own celestial temper. 
 
 It is time for us to make some peculiar expression of 
 our loyalty. Partizanship must be merged in patriot- 
 ism. Sectionalism must give place to an intense love 
 for the whole nationality. If revolution is actually to 
 occur, let it not be till men have opened to each other 
 their honest hearts of patriotic love, and the conviction 
 is justified to the waiting world that there is some im- 
 perative necessity which makes that ultimate resort in- 
 evitable. Docs that exist ? How would you define it ? 
 What is the question which forces any to such a neces- 
 sity ? Differences of opinion ? But men may live under 
 constitutional law with conscientious sentiments of ut- 
 
334 PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 most diversity. Differences of opinion leading to an- 
 tagonism of claims ? Let them be referred to the tri- 
 bmial which law describes, and a loyal people must 
 ever acknowledge. Revolution ! — for what ? Disap- 
 pointment, temper, impulse, passion — none of these 
 are to supersede law, and to displace that constitution- 
 al Government wdiich is our protection. Revolution ! 
 What memories are associated in our minds by the 
 word ? It was only last week that the last survivor of 
 the Battle of Bunker Hill died in the State of Maine. 
 Surely it cannot be possible that within so short a time 
 from the beginning of the Revolution which resulted in 
 our independence, there should, in any quarter, even be 
 thought of another revolution, for what good end we 
 cannot imagine, against the very Constitution which our 
 fathers framed. As the later Athenian orators, when 
 their country was in danger of distraction and dismem- 
 berment, were wont to shout " Marathon ! Marathon ! '* 
 recalling the field where patriotism and valor prevailed 
 against desperate odds, so will we repeat the names of 
 the men and the fields whose renown has come down to 
 us as a common heritage, associated with our common 
 ancestry and our earlier struggles. More tlian all, \\]]\ 
 we call aloud on the name of our God, beseeching him 
 by the very arguments which he has put upon our lips, 
 not to give us up to reproach. Political zealots may 
 scoff at the inutility of prayer. But I speak to-day to 
 men and women wdio have faith in its efficiency. Be- 
 fore the spirit of prayer, the false guides of passion and 
 an evil temper disappear, and the great lights of chari- 
 ty, and meekness, and hope, come forth to point us in 
 the way. What will the nations say if our experiment 
 
PRAYER FOR RULERS. 335 
 
 ? 
 
 of self-government should thus early prove a failure . 
 How sliould we be ashamed to confess before tlie world 
 our weakness and imbecility, if tlie bond of our Con- 
 federated States should prove a rope of sand, instead 
 of a chain of gold. We cannot pretend to dictate or 
 mark the way for Divine Providence — but with all the 
 heart we have, we will pray for the peace and prosperi- 
 ty of our country. Let us confess our sins most hearti- 
 ly before God. " Think you," said Christ, " that they 
 on whom the tower of Siloam fell were sinners above 
 all others? I tell ye nay. But except 7/e repent, 7/e 
 shall all likewise perish." Sin of every name and form 
 is a leak in the ship, and humbling ourselves before God 
 IS our strength and security. For the sake of all the 
 hopes and prospects of mankind— for the sake of ra- 
 tional liberty —for the sake of the Christian Church, 
 with its new domains and auspices — for our brethren 
 and companions' sakes — we will pray for our rulers, 
 and pray to Almighty God for ourselves — that here, 
 beneath the vines and trees which our fathers planted' 
 we may lead a quiet and peaceful life. Should reason' 
 be borne down by passion ; should it prove that a fire 
 has already been kindled which may not by any human 
 power be quenched, still will we not let go our hold on 
 faith and the guardianship of God. Still we cling to 
 the altars of religion, and invoke the grace of the'' Al- 
 mighty. Still will we pray that we may keep a con- 
 science void of offence before God and man, so that in 
 any extremity we may have the security which springs 
 from confidence in Supreme direction, believing that 
 He, in the day of evil, will say to his own wlferever 
 they are, " Come, my people, enter thou into thy cham- 
 
336 PRAYER FOR RULERS. 
 
 bcrs, and shut thy doors about thee, hide thyself, as it 
 were, for a little moment, until this indignation be over- 
 past." But prayer and faith will win a blessing. Af- 
 ter the storm behold the bow in the clouds, and bright- 
 ness covering the whole heavens. 
 
 THE END.