V • < ?Wl Atf °o SH^» OUR DUTIES TO THE SLAVE. SERMON, riSEAC'ITED BEFOKE THE Original Congregational (tftjurd) anfc Society, WRENTHAM, MASS., THANKSGIVING DAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1846. BY HORACE JAMES. JUNIOR PASTOR. BOST N : PRINTED BY RICHARDSON & FILMER, No. 142 1-2 Washington Street. 1847. PREFACE The substance of the following Discourse was prepared amid the hurry of numerous engagements, and preached in the ordinary course of professional duty on Thanksgiving day. It is reluctantly furnished for the press, at the earnest solicitation of a large number of my people. I would fain let it go into forgetfulness, or live only in the memory of those who value the instructions and warnings of a pas- tor, were it not that many who could have wished to hear it, were prevented by the inclement season. While, therefore, the sermon can prefer no claim to the possession of artistic excellence, it is affectionately commended to the good sense of the reader, with a full conviction that the views it contains — which are neither original or new — are in the main correct, and will ere long be substantially adopted by every honest, thinking man. E R "Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy ; rid them out of the hand of the wicked." — Psalm 82 : 3, 4. To whom are these inspired words more appropriately applicable than to the American Slaves ? And what occasion can be more suitable for a remembrance of their wrongs, and of our duties to them, than this day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God ; this social New England festival ; this blessed season set apart and sacredly devoted to the domestic affections, and to all the tenderest, sweetest sympathies of life ? Nor is the minister of the gospel justly chargeable with going out of his reckoning, who lifts up his voice to-day in behalf of enslaved millions, even though he touch on politics, and venture to assert that parties and administrations have done grievous wrong. For it is allowed, by common consent, as I have understood it, that ministers, on occasions of Thanksgiving and Fast, may say just what they please, upon any subject whatever, provided only it be truthful and apt, without danger of incurring the censure of any one. Be this as it may, there are those who will, with conscientious earnestness, give utterance at such times to truths which they deem to be of vital and absorbing interest, but which are so connected with secular affairs that they ought not to be discussed upon the Sabbath day. It is, moreover, in accordance with the recommendation of our chief magistrate to make American Slavery a theme of public mention on this festive day. By the very letter of the proclamation our attention is directed to it. His Excellency, the Governor, after alluding in his proclamation to some considerations pertaining to us as individuals, and as citizens of this commonwealth, recommends humble prayer to God, in behalf of our common country^ in five particulars. If any one of these be especially noticed on this occa- sion, it will be seen that it must of necessity be the last of the five, which relates to slavery ; for this is the sum, the remainder, the quotient and the product, of all the rest. Solve the problem by any possible rule, and slavery is the uniform result. The first petition recommended is, that God tw will look propitiously upon the people of our sister states, and bless them." So far as the slaveholding states are concerned, this can never be the case till slavery has ceased to exist in them. Till then, they must and tvill be cursed. A moral mildew has blighted their soil, then- schools and their churches, as well as the intellect and heart_ of their people. The name of divine blessing cannot be associated with the institution of slavery. The second is, " that he will impart wisdom to the government of this Union, and direct to such measures as shall promote the best interests of the whole country." Until slavery is no more, the "wisdom" of the "government of this Union" will be slave-policy, and little else, as it has been for the most part heretofore. And as to "the interests of the whole country''' being promoted while the "peculiar institution" remains, the idea is utterly preposterous. No rational man can entertain it. The third petition recommended is this : " that He will inspire those who conduct the administration of our public affairs, with an elevated patriotism, a love of justice and of peace." How long would it take, it might be asked, to enshrine "a love of justice" — to say nothing of "patriotism" — in the bosom of slaveholders and slaveholding rulers? And as for "peace," if they can have it and slavery too, very well ; but if not, war inexorable ! The fourth reads thus: "that He will cause a speedy temiination to be put to that war which exists between this and a neighboring republic, so that the soldiers of their armies shall no more imbrue their hands with each others' blood, and the sound of lamentation and mourning shall no more be heard for those who are slain in battle." " That war" will not cease, if its authors have their own way, until the horse-leech of slavery, which cries give, give, give, is completely satiated with blood ! It is not the poor, half-clad, dying " soldiers" that are thus "imbruing their hands;" it is those in the seat of power, the very " seat of the beast" of slavery, that " cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." Their hands are red with blood ; and to wash out its stains would make " the multitudinous seas incarnadine." Slavery is the root of the matter ; the Mexican Avar is only a twig of the tree. The fifth petition is, " that God will appoint and give efficiency to the means which shall, in his own good time, exhibit to the world a practical illustration of that prominent and beautiful truth put forth in our Declaration of Independence, ' that all men are created equal,' and present this great confederacy of states without a bondman within its limits." Here we come to the bottom. Here we have the spring and fruitful source of almost all our national evils, and the greatest obstacle in the path of our national prosperity. Well may it be remembered. At the recommendation of our honored governor I notice it to-day. The words, however, which stand at the head of this discourse, emanate from a higher than human authority. They come to us, not in the form of recommendation, but of moral precept binding the conscience. And, as I before said, they are strictly applicable to the American slaves. Observe their import : " Defend the poor and fatherless." Are they not " poor ?" Robbed of their liberty, their property, their comfort, their time, their child- ren, their domestic peace and purity, their manhood, their Bible, their God, and their immortal hopes ; — who may be considered poor, if they are not? And surely, they are "fatherless." A slave can have no father ; the slave law recognises none ; it blots out one half of the fifth commandment. The slave follows the condition of his mother. His real father may be his master, or his master's son, or a member of Congress,* or the husband of his mother — it makes no diiference to him ; the cruel code of oppression has pronounced him fatherless. " Do justice to the afflicted and needy." Is the slave not " afflicted ?" Who more so ? Everything which men hold dear in life, except life itself, is ruthlessly torn from him. Well might he employ the language of the sorrowing prophet, (had he a Bible from which to read it,) " Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me." And if the curse of poverty, orphanage, and affliction, combined in their worst forms, can render any one " needy," then such is the condition of the slave. " Rid them out of the hand of the wicked." Does not the term "wicked" describe those who keep them in hopeless bondage? I stop not to note exceptions, or throw a mantle over those few who ought to " obtain mercy," because they do it " ignorantly and in unbe- lief ;" but it has been truly observed that " the slaveholder's life is a life of utter and perpetual injustice. The worst Avrongs to which men are subject from their fellow-men, he is, clay by clay, inflicting. He lives on their unpaid toil. He shuts against them the book of knowledge. He prevents them from exercising any virtue, except honesty, patience, and long-suffering. He makes their intercourse together that of brutes, and forbids them to be, in any reasonable sense of the word, husbands and wives, parents and children. He fills their lives with hopelessness and woe." And does not all this, and more which might be added, establish his title to the name of " wicked V In addition, therefore, to the recommendation of our worthy gov- ernor, we have it in direction from our Chief Magistrate on high to remember to-day the American slaves. The text points out three duties, which, as responsible subjects of God's government, we owe to them. The first is that of defence. " Defend the poor and fatherless." Defend them at those points where they have been wronged. Defend them from being defrauded of their just and honorable gains. Defend them from cruel stripes ; from the cutlass, the whip, the bowie-knife * Mr. Paxton, a Virginia writer, tells us, in his work on slavery, that "the best blood in Virginia ilows in the veins of the slaves." and the thumb-screw. Defend them from the inhuman violence of self-styled Christian men ; from the wrist-gyves and manacles ; from the menacing blow of the angry mistress ; from the branding-iron, hissing and simmering in living flesh. Defend their families from being torn asunder, and their children from being sold into still more rigorous bondage in distant and unknown parts.* Defend them from the necessity of severing all the fondest ties of life — those sweet and hallowed bands which we all experience to-day in the overflowing love of our dear companions, our prattling children, and our aged parents stooping toward the grave. Thus God males it our duty to defend the poor and fatherless bondman. The second duty we owe them is justice. " Do justice to the afflicted and needy." It is out of the question that justice can be done a slave till he is made a freeman. Southern gentlemen may prate of justice, humanity, and kind treatment of servants ; they may even speak of entertaining real affection for them. But so long as the relation of master and slave subsists between them, and they " use his service without wages," all is sheer injustice and oppres- sion.! The kindest treatment ' deserves no commendation, and does not, in the least degree, affect the sin of slsive-holding. Such treat- ment is only designed to blind the eyes of justice ; but it cannot do even that. Obedience to this divine precept requires of every slaveholder that he set at liberty all his bondmen the first moment it is practicable, that he pay them for their honest toil, that he give them the means of education, and treat them in all respects like independ- ent, free-born men. Justice stops not a line short of this. And the same precept requires of us, that, so far as we are able, we use our influence for the promotion of the same result. Justice is only out- raged by efforts which end in ameliorating the condition of tho slaves. She demands that we set them free. The third duty enjoined is deliverance. " Deliver the poor and needy ; rid them out of the hand of the wicked." If there could be any doubt as to the result of doing "justice" to the slave, this additional precept removes it all, and makes the duty of their eman- cipation clear. It has been somewhat fashionable to affirm that *Prof. E. A. Andrews, in a work en slavery and the domestic slave-trade in the United States, gives a conversation with a trader, on the Potomac, in 1S35, as follows. " ' Do you often buy the wile without the husband?' 'Yes, very often; and frequently, too, they sell me the mother, while they keep the children. I have often known them take away tin infant from the mother's breast, and keep it, while they sold her. Children from on* o eighteen months old are now worth about one hundred dollars.' " —p. 417. f Mr. Jefferson, himself a slave-owner, says in his " Notes on Virginia :" " The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous pas- sions, the most unremitting despotism, on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other." He also adds: " With what execrations should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half of the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part and the patriotism of the other. I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that MS justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events ; that it may become probable bv supernatural interference. The Almighty hat no attribute which can take sides with us in su