SOUTHERN SLAVERY IN ITS PRESENT ASPECTS: CONTAINING A REPLY TO A LATE WORK OF THE BISHOP OF VERMONT ON SLAVERY. BY/ DANIEL R. GOODWIN. PHILADELPHIA; J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO 18C4. ^'.- -i^l M7 1 5" Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by DANIEL R. GOODWIN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. ADVEKTISEMENT. "When the late work of the Bishop of Yermont on Slavery first appeared, it seemed to me, in com- mon with many of my clerical brethren, from what I could learn indirectly of its character and con- tents, that it was not worth while to trouble the public with an answer. Until the latter part of April I had never read the book. But the late lamented Benjamin Gerhard, Esq, of this city, in a conversation with me, about that time, took an entirely different view from that which I enter- tained and expressed ; and earnestly insisted that it ought to be answered, and that I should answer it. At his urgent and repeated solicitations, the work was at length undertaken ; and, after his death, I felt bound to complete it, as an act of obedience to his d^-ing commands. If the per- formance has any merit, I desire it to stand as a tribute to the memory of one who was a kind and faithful friend, as well as an unflinching and de- voted patriot. Its defects will of course belong exclusively to myself. D. R. GOODWIN. Philadelphia, September, 1864. (iii) CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Page THE "protest" AND ITS DEFENCE, 7 CHAPTER II. THE "christian BISHOP's" LETTER, AND AN ANSWER, . 28 CHAPTER III. THE NEW GOSPEL OF SLAVERY, 70 CHAPTER IV. SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES, 86 CHAPTER V. SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH, 120 CHAPTER VI. SLAVERY AND ETHICS, 1G8 1* (y) VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. Page SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE : — SUPERIOR AND INFE- RIOR RACES, 212 CHAPTER VIII. SLAYERY AND EMANCIPATION: — THE LABOURING CLASSES, 244 CHAPTER IX. SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION, 282 CHAPTER X. SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION, 307 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. CHAPTER I. THE "protest" and ITS DEFENCE. Protest of the Bishop and Clergy of the Diocese of Pennsylvania against Bishop Hopkins^s Letter on African Slavery. K the ISth day of April, 1863, certain gentlemen of Philadelphia, Messrs. George M. Wharton, A. Erowning, John Stockton Littell, Samuel Jackson, M.D., Charles J. Eiddle and Peter McCall, addressed a note to the Eight Rev. John Henry Hopkins, D.D., Bishop of the Eiocese of Yermont, requesting him to favor them with his " views on the ScrijDtural aspect of Slavery.'' " We believe," they said, " that false teachings on this subject have had a great deal to do Avith bring- ing on the unhappy strife between two sections of our common country, and that a lamentable degree of ignorance prevails in regard to it;" and they con- cluded by expressing the belief, " that the communi- cation of his views as a Christian Eishop on the Scriptural aspect of Slavery, may contribute" to the formation of a " sound public opinion on this topic." On the 2d day of May, 1863, Eishoj) Hopkins re- (7) 8 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. plied to this note by saying, that in January, 1861, he had published a pamphlet on the subject referred to, which was at their service; that the views then and there set forth were not only unchanged, but that the numerous replies had " strengthened his conviction as to the sanction which the Scriptures give to the principle of Negro Slavery, so long as it is administered in accordance with the precepts laid down by the Apostles," and that " such was the uni- versal doctrine of Christian ministers. Christian lawyers and Christian statesmen one hundred years ago, with a few exceptions/' " With this brief introduction,^' the Eishop said, ^' I proceed to the very serious question which your friendly application has submitted for discussion" — thus endorsing and re-issuing the original document. In the letter in which Bishop Hopkins discusses this question of I^egro Slavery, he maintains that the Holy Scriptures established the principle of per- petual bondage, ^^ servitude for life descending to the off- spritig." He also asserts that the truths which lie at the foundation of the Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," are '^ no truths at all," that these rights are only " imaginary," that he " utterly discards" them, and " doubts whether the annals of civilized mankind can furnish a stronger instance of unmitigated perversity" than that of " our orators, our preachers, and our politicians" in their appeals to this famous document to justify the doctrine of universal liberty. THE "protest/' and its defence. 9 The Bishop also justifies the " presumed cruelty" of the system of Slavery by the facts that '' ^Northern law allows the same in the case of children and ap- prentices," and that the "Saviour himself used a scourge of small cords when he drove the money- changers from the temple/' " Are our modern phi- lanthropists/' he asks, " more merciful than Christ and wiser than the Almighty ?" The separation of husband and wife, of parents and children, he extenuates by the fact that the laboring man places his children out to service and as ap23rentices, that many leave " their homes to seek their fortunes in the gold regions," and that " many in EurojDe have abandoned their families for Aus- tralia, or the United States, or the Canadas." The conclusion which the Bishop arrives at is this : " The Slavery of the Kegro Eace as maintained in the Southern States aj)pears to me fully authorized both in the Old and l!^ew Testament." — "That very slavery, in my humble judgment; has raised the ne- gro incomparably higher in the scale of humanity, and seems in fact to be the only instrumentality through which the heathen posterity of Ham have been raised at all." ^ Such are some of the views of Bishop Hopkins on the subject of African Slavery, as set forth in his letter to these gentlemen of Philadelphia — but the document itself should be read to appreciate its character. This letter was scattered broadcast over the State of Pennsylvania. As coming from a Bishop who is widely known throughout the Diocese, the Bishop and Clergy of Pennsylvania felt constrained to enter against it the following Protest: 10 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. The subscribers deeply regret that the fact of the extensive circulation throughout this Diocese of a letter by " John Henry Hopkins, Bishop of the Dio- cese of Yermont," in defence of Southern Slavery, compels them to make this public protest. It is not their province to mix in any political canvass. But as ministers of Christ, in the Protestant Episcopal Church, it becomes them to deny any complicity or sympathy with such a defence. This attempt not only to apologize for slavery in the abstract, but to advocate it as it exists in the cotton States, and in States which sell men and women in the open market as their staple product, is, in their judgment, unworthy of any servant of Jesus Christ. As an effort to sustain, on Bible prin- ciples, the States in rebellion against the govern- ment, in the wicked attempt to establish by force of arms a tyranny under the name of a Eepublic, whose *' corner-stone" shall be the perpetual bondage of the African, it challenges their indignant reprobation. Philadelphia, September, 1863. Alonzo Potter, Thomas S. Yocum, John Eodney, Benjamin Dorr, E. A. Washburne, Jehu C. Clay, Peter Van Pelt, William Saddards, H. W. Ducachet, D. E. Goodwin, John S. Stone, M. A. DeW. Howe, George Leeds, Henry S. Spackman, Eichard D. Hall, James May, Joseph D. Newlin, John A. Childs, B. Wistar Morris, Thomas C. Yarnall, Daniel S. Miller, Edward Loundsbery, Kingston Goddard, Henry M. Stuart, THE ''PROTEST, AND ITS DEFENCE. 11 Phillips Brooks, Addison B. Atkins, Herman Hooker, Benjamin Watson, Edward L. Lycett, Lewis W. Gibson, E. W. Oliver, Henry Brown, W. E. Stockton, Edward A. Foggo, J. Isador Mombert, Joel Eudderow, Archibald Beatty, C. A. L. Eichards, George A. Strong, Gustavus M. Murray, George W. Shinn, Samuel Hall, George G. Field, Eeese C. Evans, Eobert G. Chase, Samuel Hazlehurst, Edwin !N". Lightner, David C. Page, John Cromlish, William Preston, George Slattery, Francis J. Clerc, Eobert J. Parvin, Eichard Newton, G. Emlen Hare, W. W. Spear, H. J. Morton, Jacob M. Douglass, K. A. Garden, J. Gordon Maxwell, John A. Yaughan, Charles D. Cooper, Wilbur F. Paddock, Thomas Crumpton, George D. Miles, B. B. Killikelly, Alexander McLeod, Leighton Coleman, Eichard Smith, Thomas H. Cullen, J. McAlpin Harding, William Ely, Marison Byllesby, J. Livingston Eeese, Augustus A. Marple, B. T. JSToakes, D. Otis Kellogg, Daniel Washburn, Samuel E. Smith, Treadwell Walden, Herman L. Duhrinc:, Charles M. Dupuy, John H. Babcock, Anson B. Hard, George A. Latimer, E. Heber l^ewton, John C. Furey, Charles A. Maison, Charles W. Quick, H. T. Wells, D. C. Millett, J. W. Leadenham, Frederick W. Beasley, John P. Lundy, 12 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. E. C. Matlack, Ii. Ward Smith, Samuel E. Appleton, William J. Alston, John Adams Jerome, Joseph A. Stone, Albra Wadleigh, W. S. Perkins, Francis E. Arnold, George H. Jenks, AYilliam S. Heaton, Eobert B. Peet, John Eeynolds, William Hilton, Washington B. Erben, John Ireland, Benjamin J. Douglass, D. C. James, E. N. Potter, W. H. D. Hatton, Thomas W. Martin, Alfred Elwyn, James W. Eobins, George Bringhurst, Charles W. Duane, George B. Allinson, Joseph IT. Mulford, James DeW. Perry, Thomas G. Clemson, Francis D. Hoskins, William P. Lewis, J. L. Ileysinger, John Long, Ormes B. Keith, William N. Diehl, George A. Crooke, Eichardson Graham, E. S. Watson, Samuel Edwards, George A. Durborow, Joseph E. Moore, Thomas B. Barker, S. Tweedale, Marcus A. Tolman, John H. Drumm, S. ITewton SjDear, Louis C. J^ewman, Edward C. Jones, E. W. Hening, Samuel Durborow, C. 0. Parker, Henry Purdon, Benjamin H. Abbott, John H. Marsden, Samuel B. Dalrymple, William Y. Feltw^cll, •John Leithead, George C. Drake, Peter Eussell, Eoberts Paul, George Kirke, Henry B. Bartow, John K. Murphy, J. F. Ohl, John Tetlow, J. C. Laverty, Charles Higbee, William Wright, S. T. Lord. Charles E. Hall. THE "PROTEST," AND ITS DEFENCE. 13 Such is the much-abused Protest of the Clergy of Pennsylvania against the pro-slavery letter of the Bishop of Yermont. The gentlemen who asked for the letter are not obscure men in Church or State, but prominent politicians of notorious parti- zan affinities. The letter itself began to be circu- lated in Pennsylvania (so far as I have been able to ascertain) in the month of August, 1863, just on the eve of a sharply-contested political campaign. Under these circumstances the Protest was issued. It called forth a retort from Bishop Hopkins, fol- lowed by a book entitled ''A View of Slavery," containing an elaborate defence of the institution, " Scriptural, Ecclesiastical and Historical." To this book and the letter I propose, in the sequel, to make a brief reply. But first of all the Protest, and the manner in which it has been treated, demand some further passing remark. The circumstances under which the Protest was issued, its substance, style and spirit, are before the reader. "What, now, are the style and spirit of the Bishop's retort? "A gross insult," "a false accusa- tion," "a bitter and unjust assault," "vituperation," " reviling," " vilifying," " grossly insulting," " brand- ing and calumniating," "personal defamation," "endorsing a calumny," "slander," "gross libel," "insulting aggression," "false and violent accusa- tion," "bitter and groundless accusation," "gross and scandalous libel," "public and libellous denun- ciation," "false and libellous Protest," "demented:" such are some of the terms and epithets poured forth by the meek and charitable and pious Bishop, so strictly Apostolical, so exceeding Christ-like, who " trusts that ho has learned, when he is reviled, not 2 14 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. to revile again." One is tempted to ask whether he really supx^oses that scripture to imply, conversely, that when a Christian is not reviled at all, then he may revile as much as he will ? For, what reviling, vilifying, calumny, vituperation, slander, insult, or libel, with or without the epithets false, bitter, gross, groundless, scandalous, &c., can be found in the Pro- test? " The subscribers deeply regret that the fact of the extensive circulation through this Diocese of a letter by ' John Henry Hopkins, Bishop of the Dio- cese of Yermont,' in defence of Southern Slavery, compels them to make this public protest. It is not their province to mix in any political canvass. But as ministers of Christ, in the. Protestant Episcopal Church, it becomes them to deny any complicity or sympathy with such a defence." Is there any re- viling, vilifying, calumny, vituperation, slander, in- sult, or libel in that ? " This attempt not only to apologize for slavery in the abstract, but to advocate it as it exists in the cotton States, and in States which sell men and women in the open market as their staple product, is, in their judgment, unworthy of any servant of Jesus Christ." Can Bishop Hopkins say that he did not attempt to apologize for slavery? If so, it must be because he will maintain that de- fending it as in itself right and good, as an unspeak- able blessing to master and slave, as scriptural and Christian, and denouncing its opponents as impious. Infidels, and rebels against the divine government, cannot be called an attempted apology, but a bold and defiant vindication. But this would only strengthen the ground of the Protest. Will he say that his letter, so circulated, was not an attempt to advocate THE "protest/' and ITS DEFENCE. 15 slavery as it exists in the cotton States, and in States which sell men and women in the open market as their staple product ? But, in his letter, he says ex- pressly : " The slavery of the negro race, as main- tamed in the Southern States, appears to me fully au- thorized both in the Old and the New Testament." I suppose he will not deny that some of the slave States are familiarly called Cotton States, or that in others men and women are sold in the 0]^en market, and are bred with a view to such a sale. So much for the facts; then follows the judgment that such an attempt is " unworthy of any servant of Jesus Christ." The facts being admitted, is this judgment to be charged as reviling, vilifying, calumny, vituperation, slander, insult, libel ? It was undoubtedly the sin- cere and conscientious judgment of those who uttered it. It was uttered with deep regret. It is not per- sonal. It characterizes the act and not the man; or rather if it does by implication characterize the man it characterizes him as contradistinguished from the act; for if the act were unworthy of any servant of Jesus Christ, still more was it unworthy of any Christian Bishop, and especially unworthy of the venerable and learned Bishop of Vermont. There remains only the final sentence of the Pro- test : "As an effort to sustain, on Bible principles, the States in rebellion against the government, in the wicked attempt to establish by force of arms a tyranny under the name of a Eepublic, whose ^ cor- ner-stone' shall be the perpetual bondage of tho African, it challenges their indignant reprobation." Here it is to be observed tbat the letter of Bishop Hopkins is not expressly declared to bo such an 16 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. '' effort" as is described ] but it is declared that, re- garded as such, it challenges indignant reprobation. The signers of the Protest undoubtedly thought it might and would be so regarded. Originating as it did, and being circulated as it was, had they not a right so to think ? For myself, I cannot doubt that the leaders of the so-called Peace-democracy are now, and were then, the most venomous and danger- ous enemies of their country, and the most insidious and efficient supporters of the wicked rebellion that is raging against its existence and integrity, that are anywhere to be found. They may be too cautious or too cowardly to incur the legal criminality of aiding and abetting that rebellion 3 but while they desire its success, sympathize with its perpetrators, and give it their moral countenance and support, they take upon themselves the full burden of its moral guilt. This sentiment I desire to place on record as my calm deliberate judgment. How far all the signers of the Protest may agree in the sentiment I know not. One thing is plain — the letter in question was sought and circulated as an electioneering document. As such, and as tending to commit them and their Church to the defence of negro slavery and the support of the Southern re- bellion, it fell under the notice of the clergy of Penn- sylvania. They attacked no person or persons. They accused no individual of treason, rebellion, or sedi- tion. They uttered no crimination. They pronounced a moral judgment. And, in so doing, they avoided personality^ as far as possible, for they simply dis« claimed and denounced the document itself. That that document actually tended to strengthen the hands of the rebellion, and weaken the hands of the THE "protest/' and ITS DEFENCE. 17 government in the pending struggle, who can deny? Who of all the rebels would not rejoice in its circu- lation and influence ? So far as it Avent it would manifestly operate on their side. And, under the circumstances, was there not good reason to pre- sume that it was intended so to operate. 'No mere act can be condemned, without assuming a motive. That motive is to be assumed of course which stands printed and patent on the face of the act, unless the contrary is shown. The burden of proof is on the other side. Bishop Hopkins has since, indeed, " ut- terly denied that he either wrote his pamphlet for the service of any political party, or gave his con- sent to the publication of the Bible View of Slavery, under an expectation at the time that it would be used by any such party.'' It is hard enough to be- lieve this, now that the Bishop expressly gives his word for it. But before this disclaimer, and looking at the facts as they were, I contend that the signers of the Protest were justified in presuming the docu- ment to have been issued with an intelligent know- ledge of the circumstances of the case, of the pur- poses for which it was to be used, and of the results which it was fitted to accomplish. The letter was asked for with the professed view of correcting " the false teachings which have had a great deal to do with bringing on the unhappy strife between two sections of our common country." Observe hero that the war waged by the Southern insurgents is not recognized as a rebellion against our common country, but as an unhappy sectional strife, engen- dered in great measure by the anti-slavery doctrines of the North. Could a man of common sense and common intelligence be supposed to doubt of the 9* 18 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. political character and aims of the men who in snch terms asked for that "letter?" In his answer tho Bishoj) offers them the pamphlet of January, 1861, to which they had referred, "in its original form;" and declares that since its issue " he has seen no cause to change his opinion." That pamphlet con- tained a formal defence of secession. " First," says he, " it may be asked, w^hether the Southern States have a right to secede for any cause ? Secondly, if they have the right, is the cause sufficient to justify its exercise ? In my humble judgment they have a right to secede.'^ These passages were omitted in the letter as re-published and circulated in Pennsylvania, whe- ther by the prudence of the astute politicians who asked for it, or by the Bishop himself, does not cer- tainly appear. The latter would, on some accounts, seem the more probable ; for the personal response to those politicians is closed thus : " With this brief introduction, I proceed to the very serious question which your friendly application has submitted for discussion. Your faithful servant in Christ, John II. Hopkins, Bishop of the Diocese of Vermont;" and then the whole letter, without any marks of erasure or omission, is closed anew with the signature, " I remain, with great regard, your faithful servant in Christ, John H. Hopkins, Bishop of the Diocese of Vermont." From this the natural inference would seem to bo, that the letter was expurgated and prepared by tho Bishop himself for its re-issue ; although it would seem, also, from his previous statement, that he left his political friends the option of taking it cither "in its originaV^ or in its amended form. At all THE ''protest/' and ITS DEFENCE. 19 events, whatever the re-issue contains must he regarded as dating in 1863, and not in 1861. It will not do for the Bishop to maintain that, be- ing published before the formation of the Southern Confederacy, it cannot be intended " to support the wicked attemj)t to establish by force of arms a tyranny under the name of a Republic, whose ' cor- ner-stone' shall be the perpetual bondage of the African." So far as such a defence is a quasi confes- sion that, if issued in 1863, the letter might fairly be considered as having such an intent ; the Bishop has admitted his own guilt. For it luas issued by his own authority, and probably with his special revision, in 1863. Its present date is 1863. In 1863 it was to do its work. To 1863 it had its proper application. And though the direct defence of se- cession is not re-issued in 1863, the document which is issued contains the following among other state- ments : " Who are we that are ready to trample on the doctrine of the Bible, and tear to shreds the Constitution of our country, and even plunge the land into the untold horrors of civil war, and yet boldly pray to the God of Israel to bless our very acts of rebellion against his own sovereign au- thority ?" Now, when the Bishop says " we," he certainly does not mean exclusively himself and his i^olitical friends. It is manifest he means the people, the free and freedom-loving people, the loyal people, of the J^orth. And he charges them with trampling on the doctrine of the Bible, tearing in shreds the Constitu- tion of their country, and even plunging the land into the untold horrors of civil icar, and yet boldly prayinf** to the God of Israel to bless their very acts of rebel- 20 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. jion af»;ainfit his own sovereign finthority; and this, revised and piiblishcd in 1863 ! Is not this open en- couragement and justification to the Southern insur- gents? Is not this " an effort to sustain the States in rebellion against the government ?" The signers of the Protest thought it might naturally be so re- garded. 1 submit to the intelligent reader that they were justified in so thinking, and in saying what they thought. And so thinking, they declared that it challenged their " indignant reprobation.'' Now here, if anywhere, must be found the " reviMng, vili- fying, calumny, vituperation, slander, insult and lil^el — false, bitter, gross, groundless, scandalous, and demented." Let the reader quietly set against all these terms and epithets, the simple expression, uttered with deep regret, of "indignant reproba- tion." Is, then, John Henry Hopkins, Bishop of the Diocese of Vermont, entirely above the reproof of his brethren ? Is their reproof, their " indignant reprobation," and that too not of him, but of one of his acts, to be met with such language as he has poured forth upon it ? Are the claims of the Bishop of Yermont higher than those of the Pope of Pome ? Is the Bishop of Yermont superior to St. Peter him- self? The Apostle Paul once "withstood Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed," and severely reproved him, and that publicly, — " before them all." Wo do not read that St. Peter retorted with charges of "reviling, vilifying, calumny, vituperation, slan- der, insult, and libel, false, bitter, gross, groundless, scandalous and demented." If we may suppose ho had attained to the " ornament of a meek and quiet spirit" so conspicuously displayed by the Bishop of T,nE "protest," and its defence. 21 Vermont, he certainly had not learned the dialect in which that spirit has found its utterance. One thing more. The signers of the Protest had reason to denounce Bishop Hopkins's letter when sent by him into the Diocese of Pennsylvania for circulation, not only as calculated to encourage the rebellion and to bring into contempt our common Christianity, but especially as tending to place the Episcopal Church in a false position before the world, and as being virtually the obtrusion of one Bishop into the Diocese of another. Of course I do not hero use the word obtrusion in any technical, legal sense, but in its moral and practical signification. Tho Bishop could not be ecclesiastically tried and con- victed for the act he committed. But it does not follow from that, that its commission was any tho more consistent with the principles of manliness, or with the rules of courtesy and fraternal intercourse. The Bishop forthwith raises himself to his full height, and challenges ecclesiastical prosecution. But is his standard of moral duty graduated to the level of legal obligation ? What would he think of tho honesty of a man who, upon being asked to pay a debt, should reply, "the term of the statute of limi- tions is past, I owe you nothing, no legal debt, suo me if you dare V But the Bishop insists that the issuing of the " letter" was not an " official act." Of course it was not an " official act," in the sense of being an act specifically authorized and appointed by the law of the Church as pertaining to his Episcopal office. Indeed it is rather as an officious than as an official act that it is complained of And yet there are se- veral things which tend to show that it assumed to 22 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. be of, at least, a semi-official character. The writer AvaB expressly requested to give his " views as a Christian Bishop.^' To the views which he gave in response he affixed his signature as " Bishop of the Diocese of Vermont." Whether, therefore, it were an " official act" or not, it was, on the face of it, an act performed as a Bishop, and would have, and was intended to have, the weight and moral influence of a Bishop's authority. At least so the signers of the Protest, it Avould seem, had a right to presume. But Bishop Hopkins denies their right to make this inference; because, says he, the Archbishop of Canterbury might publish a book, on Avhose title-page he should be described as "Arch- bishop of Canterbury," and yet such a publication Avould not thereby be made official; and because, even in private correspondence, his Grace always retains his official designation, thus, Joh. Cantuar; and in like manner the English Bishops generally. I will not call these suggestions a subterfuge. I will leave it to the reader to characterize them appro- priately. Suppose the Archbishop should affix such a signature to his " views," when the}" had been ex- pressly desired, and were accompanied by the state- ment that they had been expressl}' desired, as the views of a Christian Archbishop ? What then ? Bo- sides, is Bishop Hopkins accustomed to translate the style of their Anglican Lordships, and affix his sig- nature to his every-day private correspondence as '■' Bishop of the Diocese of Vermont." This certainly is not the custom of the American Bishops generally ; and the signers of the Protest had no reason to sup- pose it Avas the custom of his lordship of Vermont. The Bishop suggests that he published his letter or THE ''protest," and its defence. 23 pamphlet in fulfilment of his ordination vows — " so to minister the doctrine and sacraments and disci- pline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded, and as this Church hath received the same," and " with all faithful diligence to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrines, contrary to God's word." Being then in fulfilment of his ordination vows, was the publication, or was it not, '' an oflicial act ?" And did those vows require him to exercise the functions referred to, in his own diocese, or in the diocese of a brother Bishop ? If his brother Bishop were faithfully performing his ordination vows, such interference would seem quite unnecessary; and if he were violating them, why not present him for trial? Indeed it might not have been amiss, for one so scru- pulous in the exact observance of duty, to have noted what is added to each of the " ordination vows" which he has cited; — to the first, "so that you teach the x^eople committed to your care and charge with all diligence to keep and observe the same;" and to the second, " and to use both public and pri- vate monitions, as well to the sick as to the whole, within your cure, as need shall require and occasion shall be given." It is curious to observe that, further on in his book, (p. 215,) the Bishop having made a long citation " from a late work of the Eev. Chr. Wordsworth, D.D., Canon of Westminster," adds, "with these ex- cellent comments of the Eev. Canon Wordsworth, I concur most heartily: in fervent tliankfulness to God, that up to the year 1850, our venerated mother Church of England has proclaimed none other but the pure doctrine of the Apostles, and that her latest 24 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. utterance is in harmony with the only divine stand- ard of wisdom, truth, and peace." Thus the Church of England is represented as speaking, as making " her latest utterance" by the mouth or pen of Canon Wordsworth. But was that work of Canon Words- worth an " oflScial act?" Could he be considered as representing the Church of England? — as, in any sense or to any degree committing the Church of England to his views ? If so, let the Bishop apply the same mode of reasoning to his own case; and if not so, let him interpret the language of the friends of the Protest as he would have his own interpreted. It would seem, after all, he can sometimes take a common sense view of a case, and abandon the tech- nicalities of his special pleading, when he sees fit. Together with the Protest, Bishop Hopkins has printed at large in his book a list of those who signed it; to give them, as he says, notoriety, if he cannot give them fame. If, in so doing, he thought to inflict on them any pain, or sense of ignominy, he made an egregious mistake. Their only pain pro- ceeds from the pity which they feel for him; and from their sense of the shame and contumely which in their humble judgment he is doing his utmost to bring upon the cause of Christ and his Church. If they are to meet the judgment of the Christian world and of posterity as standing in any relation to the Bishop's political and pro-slavery letter, they will be proud to meet it with their indignant Protest. If their names are to be remembered hereafter, they will rejoice to have them remembered as the names of men who loved their country and sought to rescue her in her hour of extreme peril, who loved the cause of humanity and freedom, of civilization and THE "PROTEST," AND ITS DEFENCE 25 justice, who pitied the poor outcast, and the op- pressed, who sought not to rivet but to break the chains of the slave, and thus to cherish the spirit, and imitate the character of Him who came to pro- claim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to preach the accepta- ble year — the Jubilee — of the Lord. The Bishop compliments " the Christian and manly course of those who refused to set their names to that most unwarrantable document." That the Bishop may have the full benefit of those names, it may not be improper to give here a list of the Clergy of Penn- sylvania, having seats in the Convention, as they ai')pear in the Diocesan Journal of 1863, omitting the 164 who signed the Protest, and those who are believed to have removed from the Piocese, or to have been absent at the time of its issue. That list is as follows : — AYilliam Bacon Stevens, Alfred M. Abel, George B. Allen, Thomas G-. Allen, Hurley Baldy, Charles R. Bonnel, William Y. Bowers, Rowland Hill Brown,* Edward Y. Buchanan, R. T. Chase, J. ^Y. Claxton, Alexander Gr. Cummins, Thomas J. Davis, Samuel D. Day, Charles P. Edmunds, 3 R. H. Lee, T. J. Littell, J. G. Lyons, Henry Mackay, R. C. Moore, William Newton, William H. Paddock, Edward M. Pecke, Alexander Shiras, Henry R. Smith, R. S. Smith, J. P. Spaulding, A. F. Steele, C. E. Swopc, J. P. Taylor, 26 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. Joseph II. Elsegood, A. Ten Broeck, "VYilliam F. Halsey, ^Y. P. Ten Broeck, Chandler Hare, C. W. Thomson, J.A.Harris,* A. E. Tortat, William Hommann, J. Townsend, G. P. Hopkins, H. E. Tschudy, Joseph Jacquet, E. M. Yan Deusen, Morris M. Jones, William White, B. B. Leacock, J. Woart. Edmund Leaf,* It is due to the gentlemen above named to say, that many of them would undoubtedly have signed the Protest, had they had the opportunity j and that, of those who might have felt some hesitation about signing it, there are probably not five, (and perhaps not one,) who do not as fully and cordially dissent from and condemn the sentiments of Bishop Hop- kins's letter, as does the Protest itself. It ought to be added that the Protest was originally intended for the Clergy of Philadelphia only ; but as several of the country Clergy were very desirous of append- ing their names, it was eventually concluded to leave it open to their signatures also. So much for the Protest ; so much for what it con- tained of " reviling, vilifying, calumny, vituperation, slander, insult and libel — false, bitter, gross, ground- less, scandalous, demented,'^ etc., etc. I repeat these words, because I intend to do what I can to give notoriety, if not respectability, to the beautiful and Christian terminology of Bishop Hopkins. Again, let the reader contrast the tone and spirit of the * Signatnrcs to the protest subsequently authorized. THE "PROTEST," AND ITS DEFENCE. 27 Bishop's reply, and say which is most worthy of a servant of Jesus Christ. The signers of the Protest did not so much as enter into any formal expression of what they regarded as the sophistries and ex- travagances of the Bishop's letter; they simply declared their dissent from, and reprobation of, its doctrines and sentiments, and apparent aims. That they did not refrain from a formal exposure and refutation, because they were unequal to such a task, I shall endeavour to demonstrate in the next chapter. CHAPTBE II. THE "CHRISTIAN BISHOP's" LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. THE letter opens with the broad assertion that "the term 'servant' employed by our trans- lators of the Bible has the meaning of slave in the Hebrew and the Greek originals, as a general rule, where it stands alone." It does not clearly appear what is meant by standing alone. Strictly speaking, the term never stands alone. But if we take " stand- ing alone" to mean "without any adjective or other words accompanying it, tending to modify its mean- ing," the assertion above made is very wide of the truth. For the original word is applied not less freely and perhaps more frequently to the servants of God, of kings, &c., and to servants that were He- brews, than to bondmen that were foreigners. Yet j'^he servants of the Lord are not slaves, and the He- brew servants went out free at the end of six years, while the definition which in the letter is imme- diately given of slavery is, " servitude for life, de- scending to the offspring." Moreover, one may boldty assert that thcoriginal word translated " ser- vant" very rarely if ever means exactly what slave means in English. The ideas now by usage associated with this last word would not correspond to those connected with the original word. And finally, the 28 THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 29 original word is a general term, and though it may sometimes include the specific sense of slave, it is ordinarily more accurately translated by our general term, servant, than it would be by the specific term, slave. The word meaning beast may include the ass in its signification, and in a particular case may be known to be applied specifically to an ass; and yet even then it is more accurate to translate a general term by its corresponding general term. Every ass is a beast, but every beast is not an ass. So every slave is a servant, but every servant is not a slave. It w^ould be a false translation, and a solecism be- sides, to say " a slave of the Lord,^' instead of " a servant of the Lord,'' or to say "the slaves of the king," instead of " the servants of the king." The original Hebrew word,* in its strict etymological signification, is even more general than "servant," for it means " labourer," and this etymology undoubt- edly modifies and softens the force of the word in all its applications. Still we should not propose to substitute " labourer" for " servant" in translating. Usage would again forbid it. But what we observe is that " servant" instead of being too weak a word to represent the original, is rather too strong. The pro-slavery cause will take nothing by sending us back from the English version to the original text. The letter proceeds to state that " this kind of bondage" — servitude for life, descending to the offspring, — " appears to have existed as an established institu- * It is true, the Greek word of the New Testament is stronger, meaning, etymologically, a hojidman. But the servant, or bond- man, of the New Testament, was one, at all events, who could have wife, children, property, and debts of his own. See Matt, xviii. 25. a* 30 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. tion in all ages of the world, by the universal evi- dence of history, Avhether sacred or profane/^ But what evidence is there from history, " whether sacred or profane,^' that slavery '' existed in our world" for some two thousand years, that is, from Adam till the death of Noah, or till about the time of Abraham ? The " Christian Bishop" may have access to some history not generally known, or he may think that, in the first ages, the world had not become ours. But, in our view, those earliest ages are very important in the argument; for we may say to the advocates of slavery who argue from its permission and general prevalence, as our Saviour said to the Pharisees about divorcement, — " From the beginning it was not so." Of this the Christian Fathers were accustomed to make a strong point. "If any one ask," says St. Chrysostom, "whence came slavery into the world ? — for I know many who have desired to learn this, — I will tell him. Irisatia- hie avarice and envy are the parents of slavery; for Noahj Abel, and Seth, and their descendants, had no slaves. Sin hath begotten slavery, — then wars and battles, in which men were made captives." (Hom. ad Ephes. xxii.) And again : " There was no slave in the old times; for God, Avhen he made man, made him not bond but free. (Hom. in Laz. 6.) The Bishop admits that slavery ma}^ be a physical evil, but denies that slave-holding is a moral evil or a sin. But if enslavement is a physical evil, can a man, without moral evil, without committing sin, inflict this physical evil on his fellow man wantonly or for selfish ends? — for his own gratification, ease, or gain ? If it is, on the whole, really a means of greater good to the slave himself, it hardly deserves THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 81 to be called a physical evil. And if it is inflicted with due authority and for the sincere purpose of securing this greater good, it certainly is not a sin ; but in this case it would be such an extraordinary kind of slavery that it would hardly deserve the name ; for it could scarcely be " servitude for life, descending to the offspring." The general question whether slave-holding is a sin, I shall reserve for a separate discussion further on. But what does the " Christian Bishop'' mean, when, in this connexion, he proclaims, " No blasphemy can be more unpar- donable than that which imputes sin or moral evil to the decrees of the Eternal Judge, who is alone perfect in wisdom, in knowledge, and in love V Does he mean that no blasphemy can be greater than that which calls slave-holding a sin ? That seems to be the simple English of his declaration, if it has any relevancy to the question in hand, or if there is any logical connexion in his train of thought. But we may presume the Bishop knows that no man, no Christian, who calls slave-holding a sin, means to charge the sin or the moral evil upon the Eternal Judge or upon his decrees. And has the Eternal Judge anywhere so decreed slave-holding as to make it the express duty of certain men to hold their fel- low men in bondage? — the duty, for example, of the Southerners to hold the poor negroes as " chattels personal ?" Or, if the Eternal Judge has decreed that negroes shall be so held, for reasons which seem good in the sight of infinite wisdom and love, does it follow that it is blasphemy to impute sin to any actions of men which fulfil the decrees of the Eternal Judge ? What actions of men are not in fulfilment of his decrees ? Is it blasphemy to impute sin to tho 32 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. traitor Judas ? and to the cnicifiers of our Blessed Lord ? Yet " the Son of man indeed goeth as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed ; good were it for that man if he had never been born." " Him being delivered b}^ the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have cruci- fied and slain." Were our Blessed Lord and his Apostles, then, guilty of '' the most unpardonable blasphemy," when they thus impute sin to those who fulfilled the decrees of the Eternal Judge ? If that be what the " Christian Bishop" says, then let the blasphemy rebound upon his own head ; or if that be not his meaning, let him say — he is challenged to say — distinctly to say — to what his pompous charge of " unpardonable blasphemy" does apply. It cannot apply to those who directly charge God or his decrees with sin ; for there are none such to be found — cer- tainly none among his Christian brethren. It cannot apply to those who charge with sin the actions of men which are in fulfilment of God's decrees; for then it would reach to Christ and his Apostles, as just shown. To what, and to whom, then, does it apply? This is a serious point, and I insist that the Bishop should clear up the case, or disclaim and de- sist from the wholesale charges and insinuations against his opponents, of blasphemy, infidelity, and ungodliness, in which he so freely indulges. It is curious to see how the '' Christian Bishop," while he is ready to charge the word of God with approving and upholding the institution of slavery, still shrinks from acknowledging that he is bad enough, hard- hearted enough, to approve it himself He puts in his Sfliyo thus : — " If it were a matter to be deter- THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 3li mined by my personal sympathies, tastes, or feelings, I should be as ready as any man to condemn the in- stitution of slavery; for all my prejudices of educa- tion, habit, and social position, stand entirely opposed to it." Would it not be well for the Biphop here to clear up a few things for himself? Do his " S3^mpa- thies, tastes, and feelings," which lead to the con- demnation of slavery, arise from the better — the more benevolent and charitable — or from the worse, the more selfish part of his nature? And if from the former, was Christianity intended to repress or to encourage and cultivate our better and kindlier feelings? Again, when these feelings lead him to condemn slavery, is it not from viewing it as an evil and a wrong ? Could he be inclined to condemn what he really regarded, as he afterwards professes to regard slavery, as a blessing, a good, a thing well- pleasing to God ? Were the education and habits he refers to, derived from Christian or from ungodly associations and influences ? And finally, if he would leave all special pleading and chopjDing of logic aside, does not his inmost soul, and do not the whole tenor and spirit of the Word of God and the Blessed Gospel of Christ cry out against the institution of Slavery ? Shall it be indeed necessary for a " Christian Bishop" to school down his humane instincts and sympathies, in order to bring them to a level with those of Jesus Christ? The prediction by Noah of the servitude of Canaan, — or "the curse of Ham," as it is commonly called by the advocates of slavery, who are accustomed to make it the corner-stone of their argument, — is of course put in the front part of this defence of the peculiar institution. And this, from the general 34 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. drift of the Bishop's reasoning, would seem to be the awful " decree of the Eternal Judge" above referred to. But is it seriously pretended that whatever is ^predicted is therefore right? "In the last days," says St. Paul, " perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthank- ful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God ; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof'^ Are, therefore, selfishness, cupidity, boasting, pride, blas- phemy, rebellion, ingratitude, impurity, treating one's own children as mere chattels, perjury, satanic false- hood, looseness and lust, ferociousness, spite, treason, headlong obstinacy, puffed-up self-will, a loud claim of true churchmanship, of special orthodoxy and piety, with a denial of the practical power and ap- plication of Christianity; — are these all right? If so, this is a short method to justify the Southern rebellion from Scripture, without going all the way round through a defence of the institution of slavery. But again, it was predicted that the Israelites should be enslaved and evil-entreated in Egypt four hundred years. Were the Egyptians therefore justified in holding them in bondage ? " The Eternal Judge,'' notwithstanding his antecedent decree and prediction, seems to have decided otherwise ; " for the nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God.'' Perhaps, it may be said, it is not the mere prediction of the servitude of Canaan that is relied upon, but the prediction of that servitude as a just punishment. Canaan was punished, and, I doubt not. THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 35 justly punished, by having denounced to him the evil that should fall on his posterity ; and Ham was punished in the same way, for Canaan's posterity w^ere also his j^osterity, and the punishment upon his posterity, when it was inflicted, being inflicted, as the Bishop says, for the sins of those who suffered it, and not for the sins of their ancestors, was doubt- less a just punishment. But the justice of a punish- ment does not, of course, justify those who inflict it; and that, too, without regard to the motives from which they inflict it. If a man has committed mur- der, it is just that he should suffer capital punish- ment ; but I am not, therefore justified in inflicting that punishment, unless I have specific authority thereto; — to inflict it without that authority would be murder. And still worse would be the moral character of my act if, — instead of inflicting it with due authority and with deep regret, and a simple, honest view to the execution of justice, — I should inflict it from motives of personal vindictiveness, or to satisfy some old grudge, or for the gratification of avarice or lust. The Israelites had specific au- thority for their treatment of the Canaanites, and so far as they carried this authority into effect from motives of obedience to {he Divine commands, they were doubtless not only justifiable, but commenda- ble. But who else has received specific authority for inflicting punishment upon the Canaanites? Have the Southern slaveholders received a special Divine precept to hold the Eegroes in bondage? Can such a precept to them be inferred from Noah's prophecy, or the " curse of Ham," or whatever else you may please to call it ? But this curse, accord- ing to St. Chrysostom, " was removed when Christ 86 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. appeared/' (Horn, in 1 Cor. XL.) If so, — and it would seem plain enough from the very nature of Christianity, that it is so, — then the whole fabric built upon "the curse of Ham," vanishes into thin air at once. And, in any event, several difficult things would have to be established in order to make out from it any justification of modern Negro Slavery. It would be necessary to show, 1st. That the Negroes are descended from Ham; 2d. Either that the curse upon Canaan's posterity was a curse also upon the posterity of Cush, Mizraim and the other sons of Ham, or that the Negroes are des- cended from Canaan; 3d. That the Southerners have a special Divine precept to execute the curse ; and 4th. That the poor Negroes are sinners above all other races of men, because they suffer such things. The first point, though it cannot be proved, may be easily granted. The second, the Christian Bishop has attempted to establish subsequently in his book, — with what success we shall see in the proper place. The third, of course, can never be made out without some new revelation; and the fourth is contrary to the express teaching of Jesus Christ. Even granting the second point as well as the first, therefore, the argument in justification of modern Negro Slavery from " the curse of Ham," fails entirely; indeed, is one of the most egregious pieces of moonshine logic that was ever invented. But I shall expect to show that the second point is as baseless as the rest, and, if so, the very moonshine itself will utterly fade and disappear. So, farewell for the present to "the curse of Ham." Next, it is alleged that Abraham had slaves, and that in his case "slavery was sanctioned by the THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 37 Deity." " But ye say that Abraham had slaves/' — says St. Chrysostom, (Horn, ad Eph. XXIII.) — " Yea, but he treated them not as slaves.^' So it seems this is an old pro-slavery argument ; but it is observable that St. Chrysostom, instead of adopting it and urging it, like our " Christian Bishop," in de- fence of Slavery, places himself on the opposite side, and endeavours to parry its force, — and does so effectually ; for, if there were no slavery now but such as existed in the household of the patriarch Abraham, and if the times and circumstances now, were similar to those in which he lived, there would be little reason to find fault with such domestic ser- vices. But that even this servitude, such as it was, was " sanctioned by the Deity," does not at all ap- pear, any more than that Abraham's polygamy or concubinage was sanctioned by the Deity. And even if it were sanctioned in this case, the desired inference could not be made from it to Southern Slaveholders ; unless we are at liberty to infer, from the praise that is bestowed upon Jael, the wife of Ilcber, for her killing of Sisera, that the treacher- ous murder of a confiding guest is now and always justifiable, and laudable. The Bishop's sage con- clusion from the case of Abraham and Hagar is wor- thy of passing recognition. It is, that the present rebellion and civil war are chargeable upon '' philan- thropists, who i)rofess to believe the Bible." Is this meddling with politics ? Is this encouraging the Southern rebels ? The third proof alleged to sliow " that slavery was authorized by the Almighty," is, the last of the ten commandments : " Thou shalt not covet thy neigh- bor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife 38 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. nor Ilis man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's/' " There,'' says the advocate of slavery, '' you see that servants are recognized as property, side by side with houses and oxen and asses." " J^ay,'' replies the anti-slavery man, " but if so, then wives are recog- nized as pro]3erty in the same sense/' '' True," says the " Christian Bishop," not at all disconcerted by the redicctio ad absurdum, " true, and it would be well for wives to remember it, and not take umbrage at the law which places them in the same sentence with the slave, and even the house and the cattle." I should have considered it an insult to the intellierence o of my readers to expose this play upon the word property, had it not been gravely adoj^ted and used by a person of such dignity and respectability. Pro- perty is commonly understood as referring to what may be bought and sold, transferred and inherited, to what is regarded as a mere passive means to serve its owner's ends. And the real question is whether men can rightly be the property of other men in this sense, — whether they can be chattels personal, — and whether this commandment recognizes them as such, because it puts them with oxen and houses. But the word property may undoubtedly be used in various other senses. The wife may be the property of the husband, and so is the husband the property of the wife. The servant may be the property of the mas- ter, and so is the master the property of the servant. My children are my propertj^, my parents are my property, my country is my property, my God is my property -, — but they are not therefore my slaves, — things, — chattels personal. The case is simply this: Lhe anti-slavery man places the man-servant and the THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 39 maid-servant in the same category with the wife; the pro-slavery man places them on a level with the ox and the ass; the " Christian Bishop" places wife, servant, ox, ass, and all, on one common level. Here are the three interpretations. Which is right ? Are wives and servants to be reckoned as persons or as things? Which was the intention of the law-giver? " But,'' says the Bishop, " whatever, whether person or thing, the law appropriates to an individual, be- comes of necessity his property." If by '' the law,'' here, he means this law, the law of God, we have already answered him. If he means the laxo of the land, ^\i\\ he maintain that the Almighty recognizes as rightful property whatever the law of the land recognizes as such, and in the same sense and degree in which that law recognizes it as such ? Is it always right for me to hold and retain as my property w^hat- ever the law of the land secures to me as such, — for example, — by the statute of limitations ? Can there be no unrighteous, no oppressive laws ? The Israel- ites were held in bondage in Egypt, by the laws of Egypt. Was it therefore all right ? As the laws of Egypt appropriated them to the king or to some other individual, were they therefore his rightful propeHy — his " chattels personal ?" AYhatever else is meant by man-servant and maid-servant in the commandment, the terms undoubtedly included the Hebrew servants who served for a term of years as a kind of appren- tices. The same class of servants exist now, and may rightfully exist always. And we are forbidden to covet these from our neighbor. As to slaves, anti- slavery men cannot covet them from their neighbors, cannot desire them as their own property. It is the pro-slavery man and he alone, Avho is liable to violate 40 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. tho tenth commandment in this regard ; or, at least, there is only one other party who can be supposed to violate it — and that is tlie slave himself. Will tho " Christian Bishop" say that the poor slave is, in this commandment, forbidden to sigh for or even to desire his freedom ? Will he say that all other men arc forbidden to cherish any such desire in be- half of the slave? lie elsewhere acknowledges that he desires the freedom of the slaves ; — is he therefore violating the tenth commandment? His fourth argument is drawn from the express pro- visions of the law of Moses in regard to the "separa- tion of husband and wife,'' and to the "punishment of slaves." He cites, "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve; and in the seventh he shall go free for nothing. If he came in by himself he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and slic have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself." (Ex. xxi. 4-G.) He then adds, " Here we see that the separation of husband and wife is positively directed by divine command." ]jut is this really so? Is it not rather a mere ar- rangement that when a man had a female servant who was bound to him for a definite or an indefinite period, he was not to bo deprived or curtailed of her services by her being married to one of his servants, whose term of service might expire before hers? If the master chose to make a different arrangement with his servant before the marriage, or to consent to a difl'erent course afterwards, undoubtcdl}^ he was at liberty to do so. But if tho master chose not to waive his legal rights, and the servant insisted upon THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 41 marrying tho bondmaid, ho did it with his eyes open, and must abide the consequences. The Rabbins de- clare that this w^as not a case of solemn marriage — that the woman became not a Avife, but a mere con- cubine ; for the children of the proper Avifc alwaj'S followed the condition of the father. Pnit be tliis as it may, this law does not ordain the separation of husband and wHfe; for though the husband went out free alone, there was nothing in the law to hinder his living as near his wife, and having as much con- nexion with her afterwards, as is customary among the negro slaves, even before any such separation of husband and wife as is complained of. Besides, the man was not sold to some distant plantation, "and forced to go and leave his wife behind ; he could remain with her if he chose; only he must continue to share her condition with her. How, then, was the " separation of husband and wife positively com- manded?'' Does the Bishop mean that this regula- tion of the Mosaic code shows that there is no sin, no moral wrong, in the separation of husband and wife, as it is often forced upon the negro slaves in the Southern States? Or does he mean that tho system of concubinage or something worse and more bestial, which is said to be there established among the slaves, is authorized and sanctioned by the law of God ? So it would seem. " With this Jaw before his eyes," he exclaims, " what Christian can believe that the Almighty attached immorality or sin to tho condition of slavery V Why not say at once, " to tho separation of husbands and wives," for that is the specific thing which he says is "positively directed" in this case ? And what if we should answer to his whole argument, " For the hardness of your hearts 4-x- 42 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. Moses wrote you this precept ?" Did the Almighty attach immorality or .sin to the divorce which he allowed and regulated ? As to the Mosaic regulations in regard to the treatment of servants, there are three : 1st, " If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished/' That is, if under pretence of chastising his servant, he kill him, he shall, as the Eabbins have interpreted, be punished as a murderer — be put to death. And the Eabbins are plainly right; for the law for the punishment of murder is universal and absolute ; it makes no distinction be- tween bond and free. " For blood, it defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it." 2d, " If a man smite out the eye or the tooth of his servant, the servant shall go free for the eye or the tooth's sake.'' Which of the Southern States has adopted so humane a rule as this ? 3d, " If the servant continue a day or two after being chastised by his master, and then die, the master shall not be punished — he is his money." That is, says the Bishop, " the loss of his property was held to be a sufficient penalty." But, if that were so, why not also in the first case as well as in this ? The whole distinction turns upon the question of the intent to kill. If the circumstances are such as to imply that intention, the murderer shall be punished — if not, not; and the fact that the servant is his master's money, added to the servant's surviving some time after the chastisement, is held a sufficient guaranty that the intention to kill did not exist. It is a rule of evidence, not a measure of penalty. The fifth argument in defence of slavery is drawn THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 43 from the alleged fact that the regulations of the Mosaic law in regard to the Jubilee did not apply to foreigners who were held in bondage ; since the Israelites are expressly authorized to hold them as "their bondmen forever." And this construction of the law of the Jubilee is said to have been " inva- riably sanctioned by the Doctors of the Jewish law, and every respectable Christian commentator." This last statement is a little too strong, for not to men- tion many respectable Christian commentators, Sal- vador, one of the most learned modern Jewish doc- tors, maintains the oj^posite view. The Hebrew servant who had submitted to have his ear bored, was to be a " bondman forever;" and yet most of the Jewish doctors agree that he was to recover his free- dom at the Jubilee. If so, to be a " bondman for- ever" was not inconsistent with going out at the Jubilee. The terms of the Jubilee proclamation are universal and absolute — "liberty throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof.'^ This certainly might be fairly interpreted as ap- pl}' ing to slaves, if it applied to anybody — no excep- tions are made of foreign residents or anybody else. But I am not disposed to insist on this interpreta- tion. The w^eight of authority is 2-)robably the other way. I only insist that it is an open question. And even supposing the other interpretation to be the true one, what does the advocate of modern slavery gain by it ? He must admit that the Israelites were forbidden to make slaves of their brethren; and those of them whom they might hold, as servants, they were to treat with mildness and release at the end of six years. Even though it should be admitted then, that they were allowed to have " bondmen of 44 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. the nations that were round about them/* and to retain them absolutely without limitation of time — what is that to us Christians ? Are not all men our brethren now ? Has any particular nation or race now the peculiar privileges of the ancient chosen people ? Does not all the doctrine of Christ declare, and does not every Christian heart respond, that the measure of kindness which Hebrew owed to Hebrew is not too great for every Christian to pay to all his fellow men of whatever nation, race or clime? As to the Mosaic regulation forbidding the rendi- tion of fugitive slaves, it is alleged that it applies only to slaves escaping /rom/ore(7?i 7nasters. But this is not so perfectly clear; for the terms of the law are entirely general ; and on the other hand there is no law expressly requiring the rendition of fugitive slaves escaping from Hebrew masters ; and if it had been intended that these should be restored, it would seem natural to have made such an exception to the law actually enunciated. The most probable solution would seem to be that the law refers, not to ordinary runaways, but to slaves escaping, — escaping for their lives, — from the harsh treatment, or murderous as- saults, or threats, of their masters. Or, if the law be understood as referring exclusively to slaves escaping from foreign masters, the reason would still be similar — viz., they were not to be restored on account of the harsh treatment and reckless punishment to which they were liable among people over whose laws and usages the Hebrew legislation had no control; and thus this law would be on the whole a precedent for not returning escaped slaves to States — whether considered in any other relation as foreign or domestic — in respect to whose slave-code we could THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 45 exercise no influence and have no voice. If the slaves are subjected to cruel treatment, under cruel and in- human laws, this law would furnish a precedent for affording them an asylum — unless we are bound by express stipulations to the contrary; and its spirit would go against entering into or retaining such stipulations. Then comes the argument from the ISTew Testa- ment, which amounts to this : that slavery existed in the time of our Saviour, but he " did not allude TO IT AT all;'^ and that his Apostles taught that servants should be '' obedient to their masters,^' and that masters should '' give unto their servants that which is just and equal." Hence, as our Lord did not expressly repeal the old law, it is inferred that the regulations of the Mosaic code in respect t-o sla- very remain in full force as a norma of what is right under all circumstances; and the precepts of the Apostles recognize and regulate slavery as an allowed and uncondemned institution. But are all the pre- cepts and directions, which were given to the chosen people, and were not expressly repealed by our Lord, valid as a standard of right for modern Christian nations ? Take for example the laws of war con- tained in Deut. xx. 10-16. " When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it ; and when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword; 40 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.'' JSTow here is an express and solemn command, ^yhich was never repealed by our Blessed Lord. And the case is stronger than that of slavery ; for it will not be pretended that the Israelites were positwely com- manded, that it was made their bounden duty, to hold slaves; it can be maintained only that they were allowed to do so. Is it, therefore, right for modern Christian nations to wage war in this way ? And would it be " blasphemy" to maintain the contrary ? Neither our Saviour nor his Apostles have expressly prohibited Polygamy, which is recognized and regu- lated in the law of Moses (see Ex. xxi. 10 ; Lev. xviii. 16, 18; XX. 14; Deut. xxv. 5, 7, 9, &c.) ; is polygamy therefore right ? Was divorce, except for one cause, right before our Saviour forbade it ? Did he forbid it because it is wrong ? or is it wrong because he forbade iti' The advocates of slavery are welcome to all the countenance they can get from our Sa- viour's silence, if they will carry out the spirit of his positive teaching of love and good will to all men, — a spirit before which slavery can make but a brief stand. Nothing can be fairly inferred in favour of slavery from those precepts of the apostles which req^uire THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 47 servants to be submissive and obedient to their mas- ters, for this is required as a matter of suffering and Christian patience, after the example of Him, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, when ho suffered he threatened not. (See 1 Peter ii. 18-24.) From the command to obey magistrates it does not follow that the tyranny of Tiberius and Nero was sanctioned. From the command, " if a man smite thee on the one cheek offer also the other,^^ we may not infer that a man is justified in smiting thee on one or both cheeks ; or that a third person would be justified, — even though a " Christian Bishop," — in compelling thee to submit to the infliction. And as to the precept to masters — " give unto your servants that which is just and equal — or rather that which is just, and equality — knowing that ye also have a master in heaven," ''neither is there respect of per- sons with him :" — if this precept were carried out honestly and fully, how long would slavery stand before it? Those masters are presumed to know what is required by justice and equality from their own enlightened reason and Christian conscience — as our Lord said to the Pharisees, " wherefore of your own selves judge ye not what is right :" — and not by blunting their moral sensibilities, and entan- gling their consciences with perverse interpretations and misapplications of a Divinely given but now obsolete code of civil regulations. Is it not plain that, among other things, "justice and equality" would require masters to desire and seek, by intel- lectual, moral, and religious culture, to prepare their servants for freedom, and when so prepared, gladly and willingly to emancipate them ? Could a sense of justice and equality allow them to retain them as 48 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. ^ slaves, as " chattels personal," and that with a view and purpose of perpetuating their bondage and that of their children and children's children, at all hazards ? Eut St. Paul, it is said, sent back Onesimus, a fumtive slave, to his master, Philemon. This is uniformly the grand climax of the pro-slavery argu- ment from the Eible, as the " curse of Ham" is its invariable foundation stone. Yes, St. Paul sent Onesimus back to Philemon, with these words : — '' Eeceive him that is mine own bowels . . . receive him forever, not now as a servant, but above a ser- vant, a brother beloved .... receive him as myself .... Having confidence in thy obedience I have written unto thee knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say." — Is it supposable that Philemon should have retained Onesimus as a slave, as a " chattel personal," after such a letter as that? Ob- serve, he was to receive him, " not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved." — I take the words just as they stand, in their simple force, with- out any gloss, or paraphrase, or emendation, — he was to receive him as the Apostle himself. Would ho receive the Apostle as a slave, as a *' chattel per- sonal," to be condemned to ignorance, and held in perpetual bondage ? But as if to clench the point, the Apostle adds, " I know that thou wilt do more than I say;" and what could that more be, which the Apostle insinuates, but to emancipate the slave ? It appears from ecclesiastical tradition that Philemon did emancipate Onesimus; for the latter is subse- quently spoken of as Bishop of one of the churches. Why the advocates of slavery should have such a fancy for the Epistle to Philemon, it is indeed diffi- THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 49 cult to comprehend. The more frequently parallel cases should occur in these times, the better. As often as a Philemon can be found as a master, by all means let his fugitive slaves be returned to him, to be treated as St. Paul requested that Onesimus should be treated; — it will not delay the progress of eman- cipation. And let the ministers of Christ among slave-holders collect the slaves together as often as they can, and present them to their masters with these words : " Sir, receive these poor slaves that are mine own bowels, receive them forever, not now as servants, but above servants, as brethren beloved, receive them as myself In saying this I have confi- dence in you that you will also do more than I say." Or let those ministers take the slaves one by one, as, upon sufficient instruction, and evidence of piety, they may be admitted to the Holy Communion, and present them to their masters with that address. Surely it is enough that the slaves should be made Christians; it is not necessary that they should run away and rob their masters, in order to have a claim to such a commendation. AYhat a strange sermon this would be to the ears of Southern masters ! What a gospel to the poor slaves ! Let it be often preached, the oftener the better. I only fear that such church communion would be voted a nuisance, and such preaching would be silenced, and that the Epistle to Philemon would soon be regarded by the abettors of chattelism and perpetual slavery as an " incen- diary document.'^ Before the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies, it was made a charge against a Weslcyan missionary that he had read an inflammatory chap- ter of the Bible to his cona'rc'xation. 50 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. The denunciation of anti-slavery preachers as per- sons " calling themselves Christians," and the charge against the " numerous and respectable friends of this popular delusion" that they are " not accus- tomed to study the Bible half as much as they read the newspapers, the novel, and the magazine/' — is of course an argument unanswerable. As to the alleged duty of Christian ministers to rebuke the anti-slavery movement and preach down the war, it is plain that this would be political preaching and introducing slavery into the pulpit, as much as preaching on the other side would be ; and the Bishop condescends not to "judge" those who take, in this matter, a different view from himself; though he hesitates not to represent them as " strangely re- gardless of their highest obligations." The " Christian Bishop" next proceeds to carp at the doctrines of the Declaration of American Inde- pendence. To this he devotes a large part of his letter, which furnishes one of the best specimens, perhaps, of elaborate special pleading contained in his whole book. It is fitting that American freemen should know that he who would make chattel-sla- very a Divine Institution and pervert the word of God and the authority of Jesus Christ and his apos- tles to its support, scouts at the doctrines and politi- cal opinions of the Fathers of the American Eepub- lic, and pronounces the " self-evident truths" which are placed at the head of the Declaratien of Inde- pendence to be in his judgment " no truths at all." I shall not folioAV him at present through all his argument, as the subject will come up again in its proper place. A few words here must suffice. He gives an essay of considerable rhetorical merit rang- THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. Ol ing through heaven and earth and sea and sky, and all the kingdoms of nature, to show the wonderful variety and diversity in the Creator's works. The thina* is well done. But what has it to do with the Declaration of Independence? He reminds us that " all men are born unequal in body, in mind, in social privileges. Their intellectual faculties are unequal. Their education is unequal. Their associations are unequal. Their opportunities are unequal." But what has all this to do with the Declaration ? Who ever supposed the authors of the Declaration such downright fools as to assert that there was no va- riety in Nature's works, or that all men were born equal in the respects just named ? But are we to suppose, therefore, that they were raving, and had no meaning at all ? If the Bishop had taken as much pains to show what, as reasonable and intelligent men, they probably did mean, as he has to show w^hat they could not have meant without the most egre- gious stupidity, he would have performed the more appropriate office of a critic. Suppose that when they proclaimed and laid at the very foundation of our American Commonwealth, '' the self-evident truths, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" — suppose, I say, they meant, that all men are created equally men — men, not brutes, persons, not things, — equally moral beings, beings capable of and possessing rights; that these rights inhere in their very nature, and though capa- ble of being politically forfeited by personal fault, yet incapable of being transferred to another, or in idea annihilated ; that, by virtue of their very hu- 52 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. manity, all men have equally the rights of personal security, of personal liberty, of marriage, of property, of seeking happiness in the free and full development of their moral being : — in short, just this, that human slavery is contrary to nature, and to the design of the Creator of manldnd? Would this be absurd? Some- thing like this they probably did mean ; and when the /acf5 of the well known inequalities, political and social, which actually exist among mankind, are set forth by the Bishop to show that their doctrine is false, he entirely misses the mark. They were not dealing with the visible facts, but with fundamen.tal ideas. And when the Bishop would suggest that the actual facts are the best proof of the original design, he would use the word design in a peculiar predesti- narian sense. Man was designed for holiness and happiness, Avhether he actually attains them or not. The seeds of j)lants may actually perish or he de- stroyed in vaTious ways, but if we examine their construction, we shall find that each one, in its very constitution, was designed to produce a new plant after its kind. But, says the Bishop, " since the fall, men have no rights to claim at the hands of their Creator." And Avhat of that ? AVho ever said they had ? If he really thinks that the authors of the Declaration meant to make such claims, meant to say that men have an "unalienable right" to claim "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," at the hands of their Creator, he must be even vastly more stupid than he supposes those authors to have been. I shall not follow his example so far as to charge such stupidity upon him. But unless he is amenable to that charge, he must mean, and it is to be presumed he does mean, that THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 53 fallen men have, by virtue of their humanity, no mutual rights, no rights in relation to one another, no rights as men in distinction from brutes, as per- sons in distinction from things, no rights which as brethren they are bound to respect in one another, no rights which are not the creature of mere might, of the purely arbitrary enactments of positive law — in short, no rights at all in any true and proper sense. For, unless there are natural rights of 7nan, there can be no positive rights. There is nothing to make them out of; in that case the very idea of rights is wanting ; they could no more be created by positive enactment for vian, than they could /or brutes. Wherever there is a rational and moral nature, there are also of ne- cessity natural rights. The " Christian Bishop" seems to have a special spite, and very naturally from his position, — against the so-called natural rights of man. According to him, the fathers and founders of American Freedom either did not know what they meant, or the doctrines of their famous Declaration were all wrono-. And con- scquently the American Ecvolution was all wrong in principle and unchristian from beginning to end. For the authors of the Declaration certainly apj)ealed for justification to the rights of man, — appealed to them, just like Infidels and Atheists, as the Bishop would say, — and, without admitting such an appeal, no justification of their course can be found, but on their heads must rest all tlie blood that was shed, and all the misery that was borne, during those seven years of a fratricidal or parricidal war, — for "fallen man has no rights" to claim — still less to fight for. At the successful close of the Eevolution, the Continental Congress, in a solemn address to the 5* 54 S O U T II E R N S L A V E RY. people, uttered the following declaration : " Let it be remembered that it has ever been the pride and boast of America that the rights for which she has con- tended loere the rights of human nature. By the blessing of the Author of those rights, they have prevailed over all opposition, and form the basis of thirteen inde- pendent States." An effort is made to attach odium to the doctrine of the natural rights of man, by connecting with it all the excesses of the French Eevolutionists. This procedure is characteristic of the " Christian Bishop's'* logic. But is Christianity chargeable with all the crimes and cruelties that have been committed in her name ? If the doctrine of natural rights and freedom and equality is liable to abuse and extrava- gance, will any abuse of. it lead to worse conse- quences than w^U follow from its rejection ? If from a love of freedom men may be led into excesses, would not its eradication from their minds end in their utter debasement and degradation ? Does not Christianity teach men that it is a beautiful thing to hQ free? free in the highest sense; — but that high- est sense is understood only as illustrated by the lower. And does not Christianity teach that all men are equal in the sight of God ? Is equality then such a dangerous or such an absurd idea ? They certainly are not all equally tall, equally strong, equally healthy, equally intellectual, equally wise, equally rich, equally powerful, equall}^ t'^PPy? iii bis sight. In what sense are they then equal before him, con- sistently with the vast variety and diversity of his works? " God is no respecter of persons.'' But, says the letter, "the Revolution produced no effect on the institution of slavery." Let Benjamin THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 55 Franklin, and the Legislature of Pennsylvania who abolished slavery in 1780, answer that allegation. The preamble to that act of emancipation — in a somewhat abridged form, and as quoted by the Hon. John Sergeant, in his speech on the Missouri ques- tion, runs thus : — " When we contemplate our abhorrence of that condition, to which the arms and tyranny of Great Britain were exerted to reduce us, when we look on the variety of dangers to which we have been ex- posed, and deliverances wrought, when even hope and fortitude have become unequal to the conflict, we conceive it to be our duty, and rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others which hath been extended to us, to add one more step to universal civilization, by removing, as much as possible, the sorrows of those w^ho have lived in undeserved bondage. Weaned by a long course of experience from those narrow prejudices and partialities we had imbibed, we conceive our- selves, at this particular period, called upon, by the blessings we have received, to manifest the sincerity of our profession. In justice, therefore, to persons who, having no prospect before them, whereon they ma}^ rest their sorrows and their hopes, have no rea- sonable inducement to render that service to society w^hich otherwise they might; and also, in grateful commemoration of our own happy deliverance from that state of unconditional submission to wliich wo were doomed b}^ the tyranny of Britain — Be it en- acted, that no child born hereafter shall be a slave, &c.'' Did the Eevolution, then, "produce no effect on the institution of slavery?" 56 S U T n E R N S L A V E R Y. Those beautiful words seem to me to be a sort of quiet, gentle refutation of the Bishop's whole book. When they are read, I confess I do not envy the man who can feel more sympathy with his harsh Draco- nian defence of slavery than with those humane, grateful, and truly Christian sentiments. I do not env3^ the Christian who can meet them with the cry of "Infidelity,'^ "Atheism,^' "rebellion against the authority of the Almighty,'' " blasphemy against the decrees of the Eternal Judge," or can cast in the teeth of that abolition Legislature the shout of " liberty, equality, fraternity," as made by the god- less revolutionists of France. But the " Christian Bishop" insists that the " negro race were not included in the Declaration." If so, its authors took a very singular way of leaving them out. " We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal," &c. If the Bishop has any proof that the authors of the Declaration denied that negroes are men, let him bring it forward. Until that is done it must be plain that they are in- cluded in the proposition ; and this is said not merely in view of its grammatical construction, but in virtue of a logical necessity; for, how could such a propo- sition be " self-evident," unless it were universal, founded in the very nature of man as man ? The " Christian Bishop" endeavours to prove that " the signers of the Declaration did not take the ne^rroes into the account at all," because they held slaves themselves, and continued to hold them to the end of their lives. This is a question of consistency which he may settle with those signers as best he can. But as to the inference he makes from their conduct, one might as well say, since they continued to use pro- THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 57 fane oaths, they did not believe profane swearing is a sin, or that since every Christian violates God's commands from day to day, therefore no Christian believes such violation to be wrong. Meantime abundant positive evidence from their own language, some of which I may hereafter produce, may be brought to show that Franklin, Jefferson, Washing- ton, Madison, and most of the leading men of those times, from both N'orth and South, believed negro slavery to be an injustice and a wrong. The Declaration, so far from being, as the Bishop would represent it, a brutum fulmen, not only mean- ingless or false at that time, but now quite obsolete and null, is rather the doctrinal principle and the historical basis on which our Constitution and the whole frame of our government rest. True, it is not a statute ; it has no direct legal force ; but it em- bodies the fundamental ideas of the framers of our political fabric, and furnishes the key for the inter- pretation of their subsequent language. When, there- fore, in the Preamble to the Constitution, they say, " We the people of the United States," the " we" cer- tainly includes the Free blacks, for they were em- braced in the free population, to be represented in Congress, and they continued to vote even in North Carolina, till the year 1832.* JSTor is there any reason * I have found the following statements made on good autho- rity ; but I have not had an opportunity to verify their accuracy in all particulars : By reference to the Constitutions of New York, New Hamp- shire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, formed before the date of the Constitution of the United States, and in force at its adoption, and also to the Constitutions of Georgia and Pennsylvania, formed soon afterwards, it appears 58 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. to suppose that it does not also include the slaves prospectively; for it is notorious that the framers of the Constitution generally presumed that slavery was rapidly dying out — an expectation which would prohably have been verified but for the invention of the Cotton Gin. To suppose that " we the people of the United States" means only those who have a right to vote, is preposterous ; for when the Preamble goes on to say — " to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" — is it possible it should mean that the blessings of liberty were to be secured only to voters ? What would an Englishman at that time have thought of restricting " we the people of England" — "we the free people of Eng- land," exclusively to those few who possessed the elective franchise ? The charges of cruelty in the punishment, and barbarity in the treatment of slaves, are rebutted by €i priori considerations; the Christian j)i*inciple, the natural kindness, and, above all, the pecuniary interest of the master — and well may he give the that in respect to the qualification of electors for the most numer- ous branches of the State Legislatures, there was no distinction on account of colour in those nine States. Connecticut and Rhode Island, being under the old royal charters, could have none. South Carolina, by its Constitution of 1776, allowed negroes to vote, but in 1778 the privilege was restricted to every "white man," &c. In Delaware, by act of February 3, 1787, emanci- pated slaves and their issue were debarred " the privilege of voting at elections or being elected." And even this seems to have been a violation of the letter of the Constitution of the State. It is well known among intelligent men, that the practice of admitting free men of colour to vote obtained universally at first among all the original "old thirteen." In Virginia, negroes voted side by side with white men until 1830 ! THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 59 chief place to this last consideration — forbid it. And then our Lord JTesus Christ cleansing the temple with his scourge of small cords is brought forward, side by side with the whipping-post, to encourage the slave-driver and the overseer as they ply the lash upon the backs of the poor slaves, male and female, and to illustrate the functions of their office ! ! And the whole is wound up with the characteristic inter- rogatory : "Are our modern philanthropists more merciful than Christ, and wiser than the Almighty ?'' I will not trust myself to characterize such a train of thought. I might be led to use much stronger language than that of the " reviling, vilifying, in- sulting, vituperative, calumnious and slanderous'' Protest itself In answer to the charge that slavery leads to im- morality , it is replied that there is no evidence that it leads to more immorality " in the slave population of all the fifteen slave States, than is found in the single city of JJSTew York, in Sabbath breaking, pro- fane cursing and swearing, gambling, drunkenness and quarrelling, in brutal abuse of wives and chil- dren, in rowdyism and obscenity, in the vilest ex- cesses of shameless prostitution — to say nothing of organized bands of counterfeiters, thieves and bur- glars." But who, what " servant of Jesus Christ," undertakes formally to defend such vices or their causes in the city of ]N'ew York ? And supjDOSO the slaves are saved from many of them, from gambling, counterfeiting, burglary, and abuse of wives and children, for example, — what is gained by it in the moral elevation of the mass, when, to accomplish it, they arc all deprived of their very humanity — of all freedom of action and devoloi)ment as moral beings? 60 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. If they were transformed into a herd of beasts, they would be guilty of no immoralities at all. Besides, the regular normal results of a system, on the one hand, and its abuses and perversions on the other, have very diverse bearings in determining its proper character. In some of the slave States, and perhaps in strictness it is true in all, the slaves have no legal icives at all ; and suppose there is as much of loose- ness of sentiment and practice in connexion with the marriage relation among the mass of the popu- lation of Xew York as among the Southern slaves — which is unquestionably a gross exaggeration — still, ^ how great the difference between its being systema- tically established, encouraged and protected by law, and its irregular existence in spite of the law ? But it is curious and almost ludicrous to see the Bishop gloating with such evident logical and rhetorical satisfaction over the vices, crimes, and debasement of the " lower class" of the population of the city of ^ew York, when they are precisely the best friends of his cause ; they are his true constituents as a pro-slavery political leader; they, and not the virtuous country population, whether of Kew York or of Yermont, are his true disciples as a pro-slavery apostle. The most rabid pro-slavery fanatics, and the most ferocious haters of the negro race, are pre- cisely the New York mob. Let him collect the Sab- bath breakers, the profane swearers, the gamblers, drunkards, and street-fighters, the abusers of wives and children, the rowdy, obscene and grossly licen- tious, the counterfeiters, thieves and burglars of the city of Xew York; and ask them their sentiments on the slavery question. He will then find, perhaps, that there are some associates whom a good man THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 61 might wish to avoid, besides Garrison, Beecher, Emerson and Parker. And suppose there are some cases of licentiousness among the higher classes of Northern society to set off against the licentiousness of slaveholders among their helpless slaves; is it nothing that in the one case the immorality is pro- tected bv the law, and in the other the crime is punished by the law ? But though the poor negro woman is not allowed to testify in court against her ravisher, her offspring testifies, " before this sun," in a language that cannot be misunderstood, and which leaves no suspicion of perjury. Let the increase of mulattoes in the Southern States bear witness to the comparative licentiousness or purity of a slave-hold- ing population. As to property in man, the *' Christian Bishop" gravely tells us that " no slaveholder pretends that this property extends any further than the right to the labour of the slave. . . . The intellect and the soul, which properly constitute the max, are free in their own nature from all human restraint." Thus he would resolve slaverv into a peculiar form of a verv general human relation which is perfectly right and proper; and taking into account the assumed intel- lectual inferiority of the negroes, he would justify this peculiar form of that relation in their case. But, says the South Carolina code, " slaves are deemed, held, taken, reputed and judged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners or possessors, and their executors, administrators and assicrns, to all intents, constructions and purposes whatsoever." And the Louisiana code declares that '' a slave is one who is in the jDOwer of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his 6 62 SOUTH ERNSLAVERY. industry, and bis labour. lie can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything, but must belong to his master." These are specimens of slave laws. Were the authors of the Carolina and Louisiana codes " slaveholders ?" If so, slaveholders seem to have taken especial pains to show and claim that the property of the master in the slave extends to something beyond "his labour." But if the Bishop wishes to refine upon the case and speak philosophi- cally, I am ready to admit that the slaveholder has no use for the person, the soul, or intellect of tho slaves, except with a view to the labour he can get out of them ; that they are for him merely producing machines, — the intellect, the soul, being regarded simply as the driving force, — that his grand object is work, work, gain, money. "To this end all the rest is made to converge. Give him the full control of the body of the slave and all its activities, and he cares not how free his soul may be in its unapproach- able sanctuary. And provided he can extract from him the greatest amount of labour here on earth, I suppose he is perfectly willing that his soul should afterwards have its rest in heaven. But if he " can- not bind the intellect," he can keep it in enforced darkness and ignorance; if he "cannot bind the soul," he can stint and stop its moral development by systematically cutting off from it all means of moral groAvth and culture. Having for generations precluded the blacks, by strict legal provisions, from all opportunity of intellectual enlightenment and improvement, he can turn around and talk philoso- phically of the intellectual inferiority of the African race, and give that as a reason for keeping them in perpetual bondage. If they have not an intellect THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 63 equal to that of the whites, it is thus practically con- fessed that they have an intellect superior to their condition as slaves, and w^hich needs to be restrained and repressed in order to secure the master in reap- ing the fruits of their " labour/'' Shame on such a system and its impious defenders ! For I speak of the system and not of the practice or character of every individual slaveholder. But " God has wonderfully adapted the race to their condition," devoutly adds the " Christian Bishop." That is to say, men have found a race of their brethren so weak and gentle, so docile and pa- tient, so submissive and affectionate, that they can conveniently, safely and profitably make them their slaves ; — one would suppose that to do this was crime and baseness enough — but no, they are not content without adding impiety to oj^pression, and urge the blasphemous excuse that " God has wonderfally adapted the race to their condition !" The Bishop alleges that " emancipation has, in a majority of cases, failed to benefit the negro, and has, on the contrary, sunk him far lower in his social position;" — that is to say, the sporadic cases of eman- cipation under the law^s, customs, and social influ- ences and prejudices of the slaveholding States, such as they are. But what shall we say of the laws and customs, the moral and social tone, of a people, where a man, — a veritable man, made in the very image of God, — but being in a greater or less degree of a certain hue, is, by becoming a freeman, sunk far lower than the slave in social position ? In his attempt to answer the arginncntum ad Jiomi- nem, " how should you like to be a slave ?" the Bishop entirely misses the point. The question is not at all 64 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. <' how lie should like to be another man, or to practice another profession?" but, being a man, '^ how he should like to he a slave f It is not, whether he would be a shoemaker, or a sheriff, or a stevedore, or a lawyer, or a scavenger, — hut how he should like to be deprived of his liberty, and compelled to be any of those or anything else, at the arbitrary will of another man, and as a mere instrument and tool for his profit ? The love of liberty is presumed to belong to man, as man, — to be a natural sentiment if not a "natural right" of humanity. Does the "Christian Bishop" suppose that it is no more a jreneral attribute of human nature, than is a taste or aptitude for some particular employment or trade ? It is presumable that a slave may love liberty as passionately as even the learned and refined Bishop, just as the shoemaker or the " Irish labourer" may love his wife and his children as much as " the mer- chant-prince," "the American statesman," or "the British peer;" and, if you would forcibly deprive him of either, he may fairly ask " how you would like to have your children torn from you ?" And if, on the other hand, any social system can actually succeed in divesting men, any race, or class of men, of their love of libery, their love of parents, of wife, of children, and thus eradicating from their hearts the very affections and character of humanity, — who would not consider it the most withering and damning charge under which any social system could rest? Who would not consider the defence of such a system " unworthy of any servant of Jesus Christ?" There can be no more utter and fatal condemnation of slavery than its oft repeated excuse — " the slaves no not desire to be free, — they are happy as they THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 65 are/'* But, says the " Christian Bishop," there are thousands in our land, free according to law, w^ho are quite unfit for freedom. " They are in bondage to Satan." Would it be right, then, for us to enslave them, in imitation of their present master ? The oldest slaveholder is undoubtedly Satan himself In the " Christian Bishop's" view, it is no valid objection to the system of American slavery that it involves the frequent compulsory separation of hus- band and wife, of parents and children. On this ^ We will grant, notwithstanding, that many slaves are happy ; habit is so powerful and God so good! The poor girl has in her garret a holy image of her mother's ring; the lonely orphan tending goats or swine on the slope of the mountain knows of unknown springs and bird's nests hidden in the rock, which be- long to him and to him alone ; and even in the dungeon's depths the prisoner at length creates to himself a little world apart, peopled by an insect, a flower, a sunbeam, a name cut in the wall. God does not suflFer a blade of grass to lack a drop of water, nor a human being to lack a gleam of happiness. The poor slave, if he does not divert his thoughts from life, ends by becoming accustomed to it, consoled for it ; he thinks of death, then of heaven ! But he is happy tji spite of slavery, not on ac- count of it ; his happiness he finds in the little liberty of which he dreams, or which he gives himself. The master knows it well. What recompense does he promise the slave at the end of a life of devotion? Liberty. Besides, is there not veritable confusion in all this discussion ? Do we rightly comprehend our- selves, and are we speaking of the same thing ? To be happy, to be free,— are these synonymous ? I tell you that the slave should be free, and you reply to me that he eats, that he drinks, that he sleeps, that he dances, that he is happy. I speak to you of liberty, which is the happiness of the soul, and you tell me of enjoyment, which is the servitude of the senses. I speak to you of a birthright, and you answer me with a dish of pottage ! Let us have done with this misunderstanding. (Cochin, Results of Slavery, p. 90.) 6* 06 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. point, his zeal for his favourite institution has carried him beyond even the slaveholders themselves; for the Southern Bishops, in their so-called " Pastoral Letter" a few years since, distinctly admitted such separations to be wrong, to be " unchristian,'' to be an evil in the system which ought to be forthAvith remedied. But the " Christian Bishop's" argument on this point is as extraordinary for a logician as his conclusion is for " a servant of Jesus Christ." By the slavery of circumstances, says he, it comes to pass not unfrequently in the ordinary course of life, that husbands and wives, parents and children, are separated from each other; and "is it wise to de- claim against this necessity in one form when we are forced to submit to it in so many other kinds of the same infliction ?" But because husband and wife may be separated in various ways in the course of Providence, is the slaveholder justified in separating them by force^ at his will, and for the sake of gain, of money, of mean and miserable money — which only the thrifty and infidel abolition Yankees are supposed to seek ? The husband and wife may have no more occasion to " complain" of Divine Provi- dence in one case than in the other, but they may have occasion to complain of human oppression and wrong. Indeed there is no crime which the Bishop's reasoning will not excase, or charge upon the Provi- dence of God. The thief may Sciy, " why, it is no uncommon thing for men to lose their property by flood or fire; is it wise, then, to complain just when it is stolen ?" And the murderer may say, " men often die of disease, why complain just when they are murdered?" Suppose the king of Dahomey, having slaughtered his hecatomb of human victims, THE LETTER, AND THE ANSWER. 07 should stand up amidst the reeking sacrifice and lift his bloody hands and say, "let no man wag his blas- phemous tongue against w^hat I have done. ' "VYo to him that striveth with his maker.' ' There can be no greater blasphemy than imputing wrong to the decrees of the eternal Judge.' Be it known to all, that I am fully justified in butchering these men; because it is no uncommon thing for men to die, and these very persons would soon have died in some way or other j if I had not killed them /" Like all pro-slavery reasoners, the " Christian Bishop" is evidently gravelled by the parallel case of Polygamy. He makes the best of it. He endea- vours to show that Polygamy is forbidden in the New Testament ; but, after all, it is not from direct texts, but only in an inferential way. And as much as that has been done over and over again in the argu- ment against slavery. It is equally true of slavery and of polygamy that our Saviour never mentioned them in his instructions, nor have his apostles ex- pressly forbidden them. As to the Hebrew^ right of divorce, the Bishop represents it as " an indulgence granted by Moses,'* which, says he, " is a very different thing from an authoritative decree of the Almighty." This curious idea of his, that the allowing of divorce was a part of the law of Moses, but not a part of the law of God, he elsewhere insists upon. We shall recur to this subject of divorce and polygamy in the sequel. " In regard to the slavery of Ham's posterity, God issues his commands distinctl}^," says the " Christian Bishop;" and this seems to be that "decree of the Almighty" to which he referred above as superior to the law of Moses. He had before spoken of the 08 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. ''prediction" or " prophecy" of Noali, and tlie " curse of Canaan," wliicli lie had enlarged into a "curse of Ilani," a curse upon Ham's posterity in general. Now he enlarges it still more into a "distinct com- mand" of the Almighty, liut God predicted the bondage of the descendants of Abraham in Egypt. Were the Egyptians, therefore, " distinctly com- manded" to enslave them? Noah cursed Canaan. Are all the "servants of Jesus Christ/' therefore, " distinctly commanded" to curse all the descendants of Ham to the end of time '^ And are we all, the sons of Japheth, " distinctly commanded" to make them slaves, wherever and whenever we can find them, and to hold Ihem in perpetual bondage ? What can be meant by this " distinct command," this " au- thoritative decree of the Almighty?" The " Christian Bishop" expressly urges his views "in the interests of Union and Peace," and declares that " the question of slavery lies at the root of our present dilliculties.'' Yet he insists that he is " no politician," and he elsewhere, in the most scornful terms, scouts at the idea of " expediency," of "poli- tical expediency," as a princii)le of action. lie declares that slavery has been an incalculable blessing to the negroes, the most effective agent for Christianizing and civilizing them that has ever existed; " and thus," says he, " the wisdom and good- ness of God are vindicated." But this is not the real end and object of his letter; and besides, if it had been, Avho has called " the wisdom and goodness of God" in question ? When slavery is assailed, it is not God that is complained of, but man. The true upshot and aim of the letter had been stated just before, in the words which we have already quoted : " The THE LETTER AND THE ANSWER. CO Blavery of the negro race, as maintained in the Southern States, appears to me fully authorized, both in the Old and the New Testaments.'^ Thus no mere ab- stract doctrine, but this concrete fact, is the true and practical conclusion of his whole argument. Has that conclusion been established? The " Christian Bishop" claims great credit for his hearty desire and his former labours for the aboli- tion of slavery. Yet he tells us that all along he has believed and taught " that the plain precepts and practice of the apostles sanctioned the institution, although, as a matter of expediency, the time might come when the South would prefer, as the North had done, to employ free labour." Thus its abolition was with him purely a question of expediency and Politi- cal Economy; and no wonder that, while the profits of cotton, and the lust of dominion stood in his way, his labours on such a platform produced such meagre results. CHAPTEE III. THE NEW GOSPEL OF SLAVERY. ^^ rpHE Scriptural, ecclesiastical, and historical View X of Slavery," taken as a whole, is, perhaps, one of the most characteristic and elaborate specimens of the fallacy or sophism which the logicians have denominated ignoratio elenchi, or substitution of a false issue for the true one, which can be found in the whole range of polemic authorship. It refutes, or attempts to refute, at large, the extreme doctrines of the "ultra-abolitionists;" and then quietly assumes that the signers of the " Protest" are utterly routed and annihilated, together with all anti-slaverj- men who condemn the positions taken in the letter to which that Protest refers. But by what right is it taken for granted that all anti-slavery men, — all men who reject the pro-slavery doctrines of Bishop Hop- kins, are " ultra-abolitionists ?" The stale pro-slavery arguments from the Scrip- tures, which have already been alleged, answered, and refuted a score of times, are served up again and garnished with episcopal authority; the indexes of the Fathers and of Ecclesiastical councils are ran- sacked; doctors, commentators, publicists, historians, are quoted — and what do they prove? — why, that the relation between master and servant is not wrong; that Christianity does not expressly con- (70) THE NEW GOSPEL OF SLAVERY. 71 demn slavery or formally require its immediate and total abolition ; that slavery existed in connexion with the Church, and under the protection of Chris^ tian legislation for many centuries; that the Ameri- can Constitution "is not a covenant with death and hell;" that certain good results have incidentally flowed from slavery; and that certain infidels have been ultra-abolitionists. And what of all this ? Does it prove that the principles, the genius and spirit and practical influence of Christianity are not and have not always been against slavery, slavery in the concrete, slavery proper, slavery as distinguished from other forms of service ? Does it show that that slavery which is intended to be perpetual, which separates husbands from wives, and parents from children, which reduces men to chattels, which for- bids their instruction, and uses them as mere instru- ments of gain to their masters, is all right ? Does it show that "slavery as it is maintained in the Southern States," — in the Cotton States, where the slaves are sent out to work in gangs under the lash of the overseer, or in the other States which sell men and women in the open market as their staple product, — is authorized and approved by the Chris- tian religion, the Christian Church, and Christian history? These are the conclusions which should have been established, and which are coolly assumed to be established, by the elaborate argument. Any intelligent reader can judge, when the question is fairly brought before his mind, whether they have been established. To the less learned portion of our readers, however, it may be proper to say, — lest they should bo dazzled or confounded by the immense array of lore gathered together in defence of sla- 72 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. very, — that the simple statements of the Scripture, after all, furnish the strongest of the arguments alleged ; statements which Fathers, Councils, Doctors, and Commentators, do little more than repeat ; state- ments which the author of the " Yiew" must be aware are as well known, as cordially received, and as earnestly loved by the signers of the Protest as by himself; statements which are familiar to the ordi- nary readers of the Eible, and, with a full knowledge of which, they will be able to say, w^iether, on the whole, the Bible leaves on their minds the impres- sion that it is, in principle and spirit, a Pro-slavery Eible or an Anti-slavery Bible, a Bible approving or condemning such slavery as " is maintained in the Souther7i States r As the '' Christian Bishop'^ has taken some pains to define his position and his personal relation, pre- sent and past, to the subject in hand, I may, perhaps, be allowed to indulge in a little egotism also. Let me say, then, that I have always rejected the ex- treme doctrines of the ultra abolitionists, and in former times have earnestly contended against their practical aims and measures, — but in respect to the practical question, times have now changed; when slaveholders professed to fear the knife at their own throats, it was one thing; when they aim the knife at mine and my country's, it is another. I have never belonged to an abolition society, or gone to hear an abolition lecture, or read Uncle Tom ; but have clung to the Church, heard the Gospel, and studied the Bible. 1 had never before the rebellion preached an abolition sermon, and I have never pub- lished a pamphlet on the subject of slavery; but I have always exercised the elective franchise accord- THE NEW GOSPEL OF SLAVERY. 73 ing to the dictates of my conscience and as a solemn duty I owed to my country. Nor do I see how any American citizen of Christian 2:)rinci2)les can consider it a matter of boast that he never voted at an elec- tion; — unless he means that, if he had voted, he would have voted wrong ; in that case, and only in that case, were it certainly better for him not to have voted at all. I have always accepted and ad- hered to the Federal Constitution and every provi- sion contained in it, the fugitive slave clause so-called included; but I have always abominated the fugitive slave law and the insulting, barbarous, and unconsti- tutional features of its enactments. I have ever been an ardent friend of African Colonization, as an anti-slavery measure, and am so still. I know that some slaveholders supported it as a pro-slavery mea- sure, as a means of amusing the anti-slaverj^ philan- thropists, and getting rid of the incumbrance of the free blacks : — whether the views of the " Christian Bishop," in his advocacy of Colonization, were more anti-slavery or pro-slavery, one may judge from his present position. But I never accepted the wild no- tion that African colonization was to put an end to American slavery by transporting all the blacks to Africa; my view has rather been that it would prove by a visible example that the blacks, notwithstanding all their alleged inferiority, are capable of governing themselves, developing industrial resources, educat- ing themselves, elevating themselves, and makuirr reasonable progress in civilization ; and thus would prepare the way for the amelioration of the condition of the race on this side of the Atlantic. The exam- ple, I think, has already been developed, and the time has come for making the application of the ar- 7 74 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. gument, if it is to have any practical application at all. But if, after all this, no minister or accredited agent of this new negro state is to be allowed to pollute the soil of our free republic, while they are welcomed by other Christian governments; if we are still to be told that negroes are an inferior race, fitted only to be slaves, made to work under the lash, that " God has wonderfully adapted them to their condition," that the '' curse of Ham" is upon them, and that he who would aim at their liberation is " contending with his Maker," opposing the " designs of Providence, and blasphemously resisting the de- crees and the express commands of the Eternal Judge," — if we are still to be told this by the coloniz- ing slaveholders, and if the colonizing " servants of Jesus Christ," and the colonizing " Christian Bishops" are not only to sustain but to lead them forward in such views, — what good is to be expected from Afri- can Colonization ? And what credit should such " servants of Jesus Christ" claim for their advocacy of the Colonization scheme ? I am ready cordially to admit and fully believe that there are, among those reckoned as slaveholders, men incomparably superior to myself in Christian spirit, in Christian character, in all the virtues and graces which adorn the Christian heart; — men who mourn over the evils and the wrongs of slavery with unspeakable and desponding sadness; men who do not hold or treat their slaves as slaves, but recognize and love them as brethren ; who care not only for their bodies, but for their minds and souls, as they who must give account; who would gladly see them happily free ; Avho are disposed to give them all the instruction and preparation for freedom they can, THE NEW GOSPEL OF SLAVERY. 75 and to set them at liberty as soon as the laws of the State will allow it to be done consistently with their good, — men, in short, who detest the sentiments of the " Christian Bishop's" letter as cordially as do any of those who protested against it. And shall I condemn such men ? By no means. I would as soon think of condemning the Christian martyrs. If the legislature of any slaveholding State, instead of obstructing emancipation and aiming at the per- petuation and extension of slavery, encourages eman- cipation in ail possible ways, and honestly aims at the eventual abolition of slavery, providing for its ultimate and gradual yet certain extinction, securing to the slave the rights of person, marriage, and pro- perty as far as possible in his present condition, and to the freedmen the means of mental, moral, social and religious improvement, — I should hardly call such a State any longer a slaveholding State; 1 should consider it in spirit, character, and purpose, a Free State. It would "not be chargeable with the moral guilt of slavery. Or if it must be called a slaveholding State, I should not go out of my way to condemn such slaveholding as that. But where was there ever in the memory of man, a slavehold- ing State with a government controlled by the slavehold- ing oligarchy^ whose legislation was of that character ? Slavery, as it is in general " maintained in the South- ern States," I hold, and have ever held, as a system, to be bad, morally bad, — not merely in extreme cases of abuse and outrage — but in its law, in its purpose, and in its use, — in its theory and in its 2">ractice. While slavery beseechingl}^ cried, '• have patience with me and I will set all right as soon as possible," I was not disposed to take it by the throat. But 76 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. slavery has changed her tone. " She was at first humble, then apologetic, then respectable, then jus- tifiable, then necessary, then a blessing, then divinely appointed, then ambitious, then aggressive, then domineering, then insulting, then rebellious." Sla- very is, at last, established and sanctioned by the decree of the Eternal Judge and the distinct command of the Almighty^ is a fundamental condition of the purest Chris- tianity, and the highest civilization, and the true corner stone of a Christian State. Such is the new Gospel Slavery, — a Gospel preached now by " Christian Bishops,'^ who ascribe its origin to Jesus Christ, and his apostles, its propagation to the Christian Church, and its constitutional establish- ment in this country to the fathers and founders of American freedom; and who denounce all its op- posers as blasphemous atheists and anti-Christs. Now it is a great mistake to suppose that there is no middle ground between these new gosj)ellers and the '' ultra-abolitionists." " Slavery is a wrong and a sin •/' therefore, say the ultra-abolitionists, " it ought to be abolished univer- sally, absolutely, and instantly — no compromise, no degrees, no delays, this very moment and every- where." On the other hand, the new gospellers say, "it is manifest that this universal, absolute, and in- stantaneous abolition, is not required either by the Holy Scripture, by Christian doctrine, or by sound reason ; and therefore slavery is neither a wrong nor a sin." Now both parties are wrong, and both are right. They are both right in their premises and both wrong in their conclusion ; and the difficulty arises from the term "slavery" being -used in dif- ferent senses in the different propositions. In its THE NEW GOSPEL OE SLAVERY. 77 concrete and practical sense, in which slavery means the denial of human rights to the slave, and the cor- responding motive and purpose of the master, and his corresponding treatment of the slave, it is a wrong and a sin, if there be any such thing as wrong or sin in human conduct, and ought universally, absolutely, and instantly to be abolished. In the sense in which slavery may mean a mere formal, legal, and temporary relation existing for the good of the slave and with a view to his preparation for freedom, its universal, absolute and instant abolition is not required by reason, scripture or humanity, and it is neither a wrong nor a sin. But when the ultra- abolitionist draws his conclusion, he means it must be abolished in this latter sense, though his premise is true only for the former sense, and when the new gospeller says it is neither a wrong nor a sin, he means in the former sense, though his premise is true only in the latter. But, sa3^s the New Gospeller, '' slavery is one thing, and the treatment of the slave is manifestly another thing." To this I answer, I know of no slavery, I am concerned about no slavery, under the sun, ab- stracted from treatment. If the law makes the slave a chattel, and his master treats him as a man and not as a chattel, then he do-es not treat him as a slave. [f the law divests the slave of all rights, and his master recognizes and respects all his rights and claims, as a man and a brother, he does not treat him as a slave. And when no men are treated as slaves^ slavery is virtually abolished; and this is the aboli- tion which the New Testament expressly requires. The New Testament does not meddle with the legis- lative functions of government; it issues no formal 78 S U T n E R N S L A V E R Y. commands to rulers. But if the slaveholding legis- • lators do not intend to treat, or to authorize any others to treat, any men as chattels, or to deprive them of their natural rights as men, why retain such laws on the statute book? Are there, were there ever, on the face of the earth, any legislators so stupid as that ? Such laws, if they intend such re- sults, are wrong; if not, they are unaccountably foolish. Whether slavery is a sin, will be further discussed in an appropriate cha]Dter. But what I have to insist on now is, that, in this discussion, we have to do with no abstractions, but with a concrete, practical thing. Abstract slavery exists nowhere. Slavery is a fact^ and as a fact we have to deal with it. What we have to do with is, moreover, the definite fact of " slavery as it is maintained in the Southern States." As I have said, I have strongly objected heretofore to the aims and measures and oftentimes intemperate language of the ultra-abolitionists. But while I earnestly opposed their doctrines and sentiments and expressions, I as earnestly maintained, and still maintain, their right of free speech^ and in defending it I should be ready to suffer any indignity or vio- lence. I hold that every American has, and always has had, the right to discuss the subject of slavery, like any other moral or political question, to his heart's content, — a right expressly guarantied to him by the Constitution. Some men seem to think that the only thing solemnly guarantied by the Con- stitution, and made absolutely sacred, is property in slaves, and hence they are amazingly enamoured of the Constitution. They had not until quite recently discovered that Free Speech is guarantied also — THE NEW GOSPEL OF SLAVERY. 79 they never imagined it was guarantied to ultra-abo- litionists, but they have at last discovered that it is guarantied to sympathizers with treason and rebel- lion. It was undoubtedly the intention of the slave- ocracy, if they could have retained control of the government, utterly to stop the mouths of all prating abolitionists from one end of the Union to the other, that then they might hold their chattels in peace. I have myself been told to my face by one of their Northern abettors, a man of high political considera- tion, and at that time a Judge of a State Supreme Court, " Sir, you have no right to lecture about sla- very, you have no right to print about slavery, you have no right to preach about slavery, you have no right to talk about slavery, you have no right to think about slavery — it is a crime." He said " about,'' but of course meant " against." This was just before the Southern rebellion burst out. I have no doubt that if the deliberate designs of the slavocrats and their Il^orthern allies could have been carried out, free America would soon have been the place, and the only place, on the face of the eartb, where no anti-slavery man would have been allow^ed to wag his tongue, and where to condemn slavery would have been punished as " a crime." But it may be said, it is the reckless, violent, slanderous and outrageous language of the abolitionists that it was proposed to restrain. The Judge went further than that; and undoubtedly his Southern masters meant to make thorough work of it if they could. It ought not to be forgotten, however, that all the abusive, insulting, reckless and outrageous language did not come from the side of the abolitionists. On the con- trary, they were far more than outdone by the fana- 80 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. tical virulence and studied insolence of their adver- saries. AYitncss the following language of one of their number who has been supposed to have been really attached to the Union, and to have clung to it to the last moment, Alexander H. Stephens, now Yice-President of the so-called Confederate States, then a member of Congress from Georgia. It is from a speech which he delivered in the House of Eepresentatives upon the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and I give it as reported in the newspapers at the time. It is true, as the author published his corrected speech in the Congressional Globe, it is considerably softened and diluted; but it remains substantially the same. " "Well, gentlemen, you make a good deal of clamour over the l!^ebraska measure, but it don't alarm us at all. AYe have got used to that kind of talk. You have threatened before, but you have never performed. You have always caved in, and you will again. You are a mouthing white-livered set. Of course you will oppose the measure ; we expected that; but we don't care for your opposi- tion. You will rail, but we don't care for your rail- ing. You will hiss, but so do adders. We expect it of adders, and we expect it of you. You are like the devils that were pitched over the battlements of heaven into hell. They set up a howl at their discomfiture, and so will you. But their fate was sealed, and so is yours. You must submit to the yoke, but don't chafe. Gentlemen, we have got you in our power. You tried to drive us to the wall in 1850, but times are changed. * * * =*^ You went a wooling, and have come home fleeced. Don't be so impudent as to complain. You will only be slapped in the face. Don't resist. You ivill only be lashed into obedience.'" THE NEW GOSPEL OF SLAVERY. 81 JSTow let the place, the time, the circumstances and the person be remembered; and then let us hear no more from pro-slavery men about the violent and abusive and sectional language of abolitionists.* * Should the fact that this speech of Mr. Stephens is not, in these precise words, acknowledged by him in the text of the Congressional Globe, be alleged to prove that he did not utter these words on the floor of the House ; — in the first place I think it does not prove the point ; in the second place I refer the reader to the Congressional Globe, where he will find the speech, too much extended for insertion here, but containing the same mat- ter and spirit which are condensed into the briefer form above cited ; in the third place I find in the Congressional Globe itself a record of the following interruptions of Mr. Lovejoy of Illi- nois, when speaking in the House on Slavery, in the Session of I860:— By Mr. Barksdale of Mississippi: "Order that blackhearted scoundrel and nigger-stealing thief to take his seat." By Mr. Boyce, of South Carolina, addressing Mr. Lovejoy: "Then behave yourself." By Mr. Gartrell, of Georgia, (in his seat): "The man is crazy." By Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi, again: "No, Sir, you stand there to-day an infamous, perjured villain." By Mr. Ashmore, of South Carolina: "Yes, he is a perjured villain, and he perjures himself every hour he occupies a seat on this floor." By Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi: "And a negro-thief into the bargain." By Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi, again : " I hope my colleague will hold no parley with that perjured negro-thief." By Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi, again: "No, Sir, any gen- tleman shall have time, but not such a mean, despicable wretch as that." By Mr. Martin, of Virginia: "And if you come among us, we will do with you as we did with John Brown — hang you as high as Ilaman. I say that as a Virginian." I cannot forbear reminding the reader, that these very men, 82 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. It has been usual for many years past for Soutli Carolinians and siaveliolders generally to decry and disparage New England. Their venom and spite against New England could never be sufficiently vented. This bitter and virulent anti-New England feeling has become a marked characteristic of the rebellion, and very naturally commands the symj)a- thy and imitation of all those who are at heart dis- posed to side with the rebels. But loyal men may w^ell stop and consider how far such petty sectional antipathies can be encouraged or entertained, con- sistently with a patriotic regard for the Union of the country. New England is loyal, thoroughly loyal; will loyal men therefore cast her off and treat her with contempt ? New England may have boasted of herself quite too much -, but, in the first place, she really had something to boast of; and, in the second place, she does not envy or disparage others. She rejoices in the greatness and prosperity of the Empire State of New York, and of her magnificent metropolis, though they have both vastly outstrij^ped her own States and cities in the race of wealth and civic grandeur. She rejoices in the noble history, the vast resources, and the rapid growth of Pennsylvania; and makes her pilgrimages to Independence Hall. She looks upon the other States as but parts of her com- mon country; and she shares in their prosperity and renown. She has no jealousy or contempt for any State in the Union. Even the great men of South Carolina she has been accustomed to regard as her who wei'e thus insolently accusing Mr. Lovejoj of " perjury," were, notwithstanding their solemn oaths to support the Consti- tution of the United States, plotting treason and secession then, and had been plotting it for years ! THE NEW GOSPEL OE SLAVERY. 83 own. And Washington, the Yirginian, she reveres, and will ever revere, Avith filial regard, as the piirest and nohlest name in a history which she is proud to share in as the history of her countr}'. Kew Eng- land may boast of herself, but it is not her habit to detract from others. She may have her faults in her past history and in her present character; and happy the State which has none, or even which has no greater.. But for a New England Bishop to join in the crusade against Xew England, in the effort to heap contempt upon ]N"ew England, is peculiarly odious. It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest. To decry the Puritans is not enough to make a good churchman; and to decry New England will not suffice to make a generous and patriotic American. But, perhaps, it could hardly be expected that an " Irishman" should have any appreciation of the old Puritans, or of the Puritan stock. For mj'self, I claim to be a Yankee, the son of a Yankee, and the grandson of a Yankee, — a Yankee to the back- bone; and if there are any among us who, in the face of traitors and rebels, are ashamed for their loyalty to be called Yankees, I am sorry for it. Any name is an honour which distinguishes me from the enemies of my country. The ''Christian Bishop" fights iho ''Ultra- AhoU- tionists" as he calls them, and would seem disposed to claim to be himself an abolitionist. I also dis- claim the positions of the "ultra-abolitionist," and might seem to occupy substantially the same ground as he. But the difi'erenee is as great as that between the twilight of the morning and the twilight of the evening. The tendencies are contrary. AVe may stand on the same ground, l)ut he looks one way, 84 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. and I look the other ; he looks against emancipation and in favour of slaver}^; I look against slavery and in favour of emancipation. The same premises may be so arrayed and used as to lead to opposite con- clusions. It is said that on a certain occasion, Mr. Pitt being about to make a speech on Indian affairs, and directing his secretary to prepare for him the statistics relating to the subject, the secretary asked ., " On which side does your Lordship desire the argu- ment to come out V But while I contend for ultimate abolition, I will not say how rapidly, in a normal condition of things, the process of emancipation ought to go on. Nor must I be understood to maintain that the negroes should be placed at once upon a social and political equality in all respects with the whites. Personal liberty and other civil rights, as the rights of mar- riage, of property, of contracts, are one thing; and the elective franchise is another. The elective fran- chise is a matter of public expediency, not of private right. Multitudes of free Englishmen, not to say the mass of free Europeans, possess no elective fran- chise. Social position and intercourse must be set- tled, not by legislation, or as a matter of proper right, but by the prevailing spirit and habits of society, the tastes and preferences of individuals. Only give the negro an open field, a fair opportu- nity ; and then let him have whatever he can earn ; whatever he shows himself worthy of, let him be allowed to receive. As to amalgamation, miscegena- tion, and that stuff, which so provokes the j^retended horror of some persons, the surest way to stop it completely is to emancipate the slaves at once. That these processes are going on much more rapidly THE NEW GOSPEL OF SLAVERY. 85 among the domestic slaves than among the free blacks, let the children's faces testify. The " Christian Bishop'' claims to be an abolition- ist; but nobody will call him so. The abolitionists will not claim him. The slaveholders will not de- nounce him. I expect to be denounced as a Yankee and an abolitionist, with all the terms of obloquy, spite and odium, contempt, contumely and cursing, which the friends of slavery are accustomed to con- nect with those names. It has long been their well known policy to undermine the social position, de- grade the character, and bring into disrepute and contempt the names, of all their earnest and out- spoken opponents. I am prepared for it all. The " Yiewof Slavery'^ may serve as a somewhat dignified and reticent specimen of the insolence and abuse in which they are prone to indulge. But the insolence and abuse are nothing to me. The doctrine itself is the main thing. And it is with a sense of unsj)eak- able humiliation and sadness that I find such doc- trines as constitute this new gospel of slavery — promulgated by a " Christian Bishop" in the nine- teenth century of the Christian era. Let us humbly pray that they may be retracted by their author for his own sake ; or, at least, that the overdose may pre- vent any pernicious effects upon others. CHxVPTER lY. SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. ONE of the stereotyped methods by which the apologists and eulogists of slavery have always endeavoured to bring odium on their opponents, has been, to class them with rationalists, infidels, and atheists. So the Southern Bishops in their so-called Pastoral Letter. So the "View of Slavery." In several places the effort is made, and in one chapter, systematically made, to associate the opponents of slavery with those Avho say, " down with a pro-sla- very Bible," and particularly with Emerson and Parker, and men of similar Tlieological proclivities. Now it is a curious fact that it is preciselj^ the New Gospellers and not the Christian anti-slavery men, who airree with that school of rationalists and infi- dels, and continually play into their hands. The " View of Slavery" adopts the premises of the Infidel, and then denies his conclusion. The anti-slaver ij men deny both. The Infidel says, " the Bible sanctions slavery ; then the Bible is not the word of God." The " View of Slavery" says, " the Bible sanctions slaverj-; but the Bible is the word of God." The anti-slavery Christian says, " the Bible docs not sanc- tion slavery; and the Bible is the word of God." But so long as you give the Infidel his premise ho will infallibly draw his conclusion; and, until the (86) SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 87 reason and conscience of men can be remodelled, lie will succeed in leading multitudes more to draw tbe same conclusion. ISTcither the Infidel nor tbe New Gospeller could assume a more damaging concession or make a more calumnious and blasphemous charge against the Bible than this : — that it is a pro-slavery Bible, that it sanctions holding one's fellow men as chattels, that it authorizes slavery " as it is main- tained in the Southern States," in the Cotton States, and in States where men and women are systemati- cally bred for the market as a staple j^roduct. Let this point be yielded, let this charge be established, and infidelity exults in the confidence of a speedy and certain triumph — a confidence not unfounded. But it may be said, if it be really true that the Bible sanctions slavery, we are bound as Christians not to deny the fact or pervert the Scriptures, but humbly to bow to their instructions. Yes, if this be really true; but that is a question of fact, and as a question of fact, it should be investigated candidl}^, dispas- sionately, and impartially ; and no odium should at- tach to the conclusion reached on tlie one side or the other. And, in like manner, the infidel's conclu- sion also, "that the Bible is not the word of God," if it be true, ought to be admitted, and no odium should attach to its admission or assertion. But, if as a Christian I may shrink with horror from the infidel's conclusion, so as a Christian I may detest the infidel's premise, especially when I see it put forward and peremptorily insisted on by a professed " servant of Jesus Christ" in the interest of such an abominable and effete institution as American chattel slavery, and in utter disregard of the odium and infamy thus heaped upon the Christian religion. 88 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. The " Yiew of Slavery," like the " Letter" to which it is a sequel, makes the " curse of Canaan" one of its principal arguments. It first recurs to the origi- nal position, that the " curse of Canaan" was intended for all the posterity of Ham, and makes an effort to impose this dogma upon all Episcopalians hy the authority of Bishop Newton, as though, because the House of Bishops have prescribed " ISTewton on the Prophecies" as a part of the course of study for Theological students, therefore all good churchmen were bound to accept every interpretation and sug- gestion of Newton as infallible truth, even though it might eventually be found to involve palpable falsehoods or horrible and blasphemous consequences; all which the good Bishop, in his simplicity, never dreamt of. Even if history had shown it to be true of all the descendants of Ham that they have been slaves to the posterity of Shem and Japheth, this would not prove that Noah predicted it. And then, what shall we say to Nineveh, and Babylon, and Phenicia, and Egypt ? These all belonged to Ham's descendants ; but were they servants to Shem and Japheth ? Were they not rather the first conquerors of the world, the founders of commerce and letters and arts and civilization, and the teachers of man- kind? Nimrod, a son of Cush, was probably the first man who enacted the petty tyrant, and held his fel- low men as his slaves. But the author of the " Yiew of Slavery" seems at length to have seen reason to distrust this his former interpretation, an interpre- tation which would require the original Hebrew text of our Bibles to be changed, without the slightest authority except that of one solitary version ; and which has against it almost all the critical learning SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 89 of the Avorld. He resorts to another theory, of which, so far as appears, he has the credit of being the au- thor. It is, that the Africans are the descendants of Canaan himself. Por, in the exuberance of his Chris- tian and Episcopal charity, he is determined, at all hazards, that the poor negroes shall be accursed. If the curse cannot be brought to bear upon them in one way, he will try another. And the way attempted is very curious. 1. " Canaan had eleven sons, — more than either of his brothers ; therefore his descendants must be presumed to have been more numerous than those of either of them ; and probably they went and settled in Africa.'' — But Isaac had two sons, and Jacob had twelve; were therefore the descendants of Jacob more numerous than those of Isaac ? Ben- jamin had ten sons, Judah three, and Dan one; were these the proportional numbers of their posterity in the wilderness, and afterwards in the times of Samuel and David ? The Benjamites were at one time very few in Israel; had the balance probably gone to Africa ? 2. " The Bible accounts for but seven tribes or nations of the Canaanites who were to be destroved by the children of Israel in the promised land; leav- ing four more to be accounted for, who, with the remnants that escaped of the seven, probably went to Africa." — But Sidon and Ilamath are among the four, and they are accounted for as well known places; while Sodom and Gromorrah, and the cities of the plain, may well account for the other two, without going to Africa. It is true that from Sidon came Tyre, and Tyre sent a colony to Africa. But there is no reason to suppose — rather the contrary — 8* 90 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. that the Carthaginians, who woro descendants of Canaan, wore, or ever became, African negroes. Or, if Hannibal were of the race of African negroes, then histor}^ has shown ns one man of this negro race who exhibited no small degree of intellectual ability. Any nation might count itself happy if, in its hour of need, it could be sure of finding among the fore- most of its sons, a military genius equal to the son of Ilamilcar. 3. "Abulfaragi says that, in the division of the earth made in the time of Peleg, Palestine was as- signed to Shem, and India and Africa to Ilam. — This division was made by divine authority, and has the force of a divine appointment. — The families of the Canaanites were spread abroad ; but they did not hold Canaan as their land in the time of Abraham; but ]\Ioses calls it ' the land of Canaan' at that time by way of anticipation. Melchizedek, a priest of the most high God, and who probably was no other than the patriarch Shem himself, was king of Salem at that time. Many of the Canaanites who were in the land at the time of Joshua's invasion probably escaped aiul wandered abroad. — Therefore the Ca- naanites probably 'spread themselves abroad' in Africa.'' Now the division of the earth in the time of Peleg may have been by divine appointment under the direction of Noah; but Abulfaragi was not there as the clerk of that court; and it is onl}" a piece of de- cej^tion, not intended, I presume, to represent that the division as described by Abulfaragi was made by divine appointment. On the contrary we have an authentic record of this division on the authority of divine inspiration in the 10th chapter of Genesis, SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 91 wherein Palestine is expressly assigned to tlic Ca- naanites, and not a word is said about India — at least as far as we know. " The families of the Ca- naanites were spread abroad, and the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar and Gaza; as thou goest unto Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboim, even unto Lasha." So runs the text. And this unquestionably was very nearly the boundary of what we call Palestine. But the author of the " Yiew" has a very simple device for removing out of his way the difficulty arising from this text. In the original, says he, the word for border is without the definite article ; it should be translated, therefore, " a border of the Canaanites," and not " the border of the Canaanites." If this were ^0, it does not appear how it would hinder that the Canaanites should have possessed Palestine — Abul- faragi to the contrary notwithstanding. But what the author expects to gain by this device is, to leave the doors open for the Canaanites to spread else- where, viz., into Africa. But in truth the device itself is one of the most astonishing pieces of gram- matical criticism that ever proceeded from the pen of a learned Bishop. Why, every tyro in Hebrew syntax knows that the Hebrew article is regularly omitted — its force being implied — in constructions similar to that in question, i. e., before substantives rendered definite by a following genitive; as, " tlio word of God,'^ "the border of Canaan,'' — unless the substantive, having occurred before, is repeated. The instances in illustration are innumerable. I se- lect a few, and these exclusively connected with tho use of this particular Hebrew word for "border:" Joshua xiii. 23, " tho border of tho children of lieu- 92 S O U T H E R N S L A V E R y. ben," and " the border thereof;" xv. 1, " the border of Edom;" xvi. 5, ''the border of the children of Ephraim," twice; xvii. 8, " the border of Manasseh;" also in xix. 10, xviii. 25, xxxiii. 41, &c. &c. jSTow in all these cases the Hebrew has no article, and in all but one the Septuagint has it, as well as the English. Such are the facts. What then can it mean that a learned Theologian, an astute and practised polemic, a Doctor of divinity, a Bishop of the Church, should gravely tell his confiding readers that, as the article is omitted before the Hebrew word for border^ it should be translated " a border" instead of " the bor- der?" Did he learn this new rule of the Hebrew article from " reading newspapers and novels," or from conning his Hebrew " Bible ?" Will he, perad- venture, prove it by the authority of the Early Fathers ? Is he really ignorant of the first princi- ples of the language in which he undertakes to offer his magisterial criticisms, or ? It is most cha- ritable to adopt the former alternative. — And thus the Canaanites are left in Palestine, in spite of Abul- faragi ; and shut up there too, in spite of the absence of the Hebrew article from their " border." How are they to spread into Africa ? If Palestine was not called " the land of Canaan" in Abraham's time, it certainly was so called some hundred years afterwards; for Joseph's brethren ex- pressly describe themselves as coming from " the land of Canaan," (Genesis Ixii., &c.) ; and could not have called it so by anticipation. Moreover, when Abraham was there, "the Canaanite was then in the land," and the cities of the plain were cities of the Canaanites; and we are told on good authority that Abraham did not have possession of it, — even if it SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 93 had been assigned to Shem, — " for God gave him none inheritance in it, no not so mnch as to set his foot on." And when Sarah died, Abraham found himself without even a spot of his own wherein to bury his dead; and he purchased a lot for a burying place — of whom ? — of the sons of Heth, who was a son of Canaan. The story of the purchase presents a most exquisite picture of primitive and patriarchal courtesy and gentleness, on the one side and on the other. JN^othing can exceed the dignified self-respect of one party, the kindly sympathy of the other, and the gentlemanly politeness of both. Abraham evi- dently had not got into his head the idea that these sons of Heth were an utterly accursed race. As for Melchizedek, king of Salem, after all is said, there is nothing whatever beyond the sheerest con- jecture and petitio principii, to show that he was not, as his residence would indicate, and as Dr. Hales thought, a Canaanite. I can easily conceive the horror that any contemner of negroes and retailer of the " curse of Ham" must feel, at the suggestion that he who was greater than the patriarch Abra- ham, and to whom the patriarch paid tithes, was a veritable descendant of Ham, an accursed Canaanite. Yet on the face of the history, this would seem the most likely conclusion ; and it is confirmed by the fact that in Joshua's time the name of the king of Jerusalem was Adonizedek, meaning '• lord of right- eousness." The similarity of this name to Melchi- zedek, " king of righteousness," is striking and sug- gestive, — the more so, if the commonly received conjecture be well founded, that Salem and Jerusa- lem were the same place. Still it must be admitted, not only in respect to this but to all other conjectures 94 SOUTHERNS L AVERY. as to Melchizedek's kindred, that, in fact, the Scrip- ture leaves him without assigning father or mother, genealogy, birth or death. Let Melchizedek therefore pass. It will hardly be denied that Eahab the harlot was a Canaanitess ; and, if she was, then some of the Canaanitish blood flowed in the veins of our Blessed Lord — one of the accursed race was his mother. What more horrible than that ? Moreover, it seems that Judah married a Canaanitish woman ; and that it was only the severest Divine threatenings that could stay the fre- quent intermarriages of the Israelites with the tribes of Canaan. If the Canaanites were indeed negroes, the antipathy of colour and the horror of amalga- mation seem not to have arisen at that early period. Of any wandering abroad of the Canaanites who escaped the sword of Joshua, there is not the slight- est mention or intimation in the Scripture. We might admit, however, that some of them may have taken refuge at Sidon or among the Philistines; but that they peopled Africa, except as a few perhaps among the Carthaginian colonists, is a j^ure fable, as sheer and original an invention as the new rule for the use of the Hebrew article. And thus, whether the negroes are the descendants of Ham or Shem, it cannot be shown either that the curse of Canaan attached to any of the other poste- rity of Ham, or that the negroes are descended from Canaan himself IS'either of these propositions has any reasonable degree of evidence or of probability. And if either or both of them icere true, it would not reach the point in question, which is, whether the Southerners are justified in holding the negroes in slavery. Now, even though the negroes were cursed SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 05 ten times over, it would not follow that we or any- body else should have a right to make them our slaves, and thus fulfil the curse. God had threatened Israel and Judah with punish- ment and captivit}^ AYas, therefore, the king of Assyria justified in destroying the kingdom of Israel and desolating Judca ? God himself declares that he Avill punish him for these very deeds of pride and cruelty, because, while he thus fulfilled God's right- eous purpose, '''yet he meant not so, neither did his heart think so, but it w^as in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few." Isa. x. 5-15. Many fearful curses were denounced by Moses against the Israelites, in case they should forsake their God. Were European Christians therefore jus- tified in fulfilling them by the cruel and inhuman oppression of the Jews in the middle ages ? Joshua cursed the rcbuilder of Jericho, saying : " Cursed bo the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildcth this city Jericho : he shall lay the foundation thereof in his first born, and in his 3'oungest son shall he set up the gates of it." Would any man, therefore, have been justified, who should have taken it into his head, either wantonly, or from malice or selfishness, to murder the sons of the man whom he might see rebuilding that city? Clearly not; and neither is the " curse of Ham," or the " curse of Canaan," what- ever it may have meant, and to whomsoever it may have applied, any authority or justification for "sla- very as it is maintained in the Southern States." But an argument is drawn for its justification from the example of Abraham and the provisions of the Mosaic law. Before examining tlio validity of this argument, let us sec more exactly what it is which 9G SOUTHERN SLAVERY. is to be thus justified. What is Southern slavery ? Let it answer for itself, and let the answer be in the words of the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, solemnly delivered by Judge Rufiin, in 1829 : " The question before the Court has indeed been assimilated at the bar to the other domestic rela- tions; and arguments drawn from the well estab- lished principles which confer and restrain the au- tliority of the parent over the child, the tutor over the pupil, the master over the apprentice, have been pressed on us. The Court does not recognize their application. There is no likeness between the cases. They are in opposition to each other, and there is an impassable gulf between them. The difference is that which exists between freedom and slavery, and a greater cannot be imagined. In the one, the end in view is the happiness of the youth, born to equal rights with that governor. . . . With slavery it is far otherwise. The end is the profit of the master, his security, and the public safety; the subject, one doomed in his own person and his posterity, to live without knowledge, and without the capacity to make anything his own, and to toil that another may reap the fruits. . . . The obedience of the slave is the consequence only of uncontrolled authority over the body. . . . The power of the master must he absolute^ to render the submission of the slave perfect. I must freely confess my sense of the harshness of this j^ro- position. I feel it as deeply as any man can. And as a principle of moral right, every man in his re- tirement must repudiate it. But in the actual con- dition of things it must be so. There is no remedy. SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 97 This discipline belongs to the state of slavery. It is in- herent in the relation of master and slave.'' There you have Southern slavery, in its true cha- racter, in 'puris naturalibus, as depicted by its own hand. All those analogies — as that of husband and wife, parent and child, tutor and pupil, master and apprentice, master and servant, — by which the ad- vocates of slavery so often sophistically attempt to hide its deformity, to soften down its inhuman and immoral features, or to throw dust into the eyes of those who are looking to see what it is, are here for- mally and authoritatively, — and I must add, hon- estly, — cast off and utterly rejected. " There is no likeness between the cases ; there is an impassable gulf between them," says the Court. Yes, " an im- passable gulf," — the same difference as between paradise and hell. Slavery is a thing sid-generis. ]^ow let the moralist look at it, and say whether such an institution is right and just, or whether it is a wrong and a sin. Let the Christian look at it, and say whether he can believe that such a system is consistent with the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet such is slavery, as " maintained'' — main- tained by law, — in North Carolina; and the same principles are adopted, more or less expressly, in all the other slave States. "As a i:>rinciple of moral right," says the North Carolina Judge, " every per- son in his retirement must repudiate it." But, saj'S the "Christian Bishop," "it is fully authorized by both the Old and the New Testament ;" and, from his retirement in Vermont, he is ready to anathema- tize all those who protest against such a sentiment. Compare such slavery, with the kind of servitude exemplified in the following scene from the history of 98 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. Abraham : "And Abraham was old and well stricken In age : and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant in his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh : And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell : But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a Avife unto my son Isaac." Genesis xxiv. 1-4. "And the servant took ten camels, of the camels of his master, and departed ; (for all the goods of his master were in his hand ;) and he arose, and went to Mesojootamia, unto the city of ]^ahor. And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water, at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. And he said, O Lord, God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham. Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water. And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say. Let down thy j^itcher, I pray thee, that I may drink ; and she shall say, drink, and I will give thy camels drink also : let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast showed kindness unto my master." Genesis xxiv. 10-14. If Judge Euffin has defined what slavery is, most certainly St. Chrysostom was right in saying that Abraham did not treat his domestics as slaves. As to Hebrew servitude under the Mosaic law, not SLAV^ERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 90 much need be added to what has been already said. The author of the " Yiew" tells us that " the Jewish doctors have the best right to be heard in the inter- pretation of their own law." Of the jorecept, in Deut. xxiii. 15, 16, against returning fugitive slaves, Maimonides observes : " Beside the act of mercy, it has this further beneficial result — that it teaches us to accustom ourselves to virtuous and praiseworthy actions, not only by succouring those who have sought our aid and protection, and not delivering them into the hands of those from whom they have fled, but also by promoting their comfort, doing them all manner of kindness, and not injuring or grieving them even in word." How different this from the spirit of one who cautions us against listening to the stories of fugitives, or showing them any sym- pathy ! AYhich spirit would most become " a servant of Jesus Christ V The wisest and best among the Jews have been accustomed to construe the Mosaic code as, in spirit, forbidding slavery. " Our sages," says Maimonides. " ordered us to make the poor and orphans our do- mestics, instead of em2:)loying slaves. . . . Every one who increases his slaves does day by day increase sin and iniquity in the world." The Eabbi Mielziner, one of the best modern Jewish authorities, says: "No religion and no legis- lation of ancient times could, in its inmost spirit, be BO decidedly opposed to slavery, as was the Mosaic ; a religion which so sharply emphasizes tlie high dignity of man as a being made in the image of God, a legislation based upon that very idea of man's worth, and which, in all its enactments, insisted not only upon the highest justice, but also upon the ten- 100 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. derest pity and forbearance, especially towards the necessitous and unfortunate; a people, in fine, which had itself smarted under the yoke of slavery, and had become a nation only by emancipation, would necessarily be solicitous to do away wherever it was practicable with the unnatural state of slavery, by which human nature is degraded." It is remarkable that the beautifully humane and gentle features which abound in the Mosaic institutions, and which are thus urged by the Jewish Eabbi to show that a law of such a spirit cannot be supposed to authorize such a system as slavery, slavery proj)er, modern chattel slavery, Judge Euffin's slavery, — the very same exquisitely refined and delicate touches of kindly sentiment are alleged by the " Christian Bishop" to show that such a law having authorized slavery, slavery cannot be so very harsh and inhu- man a thing ! Suppose he should undertake to prove to me from the word of God that there is no pain in the toothache ; should I believe him while my head was throbbing with the agony ? or should I not rather as a good Christian — not to say a pious Jew — ■ presume that his interpretation of God's word must somehow or other be wrong? According to the current tradition, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septua- gint, was made by seventy-two of the most learned of the Jewish elders in the time of Ptolemy Phila- delphus. If, therefore, the authority of Jewish doctors is to be regarded, that of the Septuagint must be allowed great weight in determining the proper meaning of the original text in relation to the matter in hand. Now the Septuagint version docs not re- SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 101 cognize Hebrew servitude as slavery at all, either in the case of Hebrew or foreign servants. The original Hebrew Avord for " servant," as I have said, means etymologically a labourer ; and has a variety of applications, — to slaves, to bondmen from other nations, to Hebrew bondmen, to house- hold servants, to waiting men and women (especially young), to the ministers and oflicers of kings, &c., to the priests, projDhets, ministers and worshippers of God. Its proper meaning, therefore, is expressed, not by the specific term slave, but by the general term servant. The force of this statement would not be dimin- ished if, in the tenth commandment and throughout the Pentateuch, the Septuagint had used, for this Hebrew word, the stronger, but still general, Greek term, meaning etymologically bondman. Indeed this is whai; we should naturally have exj^ected them to do.* The reader will find, however, in the note be- * But this they have not done. It is remarkable that, in their version of the Pentateuch, — while they hnve freely used the Greek 6ov\oi as the translation of the Hebrew Ebcd, when referring to Egyptian bondage, or to bond-servants among the heathen, — they have always employed n-aij (boy, lad, gar9on) or naiSiaKn (girl, maid) or otKCTm (domestic) when referring to the servants of the Hebrews, whether of foreign or of Hebrew origin, and never dov\os or 6ov\n. To this I have found but one, and that only an apparent, exception. It occurs in Lev. xxv. 44, 46. " Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you ; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids." (46.) "x\.nd ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you to inherit them for a pos- session ; they shall be your bondmen forever." Here, in verse 44, "bondmen and bondmaids," in the first clause, are rraida and KadiaKat, and, in the last clause, after "buy," 0* 10-J S U T li E R N S L AV E RY. low, the evidence from which it will appear that tho Septiiagint regarded Hebrew servitude as of a pecu- liarly mild type; that is, in their judgment, there they are Sov\oi and ^ovXai. But this exception only proves the rule ; for it plainly proceeds upon the implication that they have been the servants of others before, and are bought as being already iovXoi and hovXai. In verse 46 they arc called neither naiScf nor 6ov\ot, but Karoxoi, vv'hich simply regards them as a confirmed pos- session. It is moreover observable that the Septuagint, in con- formity with the etymology of the original word, very frequently use epya instead of hovXtia for bondage, even for Egyptian bondage ; — thus in Ex. i. 14, &c., &c., we have, for *'hard bondage," spya oK^ripa — "hard works," or "hard labour." ' It is true that, when the Septuagint have translated the Hebrew "word for "serve" by a verb, they have commonly employed ^ouXcuw, when the service was paid to men, (and another word when it was paid to God.) But this is apparently for Avant of any softer verb in the Greek language appropriate to their purpose. Thus, Gen. XV. 13, "Thy seed shall serve them four hundred years;" Gen. XXV. 23, " The elder shall serve the younger," [where slavery is not meant]; Gen. xxix. 18, "I will serve thee seven years for Rachel." Inverse 27, this service is called by Laban epyaaia ; and, in Gen. xxx. 26, it is called by Jacob (JouAtca ; — it being presumed by the translators that Laban would be disposed to extenuate, and Jacob to magnify its hardship. Ex. xxi. 2, " A Hebrew ser- vant, »atj, shall serve, iovXemei, six years," So Deut. xv. 12. Lev. XXV. 39, " Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant," — ov 6ov\cvaci aoi 6ovi\uav oikctov. But in verse 40, they have returned to the etymology of the original word. " He shall serve cpyarai — (work for) thee, unto the Jubilee." It is hardly necessary to add that, in the tenth commandment, the Septuagint always use, not ^ovXoj and hov\ri, but 7ra«j and natStaKn- In the "curse of Canaan," also, they translate by naig, oiKerrn, and not iovXog. It is not intended here to intimate that natj is never applied in Greek to designate a slave, but it is a milder term than SovXoi, — just as, in English, man, or lad, or servant, is a milder term than slave, — and as such was chosen by the Septuagint to indicate the milder character of Hebrew servitude or domesticity. SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 1U3 was, properly speaking, no such thing at all as He- brew slavery, certainly no such slavery as that char- acterized by Judge Euffin. It should be called, not even Hebrew servitude^ but rather Hebrew domesticity. By the law of Moses, the murder of a servant was punished, and the punishment for murder was death. As much miirht be said for the laws of the Southern States; but all such nominal protection of personal rights becomes a practical nullity and a mocker}-, since no evidence of slaves or of blacks is admitted against a white person. By the law of Moses the testimony of servants was valid ; at least, no exceptions are made to the precept that the testimony of two men is true. And if any of the Jewish doctors have held a different view, it has been under the influence of the prejudices and customs of the Eoman law. The Hebrew law treated the servant as a person, and vindicated for him the rights of a husband and a father. But, after the precedent of the Eoman legislation, a slave's marriage, in the Southern States, is, in law, a nullity; and, in practice, husbands are sold away from their wives, children from their pa- rents. There " the human cattle are bred like sheep or swine for the market; in short, the whole system is a standing defiance of nature and humanity.'' The Hebrew servant had the Sabbath infallibly secured to him for a day of complete rest. IS^ot so with the Southern slave. There may bo some " law" for it, but " no testimony" annuls it. The Hebrew servants shared in the religious rites and festivities of their masters. They were circum- cised; they ate the passover, which no stranger or hired man was allowed to touch. They took part, 104 SOUTHERN S JUVV E R Y. side by side with their masters, in the most solemn acts of national worship. What an instructive pic- ture is the following : "And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a free-will offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee. And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daugh- ter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to place his name there. And thou shalt remember that thou w^ast a bondman in Egypt : and thou shalt observe and do these statutes. Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn, and thy wine. And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-ser- vant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the father- less, and the widow that are within thy gates : seven daj^s shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord shall choose: because the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy increase; and in all the works of thine hands, there- fore thou shalt surely rejoice. Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose ; in the feast of un- leavened bread, and in tlie feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles : and they shall not appear before the Lord empty : Everyman shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee." Deut. xvi. 10-17. " The bondman came up to stand with the freeman SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 105 before the Lord. The gift of the bondman"— and it seems he could have something of his own to o-ive "was mingled with that of the freeman, and was equally accepted. Perfect religious equality was thus proclaimed, and that in a commonwealth of which religion was the foundation, and of which Jehovah was king. JSTo cruel division of classes, no aristo- cratic pride on one side, or degradation on the other," not to sa^ chattel-slavery, — " could well hold its ground against such a law.'' Compare this pic- ture with that drawn by Judge Euffin, and say whe- ther the law of Moses " fully authorizes slavery as it is maintained in the Southern States." In the words of Cochin : by the Mosaic code, '• the servant could have recourse to the law for all wrongs ; his testimony was received; he could hold property and redeem himself; he was instructed; his rights were respected. 'No slave-trade, no fugitive slave law, no enslaving of natives; a year of Jubilee; the purity of women, the weakness of childhood, the rights of manhood placed under the provident protection of the law; equality professed, fraternity preached. Such was Hebrew servitude. Let the partisans of modern slavery cease to seek arguments from it; let them rather pattern after it.'* But, in fact, whatever may have been the character of the bondage in which the Israelites were allowed by the Mosaic code to hold persons from the nations round about them, — it does not ibllow from it that under the new dispensation, and under the circum- stances of the present time, we are authorized to hold our fellow men even in similar bondage. In connexion with this proposition, two points remain which 1 have promised further to examine. The 106 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. first is, the common brotherhood of mankind under the Christian dispensation ; the second is, the analogy of the law of divorce. As to the first point, I understand the author of the "View" stoutly and earnestly to deny it; — and well he may, if he is to find any support for his pro- slavery position in the Mosaic code ; for, otherwise, the service of Hebrew to Hebrew would be the extreme precedent of the service n^w authorized be- tween man and man; and that was neither " a servi- tude for life" nor " a servitude descending to the offspring," — not to speak of chattelism or of the slavery of Judge Eufiin. This is a vital point. "We do well to examine it carefully. Says the author of the " Yiew," " nothing can be more false than the assertion that Christianity has made the heathen savage any more our brother than he was the brother of the Jew under the Mosaic dispensation." May not one be pardoned for expressing his amazement and mortification that such a sentiment should be uttered by a Christian Bishop ? Can it be in the spirit of him who said: "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to everj^ creature ?" of him " who hath broken down the middle wall of partitioji, having abolished in his flesh ihe'eiimity eYcn the law of commandments contained Id ordinances having slain the enmity by his cross, and came and preached peace to them who were afar off and to them that were nigh ?" If it be said that " Chris- tian brotherhood is by no means denied, but that Christian brotherhood is a brotherhood in the Chris- tian Church, and not a brotherhood of humanity, — that this latter is left just as it was under the Mosaic economy;" I answer in the words of St. Peter : " Ye SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 107 know that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of another nation ; but God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean." As I look upon the savage and remember that Christ died for him — • that he was purchased by the same blood whereby my soul was redeemed, — shall I regard him no more as my brother, than, by the Mosaic law, the Jew was taught to regard him as his .^* " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself But who is my neighbour? This is the question. The Jew found him only in his brother Jew. But our Lord told the Jew that the hated Samaritan was his neighbour; — told us that whoever is suffering, op- pressed, or in want, is our neighbour, if we can reach him with our aid. Thus he established the common neighbourhood, if not the common brotherhood of man- kind. And if it be said that this is but an interpre- tation of a previously existing law, in its original sense, and no enlargement of that original sense, I answer that it could not have been so understood in the Mosaic code; for that code expressly makes dis- tinctions between Hebrew " servants" and foreign " bondsmen ;" so that, if both were equally neigh- bours, the Israelites were either required to love the Hebrews more than themselves, or permitted to love * As to "spiritual brotherhood," — was there no "spiritual brotherhood" under the old economy as "well as under the new ? The diflference is this: as the spiritual brotherhood of the old economy was related to a worldly brotherhood confined to a single tribe or people, so the spiritual brotherhood of the new economy is related to the worldly brotherhood of all mankind. The Jewish brotherhood was gathered from the Jews; the Christian brother- hood is gathered out of every nation and people under heaven. 108 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. the foreigners less. But even granting that the only- change which Christianity wrought in this respect, was a change from the brotherhood of the Hebrew commonwealth to the brotherhood of the Christian church; what shall we say, after all, to a Christian's holding his brother Christian in slavery^ in perpetual bon- dage ? Is that fully authorized by the analogy of the Mosaic code ? When we allege that the Christian dispensation is an improvement upon the Mosaic, or that it does not follow that what was allowed under the Mosaic is also allowed under the Christian; and instance in proof our Lord's express abrogation of the Mosaic law of divorce ; — the author of the " Yiew" replies that that law of divorce was no part of the law of God, but that " Moses wrote it in his human discre- tion,'^ while the law .of slavery is of God's own posi- tive enactment. How he ascertained this important fact, one is curious to know. Of the law of divorce our Lord had said : " For the hardness of your hearts Moses wrote jow this precept.'^ On this statement alone, as far as appears, his proposition rests for its verification. " Moses wrote y^ou this precept;" — but does it follow that because Moses wrote it, God did not command it ? It seems to me that a Christian who believes in the divine legation of Moses would infer just the contrary. " Moses wrote of me," said our Blessed Lord ; are we therefore to j^resume that what he w^rote was not by divine inspiration, but '^ in his human discretion ?" Did our Saviour or his apostles ever make a distinction between the writings of Moses and the word of God, between the law of Moses and the law of God ? In St. Luke our Lord is represented as ascribing the words uttered at the SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 109 burning bush to the authorship of Moses; in St. Matthew he ascribes them to God himself. Thus, unless there is other evidence from some other quar- ter to support the assumption that Moses wrote the precept of divorce '' in his human discretion," the words of our Lord cannot be tortured into any authority for it, or even as giving any colour to it. If other evidence existed, it might then be possible that those words should be so interpreted. Is there any such evidence in the original text ? In the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses rehearses the ten commandments, and adds : ^' These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice : and he added no more : and he wrote them in two tables of stone, and deli- vered them unto me." The rest of the law, as Moses goes on to relate, was given not directly to the peo- ple, but through the mediation of Moses, so that if one chooses to make a distinction of dignity between the Decalogue and the rest of the Mosaic law, there may be some reason for it. But neither the law of divorce nor that of slavery is found in the ten com- mandments. No such distinction, however, can bo taken in such a sense as that the rest of the law of Moses should not have been also the law of God. For as to the rest, Moses declares that God said to him : "As for thee, stand thou hero by me, and I will speak unto thee all the commandments, and the sta- tutes and the judgments, which thou shalt teach them, that they may do them in the land which I give them to possess it." " Ye shall observe to do, therefore," he adds, " as the Lord 3'our God hath commanded you." Deut. v. 31, o2. Then in the sixth 10 110 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. chapter Moses goes on to say : " JSTow these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you ;" whereupon he proceeds to lay down the law of su- preme love to Grod, which our Saviour declares to be the first commandment of all. He afterwards sets before the Israelites a blessing and a curse, " a bless- ing if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God which 1 command you this day ', and a curse if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God." " Ye shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day.'' Deut. xi. 27, 28-32. And then he proceeds to say ; "These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall observe." Deut. xii. 1. And again : " If thou shalt keep all these commandments to do them which I command thee this day." Deut. xix. 9. And then follows a continuous series of precepts up to the twenty-fourth chapter, where the law of divorce is inserted; followed again continuously by others, until chapter twenty-sixth, verse sixteen, where the whole is clenched with the declaration : " This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments." And again, " Moses, with the elders of Israel, commanded the people, saying, keep all the commandments which I command you this day." " Thou shalt therefore obey the voice of the Lord thy God, and do his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day." "And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on hiii-h above all nations of the earth." Then follow SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. Ill the blessings. " But it shall come to pass, If thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his sta- tutes which I command thee this da}^;" — and then follow the curses. Deut. xxvii. 1-10, and xxviii. 1-15. Now the law in regard to the Hebrew servant is in- deed given, in Exodus, in almost immediate juxtapo- sition with the ten commandments, Exodus xxi. 2. But it is given also among the other statutes and judgments in Deuteronomy xv. The law in regard to foreign bondmen is given only in Leviticus. But nothing can be inferred from juxtaposition in regard to the relative importance of laws in the Mosaic code. And now, after all these express asseverations of Moses in the book of Deuteronomy — " these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day," — shall a " Christian Bishop,'^ who finds one of them lying in the way of his pet theory, take it out, and boldly declare that Moses wrote it " in his human discretion ?" And shall such a Bishop denounce his opponents for their want of reverence for the " word of God," and claim to be superlatively orthodox ? Shall he rebuke Colenso even ? How much else of what " Moses wrote" did he write " in his human discretion ?" For, observe, our Lord merely says, *' Moses wrote this precept," not that he wrote it " in his human discretion." Is it not abundantly evident that if the inspired authority of Moses can be relied upon as proof that any of the statutes and judgments contained in the book of Deuteronomy are from God, then the law of divorce is among them ? But because our Lord says, "Moses wrote it," therefore he wrote it " in his human discretion !" Is it not admitted 112 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. that Noali uttered the curse upon Canaan? But suppose it should be argued that because ISToah, re- covering from the effects of the wine, uttered that imprecation, therefore he uttered it " in his own dis- cretion;" what a fluttering there would be in the camp ! What a zeal for the " word of God V What a cry of " Colenso !" But I submit that this sugges- tion would be as plausible as the other; unless the ^ word of God is allowed to be wrested in no direction except in favour of slavery. If God could have directed Moses to give the peo- ple the precept about divorce " for the hardness of their hearts," so may he have directed him to give \ other precepts; as, for instance, those in relation to slavery, for a similar reason ; and that, with a view, in both cases, not to establish an evil, but to correct a greater one. For in neither case is the thing com- mandecl ; it is only suffered, restrained and regulated. And this is in perfect accordance with God's ordi- i nary proceeding with mankind, and with the gradual character of the unfolding of his instructions and revelations. The divine legislation, even, as a deve- lopment of divine Providence, Avhen intended for the formal regulation of man's social and civil relations, must be suited to his character, condition, and cir- j cumstances; and in that sense will ^^artake of man's imperfections, and may itself become more perfect as man makes progress in moral culture and social | improvement. Not only may the law of divorce, therefore, have been given " for the hardness of i men's hearts," but those of war also (in Deut. 20) and of the Goel, — and of servitude. We come now to the New Testament. And here I we need add but few words to what has been already ! SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 113 said in answer to the " letter;" for the " Yiew" adds little to the argument, unless it is in the shape of a formal defence and eulogy of the Avhipping-post as an eminently Christian institution. The argument drawn b}^ the partizans of slavery from the New Testament, is chie^y of a negative character. When carefully analyzed, it is reduced substantially to this: "T/ie JVew Testament does not expressly abolish or prohibit slavery J' Now it is to be remembered that the iSTew Testament is throuirhout addressed to individuals and never to governments. Slavery, therefore, as a political or civil institution, as a system established and maintained by law, of course was not abolished. But it does not foHow from this that the general principles of Christianity, if applied by legislators and governments, would not lead to, and require, its abolition. Unlike the men to whom our Saviour and his apostles preached, ice^ — i. e. men in these times, and in this country, stand towards slavery in a twofold relation, as individuals and as legislators. As individuals, our duty, now as then, is resolvable chiefly into a question of treat- ment, of motive, and of personal feeling. As legis- lators, we are responsible for the s^^stem, for its legal character, its tendency and its working. And when slavery is now condemned, it is regarded as well in its latter aspect as in the former. It is the system that is condemned. It is the law of slavery that is pronounced wrong. We are responsible for it in this aspect; for, in this country, "we the j^cople" make the constitution and the laws as well as keep them. We have claimed certain rights ourselves, as the Ycry foundation of our civil system; and we are bound by the simplest principles of the gospel and of justice 10* 114 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. to accord the same rights to others. Of all people on earth Christianity especially forbids us to hold our fellow men as slaves. This is applicable to the people of the several States in their legislative capa- city. They profess to be Christian people, and those v^ho hold slaves profess to justify the system b}^ the principles of Christianity. As moralists and Chris- tians, we have a right to judge the system, the legal system, by those principles; and if it is inconsistent w^th them, to condemn it. The general principles of Christianity are modified and determined in their application by the mental and moral condition of those who are to apply them, by their views of rights and notions of happiness, and wherein it consists. What they claim for themselves as rights, what they regard as constituting happiness, these things they are to claim and labour to secure for others as well as for themselves. IS'ow among the general princi- ples of Christianity are — " Thou shalt love thy neigh- bour as thyself/' and '' all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them ;" and " have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with respect of persons." Are these consistent with holding our neighbour, our fellow man, our fellow Christian as a slave ? If we are asked, as we often are, why we apply these refined principles exclusively to the system of sla- very, while they are violated as often by non-slave- holders as by slaveholders ? MVe answer, that we do not ai)ply them exclusively to slavery, but we say that every violation of them, whenever and wherever it is committed, is wrong, is unchristian. " If there come into any Christian assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a | SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. llf) poor man in vile raiment, and they liave respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, stand thou there, or sit here under my foot- stool," — I say, with the apostle James, that they violate the Christian law of impartial regard and love, whoever and wherever they may be. Eut now suppose that assembly should proceed to enact a law that any person might take this poor man, drive him to the field to work like an ox without wages, deprive him of his rights as a man, a husband and a father, reduce him to the condition of a chattel, a thing^ for the profit of his master, to be *' doomed in his own person and his posterity to live without knowledge, and without the capacity to make any- thing his own, and to toil that another may reap the fruits;" and suppose that other assemblies and other men professing to be Christians, and even a " Chris- tian Bishop," should approve the act, and gravely and pertinaciously defend it as "fully authorized" by the doctrine and religion of Jesus j — what then ? If I condemned before, what shall I do now? Shall I restrain my expression of " indignant reproba- tion ?" Even though all actual treatment were loft out of the question, though no man were found bad enough to carry such an enactment into effect, could we fail to denounce the enactment itself as utterly unchristian and abominable ? And would it mend the case if those Christians should add the mockery of admitting that man to come by himself to the Holy Communion ; while they gravely enact that, though a communicant in the church, his testimonj^ upon oath is not worthy to be believed? AVhon it 116 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. was proposed to receive such testimony even in the Ecclesiastical courts of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the proposition was rejected through the urgency of the slaveholding interest, who treated it as a piece of " dirty business." ISTow, all the immense array of citations in expo- sition of the Scripture, from the Fathers, the doctors of the church, and the commentators, collected by the author of the " Yiew," — with a single exception, perhaps, — go not an iota further, than a defence and justification of the New Testament in not abolishing the law of slavery. That it sanctioned and approved of that law as such, they do not pretend ; it only re- quired the law to be obeyed while it existed. Their address, too, is made to individuals. Of course they aim, therefore, at treatment, at practice under the law. They, too, require servants to obey their mas- ters ; and they require masters to treat their servants not as slaves but as brethren. If the JSTew Testament approved and sanctioned any slavery, as a legalized system, it approved and sanctioned Eoman slavery. Hebrew slavery no longer existed to be either sanctioned or abrogated. Now the system of Eoman slavery was perhaps the most outrageously cruel and inhuman that ever existed. Moreover, it was a slavery of whites. Can a Christian believe that Christ and his apostles approved and sanctioned such slavery as that ? Approved and sanctioned it, moreover, in such a sense, as fully to authorize and justifj^it among Christians, at the pre- sent day ? If I understand the author of the " Yiew," he believes it; believes that the Southerners would be fully authorized by the doctrine of the New Tes- SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 117 tament in reducing to slavery any whites — of an inferior race to themselves, perhaps, — whom they might judge proper; and takes great credit for them in having restrained this large Christian liberty of theirs within such narrow bounds as to content them- selves with having for their slaves only the still more degraded and vastly inferior race of the blacks ! Though after all, if slavery is so good a thing, and withal so perfectly right and Christianlike, one does not see why there should be any credit due to its restriction. But let us remember that the exigence of the ar- gument required him to maintain that holding white men in slavery is fully justified by the New Testa- ment, and that he accepts the consequence. The author of the " Yiew" quotes Aristotle. Compare St. Paul with Aristotle. As good an argument could be made, and has been made, from the precepts of the New Testament, in favour of the duty of passive submission even to the most tyrannical governments, as can be made in favour of the right of slavery. When St. Paul de- clared that " the powers that be are ordained of God,'' and required all Christians religiously to obey them, the government actually existing was the tyranny of Nero. That tyranny he neither undertook to abolish nor even to condemn. Did he therefore fully authorize and justify it ? Or, because he did not condemn it, are we also, in a free country, forbidden by the apostle to criticise the laws of the land and the acts of the government, and to condemn them, if in our judgment they are wrong? Or, still more, has he established the doctrine that the government 118 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. can do no wrong, that the idea or judgment of wrong cannot attach to its acts, that if the Law establishes anything— slavery, for example— that this, by virtue of the very fact that it is established by the law, is right ? Has the apostle announced any such mon- strous doctrines as these ? Certainly not. Simply he did not address governors, or judge governments, or criticise laws. It was not the time to do so. Our circumstances are different. ^Ye have, as I have said, responsibilities^n our capacity of law-makers as well as of law keepers. We are the governors as well as the governed. The apostle does indeed give his com- mands to masters as well as to servants, and enjoins them in substance, not to treat their servants as slaves. But, it is quickly urged, " he does not require them to emancipate them." True, he is willing that the relation of master and servant should practically as well as legally remain. He sanctions it, I have no doubt, and it will always continue a rightful re- lation. But from this it no more follows that the apostle sanctions slavery than from his declaring government to be a divine institution, it follows that he sanctions tyranny. In short, all these negative arguments from the New Testament in favour of the law and practice of slavery, vanish away as smoke before the general spirit and tendency of its teaching. Let any one place distinctly before his mind a picture of Eoman slavery, or such an idea of Southern slavery as is given in the delineation of Judge Euffin, and let him compare them — compare those concrete, practical realities, and not any carefully analyzed and expur- gated abstractions — with the tone and character of SLAVERY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 119 the doctrine of Christ and his apostles; and let him ask himself whether the two agree, whether they are compatible, whether such ruthless systems are " fully authorized" by this doctrine ; — and I cannot doubt as to what will be his answer. He will say, no, with all the energy of his soul; — and, it seems to me, he cannot fail to stamp any opposite view with his "indignant reprobation.'' CHAPTEE V. SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. THAT the Christian Church has not adopted or acted upon the doctrines of the " ultra-aboli- tionists," i. e., of those who insist upon the immediate, universal, absolute, and formal abolition of slavery as the first and greatest commandment of Chris- tianity, is freely admitted. But that either the teach- ing, the spirit, or the practical working of the church, has been opposed to emancij^ation, and in favour of maintaining and perpetuating the system of slavery, cither as right, as good, or as a divine institution, — is utterly denied. The church has attacked slavery not in the abstract but in the concrete, not in its totality but in its details, not by storm but by a gradual undermining, not at first by an open decla- ration of war, but always with a consciousness of real antagonism, as in the presence of a gigantic evil, of a monstrous and almost unmanageable wrong. Before Constantine the church stood in the same jDOsition towards slavery and the Eoman government in which the apostles had left it. That is to say, the church could not meddle with the law ; she had no control over the legislative function, and it were useless as well as dangerous formally to have pro- nounced the law to bo wrong. She therefore at- tacked, not the law, not the system, but the practice. (120) SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 121 She still required Christian masters to treat their slaves, not as slaves, but as equals and as brethren, and strongly favoured emancipation. For, as "Wallou says, in his history of slavery, within the pale of the church, " the slave passed from the category of things which the right of property placed at the disposal of the master." Said Clement of Alexandria, " Our household servants are to be treated like ourselves, for they are men as well as we."* And Cyprian thus taunts his Pagan adversary : " You compel to be your slave a man who was born as you were, who dies as you do, whose body is made of the same sub- stance with your own, whose soul has the same origin with yours, who has the same rights and is under the same law." (Cyp. ad Dem.) " That these principles were carried into practice in the church, we have the evidence of credible his- tory. For though the number of slaves set free by individual masters may be exaggerated — as when Ovinius of Gaul is said to have emancipated five thousand and Melanius eight thousand, — that very exaggeration in the popular tradition shows the tendency of Christianity towards universal emanci- pation."f "A Koman prefect, Hermas, converted in the reign of Trajan, 98-117, received baptism at an Easter festival with wife and children, and twelve hundred and fifty slaves, and on this occasion gave all his slaves their freedom and munificent gifts besides. So in the martyrolog}'- of St. Sebastian, it is related * PteJag. 3. 12. de famulis quidem utcndum est tanquam nobis ipsis ; sunt enim homines sicut nos. I Thompson's Christianity and Emancipation. 11 122 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. that a wealthy Eoman prefect, Chromatius, under Diocletian (284-305), on embracing Christianity, emancipated fourteen hundred slaves, after having them baptized with himself, because their sonship with God put an end to their servitude to man. In the beginning of the fourth century, St. Cantius, Cantianus, and Cantianilla, of an old Eoman family, set all their slaves, seventy-three in number, at liberty, after they had received baptism. After the third century the manumission became a solemn act, which took place in the j)resence of the clergy and the conccreiration. The master led the slave to the altar; there the document of emancipation was read, the minister pronounced the blessing, and the con- gregation received him as a free brother, with equal rights and privileges. Constantine found this custom already established, and African councils of the fourth century requested the Emperor to give it general force;"* for as the law stood then, the rights of the freedman were quite insecure. As a further indication of the tone of Christian feeling on slavery, take the following from Lactan- tius : " We call ourselves brethren, for no other reason than that we hold ourselves all equal. . . . We have, notwithstanding the difference of outward re- lations, no slaves, but we call and consider them brethren." .... " Grod would have all men equal." Such was the spirit of early Christianity. But to have required all Christian masters to emancipate their slaves would have been unreasonable ; for as several laws were then made to restrain and prevent emancipation, it might have been impossible. * Schaflf: Hist. Churcli. SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 123 After the conversion of Constantino the case was different. But Constantine, though converted to Christianity, was, like most other Christian princes, controlled in his government, more by political than by moral or religious considerations. And the leaders and governors of the church, who had now become in no small degree corrupted by a ^i^orldly spirit and the prospect of increasing powder, fell in, quite too readily, with the political views of the Emperor, and even stood ready to take their share of the gain and spoil. Still, the spirit of Christianity could not be entirely stifled, and its influence is seen in the changes made by Constantine in the imperial laws; ameliorating the condition of the slave; encouraging emancipa- tion by a solemn decree that masters wishing to free their slaves might resort to the churches and perform the act before the altar, and in the presence of the congregation; and issuing a charter for the protec- tion of freedmen, which surrounded their rio-hts with all possible means of defence. And thus, as the Duke de Broglie finely says, " the church was invested with a sort of official patronage for the enfranchisement of mankind. The places consecrated to the Chris- tian faith became the asylums of liberty — the invio- lable free soil. The church at this solemn moment accepted from God and from Constantine the task of emancipating the world without overturning it."* AVhatever the Fathers may have said, and rightly said, in imitation of the apostles, guarding against encroachment upon the legal rights of the masters, and enjoining obedience uj^on the servants, none of * Thompson's Christianity and Emancipation. 124 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. them ever wrote expressly in favour of the system of slavery, none of them ever could have been, with- out a revolution of his whole Christian being, the author of such a book as this modern " Yiew of Sla- very." I propose to pass in rapid review the cita- tions from the civil law, the Councils, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, upon which the author of the " Yiew" relies. I will take them in his own order. In his citations from the civil law, I observe (1.) that liberty is called a " natural faculty;" (2.) slavery is declared to be a " constitution of municipal law^ whereby, contrary to nature^ one man is subjected to the dominion of another;" (3.) "manumission is a thing which has its origin in municipal law; for, since by the law of nature all would be born free, both sla- very and manumission would have been unknown;" (4.) " manumission takes place in various ways, either hy the sacred constitutions in the holy churches, or by will," &c. (5.) "In case of the intolerable cruelty of masters, the slave shall be sold," &c. That men, by the law of nature, "jure naturali" are free — are born free, is here asserted almost as plainly as in the Declaration of Independence ; and slavery is declared to be an artificial distinction, contrary to nature, contra naturam, a creature of positive law. Again, I observe, the same constitution of the civil law which rejects the testimony of slaves, rejects alike the testimony of all immoral persons, or slaves to vice ; those who " in illicitarum actionum servi- tutem subiguntur" — a point which the author of the " Yiew" found it convenient, in his text, to omit. Also, which strongly shows the leaning of the later civil law in favour of liberty, it is declared in a de- SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 125 crce of Leo — that the selling of one's self into slavery is void, criminal in both parties, and the act of one elemented and mad. As to the doctrine of Aristotle, which has always been a favourite text with oligarchists, that " some men arc/ree by nature, and others are slaves, and that, in the case of the latter the lot of slavery is both advantageous and just;'^ it is manifestly at war not only with the teaching of the Scriptures but with the principles of the civil law and with the dictates of humanity ; and even Aristotle relented so far as elsewhere to indicate that if a slave were mentally cultivated so far as to be fitted for freedom he ought to be set at liberty. On this philosophy of the Stagi- rite the Southern slaveholders rest their plea. " The general emancipation of the negroes," say they, '' would not OJily be ruinous to the masters, but cruel to the last degree towards the slaves themselves; bcciiusc it would thrust into the dangers and diffi- culties of freemen millions of human beings who are entirely unfitted by nature for freedom, and wlio need the protection and government of their masters even more than the masters need their labour. And there- fore they resist the policy of abolition," — and there- fore these millions of negroes are, generation after generation, to be raised, bought, sold, and treated like cattle, carefully kept in universal ignorance, and sunk in one vast system of concubinage, so that men and wives, parents and children, may be separ- ated without compunction ! What insull'erable men- dacity and hypocrisy ! Have these slaveholders arranged their laws with a view to improve and ele- vate "the nature" of these millions of human beings and thus fit them for froodom ; or to prevent, rather, 11 - 12G SOUTHERN SLAVERY. any such elevation or improvement, and to proscribe any attempts towards it ? And can tliey really pre- tend to say in the face of heaven, that their motive in opposing abolition, and perpetuating, at all haz- ards, the system of slavery, is more to secure the highest good of the slave than the gain to be derived from his labour ? Let the Supreme Court of N^orth Carolina answer this question : " The difference,'^ say they, " is that between freedom and slavery, and a greater cannot be imagined. In the one, the end in view is the happines of the youth," &c. ..." with slavery it is far otherwise. The end is the profit of the master, his security and the public safety; the subject, one doomed in his own person and his posterity to live without knowledge and without the capacity to make anything his own, and to toil that another may reap the profits." Yet the author of the " View" expressly subscribes to the Southern Aristotelian argument as unanswer- able. "Am I justified," says he, "in assuming that I have a vast deal more of intellect and Christian principle than the Southern clergy, who defend their domestic institution on these grounds, of scrij^ture, of law, and of sound philosophy ? Can I say to them, Stand by, for I am holier than you? Stand by, for I am more intellectual than you ! Stand by, for I have more philanthropy than you ! Stand by, for I have the master mind by nature, and your minds ought to be, in justice, the slaves of mine, by reason of my su- periority ! . . . . I must be excused if I dare not occupy a position which seems to me the very re- verse of common sense, of sound argument, and of Christian moderation." What beautiful Christian SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 127 humility ! — ono is ready to exclaim. But unfortu- nately the rule does not work both ways; for it makes a vast difference whose ox is gored, yours or mine. Could it have been expected that such a lowly-minded person would denounce the expressed judgment of a large body of his brethren as "false, bitter, insolent, unjust, vituperative, calumnious, violent, aggressive, demented?" Is it credible that, being a Bishop, and differing in judgment from the House of Bishops in regard to.the performance of a certain official act, he should, publicly and alone, have separated himself from the body of his brethren and official equals, as much as to say, " Stand by, for I have the master mind by nature, and your minds ought to be, in justice, the slaves of mme, by reason of my superiority V Of course, this must be an utterly groundless and slanderous report. I proceed with the citations. The words of Philo are clearly in favour of freedom, and the rights of humanity as natural rights. " The divine law,'' says he, " accommodates the rules of right, not to fortune but to nature.'^ Tertullian, in speaking of the stealing of a slave, has clearly in view the taking him from one man to make him — not free — but the slave of another; — '^domino eripiatur ut alii vijidicetur." This he con- demns; — and who does not? Jerome (Note 17*) represents the slave as the equal of his master — yet not to despise him : " ^Yc' sibi acqualcm conte?nna7it." • The remaining two quotations from Jerome require * The numbering of the note in the Appendix to the "View" is followed, for the sake of easy reference. 128 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. no comment ; and I shall omit others of a similar character without farther remark. The supposititious Ambrose (No. 20) derives sla- very "from the iniquity of the world;" hut adds that the real, natural^ proper slave is the sinner. Anti-slavery men will subscribe to that. Augustine (No. 22) says that the church makes masters more disposed to " consult for the good of their slaves than to chastise them," — ad consulendum quam coercendum — which the author of the "Yiew" rather whimsically translates, *' more inclined to consult than to coerce them." In the next quotation (No. 23) Augustine shows only the natural effect of stri^^es, not the right of inflicting them. When he says (No. 24) that '' it is either adversity or iniquity that has made one man the slave of an- other," and afterwards refers to Joseph, does he mean that the enslaving of Joseph was just? When slavery is the punishment of crime duly ascertained, it is not objected to by abolitionists ; only the chil- dren should not suffer for the crimes of their parents. His saying (in No. 26) is striking, and very much to our purpose. " Masters and servants are diverse names; men and men are equal names." * Thus Au- gustine recognizes the existence of slavery; — that is not at all denied. But he turns his face against it; — that is to be remembered. And this is but an in- stance of the common fact with the Christian fathers. Does Basil mean (No. 29) that those who are '' oppressed by power," as well as those who are * Sunt domini, sunt et servi, diversa sunt nomina ; sed homines et homines paria sunt nomina. SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 120 " reduced to servitude by reason of poverty, as tho Egyptians under Pharaoh," are rightfully made slaves; so that the Israelites also were rightfully made slaves to the Egyptians ? A specimen of Chrysostom's over-refinement is given (in No. 30) in reference to the apostolic in- junction "use it rather;" 1 Cor. vii. 28. But Chry- sostom frankly admits a diversity of opinion on the question, and candidly gives, not his authority, but his reasons. Of the sufficiency of these we are left to judge. He has himself given sufficient proof, as we shall show elsewhere, that he was no friend to slavery, but that he decidedly favoured emancipa- tion. But what use would there have been in eman- cipating Christian slaves, if it was their Christian duty rather to remain in slavery ? If the injunction "use it rather" means "use slavery rather," it must be given by the apostle, either, as Poole suggests, in the sense of "prefer to continue a slave rather than be guilty of /rawc?," or with a view, as the apostlo elsewhere says, " of the present distress," and must be put by the side of his injunction to avoid mar- riage. Prosper (No. 31) says expressly, " slavery comes from C7ime (culpa), not from nature." How will Aris- totle stand with the Fathers of the Church? Gregory (No. 32) simply makes maids and matrons equally slaves, for he makes them both fear. And what of it ? This Father (No. 33) teaches natural equality in the clearest terms. " Servants," says he, " should be admonished in one way, and masters in another; servants that they should always regard in tliem- selves the humility of their condition, but masters 130 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. that they should not forget their nature^ whereby they were created on an equaliiy with their servants Masters are also to be admonished that against Grod they do not wax insolent with his gift, by refusing to acknowledge that those whom they hold in pre- sent condition as their slaves are by the fellowship of nature their equals.'*- l^ow here are the so much decried propositions of the Declaration of Independence in almost express terms ; and that at once in spite of Aristotle, and of the charges of extravagance and nonsense so often indulged in against them by those who think them- selves exceedingly clear headed and wise.f It has often been charged upon the Declaration that all that is true in its first proposition is the bald and empty statement that " all men are equally created." Yet this unmeaning statement the author of the " Yiew" does not hesitate, in his translation, ex- pressly to father upon Gregory. I submit that the connexion shows, and, without the connexion, the supposition that Gregory was not a simpleton would * Aliter admonendi sunt servi, atque alitei' domitii. Servi, scilicet, ut in se semper humilitatem conditionis aspiciant: do- mini vero, ut naturas suae qua aequaliter sunt cum servis conditi, memoriam non amittant Domini quoque admonendi sunt quia contra Deum de munere ejus superbiunt, si eos quos per conditionem tenent subditos, sequales sibi per naturte consortium non agnoscunt, f The charges do not always stop with *' extravagance and nonsense." Dr. Smyth, a prominent rebel of South Carolina, in a pamphlet upon this subject, says: "What is the difficulty and what is the remedy ? It is found in the atheistic, red republi- can doctrine of the Declaration of Independence ! Until that is trampled under foot, there can be no peace." With which does the "Christian Bishop" more nearly coincide, with the primitive St. Gregory, or with the rebel Dr. Smyth ? SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. l3l show, that he meant something more than that. By " asqiialiter conditi sunt," he must have meant that men are made of equal condition, or on a footing of equality. As an offset to the deed (No. 34) by which Gregory renounces in favour of Felix all legal right to a slave who had already been a long time in possession of the latter, I may insert another and far more signifi- cant deed of the same Gregory manumitting two persons who had been his slaves : "As our Redeemer, the Maker of every creature, was pleased in his mercy to put on human flesh, that by the grace of his divinity he might break the bonds that hold us captive, and restore us to our pristine liberty, it is fitting and salutary that men whom nature in the beginning made and brought into the world free, but whom the law of the land has subjected to the yoke of servitude, should be restored by the benefit of manumission to liberty in that nature in which they were born. Moved by this consideration and as a dictate of piety, you, Montana and Thomas, I have made free,'' &c.* Isodore tells us (No. 35) that " for the sin of the * Cum Redemptor noster totius conditor creaturoe ad hoc pro- pitiatus humauam voluerit carnern assumere, ut divinitatis sua) gratia diruto quo tcnebamur captivi vinculo servitutis, pristina) nos restitueret libertati; salubriter agitur, si homines quos ab initio natura creavit liberos et protulit, et jus gentium jugo sub- stituit servitutis, in ea natura in qua nati fucrant, maiuiinitten- tis beneficio, libertati rcddantur. Atque ideo pietatis intuitu, et hujus rei consideratione permoti, vos Montanam atque Tliomam famulos Saucta) Romanaj Ecclesias cui Doo adjutore deservimus, liberos ex hoc die civesque Romanos eflicimus, omueque vestrum vobis relaxamus servitutis peculium. Greg. I., V. Ep. 12. \M SOUTHERN SliAVEllY. ili'st man tho piinislnnont of Bervitiidc was divinely iin})()so(l, so thai. U) tlioso I'or whom CJoil sees thai lihcM'ly is not congnioiis he may more mercifully ap- "^ poiul sorviluile. . . . Jlenee, also, among nations, ])riiicos niul kings havo boon chosen that by their terror liu>y miglit restrain the peo]>le from evil, and suhjet't them to laws to the end they should live rightly. Better is tho subjection of slavery than tho eialioii of liberty."* Ol' course servitude for tho good of tho servants, as government for the good of the governed, is right; but this will justify neither all systems of government, nor all systems of slavery. The canon (No. 30) that slaves should not he or- dained without the will of their masters, implies that ordinations of slaves to the ministry not untVequently took jdace, and that tho ct)nsent of Christian masters would be gladly given of course, in all proper cases. The cunoii (No. 87) which enjoins, ''let the master love his servant, and although he is above him, j^et let hin\ acknowledge that there is equality in so far as he is a man,"f contains another clear recognition of human equality, of the natural equality of man as )i}(i». 4'he anathema of the council of (langra only as- sumes the duties of slaves, — the same duties which the a])ostle had expressly enjoined, and which Chris- tian anti-slavery men are far from denying. Only, "'^ Propter pcocnhim primi hoiniuis Iminano goiiovi pixMia dlvi- uitus illuta ost servitiitis, ita ut «]uibus aspicit non congruero libertatom. liis niisorioordius in-t>,i;ct sovvilutiMn liulo et iu gtMitibus priiicii>on, rogosquc elocti t:eth an offering; of the ccoods of the poor doeth as one that killeth the son before his father's eyes. " The bread of the needy is their life, — he that de- fraudeth him thereof is a man of blood. " He that taketh away his neighbour's living slay- eth him; and he that defraudeth the labourer of his hire is a blood-shedder." I think the clerigo might have dwelt upon one of the remaining verses of the chapter with great profit : * Quoted in Soutliey's History of Brazil, vol. ii., p. 479. SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 149 " "When one prayeth and another curscth, whose voice Avill the Lord hear?'' AVhen the j^riest and the Levitc pass by denouncing the *' curse of Ham/' and the poor negro sends up his heart-cry amidst his toils and stripes and mise- ries, which, think you, will Jehovah hear? At the end of one of Las Casas's sermons, " all were amazed; some were struck with compunction; others were as much surprised to hear it called a sin to make use of the Indians as if they had been told it were sinful to make use of the beasts of the field." Such is the blinding and hardening effect of slave- holding. And had a certain Northern Judge of the present day been there, he would have told Las Casas that he knew of no Scripture which declares it a sin to hold either Indians or negroes as slaves. But facts speak louder than words; and, whatever may have been the dicta of fathers, or councils, or doctors, and although the church was powerless to influence the government, before Constantine, and rapidly corrupted in its moral sense by its contact with a slaveholding aristocracy, afterwards, — still, the actual result was, that Christianity had not only greatly mitigated, but to a large extent abolished Roman slaver}^ before the downfall of the Western Empire. After that, Christianity had her work to do over again with the barbarian conquerors. They estab- lished a new system of bondage under the form of serfdom. But again, though the church was quite too much in sympathy witii tlie feudal lords, the silent influence of Christianity had almost entirely 13* 150 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. abolished this new form of slavery in Western Eu- rope before the sixteenth century.* Then appeared a third form of slavery — that of negroes — introduced gradually, and almost surrep- titiously, into the European settlements in America, and enlisting on its side, for a time, and to a large extent, the mistaken advocacy of the church herself. But here again the native spirit of Christianity at length prevails; and now, with the exception of Spain, Brazil,-)- and our Southern States, all the Western Christian World has declared itself openly and decidedly oj^posed to slavery. The aboli- tionists are not a mere knot of infidel malcontents, or New England fanatics, or Puritan Yankees, but the great mass of enlightened Christendom. The clergy and the dignitaries of the church may often have lagged behind, under the influence and the incubus of a conservative, and oppressive, and selfish aristocracy — (all aristocracies arc intensely selfish, * Russia, coming up somewhat behind, in the progress of Christian civilization, has completed the abolition of serfdom in Europe, in this nineteenth century. t The laws of slavery in Brazil are far more humane than in most slave countries. One provision enables the slave to have his name registered and his price fixed by a magistrate, and then pay that price as he can get small sums — the sale of the slave being no bar to counting previous payments — so that when the price is paid he is free. In 1850 the slave trade was pro- hibited in Brazil. Since the present reign commenced the num- ber of slaves has decreased one million, while the products of the soil have increased thirty-five per cent. The Emperor seems anxious to bring the system to an end, but indications in the northern part of the empire threaten him with a rebellion like ours, to perpetuate the system. Perhaps our suflFerings may be the means of mitigating those of Brazil. — Sj)irit of Missions. SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. IT)! as well as unscrnpulously cruel,) — but the spirit of Christlanit}^ has lived in the hearts of the Christian people, and has wrought out, thrice in succession, these triumphant results in favour of liberty. To what other cause than the influence of Christianity can they be ascribed ? If Christianity is friendly to slavery, whence has it come that precisely in the most enlightened Christian countries it is, and in Christian countries alone, that slavery is abolished and abhorred ? * Gold win Smith, the learned Professor of History at Oxford, states the case thus : " No sooner did the new religion gain power in the world, than the slave law, and the slave system of the empire, began to be undermined by its influence. In conscious alliance with stoicism, to which among all the ancient systems of philosophy it had the most affinity, Christianity broke in upon the despotism of the master, as well as upon the despotism of the father and the husband. The right of life and death over the slave was transferred from his owner to the magistrate. The right of correction was phaced under humane limitations, Avhich tlie magistrate was directed to maintain. All the restrictions on the enfranchisement of slaves were swept away. Tlie first Christian Emperor recognized enfranchisement as a religious act, and established the practice of performing it in the church, before the bishop, and in the presence of the congregation. " The liberties of the freedman were at the same * The appeal made, on the otber side, by (he authur of the "View," to the Greek Church, the Nestorians, tlie Cop(s, and Abyssinians, may be regarded as one of the strongest confirma- tions of my position. 152 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. time cleared of all odious and injurious restrictions. This remained the policy of the Christian Empire. The Code of Justinian, the great monument of Im- perial Jurisprudence, is highly favourable to enfran- chisement, and that on religious grounds. " The facility of enfranchisement, and the j^rospect of enlarging that facility, Avould conspire with politi- cal prudence to prevent Christianity from coming into direct collision with Eoman slavery. '' Hope was not denied to the Eoman slave. But hope is denied, or almost denied, to the American slave. In most of the Southern States the law with- holds the power of enfranchisement from the master, against whose benevolence and generosity it seems the State is more concerned to guard, than against his cruelty and lust. ^' A slave can be emancipated only by the authority of the legislature, or by a court of law, and upon special cause shown; and further, the condition of a Negro, when emancipated is such as to make free- dom at once a very qualified and a very precarious boon. The free Negro is still to a great extent ex- cluded from the rights of a citizen and a man. His evidence is not received against a white man; the law does not secure to him the safeguard of a trial by a jury of his peers ; he has no vote or voice in framing the laws by which he is governed, and de- grading restrictions are imposed even upon his religious worship. He is liable to be brought back into slavery many ways, — among others, by being married to a slave; and if his freedom is challenged, he must bring white witnesses to prove himself free. By the Eoman law the presumption was in favor of freedom, and, under the Empire, freedmen not only SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 153 enjoyed full liberty, but from their industry and pliancy often engrossed too much power in the State. " But the Eoman world was doomed ; and it was doomed partly because the character of the upper classes had been deeply and incurably corrupted by the possession of a multitude of slaves. '' The feudal age succeeded ; the barbarian con- queror took the place of the Roman master, and a new phase of slavery appeared. Immediately Chris- tianity recommenced its work of alleviation and en- franchisement. The codes of laws framed for the new lords of Europe under the influence of the clergy, show the same desire as those of the Chris- tian Emperors, to break in upon the despotism of the master, and assure personal rights to the slave. The laws of the Lombards, for instance, protected the serf against an unjust or too rigorous master; they set free the husband of a female slave who had been seduced by her owner; they assured the protection of the churches to slaves, who had taken refuge there, and regulated the penalties to be inflicted for their faults, instead of leaving them subject to an arbitrary will. " In England, the clergy secured the slave rest on the Sunday, and liberty either to rest or work for himself on a number of holidaj^s. They exhorted their flocks to leave the savings and earnings of the predial slave untouched. "They constantly freed the slaves who came into their possession. They exhorted the laity to do the same, and what living covetousness refused, they often wrung from death-bed penitence. This they did constantly and efl'cctually during the early part of the Middle Ages, while the church was to a great 154 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. extent in a missionary state, and had not yet been turned into an establishment allied with political power. Afterwards no doubt a change came over the spirit of the clergy in this as well as other res- pects. The church became an estate and part of a feudal system. Her Bishops became Spiritual Lords. And these Spiritual Lords, in the time of Eichard II., voted with the Temporal Lords for the repudiation of the King's promise of enfranchisement to the vil- lains, and the last serfs who remained in existence w^ere found on the estates of the church. *' Twice vanquished, in the shape of Ancient Slavery, and in the shape of Feudal Serfdom, the enemy rose again in the shape of ]!!^egro Slavery, the offspring not of Eoman or Barbarian conquest, but of commercial avarice and cruelty. And again Christianity returned to the struggle against the barrier'' thus a third time reared by tyranny and cujDidity in the path of her great social hope and mission, the brotherhood of man. By the mouth of Clarkson and Wilberforce, she demanded and ob- tained of a Christian nation the emanciiDation of the slaves in the West Indies. And if, in the case of American slavery, the upper classes of this country, from political considerations, have shown a change of feeling, and the clergy of the Established Church have gone with the upper classes, the Free Churches, more unbiassed organs of Christianity, have almost universally kept the faith. " If, then, we look to the records of Christianity in the Bible, we find no sanction for American slavery there. If we look to the history of Christen- dom, we find the propagators and champions of the faith assailing slavery under different forms, and in SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 155 diiferent ages, without concert, yet with a unan- imity which would surely be strange if Christianity and slavery were not the natural enemies of each other." * Neander, the most learned of modern ecclesiastical historians, thus states the result of his investiga- tions : " Christianity effected a change in the convic- tions of men from which a dissolution of the whole relation of slavery, though it could not be imme- diately accomplished, yet by virtue of the conse- quences resulting from that change, was sure eventu- ally to take place. This effect Christianity pro- duced, first of all, by the fiicts to which it was a witness, and next by the ideas which, by means of these facts, it set in circulation. By Christ, the Saviour for all mankind, the differences among men, resulting from sin, Avere reconciled; by Him the original unity of the race was restored. These facts must now operate in transforming the life of man- kind. Masters as well as servants were obliged to acknowledge themselves the servants of sin, and must alike receive, as the free gift of God's grace, their deliverance from this common bondage, — the true, the highest freedom. Servants and masters, if they had become believers, were brought together under the same bond of a heavenly union destined for im- mortality ; they became brethren in Christ, in whom there is neither bond nor free, members of one body, baptized into one spirit, heirs of the same heavenly inheritance. "f Thc measured judgment of Giiizot is given in the * Goldvvin Smith, "Does the Bible sanction Slavery?" pp. 202-205. f Church History, Vol. I., p. 372. 156 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. following terms : " The church combated with much perseverance and pertinacity the great vices of the social condition, particularly slavery. It has been frequently asserted that the abolition of slavery in the modern world must be altogether carried to the credit of Christianity. I believe this is going too far : slavery subsisted for a long time in the bosom of Christian society without much notice being taken of it — Avithout any great outcry against it. To effect its abolition required the co-oj)eration of several causes — a great development of new ideas, of new i:>rinciples of civilization. It cannot, however, be denied that the church employed its influence to re- strain it ; the clergy in general, and especially several popes, enforced the manumission of their slaves as a duty incumbent upon laymen, and loudly inveighed against the scandal of keeping Christians in bondage. Again, the greater part of the forms by which slaves were set free, at various epochs, are founded upon religious motives. It is under the impression of some religious feeling — the hopes of the future, the equal- ity of all Christian men, and so on — that the free- dom of the slave is granted. These, it must be con- fessed, are rather convincing proofs of the influence of the church, and of her desire for the abolition of this evil of evils, this iniquity of iniquities.''* On the other hand, Balmes, a Spanish Koman Ca- tholic writer, in his great work on European civili- zation, is not at all content with the moderate judg- ment of the Protestant Guizot. " What abolished slavery among Christian nations ? Was it Chris- tianity ? Was it Christianity alone, by its lofty ideas in human dignity, by its maxims and its spirit of * Guizot. Civilization in Europe. Lect. C. SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 157 fraternity and charity, and also by its prudent, gen- tle, and beneficent conduct ? I trust 1 shall prove that it icas. " M. Guizot is much mistaken if he expects to prove that the abolition of slavery was not due ex- clusively to Christianity, by the mere representation that slavery existed for a long time amid Christian society. To proceed logically, he must first see whe- ther the sudden abolition of it was possible, if the sj^irit of peace and order which animates the church could allow her rashly to enter on an enterprise which, without gaining the desired object, might have convulsed the world. The number of slaves was immense; slavery was deeply rooted in laws, manners, ideas, and interests, individual and social; a fatal system, no doubt, but the eradication of which all at once, it would have been rash to attempt, as its roots had penetrated deeply and spread widely in the bowels of the land. <' It is not even necessar}^ to suppose that the first Christians understood all the force of the tendencies of Christianity with respect to the abolition of sla- very. "What requires to be shown is, that the result has been obtained by the doctrines and conduct of the church. " The first thing that Christianity did for slaves, was to destroy the errors which opposed, not only their universal emancipation, but even the improve- ment of their condition ; that is, the first force which she employed in the attack was, according to her custom, the force of ideas. This first step was the more necessary, as the same thing applies to all other evils, as well as to slavery; every social evil is always accompanied by some error which pro- 14 158 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. duces or foments it. There existed Dot only the oppression and degradation of a large portion of the human race, but, moreover, an accredited error, which tended more and more to lower that portion of humanity. According to this opinion, slaves were a mean race, far below the dignity of freemen ; they were a race degraded by Jupiter himself, marked by a stamp of humiliation, and predestined to their state of abjection and debasement,* a detestable doctrine no doubt, contradicted by the nature of man, by history and experience; but which, never- theless, reckoned distinguished men among its de- fenders, and which we see proclaimed for ages, to the shame of humanity and the scandal of reason, until Christianity came to destroy it, by undertaking to vindicate the rights of man. " We may inquire of M. Guizot what were the other causes^ the other ideas, the other principles of civili- zation, the great development of w^hich, to avail my- self of his w^ords, ^vas necessary ' to abolish this evil of evils, this iniquity of iniquities.' Ought he not to explain, or at least point out, these causes, ideas, and princij^les of civilization, which, according to him, assisted the church in the abolition of slavery, in order to save the reader the trouble of seeking or divining them? If they did not arise in the bosom of the church, ivhere did they arise ? Were they found in the ruins of ancient civilization ? But could these remains of a scattered and almost annihilated civilization eifect w^hat that same civilization, in all its vigour, power, and splendour, never did, or thought of doing? Were they in the individual indc- ■^' How much this is like the *' curse of Ilam !" SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 159 pendence of the barbarians P But that individuality, the inseparable companion of violence, must conse- quently have been the source of oppression and sla- very.* Were they found in the military patronage, introduced, according to M. Guizot, by the barba- rians themselves ; patronage which laid the founda- tion of that aristocratical organization which was converted at a later period into feudality ? But what could this patronage — an institution likely, on the contrary, to perpetuate slavery among the indigent in conquered countries, and to extend it to a consi- derable portion of the conquerors themselves — what could this patronage do for the abolition of slavery ? AVhere, then, is the idea, the custom, the institution, which, born out of Christianity, contributed to the abolition of slavery ? Let any one point out to us the epoch of its formation, the time of its develop- ment j let him show us that it had not its oriirin in Christianity; and we will then confess that the latter cannot exclusively lay claim to the glorious title of having abolished that degraded condition; and he may be sure that this shall not prevent our exaltino- that idea, custom, or institution, which took part in the great and noble enterprise of liberating the hu- man race.'^f The celebrated German theologian Mohler, also a Eomanist, has written a whole treatise to show that slavery was abolished by Christianity. I cheerfully set the authority of Balmcs and 3Ioh- ler against that of Bishop England, to whom the author of the " View" appeals, and whose see was no * Just as with our modern " cliiv.ilry." f Balmes, Europeftn Civilization, pp. 91, 05, 111. 160 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. Other than Charleston, S. C— as an exponent of the position of the Eoman Catholic church in relation to this question. In the face of all these authorities, what shall we say to such allegations as the following : " The causes which led to the extinction of slavery in Europe were secular and not religious," "no statement can be more unsupported by the facts of history than that the extinction of slavery in Europe was owing to the influence of Christianity." Did not the early Christians make emancipation a solemn religious act? And, as G-uizot says, was it not all along, *' under the impression of some religious feeling — the hopes of the future — the equality of all Christian men, and so on, that the freedom of the slave was granted ?" The friends of Wilberforce will be amazed to hear it intimated that he did not really aim at the aboli- tion of slavery in the "West Indies, and that he was not prompted in his efforts by Christian principle and religious motives. And hardly less amazed will the Quakers be, to learn that they have not regarded slavery as a sin, and have been influenced in their persistent efforts for its abolition only by the consi- derations of a " wise expediency T But, says the author of the " Yiew," triumphantly : *' that the Church of England held slavery to be jier- fectly lawful in itself, as well as the Church of Eome, and all the Christian denominations of Europe and America, through the whole period of their history, down to the end of the last century, and far into the present, is as incontrovertible as any fact can be. The Bishops of that church saw* no sin in the treaty of Utrecht, to which the religious Queen Anne was a party. They concurred in the Act of Parliament SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. IGl imdor George III., which regarded the negroes as lawful merchandise. The Puritans of New Enirland sold the Indians as slaves, and were the cliief im- porters of the Africans for the Southern market. Even the Quakers of Pennsylvania had slaves, and William Penn was a slaveholder." Now here we have a j)retty fair specimen of this whole " Yiew of Slavery," and of its style of reason- ing. Let us look at it a moment. 1. Ohserve the petty quihble of " lawful in itself.'* On this the whole hinges. 2. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was born in 1703. entered at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1720, took orders in 1725, received a Fellowship in Lincoln College in 1726, and the degree of A. M. in 1727. From 1735 to 1737, he resided as a missionary in Georgia and Carolina, where he had an opj)or- tunity to see with his own eyes what slavery was. It is he who so truthfully denominated slavery " the sum of all villanies." The author of the '• Yiew" has frequently quoted this phrase to sneer at it, but has entirely omitted the name of John Wesley, while the later Adam Clarke is quoted at large, apparently to illustrate a modern change in Methodist opinion. Had John Wesley and his followers been wise enough to remain in the bosom of the English church, and had that church been wise enough to retain them there, it certainly would not have diminished her spiritual life or lowered her Christian character or conscience ; and, in my opinion, would have been of inestimable advantage to the Methodists theniselvos, and to the church at large. John Wesley lias as good a right to speak in the name of Christianity, and as an ex- ponent of the genius of the Christian religion, as any 162 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. prelate of the English church; but there have not been wanting prelates and doctors of that church who have spoken against slavery with no doubtful utterance, such as Eishop TVarburton, Bishop Butler, Bishop Porteus, Bishop Horsley, and Archdeacon Paley. And if the point is, that the English church has not pronounced formally and authoritatively against negro slavery; I answer, on what has the Eng- lish church pronounced formally and authoritatively for the last two hundred years, except b}^ act of Par- liament, or of the privy council ? 3. But ''the Bishops of that church saw no sin in the treaty of Utrecht, to which the religious Queen Anne was a party. They concurred in the act of Parliament under George III., which regarded the negroes as lawful merchandise." ]^ow what was the treaty of Utrecht ? It secured to the English African Comj^any a monopoly in the introduction of negroes into the several j)orts of Spanish America, for the term of thirty years. And the first article stipulated that this company should bring into the West Indies one hundred and forty-four thousand negroes, within that period, one-fourth part of the commercial profits he- ing reserved to the King of Spain, and another fourth part to the Queen of England. Here it is important to have a fair understanding. ,Does the author of the " Yiew" approve or disapprove of the African Slave Trade ? Does he or does he not see any wrong in it? Let us know distinctly, and without any shuffling. In many parts of his book he seems opposed to the African Slave Trade, to re- gard it as an inhuman traffic, but to make a broad distinction between the Slave Trade and slavehold- ing. And then again he seems ready to justify tho SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 1G3 African Slave Trade itself. Observe, at all events, that the Bishops of the English church are admitted to be as fully committed to an approbation of the Slave Trade as of slaveholding; and the religious Queen Anne graciously received her share of the profits. "Was, then, the Slave Trade wrong? If, though not wrong then, it is wrong now, what makes it wrong now ? Is it wrong because it is for- bidden, or is it forbidden because it is wrong ? Would the author of the " Yiew" have men hung as pirates on the grounds of a ^^ wise expediency T^ Hung for buying and selling slaves in one latitude, and de- fended as the best of Christians — yes, the very best of Christians — for doing it in another ? 4. But the Puritans were slaveholders and slave- traders, and even William Penn held slaves. — Well, was this to the credit or discredit of the Puritans ? If it was to their credit, it is refreshing to find that something can be said to the honour of New England Puritans; but it is a curious thing to allege it as a means of heaping odium on their descendants. If it is to their discredit, then some of their descendants are doing what they can to hold themselves clear from any similar charge, and certainly they should not be found fault with for that. If the Irish author of the " Yiew'' were an earnest abolitionist, and was disputing to the New Englanders or the Pcnnsylva- nians their exclusive claim to the credit of the aboli- tion movement, what is said about the Puritans and William Penn, would be none the less ill-natured, but might have the apparent force of an argument. But as the case stands, this stale and ill-natured fling — even if admitted to be true, which it is not — has 164 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. not even the merit of possessing the slightest argu- mentative force. In fine, as to the position of the English church on this question, it is not here pretended that that posi- tion has been '■ ultra-abolitionist;'' but it is insisted that her heart and her voice have been in favour of emancipation and condemnatory of slavery. That cause must indeed be desperate which is reduced to the forlorn attempt to show that the Christian mind of England is in favour of slavery. The dignitaries of the Church of England, in sympathy w4th the aristocracy, may have been backward in condemning the system. But a man does not become any more of a Christian, nor is he of course imbued any more deeply with the spirit of Christianity, by being raised to the Episcopal bench. And from the time of St. Paul until now, the aristocracy is the last portion of society where one should seek the true genius and spirit of the Christian religion. If anything is to ruin the church of England, and if anything is to corrupt and enfeeble her American daughter, it is the disposition to sympathize too largely with the aristocracy and too little with the mass of the Chris- tian people. England is not only anti-slavery, but, notwith- standing all national and political jealousies, she is in favour of the side of freedom in our present strug- gle. And in this case, as in regard to the question of slavery itself, the opposition to our cause is found among the aristocracy, and the clergy of the estab- lished church who affiliate with them. On the whole, it cannot be doubted that Chris- tianity is an anti-slavery religion, that the enlight- ened Christian church is, and ever has been, an SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 165 anti-slavery church, that the prevailing sentiment of Christian Europe is an anti-slavery sentiment, and that those, whether on the continent or in Great Britain, who are opposed to us in our present con- test and sympathize with the rebellion, are actuated solely by political considerations and prejudices, in spite of their anti-slavery feelings. They favour the Southern oligarchy and oppose the free republic of the l!>[orth, or rather the great republic of the United States, because they so far harmonize with our " Chris- tian Bishop" as to sneer at the principles of the im- mortal Declaration of Independence, to reject the natural rights of man, and to decry the idea of the peoj)le's being capable of self-government; and be- cause they dread the future powder, moral, political, and physical, of this rising Western Empire, if it be allowed to wax to its fall growth as one great free Commonwealth. I venture to add the following from a vigorous English writer, as indicating, from an Englishman's point of view, the character and spirit of the persis- tent efforts made in certain quarters to poison and prejudice English opinion, in relation to our present national struggle and its proper causes : " It is a melancholy reflection, that on no question in our day has so much want of candor been dis- played, or so much dishonest perversion been re- sorted to, as on this question of the American revolt. The origin of the war, the object of the war, the progress of the war, the spirit in which tlie war is conducted, in spite of the clearest possible facts, have, one after the other, been disputed, denied, or perverted. When Southern politicians, from Davis to Toombs, and from Stephens to Spratt, tell us that 160 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. they design to establish a Government, based on the bondao-e of the laborer — when the bishops of the Episcopal Church declare that the 'abolition of slavery is hateful, infidel, and pestilent,' and the Eev. Dr. Palmer adds that ' the providential trust of the South is to perpetuate the institution of domestic slavery now existing, with the freest scope for its natural development;' when the statesmen, jour- nalists, and divines of the South join in one chorus of admiration for slavery, people among us are yet dishonest enough to aver that the question of slavery neither had nor has anything whatever to do with the rebellion of the South -, that that rebellion was simply and entirely a question of tariff ! " Precisely the same spirit is shown in dealing with the events of the war. When Sherman drives Johnston into the interior of Georgia, Johnston suc- ceeds in drawing Sherman from his base. When Grant attacks Lee in front, he is credited with the qualities of a bear. When he outflanks Lee, he is afraid to meet him in the field. When he at last succeeds, by strength, courage, or strategy, in driving him from Fredericksburg to Eichmond — why, then we are told that the Federal general might have reached that point long ago. While the opposing armies w^ere on the Eapidan, we had no end of pre- dictions that Grant would never see Eichmond. When he at length does see it, we are assured that Grant is a fool for not taking a shorter route. Ever since Butler landed on the James, we have had almost daily assurances that the next mail would bring us news of his having been driven into the river. On the other hand, every repulse of the Federals, how- ever trifling, has been magnified into a rout; while SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH. 1G7 more than one success for the Confederates has been reported and gloried in twice or thrice over. " If one had read the exclusive news of the Cop- perhead newspapers only, one would have been sorely puzzled to understand how it is that the North is not overrun ; that Washington is not de- stroyed, and that the Armies of the Potomac and Cumberland exist at all. In the same, if Semmes didn't take the Kearsage, it was only because his ship was out of repair and his enemy was chain- plated. Semmes wasn't beaten; he ouly committed ' a mistake.' But if the critics are severe on the Federals, they are exceedingly charitable to the slaveholders. Semmes burns unarmed shij^s; runs away from the Federal cruisers ; libels the victor in his first fair encounter, and the critics celebrate his gallantry, and call him a hero. Like kings in the constitutional axiom, the slaveholders can do no wrong. They shoot negro teamsters at Murfrees- boro'; they give no quarter to the negro troops at Port Hudson; they burn alive the negro garrison at Port Pillow — and never a word of protest or cen- sure is uttered by the critics. They chain canuon- balls to the legs of Federal officers at Atlanta; they starve Federal j^risoners at Belle Isle; they make arrangements to blow up a military prison at Rich- mond ; they slaughter men, women and children in Kansas ; they play at nine-j^ins with the bones of the Federal dead; they commit every conceivablo atrocity, and many atrocities that are absolutely in- conceivable — and yet no Confederate commentator on the Avar goes out of liis way to condemn them. Such is the way in which contemporary events are chronicled in EiigUuid !'' CHAPTEE VI. SLAVERY AND ETHICS. SLAYEHOLDEES and their advocates are accus- tomed to give proof of their extraordinary piety by their constant devout recognition of Divine Pro- vidence. This belongs almost as invariably to the staple of their argument as does the curse of Ham or the Epistle to Philemon. What brought the I^egroes from Africa ? l^ot the wickedness of the slave trade, but Divine Providence. What perpetuates their bondage ? Not the cupidity of their masters, but Divine Providence. What deprives them of their rights? Not the iniquitous course of men, but the Providence of God. The prohibition of their instruc- tion, the infliction of cruel treatment, the system of concubinage, the compulsory separation of families — these are all dispensations of God's holy Provi- dence. And if the slaves are now to be emancipated, it will be brought about in the Providence of God, in his own good time ; and men must beware of med- dling with God's work, or attempting to forestall the Di- vine decrees. Says Bishop Hopkins : " If any man can seriously contemplate the awful debasement of the native Africans, and candidly compare it with the present condition of the Southern slaves, and then denou7ice as a sin the means wdiich Divine Pro- vidence has chosen to save them from their former (168) SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 160 state of wretched barbarism, lean only say- that I am at a loss whether I should be most aston- ished at the waywardness of his heart, or the blind- ness of his understanding." " In the Providence of God, the negro slavery of the South has been the means of saving millions of those poor creatures from the horrible state in w^hich they must other- wise have lived and died.'' Observe, by the way, that this argument justifies the slave trade even more directly than it does the " negro slavery of the South." And further on, he says : " Until it comes" — the time when the race of Canaan shall be relieved from the curse, — " it is our duty to submit with pa- tient faith to our allotted condition 3 not rebelliously warring against the will of the Most High, nor vainly opposing ourselves to the arrangements of his Pro- vidence, nor accusing our brethren in Christ as sin- ners because they keep in slavery the race which God saw fit to doom to servitude." And acrain ; "When the time for the total abolition of slavery comes, it will not be by the insane projects of politi- cians, through blood and desolation. The Supremo Euler of nations, in whose hands are the hearts of men, will incline the minds of the South, when ho sees it to be right, to institute and carry on tlie pro-. cess, in the only safe and effectual way, which has been pursued by the other States in relation to it. Since the world began slavery has never been abol- ished by external force and violence. It has been done away by internal action on the part of those who are directly concerned." Ho then cites, in ilhistra- lion, the two cases of St. Domingo and the British AVest Indies. Now this, by the way, seems to me a most singular perversion. Since the world began 15 170 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. was it ever heard that a legislature controlled by slaveholders freely abolished slavery ? The legisla- tures of all our free States were, by immense ma- jorities, under the control of non-slaveholders, when they abolished slavery. Not a slaveholder was re- presented in the British Parliament which passed the emancipation act. If the abolition of slavery had been left to the " internal action'^ of the West India Colonial legislatures, it would not have been abolished to this day, — not to say, never; — nor, if the doctrines of this " Yiew of Slavery" were adopted and acted on by slaveholders, would they ever abolish slavery anywhere; for why should they ? Is it not a Divine institution — an unspeakable blessing, an ordination of God's Providence, perfectly just and right ? How soon would the " Supreme Euler of nations," under such instructions as those, and while '' Cotton is king," incline the hearts of Southern slaveholders to the " total abolition of slavery ?" Has slavery been abolished in Missouri, in Louisiana, in Maryland, in West Virginia, in Yirginia herself, — or would it ever have been abolished, by the influ- ence of such doctrines as those contained in this " Yiew," or by the " internal action'^ of the slave- holders themselves ? But this by the way. What I have now to com- ment upon is — this very pious appeal to Divine Pro- vidence. The author of the " Yiew" is not alone in this. It is quite characteristic of slaveholding logic. The Professor of Agricultural Chemistry in the Uni- versity of Georgia remarks on the "Providential" proportion of the untilled lands of the South and *' the unemployed power of human muscles in Africa." — " I trace, he exclains, " the growing de- SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 171 mand for negro muscles, bones, and brains to the good providence of God." But I will not multiply quotations. It will be found, as I have said, that this appeal to the Providence of God underlies a large part of the argument, and is the basis of some of the most fervid denunciations of this " Yiew of Slavery," and of pro-slavery writers generally. I shall not call it blasphemous ;* but shall endeavour, once for all, to expose its fallacy, its utter and in- sufferable nonsense, considered as a matter of rea- soning. The whole question lies in a small compass. It must be plain, upon the slightest reflection, that the " Providence of God " has nothing whatever to do with determining the moral character of the actions of men. What sin was ever wrought, what * The one-sided notions which pro-slavery men entertain of Divine Providence are well illustrated by the following fact: In the Episcopal Convention of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, held at Pittsburg, in May, 1864, this resolution was offered: — •' Resolved, That in the long deloy of success in suppressing this monstrous rebellion, we see wonderfully manifest the hand of God, training by his severest chastisements, this reluctant peo- ple to a readiness to do justice and show mercy to a long-op- pressed and outraged race;" whereupon, the Rev. Mr. Swope, of Pittsburg, was understood to denounce the resolution as " blasphemous y But wherein did the blasphemy consist ? In recognizing the Providence of God? That can hardly be. In professing to fathom God's designs? If so, what is Palcy's The- ology but one mass of blasphemies? In ascribing mch a design to God, as leading men *'to do justice and show mercy?" But what design could be more worthy of his Providence ? Or, finally, did it consist in this, that the Rev. Mr. Swope knew that God had no such design as was ascribed to him? But that would be a mere question of fact ; and besides there would then be as much *• blasphemous" presumption on one side as on the other. 172 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. crime was ever perpetrated, what cruelty or villainy was ever committed, what action, right or wrong, was ever done by man, what event, of whatever char- acter, ever transpired in human history, — which did not take place by the Providence of God ? Because God brings good out of evil, does that justify the evil ? If so, not slavery, alone, but all sin, would find speedy absolution. God's Providence, but not the evil, is thereby justified. The justification of God's Providence, and the justification of man's agency, are two distinct things. A Theodicy is not a system of ethics. " Whatever is, is right," is true in relation to Divine Providence, but not true, most assuredly, in relation to human actions. The slave trade, with all its execrable and horrible bar- barities, took place under Divine Providence. The slave trade was abolished and declared piracy, under Divine Providence. All the atrocities of the old French Eevolution were committed under Divine Providence. The American Eevolution was achieved under Divine Providence. ]^egro slavery was estab- lished in America under Divine Providence. And wherever, and by whatever means, internal or ex- ternal, — violent or peaceful, — sudden or gradual, — it shall ever be abolished, it is to be presumed it will be under Divine Providence. Why, has not the " abo- lition fanaticism" itself, as well as the institution of slavery, arisen under Divine Providence ? And yet abolitionists are denounced because they would " in- terfere with the Providence of God." If a man can get outside of the Providence of God, to interfere with it, he must go somewhere that I never heard of. Did the steamship interfere with the Providence of God ? Did the telegraph interfere with the Provi- SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 173 dence of God ? Does the teacher, with his instruc- tions for the ignorant, interfere with the Providence of God ? Does the physician, with his remedies, interfere with the Providence of God ? But are not darkness and death, both spiritual and temporal, sent upon mankind as the result of a Divine curse ? Why, then, should it be an interference with the Providence of God, to preach deliverance to the cap- tive, to seek the freedom of the slave, to endeavour to enlighten and elevate the long-oppressed and be- nighted Negro race? What there should be so peculiar, in just this particular case, in relation to Divine Providence, passes all comprehension. In the name of common sense, then, let us hear no more justifications of slavery and denunciations of aboli- tion, from the Providence of God. Another great gun in the slaveholders' ethical logic, which they never fail to bring into requisition, and which the author of the " Yiew'' has several times discharged with evident satisfaction at its ex- pected execution, — is this, that " slavery is not wrong 2Jer se, not wrong in itself, and irrespective of the question of treatment.'' But if the whole question of right or wrong lies in the treatment, then slavery in itself has no character at all. What is slavery in itself^ Where was it ever seen ? It becomes a pure abstraction. It exists only in the mind; and it may readily be admitted that the idea of slaver}', as it exists in a man's mind, is not morally wrong. lUit wherever slavery exists as a fact, it exists in the concrete. Nothing really exists in itself, but God. If all slavery were abolished except slavery in the abstract, slavery in itself, the most rabid abolitionist might well be satisfied. Killing a man is not wrong 15* 174 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. in itself. Taking my neighbour's goods is not wrong in itself. Desiring another's property is not wrong in itself; for, if it were, the tenth commandment would be violated in every case of trade or barter, since each party desires that which belongs to the other. No external act or course of action is good or bad in itself, i. e., without reference to the agent and his motive. The essence of right and wrong pertains to that which is internal, the heart, the will, the purpose. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Yet we condemn murder, though we can see nothing but the indiiferent external act; we con- demn it, because tlxat act in certain connexions is held to imply the malicious intent. So of theft, and other crimes. So of slavery. Taken in its concrete connexions, we know it must generally be wrong; and, if there are any excerptions, the burden of proof is upon them ; they must show that they are excep- tions. Slavery, in general, just as certainly implies, on the part of the master, cupidity, selfishness, dis- regard for his neighbour's rights, as deliberately killing a man with a bludgeon implies malice pre- pense. Such slavery as that described by Judge Kuffin is no abstraction ; it cannot possibly be right. Another familiar justification of slavery is derived from its beneficial results; it has improved the con- dition of the blacks ; it has been a most effective missionary institution. But here we meet with the plain moral principle, that good results, unless in- tended, do not justify our actions, for they do not properly belong to us; nor even when intended do they always furnish a complete vindication ; for " the end alone does not justify the means." And what man in his senses can honestly believe that SLAVERY AND ETHICS. .175 Southern slaveholders, in general, hold their slaves, and that slave traders buy and sell them, from the dominant motive of improving their condition and saving their souls ? Are the Southern masters edu- cating and preparing their slaves for freedom ? How much progress have they made in the work during the last thirty years ? and if they go on at this rate when will the}' be ready to emanci2)ate them all? If it be suggested that they may be, at least in jDart, controlled by good motives, some more, some less, — I answer that as men usually act from complex and mixed motives, it is rare that any man, in any action, is absolutely good or absolutely bad. The worst things, even slavery, may have something of good in them, without being thereby justified; and some slaveholders may be comparatively good men, though the system of slavery be thoroughly bad. Even a murderer may have some good qualities, and may have been prompted to the very act of murder, in part, by good motives. The advocates of slavery, when the cruelties and oppressions incident to the system are charged upon it, rarely fail to carry the war out 0/ Africa; saying, "there are cruelties and oppressions and evils in free countries also," — "let him that is without sin cast the first stone;" "reform your own social sys- tem before you meddle with the reformation of others." But it is no justification of one thing, — rather it is an implied condemnation of it, — to say that other things are as bad, or even worse; nor is it so much as a valid arcjumentum ad hominem, whilo the party addressed does not defend the latter in passing over them to attack the former. And even though his passing over the one and assailing tho 176 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. other should be admitted to be an inconsistency in him, that would not, in the slightest degree, alter or affect the intrinsic moral character of the things in question. " This is as bad or worse," — then that is confessedly bad. Neither the condemnation nor the punishment of crimes is to remain in abeyance until 2)erfcct men can be found to apply them ; otherwise, the administration of moral judgment and human justice must utterly and forever cease. Nor is a man or a community estopped from attempting any reformation abroad until there are no evils or faults to bo corrected at home. If the reforming party claimed to be perfect, there might be ground for a fair retort ; but even this would furnish no defence or proper justification of that which he would re- form. Moreover, the existence of evils or wrongs in spite of the law, is no excuse for a law or a system and course of legislation establishing and protecting in- justice and oppression. The cases are not parallel. Crimes exist in spite of all laws ; but that is no good reason for legalizing them; nor is it even any good reason for abolishing all legislation. We must be content, — if content at all, — with what is short of perfection; while yet perfection must be our con- stant goal. When slavery is defended as being right in itself^ and all the wrong, if any, is transferred to the treat- ment, and declared, therefore, to be merely incidental, the intention must be — unless slavery is left a mere characterless abstraction — to speak of slavery, the " relation of master and slave," as a thing, a reality, embodied in the law. Aside from all "treatment," what real meaning can be attached to "the relation of master and slave," except as it is defined, sane- SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 177 tioned, and maintained b}- the law? If that law is Avronc:, then that " relation of master and slave" is wrong. ]^ow the Christian moralist may judge of the rightfulness of laws, and, if a citizen of a free country, it is his bounden duty thus to judge; for, 80 far as he has a moral or political influence, he is responsible for their character. I know there are some who dispute this view. No less a man than one who had been a distinguished officer in the navy, and afterwards a senator in congress from the State of New Jersey, and who considered either his per- sonal importance or the weight of his doctrine suffi- cient to authorize his publishing a formal Address to the People of the JVorth just before the breaking out of the Southern Eebellion, — made the distinct an- nouncement, " whatever the law declares to be right, is right."* This was a short and easy method to put an end to all discussion about the right or wrong of slavery. But, according to this, a legislature is not only supreme but infallible. A legislature can do no wrong, can enact no injustice. Neither can legislators, without absurdity, raise the question of right or wrong in discussing a proposed measure; if they only enact it, it cannot help being right. One might as well say, " whatever the law declares to bo true, is true;" — if the law says "black is white," then black is white. Those who hold this doclrino * And yet the honourable Senator Avould perhaps be among tho first to declare that the emancipation of the slaves by law with- out compensation to the masters would be wrong : for example, that an amendment of the Constitution of the United States, con- stitutionally made, so emancipating; all the slaves in the country, would be wrong; or a similar amendment of a State constitution, say, of Maryland, similarly made, would still be wrong. 178 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. would do well to consider what is their idea of right, and whence it is derived. Is their very idea of right, " that which is established by law ?'' Then to say that "what the law establishes is right/' is as much as to say, " what the law establishes, the law estab- lishes." On the other hand, is their idea of right derived from the judgment of the moral faculty and indeiDcndent of the positive enactment of law ? Then the statement that " whatever the law declares to be right, is right,'' becomes a mere opinion of fact, and not a doctrine of necessary truth; the opinion may be false in any given case ; it is manifestly false in many cases, and, in every case, the question whether it be true or false must be submitted to the decision of the moral faculty. Says Bishop Hopkins : " The nearest approach on earth to what men call freedom and equality consists in subjection to good laws What compels this subjection? The Government. What is the G-overn- ment ? It is the systematic organization of force. ]Sro law is of any efficacy among men unless there is a power able to execute it. But the importance of Government is seen in this, that the force which it exercises is regulated by the fixed principles of jus- tice, and intended to operate on every class in the community, so as to protect their rights and privi- leges;" and, farther on, he speaks of " the rule of a just government." I^ow whether or not he means here to affirm the same doctrine with that of the New Jersey Senator, may be uncertain. There are other statements in his book, — as when he repeats the stereotyped denunciations of " the higher law," — which seem to look in that direction. And, if he means that, as a matter of necessity or of universal SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 171) fact, " the force which the Government exercises is reguhated by the fixed principles of justice, and in- tended to 02:)erate on every class of the community, so as to protect their rights and principles," then he adopts that doctrine in terms. But, if he means that this is the proper idea of Government, which may or may not be realized in particular cases; then his is a very different doctrine from the other. And he must mean this, if he would not avoid absurdity; for, otherwise, what sense is there in " good govern- ment, '^ ^^just government," "government being regu- lated hy fixed 'principles of justice ?" Surely this must imply that there may be had government, unjust gov- ermont, and that the fixed principles of justice exist antecedent and superior to the government which they are to regulate. But though our moral judgments are properly in- dependent of and superior to the laws, — not our external actions, but our moral judgments, — still, it must be admitted that the laws under which we have been educated react powerfully upon our moral judg- ments. If we had grown r.p where the murder of a human being was punished but slightly, or not at all, while to maintain that slaver}^ is wrong and ought to be abolished was a capital offence, we might very probably come to regard the aboiitionist as much worse than the murderer. A Frank inquired of an Arab what he considered the greatest of sins. " The greatest sin," said the Arab, "is, to deny the Tinity of God," " and the next greatest is, to drink the shamefuV — (i. e., to use wine) — "these can never be forgiven; let these be avoided, and the rest is of little consequence." " l^ut what of murder, adultery, robbery?" &c., iixpiircd the Frank. " God 180 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. is merciful/' was the Arab's reply. What, then, is the Southern law of slavery? I have already re- ferred to the decision of Judge Euffin, to show that the " relation of master and slave/' as defined and maintained by Southern law, is an immoral relation. That decision does not stand alone. I propose to add here other specimens of slave law, taken almost at random from a collection made by Judge Stroud : The civil law — except where modified by statute, or by usages which have acquired the force of law — is generally referred to in the slaveholding States, as containing the true principles of the institution. It will be proper, therefore, to give an abstract of its leading doctrines ; for which purpose, I use Dr. Taylor's Elements of the Civil Law, page 429; — "Slaves," says he, "were held pro nullis; pro mortuis ; pro quadrupedibus. They had no Jiead in the State, no name, title or register; they were not capa- ble of being injured; nor could they take by purchase or de- scent ; they had no heirs, and therefore could make no will ; ex- clusive of what was called their peculium, whatever they acquired was their master's ; they could not plead nor be pleaded for, but were excluded from all civil concerns whatever; they could not claim the indulgence of absence reipubliccB causa; they were not entitled to the rights and considerations of matrimony, and, therefore, had no relief in case of adultery ; nor were they pro- per objects of cognation or afiinity, but of quasi-cognation only; they could be sold, transferred, or pawned as goods or personal estate ; for goods they were, and as such they were esteemed ; they might be tortured for evidence, punished at the discretion of their lord, or even put to death by his authority." (p. 9.) The doctrine of South Carolina is equally strong. It is concen- trated by Wardlaw, J., in this single sentence: — "Every endea- vour to extend to a slave positive rights is an attempt to reconcile inherent contradictions; for, in the very nature of things, he is sub- ject to DESPOTISM." Uz parte Botleton, 2 Slrobhart, 41. He gives this as a quotation from Kinlock vs. Harvey, Harper's Rep., 614, with the commendation, " as is well said.'* According to the law of Louisiana, " a slave is one who is in the power of a master to SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 181 whom he belongs. The mnstcr may sell him, dispose of his per- son, his industry, and his labor; he can do nothing, possess no- thing, nor acquire anything, but what must belong to his master." Civil Code, Art. 35. As to the master's power to punish his slave, a limitation seems to be contemplated by the following article: — Tlie slave is entirely subject to the will of his master, who may correct and chastise him, though not with unusual rigour, or so cu to viaim or mutilate him, or to expose, him to the danger of loss of life, or to cause his death. Art. 173. Yet, as will be fully demonstrated hereafter, no such limitation actually exists, or can by law be enforced. With respect to the other slaveholding States, as none of these have adopted e?itire ivritien codes, enunciations of such a general na- ture as are exhibited in the quotations just made from the law of Louisiana are not to be expected. Nevertheless, the cardinal principle of slavery — that the slave is to be regarded as a thing, — is an article of property, — a chattel personal, — obtains as un- doubted law in all of these States, (p. 10.) Having transcribed acts of South Carolina and of Louisiana, which are too long to be inserted here, Judge Stroud adds : Hence it appears that acording to a statute that was enacted upon the most solemn deliberation by one legislature, and which has been adopted since by four distinct bodies of the same nature, ten hours make up the longest space out of twenty-four hours, which can be demanded for labor from convicted felons, whose pun- ishment was designed to consist chiefly of haud labor. Yet the slave of South Carolina, under a law professing to extend humanity towards him, may be subjected to unremitting toil for fiftken Hoi'RS within the same period ! ! If we turn to Louisiana, the condition of tlio slave will be found, in this particular, without melioration. For, though the purpose of the act which I have transcribed is declared to be to ascertain what hours are to be assigned to the slave for work and BEST, the only rest which it provides is half an hour at breakfast, and two hours at dinner. At what time a third meal is to be taken, whether at sunset or at midnight, is left to the master's IG 182 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. pleasure. Ami, judging from our knowledge of the luodo in which sugnr i.s made, anEATii, at the discretion of the court." Ibid. (p. 208.) "Whosoever shall make use of language in any public dis- course from the bar, the bench, the stage, the pulpit, or in any place Avhatsoever, or 'whoever shall make use of language in private discourses or conversations, or shall make use of signs or actions, having a tendency to produce discontent among the free coloured population of this State, or excite insubordination among the slaves, or whosoever shall knowingly be instrumental in bringing into this State any paper, pamphlet, or book, having such tendency as aforesaid, shall, on conviction thereof before any court of competent jurisdiction, suffer imprisonment at hard labor not less than three years nor more than twenty-one years, or DEATH, at the discretion of the court." Ibid. (Stroud, p. 104.) The following laws ^vere enacted in the slave code of the territory of Kansas; and but for the opposi- tion of Eepublicans, would have been sanctioned by a slaveholding and Democratic Congress, and thus stamped with the authority of the United States Government : "Section 11. If any person print, M'rite, introduce into, pub- lish, or circulate, or cause to be brought into, printed, written, published or circulated, or shall knowingly aid or assist in bring- ing into, printing, publishing, or circulating within this territory any book, paper, pamphlet, magazine, handbill or circular containing any statements, arguments, opinions, sentiments, doctrine, advice or innuendo calculated to produce a disorderly, dangerous, or rebellious disaliection among the slaves in this territory, or to induce such slaves to escape from the service of their masters or to resist autliority, he shall be guilty of felony, and be punished by imprisonnicnt and hard labour for a term not less than five years. " Section 12. If any person, by speaking or writing, assert oi* maintain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in this 196 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. territory, or shall introduce into this territory, print, publish, write, circulate, or cause to be introduced into this territory, written, printed, published, or circulated in this territory, any book, paper, magazine, pamphlet or circular, containing any denial of the right of persons to hold slaves in this territory, such person shall be deemed guilty of felony, and be punished by im- prisonment at hard labor for a term of not less than two years." (p. 108.) On the 15th September, 1863, Judge Stroud pub- lished the following communication over his own signature, which contains a summary of the whole subject: " From several pamphlets recently published and extensively circulated, it has become evident that a new issue in Pennsylvania party politics has been inaugurated, viz. : Whether negro slavery, as it is maintained in the Southern States now in rebellion against the national government is consistent with the Christian religion ? " I deem it proper, therefore, in order that every one may be enabled to judge for himself on this im- portant subject, to give a very brief summary of the legal incidents of Southern slavery. Every part and parcel of this summary may be authenticated by the statutes of one or other of those States, and the re- ported decision of their highest courts of judicature. " It is a fundamental principle of negro slavery that a slave is a thing — a chattel wholly under the dominion of his master, subject to be bought and sold precisely as if he were a horse or a mule. He may be fed and clothed much or little, as his master may prescribe — may be compelled to labor as well on one SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 197 day as anothor, and as hard and as long as bis mas- ter may direct. '^ The slave has no legal right whatever ; cannot own anything; may be forbidden all society with his fellows ; may be kept in the most abject ignorance ; is not allowed to be instructed to read; is without any legal provision for acquiring a knowledge of his religious duties ; incapable of a lawful marriage ; denied all authority over those who are admitted to be his natural offspring; liable to have them at any age torn from him, without the slightest consultation or deference to his judgment or his feelings; and liable himself to be torn from them, and from their mother, with whom he has been permitted and en- couraged to cohabit as his wife, ne may be thus ruthlessly carried to a returnless distance, not only from his children and their mother, but from all else that he may liold dear. " The law also expressly sanctions his master in beating him with a horsewhip or cowskin, in chaining him, putting him in irons, compelling him to wear pronged iron collars, confining him in prison, hunt- ing him with dogs, and when outlawed, as he may be for running away, he may be killed by any one to whom he may refuse to surrender. " The whole of this summary I pledge myself to maintain in its literal and full extent, according to the law of one or another of the Southern slavehold- ing States. Geo. M. Stuoud." Such are some of the features of negro slavery as maintained by law in the Soutliorn States. If it be Baid, that, after all, these laws do not compel the 17* 198 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. master to maltreat his slave, tliongb they may pro- tect him in so doing, that good masters may never- theless treat their slaves kindly, that cases of out- rageous cruelty are probably exceptional, such stories being greatly exaggerated and often false; and, in fine, that instances of cruelty and outrage may occur in any society; — I answer, it is freely admitted that there may be some masters who, as Chrysostom said of Abraham, do not treat their servants as slaves; but these laws being made, not by some tyrant over whose acts the slaveholders have no control, but by the slaveholders themselves, show incontestably the animus of the system, show what those slaveholders in general mean to be at liberty to do; and why should they claim this liberty unless they mean to exercise it ? The overwhelming probability is that, in general, the practical w^orking of the system is tenfold worse than its published and acknowledged theory. Slaveholders are not likely to paint their system worse than it is. On its OAvn public confes- sion, therefore, we may impeach it before the com- mon judgment of mankind as a monstrous and mea- sureless wrong; and most assuredly that judgment will not pronounce an acquittal. " Slavery as main- tained in the Southern States" is wrong, morally wrong. But is slavery a sin? The defenders of slavery have, of late, made a great point of denying this. Bishop Hopkins strenuously denies it. Judge Wood- ward, of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, has said, in a political speech, " If it be a sin, I agree there is an end to my argument. But what right has the abolitionist to pronounce it a sin ? . . . If a sin, then it is a violation of some Divine law; for sin SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 199 is tho transgression of the law. Now I deny that any such law has ever been revealed." Here, then, the issue is joined. Will the Jiidgo deny that every wrong against man is a sin against God^ whether expressly forbidden in the Bible or not? But he will say, it is because God has commanded us to obey the magistrate and the laws, and, there- fore, every violation of the laws is a violation of God's commandment. True, but God has commanded us to obey the law of reason and conscience, as well as the laws of the State ; every violation of that law, therefore, is a violation of God's law. "All unright- eousness is sin.'' Will the Judge deny that there is a law — a law of Qod — engraven in our reason, as well as that which is written in tho pages of Scripture ? The revealed law of God is not substituted for the moral law written in man's heart and conscience. Eevelation takes man's moral and rational nature for granted; it addresses itself to that nature, and without that na- ture it coidd not be so much as understood. Chris- tianity neither annuls nor contradicts the natural reason and conscience, but enlightens, elevates, and enlarges them. This natural law the heathen had, while destitute of revelation; and it was the law of God. " Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them .... so that they are without excuse .... knowing the judgment of God, that they which do such things are worthy of death." " For whon the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature tho things contained in the law, these, having not tho law, are a law unto themselves: which show tho work of tho law written in their hearts, their con- 200 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. science also bearing witness, and their thoughts in- wardly accusing or else excusing them." Eom. i. 19, 32, and ii. 14, 15. As for the •' natural man," in 1 Cor. ii. 14, " who receiveth not the things of the Spirit," he is not the physical or ethical^ but the " psj'chical," the miimal man. Says the judicious Hooker : " By force of the light of reason, wherewith God illumin- eth every man that cometh into the world, men being enabled to know truth from falsehood, and good from evil, do thereby learn in many things what the will of God is; which will himself not revealing by any extraordinary means unto them, but they by natural discourse attaining the knowledge thereof, seem the makers of those laws, which indeed are his, and they but only the finders of them out." " The very Law of JSTature itself, which no man can deny but God hath instituted, is not of God unless that be of God whereof God is the author as well by the way of natural light as of supernatural revelation." " The will of God which we are to judge our actions by, no sound divine in the world ever denied to be in part made manifest even by light of nature, and not by Scripture alone." " Bat so it is, the name of the light of nature is made hateful with men; the ' star of reason and learning' [the unanswerable argument of 'French Infidels' and 'German Eationalists' had not then been heard of — would it have silenced Hooker ?] and all other such like helps, beginneth no otherwise to be thought of than if it were an unlucky comet ; or as if God had so accursed it that it should never shine or give light in things concern- ing our duty any way towards him, but be esteemed as that star in the Eevelation called Wormwood, which being fallen from heaven, maketh rivers and SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 201 waters in which it fallcth so bitter, that men tasting them die thereof. A number there are who think they cannot admire as they ought the power and authority of the word of God, if in things divine they should attribute any force to man's reason. For which cause they never use reason so willingly as to disgrace reason/'* Indeed Hooker's great work en- tire may be considered a defence of the light and law of nature and reason. Moreover, it is not the word, nor even the will, of God, that constitutes the law of riii-ht or of truth. Eiicht and truth have their roots in the nature of things, in the very being of God, and are not the creatures of his will. God can no more create or annihilate the right by an act of his will or an utterance of his word than he can create or annihilate himself The right is not right because God wills it, but God wills it because it is right. Otherwise, how could we attribute a moral character to God? He could have no such character at all unless the acts of his will could be compared with some standard independent of them. This absolute and immutable law of right is revealed to us partly in our natural reason and partly by a supernatural instruction. Unless it were, in part at least, revealetl to us in our reason, and so revealed that we could rely upon it, how could we appCal to the pure mo- rality of the Scriptures as a confirmation of tlieir divine origin ? In order that any such confirmation could be conceived of, must we not have a Icnowlodgo of the moral law with which their cliaracter is com- ]nared, in some way independent of tlieir own dicta- tion 'i * Ecclcs. Pol., Book T. 8, and Book IK., 1, S. 202 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. But, at all events, say Bishop Hopkins and Judge Woodward, " slavery is nowhere declared to be a sin ill the word of God," and is it well to be wise above that which is written ? or, as the Bishop says, " shall we be wiser than the Almighty?" It is admitted : slavery is not expressly declared in Scripture to be a sin. But no more is the slave- trade, or cannibalism, or private war, or suicide, (for, the original word for " kill," in the sixth com- mandment, is never applied to killing one's self any more than to killing a sheep,) or gambling, or keep- ing bawdy houses, or stock-jobbing or gladiatorial shows, or bull-fights, or polygamy, or many other things which would hardly be considered now as "Divine institutions." And if the Judge, as a law- yer, alleges that these, or most of them, are wrong because they are forbidden by the laws of the land; then I observe that some things are admitted to bo wrong, — and consequently sinful, 1 suppose, — without being expressly forbidden in Scripture; and, besides, I ask whether these are wrong simply because the law prohibits them, or whether the law prohibits them because they are w^rong? In conclusion, I invite attention to the following discourse of a Mormon Elder : DISCOURSE OF A MORMON ELDER) CONTAINING A BIBLE VIEW or POLYGAMY. My brethren, there is no one thing for which we, the true saints of God, are more reviled by the radi- cal and ranting sects around us, than for our going back to the Divine institution, and restoring the good old patriarchal custom, of having many wives; SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 203 — an institution sanctioned, blessed, and even ex- pressly commanded by Almighty God; an institution never disapproved, or repealed, or abolished, by Jesus Christ, or his apostles; a custom which was practised by the holy patriarchs avIio walked with God, and was preserved as a privilege of his chosen people, sanctioned in their law and never disallowed by their prophets; (while many of the heathen na- tions, as the Eomans, for example, confined each man to one lawful wife;) a custom which began be- fore the flood, and has been continued in the world, without any reproof from Divine revelation, through all ages to the present time, especially among the descendants of the religious Shem, in whose tents God promised to dwell ; while it is only some tribes of Japhetic origin, and especially those among whom rationalism, infidelity, atheism, and all ungodli- ness have become rife, who have adopted and insisted. U2:)0n tlie opposite custom. " But polygamy," they say, " is a sin." If it is a bin, I agree there is an end to my argument. But what right have the monogamists to call polygamy a sin ? If a sin, then it is a violation of some Divine law; for sin is the transgression of the law. Now 1 deny that any such law has ever been revealed. If there be such a law let them show" it to us in ex- I»ress terms. If they can find no such law, let I hem leave off their blas2")heni()us habit of denouncing polygamy as a sin — and the ver}' saints of (iod as ainncrs. Js it conceivable that (iod sliould liave walkrd lamiliarly witli Abraluun,sliouM have talked with him face to face, as a man tali-ielii wilb his iVicnd, should have consulted willi liiiii, as it worr, in roi^ard to 204 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. what ho himself proposed to do, — as in the case of the Sodomites, whom he was about to punish, not for having many wives, observe, but for crimes which grew out precisely from their leaving the natural use of women — and yet should never have rebuked him for having more than one wife; if polygamy had been a sin — a sin in itself? And are these modern Christian sects purer and holier than Almighty God? Was not Jacob compelled, as it were, " by the Providence of God," to take two v^ives, when he sought but one; and afterwards led to add more, that he might beget the twelve patri- archs, and thus the promise to Abraham of the mul- tiplication of his seed be fulfilled ? — for to fulfil a jjroviise is surely as good a justification of any act as to fulfil a curse. Polygamy is not only thus sanctioned by God's presence, communion and blessing; but it is ex- pressly recognized and commanded in his law. In immediate connection with the solemn enactment about Hebrew servants, it is added; " If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish." Ex. xxi.^ 10. Airain : " Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her^ to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her lifetime." Lev. xviii. 18. Here the right of polygamy in general is implied. So in this pas- sage : " If a man take a wife and her mother, it is wickedness." Lev. xx. 14. Also : " if a man have two wives, one beloved and another hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the first-born be hers that was hated," &c Deut. xxi. 15. Of the future king it was written : " Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 205 liciirt turn not awii}-; neither shall he greatly miilti- pl}^ silver and gold." Dciit. xv. 17. The Puibbins restricted the " many wives" to more than three or four; but Solomon, who was wiser than they, ex- tended them to beyond a thousand. But there is one law by which polygamy is, in certain contingen- cies, expressly commanded: "If brethren dwell to- gether, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger; her husband's brother shall go in unto her, take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother unto her." Deut. xxv. 5. And then an ignominious punishment is provided for the man who would not obey this precept ; and it is plain it made no difference whether he were already mar- ried or not. Now here is polygamy required and commanded by the Divine law ; and are our modern sectarians wiser than the Almighty ?* This law, neither Christ nor his Apost4es expressly abolished. They nowhere expressly prohibited po- 13'gamy. Christ was entirely silent upon the sub- ject. It is true, an attempt has been made in cer- tain quarters to show that in Christ's comment upon tlie law of divorce, he indirectly prohibited polj'ga- m}', viz., when he declared : " If a man put away his wife, and marry another, he committeth adultery;" for, it is argued, if marrying another after divorcing * It has been satisfactorily and unanswerably proved by the iJisliop of Vermont, in his late work on Slavery, that slavery is a Divine institution. But we see here that the argument for polygiimy is stronger than that for slavery even; for it will hardly be pretended that the holding of slaves is positively en- joined upon any parties as an imperative duty, as wo sec that polygamy is in this Divine law. 18 20G so U TIIERN SLAVERY. the first is adultery, much more would it be, without divorcing her. This is sharp, but it will not do. The text probably means that the man is virtually guilty of adultery^ because he exposes his divorced wife to commit it; for in Christ's formal exposition of the law, in the Sermon on the Mount, he says : " But I say unto you, that whosoever putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to com- mit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.'^ Now this must, in all reason, be received as furnishing the key for the interpretation of the other passages. See a late work of the Et. llev. John II. Hopkins, Bishop of the Diocese of Yermont, in which he restrains the mean- ing of the general law against man-stealing, found in one place, by a more specific law against stealing one of the children of Israel, found in another place. As to the injunction of the apostle Paul that "a Bishop should be the husband of one wife," the sects around us very strangely twist it into meaning, that he may be the husband of no wife at all ; but, at all events, must have but one ! while the true interpre- tation manifestly is, that he must be the husband of at least one wife, and may have as many more as he will. But even if the sectarian interpretation were the true one, it would not follow that polygamy was such a sin as to shut a man out of the communion of the apostolic church, but just the contrary; for if polygamy cut a man oif from the communion of the church, there would have been no occasion to tell Timothy not to ordain such a man as bishoj) or elder, since no such man could be so much as a sup- posable candidate for that office. Nor would it even follow that polygamy was any sin at all, unless a want SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 207 of "aptness to teach," or having "unbelieving chil- dren or children accused of riot or unrul}^/' is a sin; for these are also to be taken into the account in the qualifications of a bishop. And if it were a sin in a bishop to have unbelieving or profligate, or unruly children, it must be equally a sin in all Christians. NoAV if a man had a son who was guilty of licentious conduct, though it were no fault of this man, it might be very expedient and proper that he should not be or- dained to the episcopate ; whether, in case of his son's committing debaucher}" after he, the father, was or- dained, it might be required that he should resign his office, does not appear. A bishop, therefore, may have been forbidden to have more than one wife, not because it was a sin in itself, but from some spe- cial motives of prudence and propriety, pertaining to the office. Thus, even following the monogamist's interpretation, there is nothing in the apostle's in- junction which necessarily militates against the right of polygamy. When the ultra-monogamists appeal from the higher authority of Scripture to the lower authority of the "early church,'' it must be borne in mind how early that church became corrupt, especially in regard to this very subject of marriage and celibacy. Yet for more than three hundred years that church never ventured to declare polygamy to be unlawful. It was at the council of Nice that laymen wore, for the first time, forbidden to have more than one wife, and this was after the conversion of Constant ine, ichen the Itoman law began to take preceJcnee of the Divine. But it is not to be forgotten that this game council, in the very face of St. Paul's injunction that a bishop or elder sliould be the husband of one 208 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. wife, was upon the point of decreeing the perpetual celibacy of the clergy ; which was warded off only by the zealous opposition of old father Paphnutius. This principle of the celibacy of the clergy, how- ever, — a corrugation which seems to have crept into the church pari passu with that of the monogamy of the laity, — was soon after generally established, and has prevailed in far the larger part of the so-called Christian church to the present day; which may serve to show how much the authority of '^ the church" is worth in the interpretation of Scripture. Yet, it is remarkable that, so late as the beginning of the fifth century, we find no less a man than St. Augustine not venturing to deny the rightfulness of polygamy. " It is j^lain," says he, " that for a man, with the consent of his wife, to take another by whom he might have children, was right with the ancient fathers : ivhether or not it is also right Jiow, I would not venture to say."* It is true he elsewhere says : " It is not lawful to put away a barren wife and marry another, nor to have more than one wife living, — in our times, that is to say, and by the Roman custo7n"-\ Now if this is not inconsistent with his other statement, — and it is well understood that consistency is not one of the peculiar jewels of the early fathers, who seem to have blown hot or cold * Plane uxoris voluntate adhibere aliara, unde communes filii nascantur unius commixtione ac semine, alterius autem jure ac potestate, apud antiques patres fas erat: utrum et nunc fas sit, non temere dixerim. Aug. De Bono Conj. Cap. 15. f Possit enim homo dimittere sterilem uxorem, et ducere de qua filios habeat : et tamen non licet; et nostris quidem jam temporibus ac more Romano, nee superinducere ut amplius ha- beat quam unam vivam, Aug. De Bon. Conj. 7. SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 209 as suited the present moment, — it is because he does not say in this last case, " it is not right," but " it is not kiwful;" — not notifas, but no7i licet; — and ho adds expressly, " in our times and by the Eoman custom;" showing plainly that he does not declare polygamy to be wrong by the Divine law, but simply " in our times" to be forbidden by the Eoman law. And we, latter day Saints, with full safety to our creed, may say as much, "in our times," of the laws of the United States, as " Saint" Augustine said, in his, of the laws of Eome. Indeed it is abundantly evident to any candid reader of history, that the doctrine of monogamy is of heathen origin, and was introduced into the Christian church from the Eoman law, in- troduced gradually with other corruptions, to the entire disregard of the teachings of Scripture, and of the holy, patriarchal institution of polygamy, which had been ordained and approved by God him- self. But were the Eoman jurists wiser than the Almighty ? [See note in Appendix.] Moreover, the benefits, moral as well as physical, flowing from the system of polygamy are incalcula- ble. It puts an end to whoredom and adultery at once, by removing their occasion. We have no bawdy-houses, no actions for crim. con., no starving seamstresses. Think of the tens of thousands of these poor creatures, in London, New York, and other Christian (?) cities, who are literally compelled to give themselves up to prostitution or to starve; and compare them with the well-iVd, ha]ipy wives of our teeming and patriarchal homes. If any man can candidly make the comparison, and then de- nounce polygamy as a sin, the very means which Di- vine Providence has chosen to save these women IS* 210 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. from that state of wretchedness and degradation, 1 can only say that I am at a loss whether I should be most astonished at the waywardness of his heart, or the blindness of his understanding. But the most astounding thing of all, is, that the Divine institution of polygamy, as restored and practised by our little flock of saints here in the wil- derness, should be denounced with expressions of holy horror by a people who are actually compelling four millions of human beings to live in a state of universal concubinacre. He that causeth another to commit adultery, is guilty of adultery ; he that com- pels another to live in concubinage, is guilty of con- cubinage; and he that approves of a system which keeps four millions of his fellow men in such a de- graded and brutish condition, is guilty of concubin- age four millions of times over. Let all such for- ever shut their mouths in regard to the " sin" of polygamy. In conclusion, I think it is sufficiently demon- strated that the system of polygamy, as maintained by the Latter Day Saints, is fully authoriz.ed by both the Old and the New Testaments. So far the Elder's discourse. I flatter myself ttat I should not find it difficult, from my stand-point, to expose its sophistries and refute its arguments. But how Bishop Hopkins could accomplish it, in consistency with his own Bible arguments, I am not able to understand. Indeed, the leading points in the Elder's discourse seem to have been borrowed directly from the Vermont Bishop and the Pennsyl- vania Judge. And if the learned Judge should attempt to evade the analogy by saying that polyga- SLAVERY AND ETHICS. 211 my is a sin, becaiiso, unlike elavcry, it is prohibited by the law of the land; I answer that an unconsti- tutional law is, with us, no law at all ; and clearly Concrress has no more a constitutional riti^ht to mcd- die with the institution of polygamy than with that of slavery; the former is quite as domestic an institu- tion as the latter; and if Congress may constitu- tionally prohibit polygamy in a territory, Congress may prohibit slavery in a territory. Beyond all cavil this would bo true, at least as soon as any one of the United States should legalize polygamy. One State having legalized polygamy, it follows, accord- ing to the current Democratic theory, framed for the party by their slaveholding masters and dictators, that polygamy would be inevitably legalized in all the territories of the United States, and Congress would have no constitutional authority to prohibit it ; for if one man could go into a territory with his family, another man would have an equal right to go with his family. And if it be further insisted that, Avithout any law of Congress, polygamy is for- bidden by the common law ; — so also is shivery; for the decision of Lord Mansfield is based upon the common law, is a part of the common law, and was antecedent to the American devolution. Shivery and polygamy are twins. The two " Divine institu- tions" must stand or fall together. CHAPTER Yll. SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE; — SUPE- RIOR AND INFERIOR RACES. IT IS well known that, among the slaveholding States, there are two classes, the breeding States and the buying States; there are also two sorts of slave trade, the domestic slave trade and the foreign slave trade. The breeding States naturally find it for their interest that the price of slaves should be kept as high as possible ; and consequently they are op- posed to foreign competition, i. e., to the African slave trade ; and are in favor of the widest extension of the system of slavery, as tending to enlarge their market. The buying and planting States, on the other hand, while equally in favour of slavery exten- sion, because the enormous profits and the increased political power come directly into their own hands, are naturally desirous of procuring the additional slaves at as cheap a rate as possible ; and therefore have begun to insist upon the re-opening of the Afri- can trade. Meantime the domestic trade is fostered by both parties, and, to the opprobrium of American civilization, has been continued to this day, with circumstances of outrage and heart-rending atrocity, which must be witnessed in order to be understood. " The story of human beings, reared amid the softening influences of civilization, who, so soon as (212) SLAVKIIY AND THE BLAVE TRADE. 218 they arrive at the maturity of their physical power, are, like so many cattle, shij^ped off to a distant re- gion of tropical heat, there to be worked to death — of husbands separated from their wives, children from their parents, brothers and sisters from each other — of exposure on the auction block, and trans- fer to new masters and strange climates — all this happening not to heathen savages, but to men and w^omen capable of friendship and affection, and sen- sible to moral suffering, — this story, I say, is familiar to us all."* " I affirm that there exists in the United States a slave trade, not less odious or demoralizing, nay, I do in my conscience believe, more odious and more demoralizincc than that which is carried on between Africa and Brazil. Korth Carolina and Virginia are to Louisiana and Alabama what Congo is to Eio Janeiro God forbid that I should extenuate the horrors of the slave trade in any form ! But I do think this is its w^orst form. Bad enough it is that civilized men should sail to an uncivilized quar- ter of the world where slavery exists, should there buy wretched barbarians, and should carry them away to labour in a distant land : bad enough ! But that a civilized man, a baptized man, a man 2)roud of being a citizen of a free State, a man frequenting a Christian church, should breed slaves for exporta- tion,! and, if the whole horrible truth must bo told, * Cairncs on the Slave Power, p. 72. f " The citizens of Virginia indignantly deny that thoy breed and rear slaves for the purpose of selling them. Not only do those who interpose this denial do so, in the vast majority of « cases, with a consciousness of truth, but, perhaps, in no single instance can it be truly affirmed, tliat any individual slave is 214 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. should even beget slaves for exportation, should see children, sometimes his own children, gambolling around him from infancy, should watch their growth, should become familiar with their faces, and should then sell them for four or five hundred dollars a head, and send them to lead in a remote country a life which is a lingering death, a life about which the best thing that can be said is that it is sure to be short ; this does, I own, excite a horror exceeding even the horror excited by that slave trade which is the curse of the African coast. And mark : I am not speaking of any rare case, of any instance of eccen- tric depravity. I am speaking of a trade as regular as the trade in pigs between Dublin and Liverpool, raised for the purpose of being sold. The determination to rear slaves is formed and executed this year, while the act of selling may not take place until twenty years hence. The two things are probably never resolved and consummated as parts of one plan. The fallacy of the denial interposed by the people of Vir- ginia consists in this, that, although no one slave may be raised with a special view to his sale, yet the entire business of raising slaves is carried on with reference to the price of slaves, and solely in consequence of the price of slaves ; and this price de- pends, as they well know, solely upon the domestic slave trade. Of the men who deny for themselves individually the fact of raising slaves for the purpose of selling them, too many make no scruple in insisting upon markets to keep up the price of slaves. The well-known lamentation of a successful candidate for the governorship of Virginia, uttered without rebuke before a Vir- ginia audience, that the closing of the mines of California to slave labour had prevented the price of an able-bodied negro man from rising to five thousand dollars, is only a single exam- ple of the freedom and publicity with which the domestic slave trade is advocated in that State." (Weston's Progress of Slavery, pp. 147-8.) SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 215 or as the trade in coal between tte Tyne and tlio Thames."* Take the following from an eye-witness; — for the general fact is, after all, best apprehended from a particular case : " But the bell rings, and the slaves are ordered on board the cars. They break away from their wives and husbands at the sound of the whip, and start for tho_' nigger' car. One of them, whose name was Friday, bounded back and gave his wife the last kiss of affection. Then the husband was pushed on board and the wife was left ! Friday's wife had a present tied up in an old cotton handkerchief, which she de- signed to give her husband as her last token of love for him. But in the more than mortal agony of part- ing, she had forgotten the present until the cars started, when she ran, screaming, as she tossed the bundle towards the car, ' O here Friday ! I meant to give you this!' But instead of reaching iihe car, it fell to the ground through the space between the cars, and such a shriek as that woman gave, when she saw that solitary emblem of the fidelity of her early vow and constant affection for her devoted husband fail to reach him, 1 never heard uttered by human voice. It thrilled my soul, leaving impressions that will never be effaced till m}^ dying day. Her heart was breaking ! She could no longer suppress her grief; and for some distance after the cars started, the air was rent with her bitter lanientations, burst- ing forth with the most frantic wails ever uttered in despair. "There were thirty-five passengers in that car, * Lord Macaulay'a Speech on tlic 8iig!ir Duties. 216 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. but no sympathy was expressed for the wretched victims of the billiard-table. Young ladies, daugh- ters of slaveholders, well educated, connected with refined families, were in that car, but they did not seem to pity the poor, despairing slaves. They laughed at them, and ridiculed their expressions of grief. ' Look out here !' said one of the young ladies at a window to a schoolmate opposite, 'just see those niggers ! What a rumpus they are making ! Just as if niggers cared anything about their babies ! See Cuffee kiss Dinah ! What a taking on ! Likely as not he will have another wife next week !' '"^ Now this is a part of the system of slavery " as it is maintained in the Southern States," and, of course, it is held by the " Christian Bishop" to be " fully au- thorized by both the Old and the ]S"ew Testaments." Nor does he leave us to infer this from his general statements, but, it will be remembered, he expressly defends this particular feature of the system by a formal argument. And, indeed, so long as slavery is maintained and perpetuated, this trade must go with it as part and parcel of the divine and provi- dential scheme ; and the real reasons why the African slave trade is rejected by any, who fully believe in the divine right of slaveholding, are not at all of a humane, moral, or religious nature, but of sheer sordid interest and " a wise" pecuniary " expediency." The " Christian Bishop" sides with these latter, and is opposed to the African slave trade ; but it would seem his opposition must be based solely upon the same motives of "a wise expediency;" — and this may serve to show how justly, as a moralist and a * C. G. Parsons' Inside View of Slavery. SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 217 Christian, be deserves the credit which he seems to claim for opposing the ^' slave trade." I cannot think of a single argument which he has alleged in defence of slavery, that is not equally valid in de- fence of the "slave trade ;'^ — especially is this true of his grand climax, already cited : " If any man can contemplate the awful debasement of the native Africans, and candidly compare it with the present condition of the Southern slaves, and then denounce as a sin, the means which divine Providence has chosen to save them from their former state of wretched barbarism, .... I can only say, that I am at a loss whether I should be most astonished at the waywardness of his heart, or the blindness of his understanding." Of course this is, in terms, appli- cable directly in justification of the African slave trade. I shall set against it an authority which even the " Christian Bishop," and the politicians who called for his " Views," will consider quite respect- able. — I quote from the message of President Bu- chanan, of December, 1859 : " But we are obliged, as a Christian and moral na- tion, to consider what would be the effect upon un- happy Africa itself, if we should re-open the slave trade. This would give the trade an impulse and extension which it never had even in its palmiest days. The numerous victims required to supply it would convert the whole slave coast into a perfect pandemonium, for which this country would be held responsible in the eyes both of God and man. Its petty tribes would then be constantly engaged in predatory wars against each other, for the purpose of seizing slaves to supply the American market. All hope of African civilization would thus bo ended. 10 218 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. " On the other hand, when a market for African slaves shall be no longer furnished in Cuba, and thus all the world be closed against this trade, we may then indulge a reasonable hope for the gradual im- provement of Africa. The chief motive of war among the tribes will cease whenever there is no longer any demand for slaves. The resources of that fertile, but miserable country, might be developed by the hand of industry, and afford subjects for legitimate foreign and domestic commerce. In this manner Christianity and civilization may gradually penetrate the existing gloom." Even Caiaphas prophesied, " being high-priest that year." — And what becomes, now, of all the rhetoric spent upon the moral and religious blessings and benefits accruing to mankind from Negro slavery and the African slave trade ? What, now, of these noble gospel and missionary institutions? Look at the great African balance-sheet ! There are two leading arguments, familiarly urged in defence of Negro slavery, which are equally appli- cable in justification of the slave trade : — either that " the Negro is not a man," or that " the Negroes are an inferior race." The former of these the " Chris- tian Bishop" professedly rejects; the latter he fully adopts. One or other of these arguments is so con- stantly insisted on as settling the whole question, that they demand some sj^ecial consideration. "Negroes are not men;" — this is an old idea; — " slaves are not men," said a Roman lady, (see Ju- venal.) Dr. Nott, of Mobile, and Mr. Gliddon, of IMiiladclphia, published, some years since, an elabo- rate work, the chief burden of which was to show that the Negro and the white man are not descended SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE T R A P E . 21 9 from a common origin. IIow far this Gliddonian infidelity lias extended at the Soutli it would be curi- ous to inquire; tluit it has infected to a considerable extent the Southern mind there can he no doubt. Says one Southern writer : " The wide-spread delusion that Southern institu- tions are an evil, and their extension danofcrous, — the notion so prevalent at the North that there is a real antagonism, or that the system of the South is hostile to jSTorthcrn interests; the weakened Union sentiment, and the utter debauchment, the absolute traitorism of a portion of the Northern people, not only to the Union, but to Democratic institutions and to the cause of civilization on this continent; all these, with the minor and most innumerable mis- chiefs that this mighty world-wide imposture has engendered or drags in its midst, rest upon the dogma, the single assumption, the sole elementary foundation falsehood, that a Negro is a black man.'' But, " at all events," say the slaveholders, " the Negroes are an inferior race ; and may, therefore, justly be kept in slavery;" — and to this the " Chris- tian Bishop" says. Amen. " Is it not certain that through his faults, still more than through his figure, the Negro is an inferior being? He is indolent, inactive, drunken, cruel, in- capable of labour, or virtue without compulsion. Ho is truly formed for his inferior condition; tlio litllo education of which he is susceptible he owes to ser- vitude." — This is the common argument. And, says Governor Aflams, of Soutli Carolina, in his message, in 185G, "until Providence decides otherwise, tho African must continue to be a liewer of wood and a drawer of water There was a lime when 220 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. a canting philosophy almost inclined our minds to believe that slavery was unjust. Investigations have wholly changed the common opinion on this point. The South now believes that a mysterious Provi- dence has mingled the two races together on this continent with some wise view, and that their mu- tual relations have been profitable to both. Slavery has elevated the African to a degree of civilization which the black race has never attained in any age or in any country." It is remarkable that this assumption of inferiority of race should have led to the refusal of almost all means and opportunities of intellectual improve- ment to the slaves. This, taken in connection with the assumed natural inferiority marked by attendant striking physical characteristics, makes the lot and the prospects of the enslaved Negro sad beyond description. " ' The only means by which the ancients main- tained slavery, were fetters and death; the Ameri- cans of the South of the Union have discovered more intellectual securities for the duration of their power. They have employed their despotism and their vio- lence against the human mind. In antiquity, pre- cautions were taken to prevent the slave from break- ino- his chains; at the f>resent day, measures are adopted to deprive him even of the desire of free- dom. The ancients kept the bodies of their slaves in bondage, but they placed no restraint upon the mind, and no check upon education ; and they acted consistently with their established principle, since a natural termination of slavery then existed, and one day or other the slave might be set free, and become the equal of his master. But the Americans of the SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 221 South, T^'ho do not admit that the Negroes can ever be commingled with themselves, have forbidden them to be taught to read and write under severe penalties; and as they will not raise them to their own level, they sink them as nearly possible to that of the brutes/ (De Tocqueville — Democracy in Ame- rica, Vol. II., pp. 246, 247.) The education of slaves amongst the ancients prepared the way for emanci- pation. The prohibition of the education of slaves amongst the moderns has naturally suggested the policy of holding them in perpetual bondage ; and laws and manners have conspired to interpose obsta- cles all but insuperable in the way of manumission. Thus the modern slave is cut oif from the one great alleviation of his lot — the hope of freedom."* ''The education of slaves was never prohibited in ancient Boman world, and, in point of fact, no small number of them enjoyed the advantage of a simple cultivation. ' The youths of promising genius,' saj's Gibbon, ' were instructed in the arts and sciences, and almost every profession, liberal and mechanical, might be found in the household of an opulent Senator.' The industrial necessities of llo- man society, (and the same was true of society in the middle ages,) in this way, provided for the edu- cation of at least a large proportion of the slave population ; and education, accompanied as it was by a general elevation of their condition, led, by a natural and almost inevitable tendency, to emanci- pation."f " The slave, amongst the ancients, belonged to the same race as his master, and he was often the supe- * Cairncs, pp. 70, 71. t Cairncs, p. C8. 19* 222 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. rior of the two in education and instruction. Free- dom was the only distinction between them ; and when freedom was conferred, they Avere easily con- founded together." " The greatest diffi- culty of antiquity [in the way of abolition] was that of altering the law; amongst the moderns, it is that of altering the manners; and, as far as we are con- cerned, the real obstacles begin where those of the ancients left off. This arises from the circumstance that, amongst the moderns, the abstract and transient fact of slavery is fatally united to the physical and permanent fact of colour. The tradition of slavery dishonours the race, and the peculiarity of the race perj^etuates the tradition of slavery. IS'o African has ever voluntarily emigrated to the shores of the l!^ew World; whence it must be inferred, that all the blacks who are now to be found in that hemi- sphere are either slaves or freedmen. Thus the Negro transmits the external mark of his ignominy to all his descendants. The law may cancel servitude: God alone can obliterate its brand."* Says M. Granier de Cassagnac, in his Voyage aux Antilles (pp. 137-9) : " The slaves sold by the African kings are their superfluous slaves, who have laboured for them and been born among them ; there are here and there a few prisoners of war, but these are rare exceptions. .... The slave trade, that pretended commerce in human flesh, becomes reduced, in the eyes of men of good sense, to a simjyle translocation of workmen, of incontestable advantage to the latter. Servitude does not constitute a condition of violence to those sub- * De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. II., pp. 215-17. SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 223 jocted to it; it is a method of organization of labour which guarantees the maintenance of the labourer during his natural life, in consideration of the sum of efforts of which he is capable. . . . The establish- ment of liberty in Europe has destro3^cd the ancient economical organization which resolved the problem of the material assistance of men by obligatory labour, but has not yet found a new and equivalent solution ; for at the present time the free labourers consume more than they produce, which is proved by the fact that they receive from society, in addition, alms, vagrant institutions, foundling asylums, and hospitals. . . . [' The free labourers consume more than they produce !' ^yho produces the balance ?] " l^othing less than the impenetrable crust of ab- surdity^ which envelopes the brain of European philanthropists, could prevent them from discerning these truths ! !"* " But are not the IS'egroes, after all, really an infe- * After such a defining of bis position, the testimony of !\r. Gi'anier de Cassagnac to another point may be received without disparagement. "The whites," writes he, "have failed in tlieir duties of morality and continency as Christians, I admit; but it is unjust to make their fault greater than it is; and if God par- dons them, the Negresses will not be the ones to hold malice against them. They consider themselves very naturally as the wives of those who feed and lodge them ; and when we see the kind of spouses to which they are accustomed in their own coun- try disembark from the slave-ships, we need not carry fatuity very far to believe that the latter can be replaced with them without striking disadvantage. This is, besides, their most sincere and scarcely disguised opinion, and if philanthropists believe them very unhappy in finding themselves exposed to the ardor of their new masters, a short voyage to the Antilles will radically con- vince them to the contrary." (Voyage aux Antilles, pp. 237, 210.) 224 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. Tior race?'' Suppose they are, does it follow that they should be reduced to slavery ? How inferior must a race be in order to authorize their being en- slaved? And, when you have settled your rule, who is to judge of its application ? There may be other Inferior races besides the negroes * It may be a * The " Christian Bishop" seems much exercised by the treat- ment which the Indians received from the Puritans of New Eng- land and the Quakers of Pennsylvania. But, in his view, the great misfortune, in the case of the aborigines, was, that we failed to reduce them to slavery, (p. 237.) Had they been en- slaved like the blacks, he thinks the red race might have been preserved and gradually civilized. Slavery is his panacea. In proof of his position, he has forgotten to refer, as he should have done, to the crucial experiments in Hispaniola, Cuba, and Mexico, where, in the two former cases, with slavery, the poor Indians were swiftly and utterly exterminated; and, in the latter case, without slavery, the aborigines still remain, by the million, either in pure or mixed breeds, and, with Christian churches and priests, in a state of at least semi-civilization. When the "Christian Bishop" has expended as much of his sarcastic indignation as he thinks fit upon the Puritans and the Quakers, and as much of his tearful sympathy as he can spare upon their Indian victims, let him turn next to the more modern instances of the Creeks and Choctaws threatened with a sweetly Christian extermination by the tender mercies of the Southern chivalry, and saved only by the interposition of the United States' government, which was compelled to tear them from the homes and graves of their fathers, and ruthlessly thrust them back into the Western wilderness ; and of the Seminoles of Florida hunted down like wild beasts through thicket, swamp, and morass, and their bleeding remnant torn from their native haunts and driven to share the abodes allotted to the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Creeks. Let him recount — to the honour of his " dear brethren of the South"— the causes and the course of this Seminole war: that the Indians had attacked and burned no settlements, had committed no acts of violence or barbarity against the whites, but had simply aflForded an asylum to runaway negroes ; had, in SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 225 question whether or not the Celtic race is inferior to the Anglo-Saxon. There may be white slavery, by this rule, as well as black slavery; and this is fully admitted by the " Christian Bishop ;" who even claims great credit to the Southern chivalry for their forbearance and self-denial in restricting the exercise of their divine right of enslaving, exclusively to the most degraded race of all. This Southern chivalry seriously claim to be a " superior race" to the free labourers of the North. They themselves are gen- obedience to an unrepealed divine command, refused to restore to their masters the slaves who had escaped to them for protec- tion ; — that, for this, and this only, they were assailed and pur- sued in an unrelenting war, and men, women, and children, either butchered or expatriated; that the United States' govern- ment employed its military force for several years in the work, expending some forty millions of dollars, losing mnny valuable lives of brave men, and bringing an eternal disgrace upon the American name by seizing the Indian chief Osceola in violation of a solemn promise to which the heroic savage had implicitly trusted. Let him tell us, whether, after all this national expen- diture of money, men, and honour, in such a cause, we of the North have nothing to do with Southern slavery, and are in no sense responsible for its maintenance and continuance. It is high time that all the abettors of Southern slavery, and admirers of Southern chivalry, and maligners of New England, whether born in Ireland or in South Carolina, should study the history of the modern Seminole war, instead of expending their righteous indignation upon the ''Tilgrim Fathers" and the Qua- kers, or exhausting their Christian sympathies upon the poor Indians of the distant past. Besides, it would not be amiss for them to inquire, whether it has been tlicir "dear brethren of tlie Southern church" or the descendants of the stigmatized Puritans and Quakers, who have made the most earnest and successful efforts to civilize and Christianize the Indian aborigines, and particularly those surviving and expatriated tribes of Choctaws, and Creeks, and Seminolcs. 22G SOUTHERN SLAVERY. tlemen, tlic others are the " mndsills of society." The descendants of adventurers and convicts a " su- perior race" to the descendants of the companions and co-religionists of Penn, and the sons of the Pil- grim fathers ! And having a perfect divine and na- tural right to make slaves of their inferior I^orthern neighbours, — if they could!! But, most amazing and incredible of all, there are found among North- ern men those who are mean and base enough to admit this outrageous assumption of Southern inso- lence ! ! ! 1 have myself been told to my face, by an eminent Judge and a distinguished Democratic politician of a Northern State, upon my suggesting that the South had no encroachments to complain of, that they had themselves governed the country ever since the or- ganization of the Union, — " yes, they have governed the country, and see how well they have governed it ! And don't you know,^^ he added, ^' that intelli- gence and virtue will always govern V Could de- grading sycophancy be carried further ? Think of that, freemen of the North. Think of a man coming and asking for your suifrages, with such an opinion as that of your virtue and intelligence — of the virtue and intelligence of his neighbours. Are you fit only to be governed by him and his Southern friends ? " The relations between the North and the South," says a Southern organ, " are very analogous to those which subsisted between Greece and the Eoman Em- pire after the subjugation of Aehaia by the consul Mummius. The dignity and energy of the Eoman character, conspicuous in war and politics, were not easily toned and adjusted to the arts of industry and literature. The degenerate and pliant Greeks, on SLAVERY AND THE ri L A V E T 11 A D E . 2'17 the contrary, excelled in the Landicraft and polite profL\ssions. We learn from the vigorous invective of Juvenal,, that they were the most useful and capa- ble of servants, whether as pimps or professors of rhetoric. Obsequious, dexterous, and ready, the ver- satile Greeks monopolized the business of teaching, publishing, and manufacturing in the Eoman Em- pire, allowing their masters ample leisure for the service of the State, in the senate or in the field." '' In confirmation of this historical theory," says Goldwin Smith, " it may be remarked that the Eomans of the Southern States, like those of the capitol, sprang from an asylum. One who was much con- cerned in the foundation of Virginia, said of that colony that ' the number of felons and vagabonds transported did bring such evil characters on the place, that some did choose to be hanged ere they would go there, and loere.' " And as to the inferiority of the African race, how far it is the result of their condition rather than of nature, the result of immemorial generations of de- basement and slavery,* it is impossible to say. That some of the descendants of Ham and even of Canaan, betra^^ed no remarkable intellectual, military, or po- * Or even of fear : — "Fear," says Bcntbam, "leads the labourer to Lido his powei's, rather than to show them; to remain below, ratlier than to surpass himself." .... "By displayiut:; superior c:ii>aeity, the slave would only raise the mcaj^ure of his ordinary duties; by a work of supererogation, he would only prepare punishment for himself! lie therefore seeks, 1)y coneealinu; liis powers, to reduce to tlic lowest the standard of requisition. His ambition is (ho reverse of that of the freeman : he seeks to descend in the scale of industry, rather than to ascend." 228 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. litical inferiority, let ^N^^irod, let the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires, let Egypt, with her monu- ments and untold ages of learning and power, let Tyre and Sidon, with Phenician commerce and let- ters, let Carthage and Hannibal, bear witness. And even of the modern ISTegro races : " "VYe know now," says Cochin, "that divided into numerous tribes, some a prey to abominable tyrants, and to the horrors of a fetichism in which the ser- j)ent recalls the ancient symbol of the. demon, and in which human sacrifices are a figure of the instinc- tive confidence of humanity in an atoning blood; others subjected to the yoke by the invasion of Mus- sulman hordes; all the black nations resemble each other in great kindness and gentleness, remarkable bodily vigour, a sobriety equal to that of the Indian, and enough love of labor and commercial intelli- gence to have cultivated vast regions, and founded towns of twenty or thirty thousand souls. AYe know, too, the sale of slaves to Europeans is the chief origin and example of the pillages and atrocities which weigh down the blacks of Africa. We know, lastly, that, despite the debasement of long centuries of darkness, blood, superstition, and oppression, several tribes are handsome, intelligent, and worthy of the most elevated types of the human family." Speke and Livingstone show us the African, not as he is known on the outskirts of his own country, corrupted and brutalized by his commerce with the slave traders, " but he is put before us," as an Eng- lish writer forcibly remarks, " in his true colours, with all the elements of good and evil that belong to his native, unsophisticated character. Barbarous ho may be, and liable to gusts of passion that some- SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 220 times carry him to deeds of savage violence. Ignor- ant he may be, and the shave of gross idohatry ; but he is not insensible to kindness; he is not unwilling to be taught and raised to something that belongs to a fiir higher order of humanity. And take him as Ivo is — untaught, ignorant of the arts of life, and the sport of savage passion — yet has he learned to bo faithful to his leader, to be true to his word, and honest in his dealings; and he has learnt so much of social union, that he is loyal to his chief, and proud of his tribe and name ; and he has many of those points of character, which, among civilized men, are called honour and patriotism. Nor is he a mere fierce and wandering hunter, like the red Indian of North America. For though he does love to follow the ' large game,' and to bring back their spoils for commerce, he also delights in agriculture, and dwells contentedly among his gardens and fields of corn ; longs to possess new implements and arts of culture, that he may turn them to profit; delights to im- prove his stock of domestic animals, to exchange produce with neighboring tribes, and thus to learn tiie arts of peace; he longs, also, for the improved arts and commerce of the white man, whose fame has reached him, but whose persons he has never seen." We may add, that, from the experiment in Liberia, we now know, also, that Negroes are capable of governing themselves, of managing their own politi- cal affairs, of developing no mean degree of intelli- ircncc and iearnino;, of home industry, of commercial enterprise, and even of statesmanship. And I liavo myself seen a class of Negro boys pass an examina- tion in mental arithmetic, in algebra, in geometry 230 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. and trigonometry; in Cicero and Sallust; in the Greek and Latin poets ; in all the mysteries of metro and prosod}^, — an examination conducted exclusively by coloured teachers, — as critical and thorough and satisfactory as I ever witnessed in any High School or College in the land.* As I looked upon this class of blacks, the reflec- tion was not, what an inferior race ! but rather the reflection, the sad reflection, was, what are these youths to do with this learning ? Where are they to find an arena for the exercise of these unfolded powers, for the use and enjoyment of this refined culture ? I thought of the infamous, but, alas, too pertinent, queries of Chancellor Harper, of South Carolina : " Would you do a benefit to the horse or the ox by giving him a cultivated understanding or fine feelings ? So far as the mere labourer has the pride, the knowledge, the aspirations of a freeman, he is unfitted for his situation, and must doubly feel its inferiority. If there are sordid, servile, and labori- ous offices to be performed, is it not better that there should be sordid, servile, and labourious beings to perform them ?" It is to be observed that, in this doctrine, the philo- sophic Chancellor goes beyond the ''inferior" Ne- gro race, and would have all the labouring class re- tained in rudeness, ignorance and slavery. And, in his zeal to check the natural desire for liberty, **'At the last annual 'Academmia Poliglotta,' of tlie stu- dents of the Propaganda, the youths who carried off the palm were two Negroes, rejoicing in the names of William Sambo and John Provost. Their delivery and action were wonderful, and called forth thunders of applause."— Zonrfon Record. SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 231 equality, and the elevation of one's condition, and to make all content with the allotments of Providence, the ['■ Christian Bishop" goes very far towards re- commending the same result. But a high moral motive is suggested in defence of Xegro slavery : it is the education of an inferior race. This motive calmed the scruples of Louis XIII., and the remorse of Louis XIY. ; it Avas on the lips of the adversaries of AYilbcrforce and Clarkson, and, three centuries before, in the speeches of the an- tagonists of Las Casas ;* it was the sole argument of the colonists of Guadaloupe and Jamaica ; it is the habitual answer of the tender-hearted ladies of Ha- vana; it is the pretext in the sermons of the preachers of South Carolina ; the thesis amplified b}" the wri- ters of Baltimore ; the summary excuse of the plan- ters of ISTew Orleans. They do not fail to add, that slavery is a means of converting a heathen race to Christianity. The slaves, therefore, are scholars and catechumens, the masters are instructors and i^reachers, the planta- * "It is known that Charles V. presided, in 1513, at Barcelona, over a solemn conference, to listen to Quevedo, Bishop of Darien, and Barthelemy de Las Casas, the illustrious and indefatigable protector of the Indians, in the presence of the Admiral of the Indies, Don Diego Columbus. The Bishop of Darien declared that all the inhabitants of the New World whom he had observed, appeared to him a species of men designed for servitude, through the inferiority of their intellect and natural talents, and that it would be impossible to instruct them, or cause them to make any progress towards civilization unless held under the continued au- thority of a master. Las Casas rose with indignation at the idea that there was any race of men born for servitude, and attacked this opinion as irreligious, inhuman, and false ia practice." — Robertson's America, Book III. 232 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. tions are boarding-schools and little seminaries, slavery is a method of education and conversion. After three centuries of this system, freedom is talked of " Take care !" exclaim the masters, with one voice ; '• you are about to thrust ignorant and depraved beings into society !" What ! the educa- tion and conversion of your scholars is not finished? Either the pupils are incorrigible, or the method is bad ; it is time to change it, and renounce this piti- ful argument. The fears of the masters give the lie to their promises : By the grace of God, servitude is decidedly not a means of civilizing or converting any member of the human family.* On the whole, if slavery is right, — not tolerated for a time and under certain circumstances, — hut justified as a moral state of human society, authorized and approved by the word of God : — then is the slavery of whites no less justifiable than the slavery of blacks, — it is a mere question of relative force and of fact; if I ca?i make you my slave, I have a right so to do ; if you are my slave, you ovglit to be my slave. Only I am bound to feed and clothe you well, and not to overtask or abuse you. It may be my duty, too, so far as it is for my interest, to give you religious instruction.-]- But for the rest, you are a * See Cocliin, Results of Emancipation, p. 301. f Tlie admissions of Queipo upon this point are extremely valuable.- He thinks that for the slaves, it suffices for the pre- sent to limit the education to religious instruction. He urges the government to facilitate, by every means within its power, instruction so useful; and mark what was the programme of this in his eyes ! "Religious instruction, directed by zealous and learned eccle- Biastics, far from influencing the relaxation of discipline, as some SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 233 " 7nere labourer," a slave ; you arc to serve me and bo content. Moreover tlie slave trade must be right also ; and those men must have been guilty, in their day, of making themselves "wiser than the Almighty, and more merciful than Jesus Christ,'' who laboured, on moral and religious grounds, for the abolition of that infamous traffic ; for, as long as it was estab- lished and protected by law, it was fully sanctioned and " authorized by both the Old and the New Tes- taments." If I may hold slaves, I may buy slaves; or, at least, if I ma}' buy them of my next neighbour, I certainly may buy them in a market three thousand miles off. The " hoi-rors of the middle passage" have no more to do with condemning the slave trade, as wrong, 'pcr se, than the undeniable instances of out- rageous cruelty in the treatment of slaves have to do with the condemnation of the system of slave- holding, ^^r se; for they may be incidental in one case as well as in the other; and, moreover, may be due to the officious intermeddling of abolitionists quite as much in the former case as in the latter. If, then, we say that slavery, as it exists, is author- ized and justified by the law and word of God and by the Gospel of Christ, and if the slave trade also is thus authorized and justified (which follows of course") ; and if it is deemed by slaveholders to be profitable and desirable to hold slaves and buy slaves and per- petuate slavery; what boots it for us to add that we perhaps foar, would contribute, on the contrary, to strenptlien the aiithority of the masters, by accustoming the slaves to suhmission, find teaching them to endure the privations of their transient condi- tion with the resignation whicli religion altmo can inspire." — Cochin's ilesults of Slavery, p. 171. 20* 234 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. desire the abolition of slavery or of tlie slave trade ? Why abolish it at another time rather than now? And why desire its abolition at all ? What prepara- tions, with such views, will be made for its ultimate abolition ? And why sliould any such preparations be made? It is a mere question of loss and gain, of "wise expediency," of joolitical economy; it has no moral character, no relation to religious duty. Why should I meddle with my neighbour's business con- cerns ? Why should I desire that he should plant cot- ton rather than flax, or raise oats rather than barley, or import lead rather than iron, or cutlery rather than sugar? Surely, if I desired anything in these cases, it would not be especially as a Christian that I should desire it ; it would not be a desire particularly appropriate and honourable to a "Christian Bishop," but must proceed merely from some selfish or personal or trivial consideration. If the " Christian Bishop's" argument proves, — as I think I have shown it does, — that white slavery and the slave trade are fully authorized, in this nineteenth century, by the word of God; — ^then his argument proves too much, and must be a fallacy. And, after such an argument, it is to no purpose at all that he adds, as a salvo for his own goodness of heart, the idle, and withal inconsistent wish that slavery and the slave trade might be done away. Meantime the argument is not idle ; it has its practi- cal application. For, I shall proceed to show that, notwithstandino; all the interests of their slave-breed- ing allies, and all the sentimental wishes of their Northern friends, and all the " indignant reproba- tion," too, of the Christian world, — the buying and planting slaveholders, being a large majority of their SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 235 craft, mid the enterprising progressives witluil, were fully bent upon the reopening of the African slave trade, at the earliest possible moment. Indeed, many cargoes of Africans had already been introduced and sold in South Carolina and Georgia; and it is remark- able that though the slave trade had been declared piracy by the laws of the United States, yet, up to the close of Mr. Buchanan's administration, I believe, not a man had been convicted under those laws, or suffered their punishment; and that "public function- ary" himself^ notwithstanding the very edifying ho- mily against the slave trade introduced into one of his annual messages, would not have ventured to lift a finger to catch a slave-trader, had his Southern mas- ters given him an intimation to mind his own busi- ness. It was not till after the commencement of Lin- coln's administration that Gordon, in New York, was convicted of being concerned in the slave trade. And one of the most irritating features of the whole busi- ness, is, that when this infiimous and lawless traffic is charged upon the South, they answer that, on the contrary, it is carried on by Northern men ; that tho slave ships are furnished by Northern capitalists, fitted out in the Northern ports, manned by Northern seamen, and the profits go into Northern pockets; — that is to say, while the slaveholders encaurage, cm- ploy and protect these pirates in their nefarious busi- ness, protect them against all the efforts of Northern men to bring them to punishment, tliey turn round and charge upon "the North" the infamy of tho whole transaction. And this is of a ])iece witli tho shrewd ])roceeding of the "Gln-istiaii I)isli()|)" in charging upon the city of New Yorlc, upon th(> freo and loyal people of New York, all On' crinus niid vil- 286 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. lainies perpetrated there by his own pro-slavery and negro-hating friends. Some of the evidence that the cotton States had begun to move earnestly in agitation and action for the re-opening of the African slave trade, I add here, as collectod by Professor Cairnes, of Galway, in his able work on the Slave Power. " With a view to the first point — the augmentation of the supply of slave labour — the obvious, and the only adequate expedient, was the re-opening of the African slave trade It was, accordingly, deter- mined, that an agitation should forthwith be set on foot for this purpose. The first blast of the trumpet announcing the new jDolicy was sounded by Governor Adams, of South Carolina, in his address to the legis- lature of that State in 1857. The prohibition of the slave trade was denounced in vehement terms. It was a violation of the Constitution, and it interfered with the essential interests of the South. By the closing of the African slave trade the equilibrium between North and South had been destroyed, and this equilibrium could only be restored in one way — by the re-opening of that trade. Let this once be accomplished — let the South have free access to the only labour market which is suited to her wants — and she has no rival whom she need fear. The key- note having been struck, the burden of the strain was taken up by other speakers, and the usual ma- chinery of agitation was put in motion through the South. The Southern press freely discussed the scheme.* It was brought before the annual conven- * "The Charleston Standard, complaining that the position of the South had hitherto been too much one of defence and apology, SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 237 tions for the consideration of Southern affairs, and received tlie energetic support of the leaders of tho extreme Southern party.* At one of these conven- tions hekl at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in May, 1850, a adds, 'to the end of clinnging our attitude in the contest, and of planting oar standard right in the very faces of our adversaries, we propose, as a leading principle of Southern policy, to re-open and legitimate the slave trade.' And it then proceeds, in a series of articles, to argue at length the rightfulness and expediency of this measure, expounding and elaborately enforcing the fol- lowing propositions, viz.: — 'That equality of States is necessary to equality of power in the Senate of the Union ; that equality of population is necessary to equality of ^ power in the House of Representatives ; that we cannot expand our labour into the ter- ritories without decreasing it in the States, and what is gained upon the frontier is lost at the centres of the institution; that pauper white labour will not come into competition with our slaves; and, if it did, that it would not increase the integrity and strength of slavery ; and that, therefore, to the equality of influence in the Federal Legislature, there is a necessity for tho slave trade.'" * "Mr. Yancey has denied this in a letter to the Daily Xexos, and declared that he ' does not know two public men in the South, of any note, who ever' advocated the restoration of tho trade, and that 'the people there are and have been almost unanimously opposed to it.' It is unnecessary to re-open a question which has been disposed of, and I therefore refer the reader, who wishes to ascertain the authenticity of Mr. Yancey's statement, to the Daily Ncios of the 27th and 28th January, 18G2. One or two specimens, however, may be given of the views of Southern politicians ou this subject. The lion. L. W. Spratt, of Georgia, in a speech at Savannah in favour of the African slave trade, thus expressed himself: — ' The first reason for its revival is. it will give political power to the South. Imported slaves will increase our ropresen- tation in the National Legislature. More slaves will give us more States; and it is, therefore, within tlie jiower of the rude untu- tored savages we bring from Africa to restore to the South tho influence she has lost by tho suppression of the trade. Wo want 238 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. vote in favour of the re-opening of the trade, was passed by a large majority ; and this was followed up by the formation of an 'African Labor Supply Asso- ciation,' of which Mr. De Bow, the editor of the lead- ing Southern review, was president. In Alabama a ' League of United Southerners' issued a manifesto in which the Federal prohibition of the foreign slave trade is denounced as an unworthy concession to the demands of ]N"orthern fanaticism, and which insists on ' the necessity of sustaining slavery, not only where only that kind of population which will extend and secure our political institutions, and there is no other source but Africa.' Mr. A. H. Stephens, the present Vice President of the Southern Confederation, has thus pointedly put the argument for the open- ing of the trade: — 'We can divide Texas into five slave states, and get Chihuahua, Sonora, &;c., if we have the slave population, and it is plain that unless the number of African stock be increased, we have not the population, and might as well abandon the race with our brethren of the North in the colonization of the territo- ries Slave States cannot be made without Africans. I am not telling you to do it, but it is a serious question concerning our political and domestic policy ; and it is useless to wage war about abstract rights, or to quarrel and accuse each other of un- soundness, unless we get more Africans Negro slavery is but in its infancy.' " And Mr. Jefferson Davis, while declaring his disapprobation of opening the trade in Mississippi, earnestly disclaimed ' any coincidence of opinion with those who prate of the inhumanity and sinfulness of the trade. The interest of Mississippi, not of the Africans,' he said, ' dictates my conclusion. Her arm is, no doubt, strengthened by the presence of a due proportion of the servile caste, but it might be paralyzed by such an influx as would probably follow if the gates of the African slave market were thrown open.' . . . . ' This conclusion, in relation to Mississippi, is based upon my view of her present condition, not upon anT/ general theory. It is not supposed to be applicable to Texas, to Neio Mexico^ or to any future acquisition to he made south of the Rio Grande.^ " SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 239 its existence is jnit directly' in issue, but where it is remotely concerned.' In Arkansas and Louisiana tlio subject was brought before the State Legislatures. A motion brought forward in the Senate of the former State, condemnatory of the agitation for the revival of the African slave trade, was defeated by a majority of twenty-two. In the latter a bill embodying the views of the advocates of the trade was passed suc- cessfully through the lower House, and only by a nar- row majority lost in the Senate. In Georgia the executive committee of an agricultural society offered ' a premium of twenty-five dollars for the best speci- men of a live African imported within the last twelve months, to be exhibited at the next meeting of the society.' 'Nor was the j)rinciple of competition con- fined to the show-yard. Southern notions would have been shocked if so solemn a work had missed the ben- ediction of the Church. Accordingly it was proposed in the True Southern, a Mississippi paper, to stimulate the zeal of the pulpit by founding a prize for the best sermon in favour of free trade in human flesh. Mean- while those who were immediately interested in the question had taken the law into their own hands, and the trade in slaves with Africa was actually com- menced on a large scale. Throughout the years 1859 and 1860 fleets of slaves arrived at Southern ports, and with little interference from the Federal Govern- ment, succeeded in landing their cargoes. The traflic was carried on with scarcely an attempt at conceal- ment. Announcements of the arrival of cargoes of Africans, and advertisements of tlieir sak', a])])eared openly in the Southern papers; and depots of newly^ imported ' savages' were established in the princij^al towns of the South. ' I have had ampk^. evidences of 240 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. the fact/ said Mr. Underwood, a gentleman of known respectability, in a letter to the New York Tribune, ' 'that the re-opening of the African slave-trade is already a thing commenced, and the traffic is brisk and rapidly increasing. In fact, the most vital question of the day is not the opening of- the trade, hut its suppres- sion. The arrival of cargoes of negroes, fresh from Africa, in our Southern ports, is an event of frequent occurrence.' " (Cairnes, pp. 121-124.) '"Take off,' says Mr. Gaulden of Georgia, 'the ruthless restrictions which cut off the supply of slaves from foreign lands, . . . take off the restrictions ao-ainst the African slave trade, and we should then want no protection, and I would be willing to let you have as much squatter sovereignty as you wish. Give us an equal chance, and I tell you the institution of slavery will take care of itself " (Cairnes, p. 137.) E"or let it be supposed that Virginia, or all the slave-breeding States, would have breasted the rising Southern tide. " The sympathies which bind slaveholders together have always proved more powerful than the particular interests which would sunder them; and whatever course the necessities of slavery, as a system, have prescribed, that the whole array of slaveholders, with a disregard for private ends which, in a good cause, would be the highest virtue, has never hesitated to pursue." The advocates of slavery have long and pertina- ciously insisted that the philanthropic but fanatical efforts for the suppression of the slave trade have rather resulted in intensifying the horrors than dimin- ishing the amount of the traffic. This is of a piece with the ordinary reasoning of slaveholders and their SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TllADE. 241 friends. They are always ready to take advantage of their own or of their clients' wrong. But the allega- tion is not true. " When we compare what took place a few years ago," said Lord John Eussell, June 8, 1860, " when we remember that one hundred and forty thousand slaves were yearly carried away from Africa, while this year the number has not reached thirty thousand, we should neither deny the progress nor abandon the hope of a complete suppression of this traffic." And Livingstone wrote to Lord Clarendon, March 19, 1856, from the Eiver Zambesi : "A certain Dr. Bryson has written that the measures taken to sup- press the slave trade have done nothing but increase its horrors. It has also been gravely affirmed that the Maravi now kill their captives, whereas formerly they kept them to sell to the whites. I can assure your Lordship that such an assertion could not come from a man mixed up, as I am, with slave-traders, in the very country where the traffic is carried on ; it is spread by those who have an interest in the slave trade. In the extensive portion of Africa with which I am acquainted wars are now very rare : they were evi- dently provoked by the slave trade. It is rare now to see a cafilah of slaves on its way to the sea-shore, and the traffickers know that they risk more than in ven- turing their money at play. By taking away all pos- sibility of industry, the commerce in slaves is the cause of the complete ruin of East and West Africa." But, while slaveholders and their allies, including some Christian Bishops, are ready to defend the slave trade, it is comforting to know that there is, at least, one portion of the church where a " Christian Bishop" would not be allowed to maintain the rightfulness of 21 242 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. this traffic. I close this chapter with the following extracts from the apostolic letter of Pope Gregory XYL, issued in 1839: " The law of the Gospel having very soon univer- sally and fundamentally ordained sincere charity to- wards all, and the Lord Jesus having declared that He would regard as done or refused to Himself all the acts of beneficence and mercy done or refused to the poor and little ones — it naturally followed that Christians not only regarded their slaves as brethren, above all when they were become Christians, but that they were more inclined to give liberty to those who rendered themselves worthy of it. This usually took place particularly on the solemn feasts of Easter, as St. Gregory of Kyssa relates. There were even found some who, inflamed with more ardent charity, em- braced slavery for the rede^nption of their brethren ; and an apostolic man, our predecessor. Pope Gregory I., of sacred memory, attests that he had known a great many who performed this work of mercy. "Where- fore the darkness of Pagan superstition being entirely dissipated in the progress of time, and the manners of the most barbarous nations being softened, — thanks to the benefit of faith working by charity, — things advanced so far, that for many centuries there have been no slaves among the greatest part of the Chris- tian nations. Yet (we say it with profound sorrow) men have been since found, even among Christians, who, shamefully blinded by the desire of sordid gain, have not hesitated to reduce into slavery in distant countries, Indians, Negroes, and other unfortunate races ; or to assist in this scandalous crime, by insti- tuting and organizing a traffic in these unfortunate beings, who had been loaded with chains by others. SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 243 "Wherefore, desiring to remove such a disgrace fi'oni all Christian countries, after having maturely considered the matter with many of our venerable brethren, the Cardinals of the Hol}^ Roman Church, assembled in Council, following the example of our 2:)redecessors, by virtue of the apostolic ofhce, we warn and admonish in the Lord all Christians, of whatever condition they may be, and enjoin upon them that, for the future, no one shall venture unjustly to op- press the Indians, Negroes, or other men, whoever they may be ; to strip them of their property or re- duce them into servitude : or give aid or support to those who commit such excesses, or carry on that in- famous traffic, by which the blacks, as if they were not men, but mere impure animals, reduced like them into servitude, without any distinction, contrary to the laws of justice and humanity, are bought, sold, and devoted to endure the hardest labours ; and on account of which, dissensions are excited and almost continual wars are fomented among nations by tho allurements of gain offered to those who first carry away the ISTegroes. " Wherefore, by virtue of the apostolical authority, we condemn all these things aforesaid, as absolutely unworthy of the Christian name ; and, by the same authority, we absolutely prohibit and interdict all ecclesiastics and laymen from venturing to maiiitain that this traffic in blacks is permitted, under any pre- text or color whatever." CHAPTEE VIII. SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION — THE LABOUR- ING CLASSES. ^^QINCB the world began," we have been told, O " slavery has never been abolished by external force and violence. It has only been done away by internal action on the part of those who are directly con- cerned. Of this we have two very different examples. The first was that of St. Domingo, where the slaves, excited by the pestilent orators of the French Eevolu- tion, rose against their masters, and attained their horrid triumph by the most savage butchery that his- tory has recorded. The other was the abolition move- ment in England, where the result was regularly ef- fected by the peaceful action of Parliament." (" YicAV," i&c, pp. 247-8.) But in the first place, where is the evidence that the excitement of the slaves in St. Domingo had any- thing to do with " the pestilent orators of the French Eevolution?" And as to the "savage butchery," when it did come, was it all on one side ? Were there more whites butchered than there were blacks in that murderous process of atrocious retaliation ? But, per- adventure, the " Christian Bishop," like most aristo- crats, will think it a far more " horrid" thine: for a civilized white gentleman to be butchered by a black (244) SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 245 savage, than for a savage black to bo butchered by a white gentleman. As his voucher in this case, the author quotes " the eminent Alison, whose ' History of Europe' is one of the most trustworth}' productions of modern litera- ture." Kow it is notorious that Alison prostituted his office as a historian to the j^urpose of maintaining certain political dogmas, and that his work abounds with two things — a spirit of aristocratic and absolu- tist propagandism, and a certain pious twaddle char- acteristic of that sect. And as for his " trustworth- iness," it may be judged of from the iiict that ho speaks of New England, side by side with Massachu- setts and Connecticut, as one of the United States, and declares that " all the State judges, from the high- est to the lowest, are elected by the people, and are liable to be displaced by them ; their tenure of office is sometimes for three, sometimes for four, sometimes for six years, but never for life ;" giving this last as an express proof of the exceedingly radical and corrupt character of our political system, a proposition which, if true, would not have proved his point, but which, at the time he wrote, was false in regard to the judges of the Supreme Courts in a majority of the States. But*what ma}^ cap the climax of Alison's " trustworth- iness" is the unconscious cllrontery with which, in his aristocratic ignorance of American affairs, he gravely stated and published before the whole world, in a liis- tory which was to bo the great work of his life, that "one of the last acts of "Washington's life was to carry, by his casting vote in Congress^ a commercial treaty with Great Britain 1" Yet even such a trustworth}-, aristocratic authority fails the Bishop; for Alison expressl}- admits tluit, 21* 24G SOUTHERN SLAVERY. when tlio Constituent Assembly had decreed "the privileges of equality to all persons of color born of a free fiither and mother," " the jMnters openly endeav- ored to resist the decree, and civil rear was preparing'' when the neoTO insurrection broke forth. The truth is the first blood was shed by the whites, and that in resistance to the law of the land. And need we resort to " pestilent orators" to explain what followed ? Un- doubtedly the blacks were savages — a large part of them lately from their wild homes in Africa — and like savages they dealt with their oppressors. But the proper and guilty causes of this horrible tragedy lie far back of pestilent Abolitionists and savage blacks ; they are found in the tearing of these savages from their country and reducing them to slavery. So the "horrors" of the French Eevolution itself, about which so much rhetoric is expended, are chargeable not so much upon the immediate actors in the tragedy as upon the tyrannical oppression of the government, the licentious living of the upper classes, and the cor- ruption and hypocrisy in religion, which had preceded and which required this terrible purgation of blood. Such is the general course of history. The real causes are often remote and concealed ; the apparent causes are merely the present occasions or the last links in the chain. The prime guilt of the St. Do- mingo massacres is not to be charged upon the insur- rection of the savage blacks. You might as well charge upon the rising sun the killing of the tender plants which had been frost-bitten in the preceding ni<'-ht. But whoever may be responsible for the St. Domingo massacres, the fact is that more human be- ings are worked to death in Cuba and on the cotton and sugar plantations of the South — ^ycs, literally SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. '217 worJied to death — every year, than would equal the luiia- ber of all the whites who were butchered in St. Do- mingo. What shall we say to this ? Let us remember that wherever wo may choose to shed our tears or expend our rhetoric, God is no respecter of jyersons, and the life of the enslaved African, slowly murdered in five years, may be as j)recious in his sight as that of the chivalrous braggart w^ho is butchered in a mo- ment. So much for the first case of "internal action." The second is that of the emancijDation of eight hun- dred thousand slaves in the British West Indies, which is represented as also a case " of internal aetion by one of the parties concerned." This is a very curious description of what was done by an act of the British Parliament, Avhere the slaveholders had not a solitary representative ; an act the passage of w^hich was resisted by those slaveholders to the bitter end, and afterwards, in its execution, thwarted by them to the best of their ability. Indeed, as I have said, it would be hard to find an instance in the history of the world where slaveholders, having full control of the legislature, have voluntarily relinquished their gripe upon their slaves by a legislative act of emancipation. The emancipation by act of the British Parliament was no more a case of " the internal action of one of the parties concerned" than that effected by President Lincoln's proclamation is such a case. But although the emancipation in the British AV'cst Indies is represented as having been "regularly effected by the peaceful action of Parliament," the " Christian Bishop" is far from being satisfied witli it after all. The " eminent Alison" is again aj)pealed to, who says: "The precipitate and irretrievable 248 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. Btep of emancipation forced on the Legislature in 1834, by benevolent but incautious, and perhaps mis- taken, feeling, has already occasioned so great a de- cline in the produce of the British AYest Indies, and excited such general expectations of a still greater and increasing deficiency, that the impulse thereby given to the foreign slave trade to fill up the gap, has been unbounded, and, it is to be feared, almost irremediable." And further on, he adds : "The ad- mirable effects of the abolition of the slave trade have been completely frustrated, and the humane but deluded inhabitants of Great Britain are burdened with twenty millions, to ruin, in the end, their own planters, consign to barbarism their own Negroes, cut off a principal branch of their naval strength, and double the slave trade in extent, and quadruple it in horrors throughout the world." As to these crocodile tears over the slave trade, it suflices to refer the reader to the express testimony of Lord John Ptussell. and Dr. Livingstone, already cited. That will show the " trustworthy" character of Alison's statements. And as to another assertion that " the multitude forced on this measure of imme- diate emancipation" in spite of the counter wishes of AYilberforce and Fox, who are represented to have been in fiivour of gradual abolition ; it is simply a gross misrepresentation. Was Wilberforce opposed to the immediate emancipation of 1834? Rather he was ready to chant his " Nunc dimittis," as upon his death-bed, he received the glorious assurance of its consummation. That Wilberforce and his friends aimed at first, say in 1806, at a gradual emancipa- tion, is undoubtedly true. But who defeated them in this design, and forced on them the plan of imme- SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 249 diate emancipation ? Not the "fanatical multitude of deluded abolitionists," but the really fanatical and in- fatuated resistance and obstinacy of the slaveholders themselves, who opposed and tlnvarted every at- tempted measure of gradual improvement. On the 9th of July, 1823, Lord Bathurst, Secretary of State for the colonies, addressed a circular to the Governors, commanding them to submit definite ameliorations to the leo-islaturcs. After seven years, eight colonics had adopted none of the reforms prescribed. The twelve others had absolutely refused the measures relative to religious instruction and the amelioration of justice; three only had abolished the Sunday markets. All the chartered colonies refused the appointment of pro- tectors, the concession of one day in the week to the slaves, the savings banks, the restrictions on sales, and the modification of punishment. Except at Trinidad and St. Lucia, no important amelioration was accepted, and those which were adopted re- mained well nigh without effect.* That the British monarch and the aristocracy, which controlled the Parliament, were natiiully aiwl instinctively opposed to the abolition of slavery j and that they required some force to be brought to bear upon them from some quarter, in order to secure their consent to the measure, need not be donied. But that this force was that of an io-Tiorunt i-al.I.h* of a "deluded multitude," is a flagrant misrei)ro.scnta- tion. It was the force of the Christian sentiment of the great mass of the intelligent people of Great * Sec Cocliin's Results of Eranncipfition, pp. 318 and ."I'O, where the proposed umcHorations arc given at largo. 250 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. Britain. This has been well stated by the Duke de Broglie, in the following terms : " We do too much honour, in fact, to the English government, and we would wrong her too much, in attributing the abolition of slavery on her part cither to lofty views of wisdom and foresight or to Machia- vellian combinations ; on this point the English gov- ernment has neither gone in advance of the times nor directed events ; it has limited itself to maintain- ing the statu quo, so long as it has not been forced from it ; it has resisted for fifteen years the abolition of slavery ; it has defended all the intermediate posi- tions step by step, and has only yielded, on each oc- casion, to necessit}". " We would also do too much honour to the philoso- phy and philanthropy of England in assigning them the chief part in this great enterprise. Philosophers and philanthropists have, doubtlessly, figured glori- ously in the number of the combatants, but it is the religious spirit which has borne the heat and burden of the day; and it is to this that reverts, before everything, the honor of success. " It is religion that has truly freed the Negroes in the English colonies ; it is this Avhich raised uj), in the be- ginning of the struggle, the Clarksons, the Wilber- forces, Granville Sharps, and so many others, and armed them with indomitable courage and unshaken perseverance ; it is religion which has progressively formed, first in the nation, then in Parliament itself, that great abolition party, which goes on swelling from day to day, infiltrating itself, as it were, into all parties, calling them all, and the government first of all, to account, and it is this party which, profiting during forty years by every event and SLAVERY AND EMANCITATION. 251 every circiiDistaiicc, successively carried tlic aboli- tion of the slave trade in 1807 ; inspired through its representatives, in 1815, the declarations of the Con- gress of Vienna, and, later, those of the Congress of Verona ; dictated in 1823 the motion of ]\Ir. Bux- ton, the resolutions of ]Mr. Canning, and the circular of Lord Bathurst ; hurled, in 1831, on the colonies the Order in the Council of November 2d, thus render- ing the abolition of slavery inevitable in 1832, and the maintenance of apprenticeship impossible in 1838." But the " Christian Bishop" seems controlled almost exclusively by a "wise expediency" ^vith reference to certain peculiar views of Political Economy. And, though he protests his desire for the jibolition of slavery, and speaks half approvingly of the West India emancipation as having been accomplished by ''internal action," peacefully, under the authority of the British Parliament, — yet he represents this eman- cipation as an utter failure, and holds up its results in terrorem before all fanatical abolitionists. 1st, The production of the islands has been greatly diminished, as shown by the decrease of exports and imports ; 2d, The blacks are lazy, idle, vicious, and becoming hopelessly degraded. These results were predicted by the pro-slavery croakers from the start ; and they continue to insist upon the fulfilment of their pre- dictions with as much assurance and solemnity, as if facts had not already shown their allegations to be either altogether futile, or utterly ialse. The first allegation, if true, proves nothing. Suppose exports hiivo (Iwiiidit'd, und piaiittTs and planters' estates l)cen i-uined; the object was not lo increase the ex- ports or the wealth of tiie i,->kinds, but the conifoi-t. 252 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. and happiness of their inhabitants. The " Christian Bishop" ought to know that the comfort and happi- ness of the mass of the people is not directly propor- tional to the increase of national wealth, but, on the contrary, may often be in an inverse ratio. Distri- bution and consumption are quite as important consi- derations, in anywise and humane Political Economy, as 2jroduction. Suppose the Bishop of Vermont and myself expend upon ourselves and our families some three thousand dollars a year more than would be necessary for our support in some comfortable negro hut, with coarse but wholesome negro fare \ and sup- pose some slave dealer should transfer us and our families from the former condition to the latter, and set us, our wives, our sons, and our daughters, at hard work on his plantation; we should probably produce more merchantable articles than we now do, and our chivalrous and thrifty master would have this surplus, together with the value of the three thousand dollars saved, to add to the gross exports of the country, and would put the proceeds into his pocket. He might grow rich faster than we do — and faster than he would without our services. Whether we, our families, or our countr}^ would thereby be benefited, I need not undertake to decide. The second allegation is simply false. That this is so, and that the first is but partially true, I shall proceed to show by official statements, and by the concurrent testimony of eye-witnesses. I shall show, moreover, that whatever of failure or of incidental evil has been connected with the emancipation, has resulted, not from the freedom or character of the blacks, but, partly from contemporaneous changes in tariff regulations, and, most of all, from the per- SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 253 verse and recalcitrant opposition and interference of the planters themselves. " The llouse of Assembly at the time of emancipa- tion possessed the fullest powers to remedy any de- fect in that great measure. But it abused its powers. Instead of enacting laws calculated to elevate and benefit the people, it pursued the contrary course. By an Ejectment Act it gave to the planters the right to turn out the enfranchised peasantry, with- out regard to sex or age, at a week's notice, from the houses in which they had been born and bred ; to root up their provision grounds, and to cut down the fruit trees which gave them both shelter and food ; in order that, through dread of the conse- quences of refusal, the negroes might be driven to work on the planters' own terms Driven from his cabin on the estate by the harsh or unjust treat- ment of his former master, the free labourer had to build a cottage for himself Immediately the cus- toms on shingles for tlie roof to shelter his family from the seasons were more than doubled ; while tlio duty on the staves and hoops for sugar hogsheads, the planters' property, was greatly reduced. And when the houses w^ere built, they were assessed at a rate which, in some parishes, bore so heavily on tbo occupants, as to lead to the abandonment of their dwellings for shanties of mud and boughs."* .... " Some proprietors at emancipation drove their labourers from the estates, and one was mentioned wlio was living at the time on the north side of the island. He swore that he would not allow a ' nigger' * Edward Bean Underbill. The West Indies, their social and religious condition, pp. 21G-18. 254 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. to live within three miles of his house. Of course the man was sj^eodily ruined."* '' If the House of Assembly has had any polic}' at all in its treatment of the labouring classes, it has been a ' policy of alienation.' Ody the perpetual interposition of the British government has pre- vented the enfranchised negro from being reduced to the condition of a serf by the selfish partisan legislation of the Jamaica planters As slaves, the people were never instructed in husbandry, or in the general cultivation of the soil ; as free men, the legislature has utterly neglected them, and they have had to learn as they could the commonest processes of agriculture. ISTo attempt has been made to pro- vide a fitting education for them ; for the paltry grant of some two thousand five hundred pounds a year cannot in any sense be said to be a provision for their instruction Speaking of this feature of Jamaica legislation, Earl Grey, writing in 1853, says : — ' The Statute Book of the island for the last six years presents nearly a blank, as regards laws calculated to improve the condition of the poj^ula- tion, and to raise them in the scale of civilization.* .... Happily the present governor, following in the steps of many of his predecessors, deals impartially wnth every class, strives to prevent as far as possible the mischievous eifects of the selfish policy that has been pursued, and exerts himself to rescue the go- vernment from the grasp of personal interest and ambition."f The following is Mr. Underhill's conclusion as to the general results of the experiment in Jamaica: ^- Ibid., pp. 268-9. t Ibid., pp. 222-3. SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 255 "Emancipation did not, indeed, bring Avealth to the planter; it did not restore fortunes already trembling in the grasp of mortgagees and usurers ; it did not bring back the palmy days of foreign commerce to Kingston, nor assist in the maintenance of protective privileges in the markets of Great Britain; it did not give wisdom to planters, nor skill to agriculturists and manufacturers ; but it has brought an amount of hap- piness, of improvement, of material wealth and pros- pective elevation to the enfranchised slave in which every lover of man must rejoice. Social order every- where prevails. Breaches of the peace are rare. Crimes, e«tpecially in their darker and more sanguin- ary forms, are few. Persons and property are- per- fectly safe. The planter sleeps in securit}^, dreads no insurrection, fears not the torch of the incendiary, travels da}- or night in the loneliest solitudes without anxiety or care. The people are not drunkards, even if they be impure ; and this sad feature in the moral life of the people is meeting its check in the growing respect for the marriage tie, and the improved life of the Avhite community in their midst The gene- ral prospects of the island are improving. Estates are now but rarely abandoned, while in many places portions of old estates are being brought again under cultivation. It is admitted by all 2)arties that sugar cultivation is profitable. At the same time, it is very doubtful whether any large proportion of the emanci- pated population will ever be induced to return to the estates, or, at least, in sufficient nnml>ers to secure tho enlargement of the area of cultivation to the extent of former days. Higher wages will do somewhat to obtain labourers, and they can ]»e atVorded, and the return of confidence will bring capital ; but the tasto 256 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. and habit of independence will continue to operate, and induce the agricultural classes to cling to the little holdings which they so industriously occupy." * Captain Darling, the Governor of Jamaica, gives the following testimony to the capacity of the Negro for freedom : — " The proportion of those who are set- tling themselves industriously on their holdings, and rapidly rising in the social scale, while commanding the respect of all classes of the community, and some of whom arc, to a limited extent, themselves the em- j)loyers of hired labour, paid for either in money or kind, is, I am happy to think, not only steadily in- creasing, but at the present moment is far more ex- tensive than w^as anticipated by those who are cogni- zant of all that took place in this colony in the earlier days of Negro freedom. There can be no doubt, in fact, that an independent, respectable, and, I believe, trustworthy middle class is rapidly forming. If the real object of emancipation was to place the freed man in such a position that he might work out his own advancement in the social scale, and prove his capacity for the full and rational enjoyment of j)er- sonal independence secured b}^^ constitutional liberty, Jamaica will afford more instances, even in proj^ortion to its large population, of such gratifying results, than any other land in wdiich African slavery once existed. Jamaica at this moment presents, as I believe, at once | the strongest proof of the complete success of the great measure of emancipation as relates to the ca- pacity of the emancipated race for freedom, and the most unfortunate instance of a descent in the scale of agricultural and commercial importance as a colonial community." *Ibid., pp. 455-7. SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 257 Lord John Eusscll, on opening the discussion, Juno 16, 1848, on the conckisions of the report of the com- mittee, was able to sum up the history of the results of emancipation at this epoch in these words : "The object of the act of 1834 was to give liberty to eight hundred thousand persons, and to secure the independence, prosperity, and happiness of those who were slaves. No one denies, I think, that this has been accomplished. I believe that there is nowhere a happier class of labourers than in the AYest Indies. This satisfactory condition is the consequence of the act of 1834." Let us interrogate the history of the ten years fol- lowing, and we encounter the same fiicts, verified by the most severe or the most indulgent testimon}-. At Guiana, a magnificent province of sixty thousand square miles, traversed by the beautiful river Esse- quibo, twenty-one miles broad at the mouth, and inhabited by more than one hundred and twenty thousand souls, a colonist, who is, moreover, very much of a pessimist, writes : " The portion of the native population which in other countries constitutes the laboring class is esti- mated at seventy thousand souls. They present the singular spectacle, which can be contemplated in no other part of the world, of peojDle scarcely emerged from slavery, yet already possessing property in houses and lands, for which they have ])Mi^ 258 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. island is one vast field of sugar-canes, standing evenly one after the other, planted at an average distance of six square feet. Not a weed sullies these beautiful and regular plantations. The sugar-works are exten- sive and neat, and all the arrangements for manufac- ture are exquisite." . . . The population of the island is immense, amounting to one hundred and thirty-six thousand souls on one hundred and sixty-seven square miles, on a soil which does not and cannot belong to it " Trinidad has endured harder trials, from which she has emerged, as we shall see, by replacing her twenty thousand freed negroes in part by Indians ; but the happiness and tranquillity of its freedmen are the same." Here is the picture which a colonist of Jamaica drew, at the same epoch, of the state of the coloured community, which almost entirely composes the pop- ulation of this island, occupied, on a surface of sixty-four hundred square miles, by three hundred and sixty- nine thousand blacks and only sixteen thousand whites : " It may be supposed that the whites have the pre- eminence there But apart from that pre- eminence which results from wealth and intelligence in every community, the whites have no privilege over their fellow-citizens. ... The colored man holds a position in no wise inferior, and we find no reason to complain that he is on the same footing with our- selves. . . . Our bar is not crowded, but coloured law- yers hold the first places there. Coloured physicians practice in concurrence with the whites. . . . These are facts which it is important to establish, for all this progress has been accomplished since the abolition of slavery in the island. We have proved by experience SLAVERY AND EMANCirATION. 259 that tho coloured man can raise himself to the first rank of civil society, and hold his place there as wv\[ as any European by origin." * It may be affirmed that, if the same protective tariff had secured the sale of colonial sugar at high prices a few years longer, production would have rap- idly revived, and the colonists would have really had nothing of which to complain. Xearly a million of men, women, and children have passed from the condition of cattle to the rank of rational beings. Numerous marriages have elevated the family above the mire of nameless promiscuous- ness. Paternity has replaced illegitimacy. Churches and schools are opened. Eeligion, before mute, fac- tious, or dishonoured, has resumed its dignity and lib- erty. Men who had nothing have acquired property ; lands which were waste have been occupied ; inade- quate populations have increased; detestable processes of culture and manufacture have been replaced by better ; a race reputed inferior, vicious, cruel, lasciv- ious, idle, refractory to civilization, religion, and instruction, has shown itself honest, gentle, disposed to fomily life, accessible to Christianity, eager for instruction. Those of its members who have returned to vagrancy, sloth, and corruption are not a reproacli to their race as much as to the servitude which lia](ase(|, but be socially independent of a master's control. I endeavored to follow these two clas«;os of people in 268 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. the paths they pursued — the majority, who have become independent, and the minority, who have remained estate laborers, and I have shown that the condition of the former is infinitely above the condi- tion of the latter. Is this anywhere denied ? Can any one say that it was not the lawful right of these people thus to seek, and, having found, to cherish their independence ? Can any one say that by doing so they wronged themselves, the planters, or the gov- ernment under which they lived ? Can any one say they are to blame if, by their successful attempts to elevate themselves above the necessitous and preca- rious career of labour for daily hire, the agricultural field force was weakened and the production of sugar- cane diminished? " Yet this is the fairest case that can be made out for the oligarchies of these West India islands. They have denounced the negro for his defective industry ; but what, we may ask, have they themselves done — in what have they given proof of their nobler civiliza- tion and higher intelligence ? Surely a most important duty devolved upon them. They were the privileged aristocracy, the landed proprietors, the capitalists, the rulers of the colonies — as they still are. Their polit- ical power was supreme. Yet what have they done, not for the permanent prosperity of the islands — ^for the question need not be asked — but in behalf of their own special interests ? They arraigned the negro for deserting their estates and ruining their fortunes, when they themselves were absentees, and were pay- ing the legitimate profits of their business to agents and overseers. They offered the independent peasant no pecuniary inducement, or its equivalent, to prefer their service, but they attempted to obtain his work SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 209 for less remuneration than he could earn in any other employment. They never cared for the comfort or happiness of their tenants, or sought to inspire them with confidence and contentment. They made no effort to elevate labour above the degraded level at which slavery left it, and they never set an example to their inferiors of the industry that is still needed in the higher as well as in the lower classes of West Indian society. Enterprise never prompted them to encourage the introduction of labour-saving arts. Yet these were measures that demanded the action of an enlightened legislature and the consideration of an influential proprietary long before scarcity of labour became a subject of complaint. Instead of averting the evil they dreaded, they hastened its consumma- tion, and injured their cause still more deeply by the false and evasive plea that the idleness of the creolo was the cause of a commercial and agricultural de- pression that they had brought entirely on themselves. Is it any argument against the industry of the labour- ing classes of America that a large proportion annually become proprietors and withdraw from ser- vice for daily hire? Yet this is precisely what the West Indian Creole has done ; this is the charge on which ho has been arraigned, this is the crime for which he has been condemned.*" " I have not assumed, in aught I have written, that the West Indian Creole is yet capable of self-govern- ment. I have simply endeavoured to show that, under freedom, sources of industry and ]n-ospority have been opened that, under slavery, would luivo remained for ever closed. I have endeavoured to show that for tlio West Indies freedom has been the best policy, thougli *SewcU, p. 312, etc. 270 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. the moralist may condemn an argument that sets forth another motive for doing right than the sake of right itself If emancipation did no more than relieve the West Indian slave from the supervision of a task- master, I should have nothing left to say; for I admitted, at the outset, that the condition of the labouring classes was but one among many interests whose ruin, if personal liberty could ruin them, would make us disbelieve in truth itself But freedom, when allowed fair play, injured the prosperity of none of these West Indian colonies. It saved them from a far deeper and more lasting depression than any they have yet known. It was a boon conferred upon all classes of society ; upon planter and upon labourer; upon all interests — upon commerce and agriculture, upon industry and education, upon mo- rality and religion. And if a perfect measure of success remains to be achieved, let not freedom be condemned; for the obstacles to overcome were great, and the workers were few and unwilling. Let it be remembered that a generation, born in the night of slavery, has not yet passed away, and that men who were taught to believe in that idol and its creations still control the destinies of these distant colonies. Keluctantly they learned the lesson forced upon them ; slowly their opposition jdelded to the dawning of conviction ; but, now that the meridian of truth has been reached, we may hope that light will dispel all the shadows of slavery, and confound the logic of its champions when they falsely assert that emancipation has ruined the British Islands.*" Such is the result of emancipation in the British West Indies, and it is a triumphant success — a suc- * Sewell, p. 324. SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 271 cess which every year only renders more and more complete and unquestionable — a success which set- tles forever the practicability and safety of imme- diate emancipation; for the experiment was tried on a scale sufficiently large, and under circumstances sufficiently untoward; yet eight hundred thousand bondmen are made free without bloodshed and with- out disturbance. What if more planters had been impoverished ? AVhat if exports had really dwindled and commerce decayed ? What were all that, to bo l)ut in the scale against the freedom and happiness of eight hundred thousand human beings ? One would have expected a " Christian Bishop" to have thought of the comfort and elevation of myriads of his fellow men, rather than of the falling otf of a few millions in the produce of sugar and coffee. The author of the " Yiew" has devoted a laroro space to copious extracts from the recent work of Joseph Kay, Esq., setting forth the almost incredible degradation, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness of the labouring classes in Great Britain; — and all this as an oifset for the crimes and cruelties and miseries charged upon slavery. He evidently thinks that he has found a treasure; and he turns it over and ex- amines it on all sides with undissembled satisfaction, emphasizing his description with a copious supply of italics. In reply, I beg to call attention to the following points : 1st. Tlie " Christian Bishop" seems to have for- gotten his Political Economy in this case completely ; for, while it is admitted that this degraded and wretched condition of the lower classes in England is the result of modern deterioration, in comparison 272 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. "with the good old times of Fortescue and the feudal system, it is notorious also that no nation in Europe has, in the same time, increased as G-reat Britain has done, in wealth, in production, in exports, in com- mercial activity. The social and political s^^stem under which such a result has been achieved ought, on the principle of this wretchedly one-sided Politi- cal Economy, which looks at money and forgets men, to be regarded as a complete success. 2d. This state of the English poorer classes is not held up and defended by Mr. Kay, or by English or American abolitionists, as being perfectly right, au- thorized and sanctioned by both the Old Testament and the New. Neither is it a necessary result of their freedom, as the condition of the labouring population of Yermont will suffice to demonstrate. 3d. There is fault somewhere ; and that fault is in the laws, in the social system, in the right of primo- geniture and in the aristocratic castes, as well as in the people themselves. The legislation of England has been too much on that system of Political Economy which looks at money and not at man, and which tends to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. 4th. This condition of the poor, however, even the aristocracy of England do not endeavour to conceal. They do not forbid the fullest investigation and the freest criticism. They make no threats of tar and feathers, or lifelong imprisonment, or a felon's doom, against the most inquisitive and free-spoken ob- server; if they did, their responsibility for the exist- ing evils would be very different from what it is. 5th. The wretched condition of the English labourer is not the result of the development of manufacturing industry, but quite the contrary. This alone has SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 27;] saved him from still greater wretchedness. It is admitted on all hands that the pauperism of the agricultural districts exceeds that of the nKiiiiifao- turing; and Ireland has no manufactures woi-lli mentioning. It has been the policy of the slave- holders and of their democratic allies in this country, by withholding protection from our manufactures, to reduce our free labouring classes to a common level with the wretched labourers of Great Britain and Europe, being left to compete with them in the great labour market of the world. 6th. It is triumphantly announced that there arc in England and Wales nearly eight millions of persons who can neither read nor write. But we must remember that in Kineveh there were " more than sixscore thousand persons that could not discern between their right hand and their left," and yet it is not to be inferred that Nineveh was a city of fools. Be- sides, it would have been more to the purpose to compare the North Avith the South in this matter; Vermont, say, with Virginia, or Connecticut with South Carolina. It would be found that, even leavinjr out of the account the four millions of slaves who aro not allowed to read or write, the proportion of white adults in the Southern States who are totally illite- rate is vastly greater than in the Northern. That they have no free schools is even a matter of con- gratulation among slaveholders; Governor AVi is said to have boasted that in the county Mhich ho represented, Accojnac, there was neither a ne\vs])aper nor a school-house. 7th. Wo are told that, by receiving cliarital)le or jniblic assistance, the poor lose their sense of personal independence ; and the poor-house is lield up before us 274 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. in terrorem; and we are gravely asked if it is not a great advantage of slavery that the slave is provided for in sickness or old age, and there is no danger of his coming to the poor-house. Think of that for an argument ! Slavery suggested as a remedy for the loss of personal independence, and a way of escaping the poor-house ! As if one should be advised to cut off his head that he might not chance to take the small-pox ! What is there less degrading, or more comfortable in the provision made for the sick or decrepit slave, than in that which is made for the inmates of the poor-house ? And besides, all the poor, in sickness or in age, do not come to that last resort; while, for the slaves, there is one common doom. 8th. A great point is made of the immorality of the English lower classes, and especially of their gross licentiousness, and the great number of illegitimate children. But this state of things, though indirectly chargeable in part upon the English aristocratic sys- tem, is not directly encouraged and enforced by the law of the land. It is not a parallel case to the legal promiscuous concubinage of four millions of human beino-s ; where, moreover, the number of mulattoes shows that the licentiousness is not confined to the black population. But the " Christian Bishop,'' in his zeal to make out a strong case, commits one gross blunder. Mr. Kay had said that, in Norfolk and Suffolk, instances of bastardy were " fifty-three per cent, above the average of England and Wales." Looking back to this statement, the Bishop says that " Mr. Kay informs us that the cases of bastardy among the English peasants amount to fifty -three per cent. ;" whereas, by Mr. Kay's statement, they need not amount to one per cent. The fact is, that in- SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. '^tO stances of bastardy may occur in tlie best regulated societies and in the best regulated families, in the families of Christian men — of clergymen even — pos- bih\y of Bishops. But the real question is, what is the remedy? 9th. The remedy, more or less distinctly proposed by the Bishop, for this and all other vices of the labour- ing classes, is, the whijiping-post instead of imprison- ment, and slavery instead of free labour. I do not say that he makes this formal proposition ; but ho passes immediately from an exposure of the mise- ries and vices of the labouring classes in England to a laudation of the beauties and benefits, the Scrip- tural and Christian claims, of the whipping-post and corporal punishment, as applied to slaves; and to a setting forth of the superiority of the 2>hy^^<^"^^ ^^^^^ moral condition of the Southern slave over the Eng- lish labourer. And he proposes no other remedy — ap- parently in perfect harmony with the view of Chan- cellor Harper that the proper condition of labourers^ is, to be slaves. Perhaps the Hebrew etymology might be ajipealed to as confirming this view of the patri- archal institution. Think of this, ye "greasy me- chanics," ye "clownish boors," ye "mud-sills," of the North ; and ponder the destinj" that awaits yon. 10th. But the true remedy for those evils in Eng- land, is, — next to the infiuence of earnest and i)opu- lurized Christian instruction, — a reformation of t'lie laws and of the social and ])olitico-econoniical system of the country. Those evils in England have their roots just where the evils ol' slavery have theirs, in a lust of dominion and a griHMl for gain, in class-legislation, aiming at the wealth olthe few in- stead of the welfare of the many, in'the s} stem of 276 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. caste, in aristocracy. Belgium with a population considerably more dense than that of England, and certainly without any natural advantages of soil or climate, raises twice as much food as is needed for the consumption of her population, and her peasantry live in simplicity and comfort ; while millions in England are starving in filth and wallowing in vice. Yet Belgium is not growing rich like England; she has not the refined, wealthy, and luxurious aris- tocracy of England, living in princely palaces, with immense cainjyagnas around them, from which yeo- manry and tenantry have been utterly expelled and exterminated. In Belgium, on the contrary, the lands have been divided up under a legislation which is the offspring of the " infidel, atheistic, and detesta- ble" doctrines of the French Eevolution. Surely the evils under which the mass of the people in Eng- land are sinking into utter degradation, are not due to the people themselves, nor to any necessity of na- ture, bat to a false and pernicious artificial system of political and social organization. 11th. Labour is honourable, and the labourer is to be respected. Whatever may have been the system of Hebrew servitude, labour was honourable when David was called from the sbeepfold to be made the King of God's people. Christianity honours labour. Her Founder was, in human view, a carpenter; her Apostles fishermen and tent-makers; and she has tauo-ht that " if any will not work neither shall he eat," and that we should all " work with our hands at some honest employment, that we may have to give to him that needeth." The honour of labour, and the rights of the labourer are among the funda- mental doctrines of any democratic creed that dc- SLAVERY AND E M A N C I T A T I N . 277 serves the name. The great material end of K\ii;i.sla- tion is "the greatest good of the greatest number," — an apothegm of Jeremy Bentham, but, in fact, only a condensation of the fundamental sentiment of the New Testament. But slavery dishonours labour, and aristocracy despises it. It is not surprising that the aristocracy of England should sympathize with the slaveholding oligarchy of the South ; in idea, in principle they have much in common ; though to the credit of the English aristocracy, it should be ad- mitted, little in character. But that the poor, starv- ing Lancashire operatives, who suffer most from the cotton famine, should look through all the woes en- tailed upon them by our war for the Union, and steadily side with the North, does show a most won- derful power of ideal instinct Green Mountain boys, and descendants of the colonists of William Pcnu, where shall your sympathies be, in view of such a struggle ? But what will be the consequence, we are triumph- antly asked, of the sudden emancipation of four mil- lions of ignorant and helpless slaves? Look at the British West Indies, and answer; consider their area in comparison but with one of our large States ; con- sider the immense preponderance there of the black population, in numbers, over the whites ; consider all the circumstances; — and it will be evident that the emancipation of 800,000 slaves, there, was a far more hazardous experiment than the emancipation of four millions, among us, ought to be. That the shivehold- ers, it' theij ivill, can make it perilous to the blacks and disastrous to themselves, there is no doubt. But, in that case, lot the blame rest where it belongs. But again, it is insisted, — what would the blacks 21 278 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. do ? What would become of them ? What social sta- tus are they to have ? To all such questions, Justice answers, G-ive them a fair chance; and Charity an- swers. Lend them a helping hand even, if needful. Leave the rest to Providence. The time to trust to Providence, to appeal without blasphemy to Provi- dence, is, when we have done our duty to the best of our power, and yet cannot see through the dangers or difficulties that beset us. And for our encouragement, let lis look again at the West India experiment. That settles the whole question. We see there that, though justice was done, the heavens did not fall. As to the constitutionality and rightfulness of the President's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, they rest upon a very simple basis. The Con- stitution recognizes the property of slaveholders in their slaves to be only of the nature of a deht^ — " ser- vice or labour due." But it is a well established prin- ciple of the law of nations, that a belligerent has a right to confiscate and annul all debts due to the enemy ; and the Supreme Court of the LTnited States have decided the inhabitants of the rebellious States to be in the position of public enemies. Now, the moment President Lincoln had the legal right to emancipate the slaves, it was his boundcn duty — his duty as a moral and Christian man — to emancipate them. But the objection which, in some quarters, has been made to the Proclamation, that it appeals to- no high moral and religious considerations, is altogether impertinent. For, it does not follow that, because the principles of morality and religion re- quired the emancipation of the slaves, therefore. Pre- sident Lincoln ^Yowld be justified in emancipating them. He, therefore, as became him, alleges, and alleges only, SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 270 the grounds which justified him in issuing his Procla- mation ; and boasts no further of his act ; but loaves the rest to the blessing of God and the judgment of mankind. There has been no little doubt and dispute as to the ulterior practical and legal effect of the President's Proclamation. Here we may distinguish four contin- gent cases : 1st. Suppose we completely suppress the rebellion, and reduce the slaveholding States one after another to subjection under our military power; then, by the very terms of the Proclamation, and the nature of the case, slavery is abolished throughout those States, for they are brought into our military possession and within our military lines ; and, whatever any civil court may afterwards decide, any civil court ought to decide, that such abolition is an accomplished and irre- versible fact. 2d. Suppose we are defeated ; suppose the rebellion triumphs, and we are obliged to acknowledge the in- dependence of the Southern Confederacy; then, no- body imagines the Proclamation will have any further practical or legal effect. The Southern Confederacy will then proceed to build upon their " comer-stone," to their heart's content. 3d. Suppose w^e treat and make a compromise with one or more of the seceded States, for the sake of t heir restoration to the Union ; then, of course, they would come, with or without slavery, according to the terms of the compromise, and irrespective of the President's Proclamation ; but for the Government voluntarily to enter into any such compromise as would annul (hat Proclamation and reduce again to slavery millions on whom the right of freedom had lieen solemnlv con- 280 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. ferred, would be a proceeding so utterly disgraceful and detestable that it is not to be thought of or imagined possible. Whose interests are most to be reg-arded ; those of four milUons of innocent and loyal blacks, natives and lovers of our common country, or those of six millions of infuriated rebels and traitors, who have thrust the dagger at our very national ex- istence, insulted our flag, ravaged our commerce, de- solated our fields, stricken down our young men in battle, bringing agony and bereavement to hundreds of thousands of friends, and butchered or starved our soldiers when taken captive ; but towards whom the heart of the "Christian Bishop" still yearns as "be- longing to the same spiritual fraternity" with him- self? If the " Christian Bishop" means by " spiritual fraternity" the Protestant Episcopal Church, he may not, indeed, be very wide of the mark; for the Southern Bishops tell us in their so-called Pastoral : " In our case, we go forward with the leading minds of our new Eepublic cheering us on by their communion with us." " In the Episcopal Church, and in her con- gregations, are found a very large proportion of the great slaveholders of the country." And is it possible that the " Christian Bishop" can have more sympathy with those Episcopal rebels, than with the Negro who has fallen among thieves, or with the Presbyterian or Methodist or Romanist soldier boy who is ready to shed his blood in defence of his country? Where are the sympathies of the Episcopal Church in Yermont? In saying this, I would not stir up or advise any spirit of retaliation, or cruelty, or injustice, or even of irre- conciliation, or unkindness, towards those who have so grievously wronged us. I only ask whether wo should sacrifice to the pecuniary interests and aristo- SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION. 281 cratic pride of such men, four millions of loyiil Ame- ricans, who either belong to the "same spiritual fra- ternity" with ourselves, or, if they do not, it is our own or our rebel " brethren's" fault ? 4. Suppose the Union restored, and the State gov- ernments re-established where they have been de- stroj'ed; could not the States reduce the negroes to slavery again if they saw fit, notwithstanding the President's Proclamation ? I answer, yes ; if the Constitution remains unamended, I suppose thby could. But then, the Proclamation would have had its full effect ; the negroes would have been free ; all former legal claims of their masters would have been arrested and cut off there; and the negroes from be- ing free would be reduced to slavery by a positive enactment, just as free negroes or free white la- bourers may be now, at any time, if a State so pro- vide in its Constitution or in its Constitution and laws. It is for the true democracy of the country to decide whether or not such a result should be guarded, against by a seasonable amendment to the Federal Constitution. 24* CHAPTEK IX. SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. IT is not a little significant of the character of slavery in its bearing upon civilization, that its Episcopal eulogist should have been led, in his de- fence of it, formally and at large, to recommend the restoration of the whipping post as a mode of punish- ment, and to defend it as another of the Divine in- stitutions side by side with slavery itself. And this in the nineteenth century ! It makes me strongly disposed to think of a slave overseer instead of a Christian Bishop, and of a domestic tyrant instead of a father. As to its being " prescribed by the law of God,'^ and that sort of argument so often repeated^ I have yet to learn that it is any more prescribed by the "law," the "wisdom," or the "authority" of "Almighty God," than are of the laws of war, already cited from Deuteronomy, or the law of the avenger of blood, or any other civil enactments of the Mosaic code. It is fitting, however, that all men should un- derstand, as by a visible sign, the nature of slavery civilization ; — it leads to the whipping post, it conse- crates the whipping post as a Divine institution, recommends it as a factor of the highest civilization. Christian civilization should be of a higher type than either the Hebrew, the Greek, or the Eoman ; — the Hebrew, with its bloody laws of war, its prac- (282) SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. 283 ticc of polygamy, its avenger of blood, and its free- dom of divorce ; the Greek, with its pugilistic games, its Bacchanal orgies, and aphrodisiac license, its national piracy, its domestic tyranny and turpitudes, its contempt of human life, and the horrible cruelties of its Peloponnesian war ; the Roman, with its gigan- tic selfishness, its thorough moral corruption, its cruelty to the vanquished, its proscriptions and mu- tual slaughters, its populace fed at tlie public ex- pense, and feted with the blood of gladiatorial shows, its character so utterly demoralized and debased, that, at last, nothing but the strong hand of a most detestable tyranny could save it from complete dis- integration. But the chief plague spot of all the ancient civilizations was slavery ; and it hung as a dead weight upon the progress of Christian civiliza- tion, though in a mild and modified form, through all the feudal period. Slavery ruins tlie character of the master as well as of the slave. It accustoms him to acts of unbri- dled passion and unbridled lust. It familiari::es him from childhood to personal violence, to stripes and groans and blood. It habitually appeals to brute force. It deals with men not as moral beings, but as dumb beasts. The spirit and character engendered in such a school arc seen in the duelling, the lynch- ing, and the street-fights, the habitual carrying and use of deadly weapons, the knife and the pistol, — which are characteristic of the slavcholding States. It will not abide by an appeal to reason, even wlieii it condescends to enter upon the fiehl of argument. It always holds ready the idtinia ratio of violence, not very far in the back-ground. It communicates this spirit to its defenders t'vei-ywhore. This was 284 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. seen in the riots in England whicli accompanied the ao-itation for the abolition of the slave trade ; in the threats of personal violence to Wiiberforce, and in the assaults of a savage mob upon Clarkson and Eoscoe. It has been seen in this country in the in- terruption of public meetings for the discussion of slavery, in the burning and destruction of public halls dedicated to its discussion, in the dragging of Garrison through the streets of Boston with a halter round his neck, and in the ferocious murder of Love- joy at Alton. Should the riot in Boston for the rescue of the slave. Burns, and one or two attempts at rescue in other places, be referred to as an offset ; I answer, that these are entirely unlike the others. They were the resistance of legal force by illegal force. They w^ere still brute force against brute force, and that for the rescue of the oppressed ; and yet, being ille- gal, they were always frowned upon by the ]^orthern community. The others were brute force against reason, against ideas, against simple appeals to the understanding; and they were universally approved by the most aristocratic and chivalrous slaveholders. In the Southern States prices have been set, some- times in the public newspapers, sometimes by solemn legislative enactment, upon the heads of the advo- cates of freedom, including Senators and Eepresent- atives in Congress, clergymen and merchants, as well as anti-slavery editors and lecturers. Litera- ture has been subjected to an Index expurgatorins^ and the United States mail to the supervision of a vigilance committee. No ISTorthern man could venture to lisp a word against slavery on Southern ground, nor, if it were known or suspected that he SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. 285 entertained anti-slavery sentiments, could lie safely show himself in some of the Southern States. " In South Carolina a stone-cutter, an Irishman by birth, was stripped naked, and then, amidst cries of 'Brand him!' 'Burn him!' 'Spike him to death!' scourged so that blood came at every stroke, while tar was poured upon his lacerated flesh."* And this is but one among a host of similar atrocities, perpe- trated, of course, without any legal process or judi- cial investigation. It is thus that slavery prepares the way for any and every crime and infamy. Its behests override every law, whether of Grod or man. There is no atrocity or savagery, no fraud or perfidy, no baseness or meanness, which slaveholders are not ready to commit with a good conscience, if the maintenance of the system seems to require it. - It is in this sense, rather than in any other, that slavery is the " sum of all villainies." It is a characteristic of high civiliza- tion to substitute reason for brute force, right for might, words for blows, kindness for cruelty, courtesy for pride, sympathy for selfishness,'and the law of love for the spirit of malignity. Slavery reverses all this. Its spirit is directly antagonistic to that of civilization. This spirit has not only been expressed in acts of individual violence, but has been condensed into public law. " The ideas which the Slave Power entertained on the subject of freedom of the press may be gathered from one enactment, which provided that the advo- cacy of anti-slavery opinions should be treated as felony, and punished with imprisonment and hard labour; while its notions of lenity are illustrated by * See Sumner's speech, June 4, 18G0. 28G SOUTHERNSLAVERY. its mode of dealing with the offence of facilitating the escape of slaves. Against this — of all crimes in the ethics of the Slave Power the most heinous — and against other modes of attacking slave property, the penalty of death was denounced no less than forty- eight diiferent times."* The effect of slaveholding upon manners and social character has been most truly depicted by Jefferson, who complained that his native Yirginia was rapidly becoming " the Barbary of the Union." " There must be," says he, "an unhappy influence on the manners of our people, produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and sl^ve is a perpetual exercise of the most boister- ous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other; our children see this, and learn to imitate it The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded w^ho, permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, [so it seems Jefferson con- sidered that the negroes were citizens and possessed of rights,'] transforms them into despots, and then into enemies, destroys the morals of the one j)art and the amor patrice of the other." "With this singularly agrees the judgment of M. Tourgueneff, one of the principal leaders in the work of Bussian emancipation : " If slavery," says he, " degrades the slave, it degrades more the master. This is an old adage, and long observations have proved to me that this adage is not a paradox. In fact, how can that man respect his own dignity, his * Cairnes, pp. 117, 118. SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. 287 own rights, who has learned not to respect either the rights or the dignity of his fellow-man? What con- trol can the moral and religious sentiments have over a man who sees himself invested with a power 80 eminently contrary to morals and religion? The continued exercise of an unjust claim, even when it is moderated, finishes by corrupting the character of the man and spoiling his judgment The pos- session of a slave being the result of injustice, the relations of the master with the slave cannot be otherwise than a succession of injustices. Among good masters (and it is agreed to call so those who do not abuse their power as much as they might) these relations are clothed with forms less repugnant than among others; but here the difference stops. Who could remain always pure, w^hen, carried away by his disposition, excited by his temper, drawn by caprice, he can with impunity oppress, insult, humil- iate, his fellows ? And let it be carefully remarked that intelligence, civilization, do not avail. The enlightened man, the civilized man, is none the less a man ; that he should not oppress, it is necessary that it should be impossible for him to oppress. All men cannot, like Louis XIY., throw their stick from the window when they feel a desire to strike." Said Colonel Mason, a Virginia slaveholder, in the Convention of 1787 : " Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labour when per- formed by slaves. They prevent the emigration of wiiites, who really enrich and strengthen a country. They ^produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country.'' So it seems, 288 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. by the way, that a man could believe slaveholding a sin, and yet continue to hold slaves. As to the relation of slaveholding to true chivalry, John Locke described it as " So opposite to the ge7i- erous temper and courage of our nation, that 'tis hardly to be conceived that an Englishmen, much LESS A GENTLEMAN, should plead for it." And Adam Smith, with whose doctrines of free trade the South- erners are so much enamoured, in his work on the Moral Sentiments, thus speaks : " There is not a negro from the coast of Africa who does not possess a degree of magnanimity which the soul of his sordid master is too often scarce capable of conceiving. Fortune never exerted more cruelly her empire over mankind than when she subjected these nations of heroes to the refuse of jails of Europe, to wretches who possess the virtues neither of the countries which they come from, nor of those which they go to, and whose levity, brutality, and baseness so justly expose them to the contempt of the vanquished." One of these philosophical judgments is about two centuries old, the other about one. "jN'o one who has not been an integral part of a slaveholding commimity can have any idea of its abom- inations. It is a whited sepulchre, full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." These are the words of a Southern lady, the accomplished daughter of Judge Grimke, of South Carolina. In the words of Professor Cairnes, " Such a system can conduct to only one issue, an organized barbarism of the most relentless and formidable kind." " To establish their scheme of society on such broad and firm foundations that they may set at defiance the public opinion of free nations, and, in the last SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. 289 resort, resist the combined efforts of their physical power, becomes at length the settled purpose and clearly conceived design of the whole body. To this they devote themselves with the zeal of fanatics, with the persistency and secrecy of conspirators." The following passage from the Eichmond En- quirer, is sufficiently explicit: "Two opposite and conflicting forms of society cannot, among civilized men, co-exist and endure. The one must give way and cease to exist ; the other become universal. If free society be unnatural, immoral, unchristian, it must fall and give way to slave society, a social sys- tem old as the world, universal as man." " This slave power constitutes the most formidable antagonist to civilized progress which has appeared for many centuries, representing a system of society at once retrograde and aggressive, a system which, containing w^ithin it no germs from which improve- ment can spring, gravitates inevitably towards bar- barism, while it is impelled by exigencies, inherent in its position and circumstances, to a constant exten- sion of its territorial domain." This system of barbarism has a twofold founda- tion — ^the lust of gain and the lust of power. " Mankind, in effect, says this theory, has had to choose between maintaining slavery and abandoning the use of cotton, tobacco, and sugar, and the instincts of humanity have succumbed before the more power- ful inducements of substantial gain." That the system has, for the last half century, gone on strengthening itself, instead of growing weaker, is quite manifest from the historical facts. "At the epoch of the Kevolution, as has been already intimated, slavery was regarded by all the 25 290 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. eminent men who took part in that movement as essentially an evil — an evil which might indeed bo palliated as having come down to that generation from an earlier and less enlightened age, and which, having intwined itself with the institutions of the country, required to be delicately dealt with — but still an evil, indefensible on moral and religious grounds, and which ought not to be permanently en- dured. The convention of 1774 unanimously con- demned the practice of holding slaves. The conven- tion of 1787, while legislating for the continuance of slavery, resolved to exclude from the constitution the word ' slave,' lest, (as Madison said,) it should bo thought that the American nation gave any sanction to 'the idea that there could be property in men.' Washington, a native of the South, and a slaveholder, declared it to be among his first wishes to see slavery abolished by law, and in his will provided for the emancipation of his slaves. JefPerson, also a native of the South, and a slaveholder, framed a plan of abo- lition, and declared that, in the presence of slavery ' he trembled for his country when he reflected that God was just ;' that in the event of a rising of slaves, tthe Almighty had no attribute which could take side with slaveowners in such a contest.' The other leading statesmen of that time, Franklin, Hamilton, Patrick Henry, the Eandolphs, Monroe, whether from the North or from the South, whether agreeing or not in their views on the practical mode of dealing with the institution, alike concurred in reprobating at least the principle of slavery." "In Maryland and Yirginia, perhaps also in the Carolinas and Georgia, free institutions would long since have taken the place of slavery, were it not SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. 291 thtit just as the crisis of the system had arrived, the domestic slave trade opened a door of escape from a position which had become untenable. The conjunc- ture was peculiar, and would, doubtless, by Southern theologians, be called providential." " The progress of events, far from conducing to the gradual mitigation and ultimate extinction of the system, has tended distinctly in the opposite direc- tion — to the aggravation of its worst evils and the consolidation of its strength." That but little is to be hoped for the cause of emancipation from the spontaneous action of the slaveholders themselves, is abundantly evident. "By the abolition of slavery (in America) not merely would the general prosperity of the inhabit- ants be promoted, but by the rise of rent which would be the consequence of this measure, there would re- sult to slaveholders a special gain — a gain which, it may reasonably be thought, would form a liberal compensation for any temporary inconvenience they might suffer from the change. " Considerations so obvious, it is argued, must in the end have their effect on the minds of the ruling class in the South, and must lead them before long to abolish a system which is fraught with such baleful effects to the country and to themselves.^^ " JS'evertheless it would, I conceive, be infinitely pre- carious from this position to infer that slaveholders will ever be induced voluntarily to abolish slavery. The slaveholders of the South are j)erfectly aware of the superior prosperity of the free States : it is with them a subject of bitter mortification and envy ; but, with the most conclusive evidence before their eyes, they persist in attributing this to every cause but the 292 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. right one." "Whatever be the future ad- vantages which may be expected from the change, it is vain to deny that the transition from slavery to freedom could not be effected without great inconve- nience, loss, and, doubtless, in many cases, ruin, to the present race of slaveholders. The accumulated results of two hundred years of tyranny, cruelty and disregard of the first of human rights are not thus easily evaded. A sacrifice there would need to be." " But, in truth, it is idle to argue this question on purely economic grounds. It is not simply as a pro- ductive instrument that slavery is valued by its sup- porters. It is far rather for its social and political results — as the means of upholding a form of society in which slaveholders are the sole depositories of so- cial prestige and political power, as the ' corner-stone' of an edifice of which they are the masters — that the system is prized. Abolish slavery and you introduce a new order of things, in which the ascendancy of the men who now rule at the South would be at an end. An immigration of new men would set in rapidly from various quarters. The planters and their adherents would soon be placed in a helpless minority in their old dominions. New interests would take root and grow ; new social ideas would germinate ; new politi- cal combinations w^ould be formed; and the power and hopes of the party which has long swayed the politics of the Union, and which now seeks to break loose from that Union in order to secure a free career for the accomplishment of bolder designs, would be gone forever. It is this which constitutes the real strength of slavery in the Southern States, and which precludes even the momentary admission by the do- SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. 293 minant party there of any proposition which has abo- lition for its object."* The organization of the so-called Southern Confede- racy is a formal attempt to establish and perpetuate this system of barbarism in the face of the world. This confederation, w^hich is the opprobrium of the age, puts itself forward as a model for its imitation, and calmly awaits the tardy applause of mankind. '' The ideas entertained at the time of the formation of the old Constitution," says the Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy, "were, that the enslave- ment of the African race was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. Our neio Government is founded on exactly opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the I^egro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the su^^erior race — is his natural and normal condition. Thus our Government is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. It is upon this our social fabric is firmly planted, and I cannot per- mit myself to doubt the ultimate success of the full recognition of this principle throughout the civil- ized and enlightened world This stone which was rejected by the first builders ' is become the chief stone of the corner' in our new edifice." [Speech of Mr. A. H. Stephens, Yice-President of the Southern Con- federacy, delivered March, 1861.] Opinion in the South has long passed beyond the stage at w^hich slavery needs to be defended by argument. The sub- ject is now never touched but in a strain such as the * Professor Cairnes on the Slave Power. 25* 294 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. freedom conquered at Marathon and Plata}a inspired in the orators of Athens. It is " the beneficent source and wholesome foundation of our civilization;" an institution, "moral and civilizing, useful at once to blacks and whites." " To suppress slavery would bo to throw back civilization two hundred years." " It is not a moral evil. It is the Lord's doing, and mar- vellous in our eyes It is by divine appoint- ment." Such has been the encroaching, aggressive, impu- dent and insolent bearing of slavery, for many years past, with its constant brutal appeal to the bludgeon, the knife and the pistol, that it had become more and more evidently impossible to live with slaveholders on terms of freedom, equality and peace. Either one party must succumb to the other, or the two must separate. The character of the intercourse between the two parties, in and about Congress, may be in- ferred from the following, among innumerable, simi- lar, instances. " On the 15th of February, 1837, E. M. Whitney was arraigned before the House of Representatives for contempt in refusing to attend, when required, before a committee of investigation into the admin- istration of the Executive office. His excuse was, that he could not attend without exposing himself thereby to outrage and violence in the committee- room; and on his examination at the bar of the House, Mr. Fairfield, a member of the committee, afterward a Senator in Congress, and Governor of Maine, testified to the actual facts. It ajopears that Mr. Peyton, a slave-master from Tennessee, and a member of the committee, regarding a certain an- swer in writing by Mr. Whitney, to an interrogatory SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. 295 propounded by him as offensive, broke out in tlicso words: "Mr. Ciiairman, I wish you to inform this witness, that he is not to insult me in his answers ; if he does, God damn him, I will take his life on the spot!" The witness, rising, claimed the protection of the committee ; on which Mr. Peyton exclaimed, " God damn you, you shan't speak ; you shan't say one word while you are in this room ; if you do, I will put you to death!" Mr. Wise, another slave- master from Yirginia, Chairman of the Committee, and since Governor of Yirginia, t.hen intervened, say- ing, " Yes, this damned insolence is insufferable." Soon after, Mr. Peyton, observing that the witness was looking at him, cried out : " Damn him, his eyes are on me ; God damn him, he is looking at me ; he shan't do it; damn him, he shan't look at me." These things, and much more, disclosed by Mr. Fairfield, in reply to interrogatories in the House, were confirmed by other witnesses ; and Mr. Wise himself, in a speech, made the admission, that he was armed with deadly weapons, saying : " I watched the motion of that right arm, (of the witness,) the elbow of which could be seen by me, and had it moved one inch, he had died on the spot. That was my determination." All this will be found in the thirteenth volume of the Congressional Debates^ with the evidence in detail, and the discussion thereupon. Here is another instance of similar character, which did not occur in a committee-room, but during de- bate in the Senate chamber. While the compromise measures were under discussion, in 1850, on the 17th of April, Mr. Foote, a slave-master, from Missis- sippi, in the course of his remarks, commenced a 29G SOUTHERN SLAVERY. personal allusion to Mr. Benton. This was aggra- vated by the circumstance that only a few days pre- viously he had made this distinguished gentleman the mark for most bitter and vindictive personalities. Mr. Benton rose at once from his seat, and, with an angry countenance, but without weapons of any kind in his hand, or, as it appeared afterwards before the committee, on his person, advanced in the direction of Mr. Foote, when the latter, gliding backward, drew from his pocket a five-chambered revolver, fully loaded, which he cocked. Meanwhile Mr. Benton, at the suggestion of his friends, was already returning to his seat, when he perceived the pistoL Excited greatly by this deadly menace, he exclaimed : "I am not armed. I have no pistols. I disdain to carry arms. Stand out of the way, and let the assassin fire." Mr. Foote remained standing in the position he had taken, with his pistol in his hand, cocked. " Soon after," says the report of the committee ap- pointed to investigate this occurrence, " both Senators resumed their seats, and order was restored." All this will be found at length in the twenty-first volume of the Congressional Globe. Another instance, which belongs to the same class, is given by the Hon. William Jay, a writer of singular accuracy, and of the truest principle, who has done much to illustrate the history of our country. It is this : Mr. Dawson, a slave-master from Louisiana, and a member of the House of Eepresentatives, went up to another member on the floor of the House, and addressed to him these words: "If you attempt to speak, or rise from your seat, sir, by God, I'll cut your throat." Mr. Giddings, Representative in Congress from SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. 297 Ohio, adds : " I was afterwards speaking with regard to a certain transaction in which negroes were con- cerned in Georgia, when Mr. Black, of Georgia, rais- ing his bludgeon, and standing in front of my seat, said to me : ' If you repeat that language again I w411 knock you down/ It Avas a solemn moment for me. I had never been knocked down, and having some curiosity on that subject, I repeated my lan- guage. Then Mr. Dawson, of Louisiana, the same who had drawn the bowie knife, placed his hand in his pocket and said, with an oath which I will not repeat, that he would shoot me, at the same time cocking the pistol, so that all around me could hear it click." Is it possible that such scenes could take place in the legislative halls of a civilized country ? The whole country has, most unjustly, been compelled to bear the infamy of this barbarism. But the barbarism does not end here. The vener- able John Quincy Adams, certainly one of the most distinguished statesmen of the country, who had been President of the United States, and was, at the time now referred to, a member of the House of Ee- presentatives, insisted perseveringly upon the popular right of petition, which was as pertinaciously refused by the slaveholders' majority in the House. On one occasion, he happened to present a petition, which, unknown to himself, contained a request for the dis- solution of the Union. Immediately he was assailed by a most overwhelming storm of abuse, and threat- ened with instant expulsion from the House, without even an opportunity of speaking in his own defence. And it is remarkable that this onslaught, in professed defence of the sacredness of the Union, was led 298 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. by the same Henry A. Wise, who engineered Virginia into secession, and has since been a General in the Confederate service. His hypocrisy still survives among many, who talk loudly of their attachment to the Union and the Constitution, while, at heart, tlioy sympathize with rebellion and treason. The Charles- ton Mercury^ which always speaks the true voice of slavery — not content with the quiet expulsion of the venerable patriot — said in 1837 : " Public opinion at the South would now, we are sure, justify an imme- diate resort to force by the Southern delegation, even on the floor of Congress^ were they forthwith to seize and drag from the Hall, any man who dared to insult them, as that eccentric old show-man, John Quincy Adams, has dared to do." This advice subsequently bore fruit. On the 22d of May, 1856, just after the adjournment of the Se- nate, while Mr. Charles Sumner, a Senator from Massachusetts, still remained in his seat in the Senate chamber, engaged pen in hand, Preston S. Brooks, a member of the House of Eepresentatives from South Carolina, accompanied with armed assist- ants, approached his desk unobserved, and abruptly addressed him. Before he had time to utter a single word in reply, he received a stunning blow upon the head from a heavy cane or bludgeon in the hands of Brooks, which made him blind and almost uncon- scious. Endeavouring, however, to protect himself, in rising from his chair his desk was overthrown ; and while in that condition he was beaten upon the head by repeated blows, until he sunk upon the floor of the Senate exhausted, unconscious, and covered with his own blood. The injuries thus inflicted were of so murderous a character that Senator Sumner narrowly SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. 299 escaped with his life ; and scarcely recovered from the consequences after several years of lingering suffering. For this act Brooks was not expelled from the House of Eepresentatives ; but, considering him- self censured by the large vote in favour of his ex- pulsion, he resigned his seat. He was immediately returned to it by the unanimous vote of his South Carolina constituents ; his course was loudly applauded by the Southern Press, so far as I know without a dissent- ing voice ; and he was presented with innumerable gold-headed canes and other mementoes in commen- dation and commemoration of his chivalrous exploit. Now, there may be rowdies and assassins anywhere; but what must be the barbarism of a people where such an act could command universal approbation and applause? The only excuse alleged for the act w^as, that the Senator had used insulting language towards South Carolina or some of her citizens. Whether his language had been insulting or not is a question of taste and opinion. I think it was not. But suppose it had been, was that the way to meet it, in a civilized community ? The same Senator, in 1860, made a speech to which I have above referred, which contained no offensive personalities, and the most insulting part of w^hich were the facts which it coolly and remorselessly stated. To this speech Senator Chesnut, of South Carolina, replied, alleging as an excuse in behalf of himself and his fellow Se- nators for not having arrested Mr. Sumner's speech by a renewed personal assault : " We are not inclined again to send forth the recijnent 0/ punishment, howling through the ivorld, yelping fresh cries of slander and malice." If such is the character of the very 61ite of the 300 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. Southern ehivaliy, how is it possible for civilized men to live with them in meek submission without utter degradation ? But this is not all. The " Christian Bishop" closes his whole volume with a final thrust at the horrible barbarism of Africa. He cites from Captain Canot " a graphic statement of the atrocities committed by the native Africans." He fails to observe, however, one thing which leaks out of the Captain's account, and which entirely nullifies his inference from the whole, viz. : that it is only slavery and the slave trade that have tended to raise the Africans from their sav- age state. " My mercantile adventure/' the Captain says, " was unhappily destined to be the apple of dis- cord between the two cousins. The establishment of 80 important an institution as a slave factory within the jurisdiction of the younger savage gave umbrage to the elder." And then he proceeds to depict the horrible atrocities which grew out of the quarrel of the kinsmen, thus confirming the statements of Pres- ident Buchanan and Dr. Livingstone, that the Euro- pean slave trade has been the principal cause of the disgusting barbarism of Africa. But off against the Bishop's picture I propose to set another picture from another quarter, drawn by at least as faithful and trustworthy an artist as the slave-trading Captain Canot. The following anecdote is told by Mr. Thomas K. Gladstone, an Englishman who visited Kansas during the time of the disturbances, in his work entitled Kansas; or, Squatter Life and Border Warfare in the Far West : " Individual instances of barbarity con- tinued to occur almost daily. In one instance a man belono-ina: to General Atchison's camn made a bet of SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. 301 six dollars against a pair of boots that he would go and return with an Abolitionist's scalp within two hours. He went forth on horseback. Before he had gone two miles from Leavenworth on the road to Lawrence, he met a Mr. Hops, driving a buggy. Mr. Hops was a gentleman of high respectability, who had come home with his wife, a few days previously, to join her brother, the Eev. Mr. Nute of Boston, who had for some time been laboring as a minister in Lawrence. The ruffian asked Mr. Hops where he came from. He replied he was last from Lawrence. Enough! The ruffian drew his revolver and shot him through the head ! As the body fell from the chaise, he dismounted, took his knife, scalped his vic- tim, and then returned to Leavenworth, where, having won his boots, he paraded the streets with the bleed- ing scalp of the murdered man stuck upon a pole. This was on the 19th of August. Eight days later, when the widow, who had been left at Lawrence sick, was brought down by the Eev. Mr. Nute, in the hope of recovering the body of her murdered hus- band, the whole party, consisting of about twenty persons in five wagons, was seized, robbed of all they had, and placed in confinement. One was shot the next day for attempting to escape. The widow and one or two others were allowed to depart by steamer, but penniless. A German incautiously condemning the outrage was shot, and another saved his life only by precipitate flight." This is but an illustration of the atrocities which were daily committed, and in every direction. There remains one chapter more to fill up the measure of the evidence of slaveholding barbarism. It is the savage acts of the rebels in the present war, 26 302 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. I shiiU not dwell upon the using of Yankee skulls for drinkinsc-bowls, and Yankee bones for the manufac- ture of ten-pins and trinkets and presents to sweet- hearts, and other things of a similar character, befit- ting only cannibals, which, though sufficiently authen- ticated by the investigations of a Congressional committee, may, after all, be acts only of individual savagery. I shall call attention at once to the scenes of Fort Pillow and of the prisons at Eichmond. My citations are taken from a report of a joint com- mittee of the Senate and House of Eepresentatives of the United States, made, after careful personal investigation, in May last. " It will appear from the testimony taken, that the atrocities committed at Fort Pillow were not the result of passions excited by the heat of conflict, but were the results of a policy deliberately decided upon and unhesitatingly announced. . . . The declarations of Forrest and his officers, both before and after the capture of Fort Pillow, as testified to by such of our men as have escaped after being taken by him ; the threats contained in the various demands for surren- der made at Paducah, Columbus, and other places; the renewal of the massacre the morning after the capture of Fort Pillow ; the statements made by the rebel officers to the officers of our gunboats, who received the few survivors at Fort Pillow — all this proves most conclusively the policy which they have determined to adopt;" that is, with respect to our coloured troops and their officers. " Then followed a scene of cruelty and murder, without a parallel in civilized warfare, which needed but the tomahawk and scalping-knife to exceed the SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. SCO worst atrocities ever committed by savages. The rebels commenced an indiscriminate slaiigUter, spar- ing neither age nor sex, white or black, soldier or civilian. The officers and men seemed to vie with each other in the devilish work ; men, women, and even children, wherever found, were deliberately shot down, beaten and even hacked with sabres; some of the children, not more than ten years old, were forced to stand up and face their murderers while being shot; the sick and the wounded were butchered without mercy, the rebels were entering the hospital building and dragging them out to be shot, or killing them as they lay there unable to offer the least re- sistance. All over the hillside the work of murder was going on. Numbers of our men were collected together in lines or groups and deliberately shot. Some were shot while in the river, while others on the bank were shot and their bodies kicked into the water; many of them still living but unable to make any exertions to save themselves from drowning. Some of the rebels stood upon the top of the hill or but a short a distance down its side, and called to our soldiers to come up to them, and, as they approached, shot them down in cold blood ; if their guns or pistols missed fire, forcing them to stand there until they were again prepared to fire. All around v^ere heard cries of 'No quarter!' 'No quarter!' 'Kill the damned Niggers !' ' Shoot them down !' All who asked for mercy were answered by the most cruel taunts and sneers. Some were spared for a time, only to be murdered under circumstances of greater cruelty. No cruelty which the most fiendish malig- nity could devise was omitted by these murderers. One white soldier who was wounded in one leo- Of 304 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. SO as to be unable to walk, was made to stand up while his tormentors shot him ; others who were wounded and unable to stand, were held up and again shot. One negro who had been ordered by a rebel officer to hold his horse was killed by him when he remounted ; another, a mere child, whom an officer had taken up behind him on his horse, was seen by Chalmers, who at once ordered the officer to put him down and shoot him, which was done. The huts and tents, in which many of the wounded had sought shelter, were set on fire, both that night and the next morning, while the wounded were still in them — those only escaping who were able to get themselves out, or who could prevail on others less injured than themselves to help them out; and even some of those thus seeking to escape the flames, were met by these ruffians and brutally shot down, or had their brains beaten out. One man w^as deliberately fastened down to the floor of a tent, face upwards, by means of nails driven through his clothing and into the boards under him, so that he could not possibly escape, and then the tent set on fire ; another was nailed to the side of a building outside of the Fort, and then the building set on fire and burned. The charred re- mains of five or six bodies were afterwards found, all but one so much disfigured and consumed by the flames that they could not be identified, and the iden- tification of that one is not absolutely certain, although there can hardly be a doubt that it was the body of Lieutenant Akerstrom, Quartermaster of the Thir- teenth Tennessee Cavalry, and a native Tennessean ; several witnesses who saw the remains, and who were personally acquainted with him while living, SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION. 6U5 have testified that it is their firm belief that it was his body that was thus treated "These deeds of murder and cruelty ceased when night came on, only to be renewed the next morning, when the demons carefully sought among the dead lying about in all directions for any of the wounded yet alive, and those they found were deliberately shot I" Such was the Fort Pillow massacre. As to the treatment of our prisoners of war in and about Eich- mond, the Committee sa}'^ : " The evidence proves, beyond all manner of doubt, a determination on the part of the rebel authorities, deliberately and persistently practiced for a long time past, to subject those of our soldiers, who have been so unfortunate as to fall into their hands, to a system of treatment which has resulted in reducing many of those who have survived and been permitted to return to us, to a condition both physically and mentally, which no language we can use can ade- quately describe They present literally the appearance of living skeletons, many of them being nothing but skin and bone ; some of them are maimed for life, having been frozen while exposed to the in- clemency of the winter season, being compelled to lie on the bare ground without tents or blankets In respect to the food furnished to our men by the rebel authorities, the testimony proves that the ration of each man was totally in sufficient in quantity to preserve the health of a child, even had it been of proper quality, which it was not. It consisted usually at the most of two small pieces of corn bread, made in many instances, as the witnesses state, of corn and cobs ground together, and badly prepared and cooked; 26* 300 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. of, at times, about two ounces of meat, usually of poor quality, and unfit to be eaten, and occasionally a few black worm-eaten beans, or something of that kind. Many of our men were compelled to sell to their guards, and others, for what price they could get, such clothing and blankets as they were per- mitted to receive of that forwarded for their use by our government, in order to obtain additional food sufficient to sustain life," — and thus to avoid perish- ing from hunger, exposing themselves to perishing from cold. Such is the boasted chivalry of the South, as ex- hibiting itself at the very centre of their highest civilization — at Eichmond. And yet these monsters are men like ourselves. The demon that possesses them is Slavery. Slavery and true civilization are imcompatible. The conflict is, indeed, " irrepressi- ble." If we are hereafter to live in peace with such men, it can only be on condition, either of the abolition of slavery, or of the abolition of freedom ! CHAPTEE X. SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. ••AS to rebellion^ I have always been opposed to -LL everything which deserves the name, in the family, in the Church, in the State, or in any other relation of society. The Apostles commanded obedi- ence, not only to the slave, but to the child, to the wife, and to every subject of earthly government." Such is the "Christian Bishop's" profession of loyalty. Its value and significance, under present circum- stances, may be inferred from the fact, that he q:k- ■pressly justified the secession of the Southern States, in a letter of 1861, which he authorized to be pub- lished " in its original form" in 1863, having then found "no reason for changing his opinion;" that he charges professed philanthropists, not Southern slaveholders, with being the cause of the present war ; and adds of the " ultra-abolitionists," that " not merely ' confusion and disturbance,' but the sacrifice of half a million of valuable lives, and the ravages of the most awful desolation, and a multitude of torn and bleeding hearts, and the kindling of bitter hatred and deadly animosity between those who were once friends and brethren, have marked the results of their insane determination." Indeed, from the whole tone of the Bishop's book it' would seem abundantly evident that the true rebels, in this case, are, in his (307) 308 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. view, no other than the abolitionists and the loyal people of the North ; and that they are responsible before God for all the consequences. Whether this be or be not his own personal position is a matter of no moment. I will neither impugn his loyalty nor be responsible for it. But doctrines which logically lead to such conclusions, one may surely be permitted to note, refute, and condemn. But, it is said, if there had been no abolitionists,* there would have been no rebellion, the country would now be in profound peace; therefore aboli- tionists are manifestly responsible for this fratricidal war and all its results. I answer, if there had been no slavery there would have been no abolitionists ; therefore the "insane determination" of the slave- holders to continue and perpetuate slavery is respon- sible for the existence of the abolitionists, and conse- quently for " this fratricidal war and all its results." But, again, it is said^ the slaveholders had a legal right to hold their slaves, solemnly guaranteed to them by the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land. Granted, — and the abolitionists also had a legal right freely to express and publish their opinions, solemnly guaranteed to them by the Constitution, in the following authentic words : "Congress shall make * As to " ultra-abolitionists," if I understand what is meant by the term, President Lincoln was not an ''ultra-abolitionist" at the time of his election, nor were the doctrines of the Republican party "ultra-abolitionist." If the contrary is maintained, it would remain to inquire accurately, what is the distinction be- tween "abolitionist" and "ultra-abolitionist?" Perhaps, it would turn out to be just this,— that the "Christian Bishop" is the type of a bond fide "abolitionist," and all who go beyond him are " ultra-abolitionists ? " SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. 309 no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press." But, yet again, it is rejoined; the institution of slavery is of so peculiar and delicate a character that it cannot be maintained — the masters cannot be safe with their property or their lives — if it is allowed to be drawn into discussion, and the opinions of, aboli- tionists are permitted freely to circulate. It may be so, I reply. But so much the worse for slavery. It only shows that slavery is such a peculiar institution that it cannot co-exist with the principles of free gov- ernment ; it is inconsistent ivith the provisions of the Fede- ral Constitution. For, if the Constitution had intended to guarantee slavery in such sense as to allow its free dis- cussion to be prohibited, an exception would have been made in its favour, in the clause forbidding the abridg- ment of the freedom of speech or of the press. No such exception is made. Many, and probably all, of the framers of the Constitution believed slavery to be wrong; and some of them did not hesitate, in the Constitutional Convention itself, to say so. Surely it can be no more a "crime," under the Constitution, for me " to write about slavery, to preach about slavery, to talk about slavery, to think about slavery," than it was for Benjamin Franklin, one of the framers of that Constitution, and, at the same time, President of an anti-slaver}^ society, to present the following me- morial to Congress in 1789 : " From a persuasion that equal liberty was origin- ally the portion, and is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties of humanity and the principles of their institutions, your memorialists con- ceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endea- 810 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. vours to loosen the bands of slavery and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. " Under these impressions they earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men who alone, in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amid the general joy of surrounding freedom, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will de- vise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people, that you will pro- mote mercy and justice towards this oppressed race ; that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic* in the persons of our fellow men." Such were the words of Benjamin Franklin. Did he '• tear to shreds the Constitution" he had helped to make ? Was he an "ultra-abolitionist?" Alas, ^^tem- pora mutantur P' And now grave judges tell us that such language is " criminal,^^ Christian bishops refer it to an "atheistic and infidel" origin,-)- and clergymen, in solemn conventions, even venture to pronounce its reproduction " blasphemous." * It is to be observed that the control and regulation of the inter-Staie slave trade, as of all other domestic commerce, are clearly within the constitutional powers of Congress; — though nev6r exercised. Had Congress, in accordance with the petition of Franklin, from the first, stepped to the verge of its powers on this head, slavery would have died long ago. f When the Convention of 1787 had anxiously deliberated and laboured for several days without success or progress, ditficulties seeming but to increase and darkness to thicken around them, and some already preparing to return home in despair, then it was Franklin who rose, and, " Let us seek the guidance and blessing of God," he said; "unaided by the light of a higher SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. 311 Nothing can be plainer than, as 1 have said, that if slavery is inconsistent with free speech, it is incon- Bistent with the Constitution of the United States. Here the case ends, and slavery goes to the bottom. The very allegation that abolitionism is the cause of the war implies and proves that slavery is the cause of the war. It is its material cause; but the true and proper cause of the war is the slaveholders them- selves rising in rebellion against the Constitution, the Grovernment, the flag, the very existence of their country.* wisJoni than oui" own, we shall toil and perjilex ourselves to no good purpose." AVould that this truly Christian counsel had been followed. The Convention might then have been led to the adoption of such provisions as would have saved us from this rebellion and from the horrors of civil war. * But it is said the Abolitionists at least provoked the rebellion. Harry is mercilessly beating his dog. His brother Tom, hearing the moans of the creature, expostulates with Harry. Still the beating goes on. At length says Tom: "It is wrong, it is out- rageous, it is positively wicked, to beat that dog so." " If you don't hold your insolent tongue," says Harry, " I will knock you down." Tom, somewhat moved, repeats his statement. There- upon Harry, bludgeon in hand, falls upon him. Tom defends himself as best he may, and a fight ensues. In the midst of it the father appears, and finds his sons with clothes torn, faces disfigured, and rolling in each other's blood. Having learned the history of the case, he thus decides : " Tom, you should have known better than to speak, when Harry told you to hold your tongue, and especially when you knew that, if you spoke, it would certainly lead to this scene of violence. You deserve all you have suffered, and are responsible for all the suffering you have inflicted upon Harry, and ought to be punished for it. Go away, and learn to keep the peace." " Here Harry, my bravo boy, let me kiss you. Never mind." A sage and highly Episco- pal decision ! Indeed, some one who stood near, and heard it, very innocently inquired whether the father were not a Bishop. When it is said that the Abolitiunists provoked the slaveholders, 312 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. Xow this rebellion is either justifiable or unjustifi- able. If justifiable, the country is bound to submit to its demands and die decently. If unjustifiable, then are the rebels, and they alone, guilty of all the bloodshed and vmnifold icoes entailed upon both South and KoHh by this unnatural and deplorable war. Other j^arties may doubtless be guilty of particular acts of atrocity or violence, but not so as to diminish aught from the guilt of the original conspirators and leaders of the rebellion ; rather is their guilt thereby only accumu- lated. Others may be guilty of a part; but they, and they alone^ are guilty of the whole. Is, then, the rebellion justifiable ? In the first place, it is no '-unhappy strife between two sections of our common country," as, in their impartial loyalty, the Philadelphia politicians denom- inate it. It is a true and proper rebellion. The country is on one side, the rebels are on the other. The rebela began by firing upon our flag, by insult- ing and trampling the very emblem of our country^s nationality in the dust. They openly separated from the country, and levied war against it. Their avowed purpose is and has been to destroy our national Union and our national existence. And is this to be softly called by loyal men '-an unhappy strife between two sections?" What then is loyalty, and what is rebellion ? To an unsophisticated moral judgment it would seem plain that, in case of a rebelKon, there are but two sides to the question; there is no middle, no it seems to be forgotten that it is at least equally true that the slaveholders provoked the Abolitionists. And here, again, the slaveholders are at the bottom of the mischief. SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. 313 neutral ground. He that is not with his country is against her; and the constitutional government for the time being represents his country, is the organ of his country — the only organ his country has ; if the government is demolished, demolished by the rebel- lion, his country is demolished. If a murderer were in the act of striking down his victim, who should be defending himself to the best of his ability ; and a by- stander should look quietly on without lifting a finger or calling for help, and talk about "the unhappy con. test between the two parties," would he not be an accessory to the crime ? But even rebellion may sometimes be justifiable. Is it the case with this ? Had the rebels exhausted all possible constitutional means of righting their wrongs ? To call secession and rebellion itself a co?i- stitutional means is too grossly absurd to deserve a moment's consideration. Had they remonstrated, had they supplicated, had they prostrated themselves before the Grovernmcnt, imploring a redress of their grievances? In the first place, they had no griev- ances to complain of against the Grovernment. In the second place, if they had had mijffJiej/^ remon- strate?' fcy supplicate? they petition? Xo! The Government was their *' creature." " They knew their rights and dared defend them." Such have been their uniform language and bearing. In fact, to show that had they had any grievances on the part of the Grovernment to complain of, they had not exhausted all constitutional means of redress, it is sufficient to say that, at the very moment of their secession, they with the help of their political allies, had entire con- trol of the Supreme Court of the United States, and of both Houses of Congress, with a large majority in 27 314 SOUTHERNSL AVERY. the Senate, thus effectually checking and controlling the Executive. But no words can better set forth the utter groundlessness and moral indefensibility of the rebellion, than a speech of Alexander H. Stej^hens, now Yice-President of the rebel Confederacy, deliv- ered before the Georgia secession convention in Jan- uary, 1861. " This step (of secession) once taken can never be recalled; and all the baleful and withering conse- quences that must follow will rest on the convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war, which this act of yours loill inevitably invite and call forth, when our green fields of waving harvest shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war sweeping over our land, our temples of justice laid in ashes, all the horrors and desola- tions of war u2:)on us, who hut this convention will he held responsible for it? and who but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and illtimed mea- sure, as I honestly think and believe, shall he held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present genera- tion, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now j^ropose to perpetrate. Pause, 1 entreat you What right has the North assailed ? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied, and what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld ? Can either of you to-day name one gov- ernmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the Government at Washington, of which the South has a right to complain ? I challenge the answer SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. 815 '' "We have always had the control of the General Government, and can yet if we remain in it, and are as united as we have ever been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen from the South, as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the Executive Department. So of the Judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South, and but eleven from the North; although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the free States, yet a majority of the court has always been from the South. This we have required, so as to guard against any interpretation of the Constitution unfavourable to us. In like manner we have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the legislative branch of Government. In choosing the presiding j^residents (^2^ro tern.) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the House, we have had twenty-three and they twelve. While the majority of the representatives, from their greater population, have always been from the North, yet we have so generally secured the Speaker, because he, to a greater extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country Attorney-generals, we have had fourteen, while the North have had but five. Foreign ministers, we have had eighty-six, and they but fifty-four We have had the principal embassies, so as to se- cure the world market for our cotton, tobacco, and sugar, on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, while a large proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of 31G SOUTHERN SLAVERY. clerks, auditors, and comj)trollers, filling the Execu- tive departments. The records show for the last fifty years that of three thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the Republic A fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the suj^port of the Government has uniformly been raised from the iNorth. Pause now while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate care- fully and candidly these important items " For you to attemj^t to overthrow such a Govern- ment as this, under which we have lived for more than three quarters of a century, in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our do- mestic safety, while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied with unbounded prosperity, and rights unassailed, is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote.'' ISTevertheless Georgia seceded, the Southern Con- federacy was formed, and Alexander II. Stephens is said to be its Yice President. " Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant." But though the Southern rebellion is unjustifiable, it must have had some pretended grounds : What were they ? "What did it demand ? Its demands were four ; and they were all con- nected with slavery :* 1st. The unlimited extension of slavery j * Alexander H. Stephens said, at Savannah, in a public speech, a few days after his election: "Negro slavery was the imme- diate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this as the rock upon which the old Union would split." SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. 31T 2d. The silencing of abolitionists throughout the United States ; 8d. The surrender of the freedom of elections ; 4th. 'No protection of the free blacks against the hunters of alleged fugitive slaves. 1st. As to the unlimited extension of slavery it was demanded, in the first place, with respect to the Ter- ritories — the common property of the United States. But it was demanded in the Territories on grounds which are equally applicable to the States themselves. For the grounds were, that all the States are equal, and that if the citizens of one State, Pennsylvania, for example, may migrate with their property into the common Territories, so may the citizens of an- other State, Yirginia, for example, migrate into them with their property ; but in Yirginia slaves are pro- perty ; therefore slavery cannot be prohibited in the Territories. ISTow it is manifest that this reasoning is just as applicable to the several States as to the Territories ; for if a Pennsylvanian may remove into Virginia and carry all his movable property with him, then, as the rights of States are equal, a Vir- ginian may remove into Pennsylvania and carry his slaves with him. There can be no reasonable doubt that this doctrine was intended ultimately to have this wider application. The first step was to be taken with the Territories, and when that was firmly se- cured, the other would follow of course. The Dred Scott decision clearly opened the way to this conclu- sion, and almost forestalled it.* No present assur- * Some people affect to speak of the Supreme Court of the United States as if it were not only suprevie but infallible. I cheerfully submit to its supremacy, but I deny its infallibility. Its mandates are to be obeyed, but its dicta, its doctrines, are fiiir 27* 318 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. ances to the contrary, no solemn compromises, could have protected us from the inevitable result. We should simply have been told, at the proper time, that such compromises, like that of Missouri, were unconstitutional ! Eut, in fact, this claim of the slaveholders is utterly untenable, as a constitutional claim, even in regard to the Territories. According to the constitution, Con- gress has the exclusive right of legislation over the Territories. The States have nothing at all to do with it — have no right whatever, as States, to claim or to act in the premises. And the Supreme Court has decided (McCulloch vs. State of Maryland) that "the Grovernment of the Union, though limited in its power, is supreme within its sphere of action.'' But are not the States equal ? That is a theoretical doc- trine, and, in a proper sense, is admitted to be true ; but, after all, it is not an article of the Constitution, and, in point of fact, is liable to some modifications. The States are equal in the Senate, but not in the House ; and, if slaves are property, — as is claimed in this case, subjects of respectful criticism. Now, it is of small moment for me to say, that I agree with Judge Curtis, and hold the Dred Scott decision to have been wrong, iniquitously wrong,— a de- cision which must eventually be reversed,— yet, had the execu- tion of the mandate of the court in that case been resisted, I should have been ready, as a good citizen, to render all the assist- ance required in support of the law. It seems to have been tho clear opinion of Mr. A. H. Stephens, in his speech before cited, that a Supreme Court may be packed— packed with Southern partizans— packed so as to secure the interests of slavery. And while the mandates of the Supreme Court are the supreme law of the land, its dicta, its dogmas, pronounced at one time, may be reversed at another. Every court would feel at liberty to correct the errors of its predecessors. SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. 319 — ^then some States have a iwoioerty representation in Congress, while others are not allowed the privilege. And, let the States be as equal as you please, the business of Congress is, not to act upon States or sec- tions, but upon individuals ; not to legislate for States or se-ctions, but for the people, for the public good, for "the general welfare;" — I say, restricting itself always within its own sphere, it is, within that sphere, to legislate for the " general welfare ;" for, this is precisely what the Constitution, in terms, re- quires. Now even if it were consistent with the general welfare, as it would not always be, it is, in many cases, simply impossible for Congress so to frame its laws that each State shall have exactly its proportion of burden or its proportion of benefit. As President Jackson said to the South Carolina nullifiers, no tariff can be so adjusted as to press with precisely proportional weight upon each individual State. The same is true of any system of taxation, even, in some respects, of "direct taxtion." Con- gress is constitutionally bound to legislate with an honest and impartial view to the general welfare. If, therefore, in the conscientious judgment of Con- gress, the general welfare requires the introduction of slavery into the Territories, Congress is constitu- tionally bound to allow its introduction. But if, on the other hand, in the conscientious judgment of Congress, the general welfare — the welfare of the country as a whole, and particularly of the Territo- ries themselves in the long run* — for in their future * Even Henry Clay, as late as the year 1850, in answer to Jef- ferson Davis, then a Senator from Mississippi, used the following language on the floor of the United States Senate : "I am extremely sorry to hear the Senator from Mississippi 320 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. welfare, the welfare of the whole country is most deeply involved — requires that slaver}^ should be prohibited in the Territories; — then is Congress con- stitutionally and solemnly bound to prohibit it. — !N"o State and no power on earth has any right to in- terfere. This must be so ; otherwise Congress had no right to abolish slavery in the District of Colum- bia. And, inasmuch as, by the Constitution, Con- gress has the right " to exercise exclusive legislation over that District in all cases whatsoever,'^ if Con- gress have not the right to abolish slavery there, it must be because its abolition is not a legitimate sub- ject of legislation at all; and, if so, then no State, and no government under heaven, has a right to abolish slavery ; and thus we should have at least one in- defeasible and inalienable right — the right of slavery. But there is another aspect of this Southern claim which deserves to be considered. It not only makes say that he requires first, the extension of the Missouri Compro- mise line to the Pacific ; and, also, that he is not satisfied with that, but requires, if I understand him correctly, a positive pro- vision for the admission of slavery south of that line. And now, sir, coming from a slave State, as I do, I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the subject, to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduc- tion of slavery where it had not before existed, either south or north of that line. Coming, as I do, from a slave State, it is my solemn, deliberate, and well-matured determination that no power — no earthly power — shall compel me to vote for the posi- tive introduction of slavery, either south or north of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and justly, too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of America, I am, for one, unwilling that the posterity of the pre- sent inhabitants of California and New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us." SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. S21 the law of slavery the supreme law of the land, gives the precedence to the laws of the Slave States over those of the Free States — ^in the common Territories; — but, if the slave code of one State be more severe or cruel than that of the others, it gives that code the precedence over all. For, suppose that, by the laws of one State, the master has the unrestrained power of life and death over his slaves, and the slaves are allowed no legal marriage ; and, by the laws of an- other State, a master is allowed to chastise his slave only as he might chastise his child or his apprentice, that the testimony of slaves is admitted in evidence, and that families are not allowed to be separated; and, by the laws of a third State, no persons here- after born are to be held in slavery, &c., &c.; — and suppose that, in a given Territory, there are emi- grants, with their slaves, from those various States, and emigrants from Free States. [NTow, in this case, what is to be the law in relation to slavery in the Territory? There are but two possible courses to take. Either the immigrants from each State must remain under the laws of the State from which they emigrated ; — which, among other anomalies, would lead to this, that a man from a Free State would have no right to buy or hold a slave in the Territory, while his neighbour from a Slave State would have the right; — or, some choice must be made; and, in this case, according to the Southern claim, no other choice could be made but the severest and most cruel slave code of all. For, if otherwise, if any other code could be constitutionally adopted, then it might be the mildest of all — a mere system of apprenticeship ; or it might be enacted that no persons born in the Territory should be slaves ; or the law of freedom — 822 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. for that is only one member of the series — might be established at once. ]^ow, the party which elected President Lincoln, held it as a part of their creed, that, while they religiously abstained from interfering with slavery as established in the several States, and would even ac- cept the Fugitive Slave Law, as it exists, — in the Ter- ritories^ slavery ivas to be prohibited. The South saw that, if this were allowed, they should eventually lose the control of the General Government, which they had enjoyed almost uninterruptedly from the beginning. Besides, they professed to think that any restriction of slavery must inevitably lead to its final extinction. " There is not a slaveholder," says Judge Warner of Georgia, " in this house or out of it, but who knows perfectly well that, whenever slavery is confined within certain specified limits, its future existence is doomed ; it is only a question of time as to its final destruction. You may take any single slaveholding county in the Southern States^ in which the great staples of cotton and sugar are cultivated to any ex- tent, and confine the present slave population within the limits of that county ; — such is the rapid natural increase of the slaves, and the rapid exhaustion of the soil in the cultivation of those crops (which add so much to the commercial wealth of the country), that in a few years it would be impossible to support them within the limits of such county. Both master and slave would be starved out ; and what would be the practical effect in any one county, the same result would happen to all the slaveholding States. Slavery cannot be confined within certain specified limits without producing the destruction both of master SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. 323 and slave ; it requires fresh lands, plenty of wood and water, not only for the comfort and happiness of the slave, but for the benefit of the owner." There- fore, because a restriction of slavery extension was threatened by the party coming into power, the slaveholders rebelled. 2d. Their second demand was that the Abolitionists should be silenced. South Carolina, in her declara- tion of causes which induced her secession, declares that the " non-slaveholding States have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery," and concludes '• all hope of remedy is rendered vain by the fact that public oj^inion at the iSTorth has invested a great polit- ical error with the sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief" It is abundantly clear that nothing would have satisfied the South on this head, so long as iJ^orthern men were allowed "to write about slavery, to preach about slavery, to lecture about slavery, to talk about slavery, to think about slavery." To do so must be constituted a crime throughout the length and breadth of the land; and though there were evidently some politicians at the ISTorth ready to yield them this point, and to aid them in gaining it, they themselves had too much common sense to be- lieve that the free people of the North could ever be brought to consent to such a degradation. They therefore said : " There is no hope." 3d. Their third demand was, in substance, that the freedom of elections should be surrendered to their dictation. South Carolina, in her declaration, set forth, as one of the chief causes for her secession, " the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States Avhose opinions and purposes aro hostile to slavery." The flagrant insufficiency of this 324 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. justification of rebellion cannot be more clearly ex- hibited than it was, at the time, by the same Alexander II. Stephens, from whom we have heard before. " The first question that presents itself is, Shall the people of the South secede from the Union in conse- quence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presi- dency of the United States ? My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think that they ought. In my judgment, the election of no man, constitutionally chosen to that high office, is sufficient cause for any State to separate from the Union. It ought to stand by, and aid still in main- taining the Constitution of the country. To make a point of resistance to the Government, to withdraw from it because a man has been constitutionally elected, j9W^s us in the icrong. We are pledged to main- tain the Constitution. Many of us have sworn to support it. Can we, therefore, for the mere election of a man to the Presidency, and that, too, in accord- ance with the prescribed form of the Constitution, make a point of resistance to the Government with- out becomino- the breaker of that sacred instrument ourselves — or withdraw ourselves from it ? Would we not be in the wrong ? Whatever fate is to befall this country, let it never be laid to the charge of the peo- ple of the South, and especially to the people of Georgia, that we were untrue to our national eiigagements. Let the fault and wrong rest upon others. If all our hopes are to be blasted, if the Eepublic is to go down, let us be found to the last moment standing on the deck, with the Constitution of the United States waving over our heads. Let the fanatics of the North break the Constitution, if such is their fell purpose- Let the responsibility be upon them. I shall speak SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. 325 presently more of their acts; but let not the South — let us not be the ones to commit the aggression We went into the election with this people. The result was different from what we wished ; but the election has been constitutionally held. "Were we to make a point of resistance to the G-overnment, and go out of the Union on that account, the record would be made up hereafter against us." ■ But, even if the election of Mr. Lincoln was no justification of the rebellion, some are ready to ask whether, after all, it would not have been wiser for the free people of the North to have refrained from voting for Mr. Lincoln, and to have elected some man to the Presidency who would have been acceptable to the South, and thus to have avoided the rupture of our glorious and prosj^erous Union, and all the mis- eries and horrors of this deplorable war ? Does this seem plausible? How much, then, is our freedom worth? How much would we sacrifice for it ? How much would we suffer to defend and retain it ? These are the real questions. We honour our fathers for having braved the privations, sufferings, and perils of a seven-years' war rather than pay an unconstitu- tional tax of a few pence a pound on tea ; and shall we allow another party to dictate to us whom we shall or shall not vote for ? Shall we allow ourselves, by threats of rebellion and war, war to the knife, to be frightened from the exercise of our elective fran- chise ? When we are ready to submit to such dicta- tion as this, we cannot stop at any other imposition, however flagrant, and which will be sure to follow ; our liberties are gone ; we are slaves. To insist upon the right to elect Mr. Lincoln may seem a small thing ; but to insist on the right of free suffrage is 326 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. everything, if we would be a free people. The elec- tion of Mr. Lincoln cannot cost us too much, unless our very freedom may cost too much. Better meet bravely the loss or mortgaging of all the wealth we possess, and be slaughtered by the million on the battle-field, than tamely to submit to the degradation of havino; our rulers set over us at the dictation of Southern slave masters, or of any other party or power on earth. 4th. The final — and often it was made the fore- most — demand of those who threatened rebellion, was, that the Free States should repeal all their ^^ personal liberty laws," and leave the free blacks with- out protection to the slave-hunters of the South. Now, in the first place, the very idea of one State undertaking to dictate to another State what laws it should make or unmake for the protection of its own citizens, was a piece of the grossest, most unconsti- tutional and insolent impertinence. If the laws of any of the Free States were alleged to be unconsti- tutional, the appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States was open and unobstructed ; and had that court pronounced them so, they w^ould have been peaceably and quietly annulled. This was the proper and regular course to have pursued. No Free State had ever attempted or threatened to hinder or resist the judgment or the process of the Suj)reme Court. Yet there Avas kept up, both North and South, a persistent outcry about the unconstitution- ality of these "personal libert}" bills," — though they were enacted, ostensibly at least, for the protection of free citizens from kidnappers Let us look at the conduct of South Carolina in an analogous case. It is commonly insisted by slave- SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. o27 masters at the South, and their white slaves at the North, that the Constitution guarantees the property in shaves; — as though that were the sum and sub- stance of the whole instrument. 'Now the fact is, that the Constitution nowhere mentions slaves or slavery, or recognizes men as property ; and if sla- very were utterly abolished, the Constitution would not need to be altered in a single particular. The Constitution, in one clause, assumes that there may be ''persons" other than "free persons;'' (Art. I. sec. 2 ;) and, in another clause, it provides that " J^o per- son held to service or labour in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in conse- quence of any law or regulation therein, be dis- charged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour is due,'' — a clause which speaks only of " persons" who '• owe service or labour," and is just as applicable to apprentices as to slaves. And this is all that the American Constitution says about slaves or slavery. But in the same section with this last cited clause, which is held to be such a solemn gua- ranty of slave property, the Constitution contains another clause equally solemn, in these words : " The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the pri- vileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." Yet, in open defiance of this provision of the Con- stitution, free persons of colour, citizens of Massa- chusetts, and, according to the institutions of that Commonwealth, entitled to equal privileges with other citizens, being in service as mariners, and touching at the port of Charleston, in South Caro- lina, have been seized, and with no allegation against 328 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. them, except of entering this port in the discharge of their rightful business, have been cast into prison, and there detained during the delay of the vessel. This is by virtue of a statute of South Carolina, passed in 1823, which further declares, that in failure of the captain to pay the expenses, these freemen " shall be seized and taken as absolute slaves," one moiety of the proceeds of their sale to belong to the sheriif. Against all remonstrance — against the offi- cial opinion of Mr. Wirt, as Attorney-general of the United States, declaring it unconstitutional — against the solemn judgment of Mr. Justice Johnson, of the Supreme Court of the United States, himself a slave- master and citizen of South Carolina, also pro- nouncing it unconstitutional — this statute, which is an obvious injury to Northern ship-owners, as it is an outrage to the mariners whom it seizes, has been upheld to this day by South Carolina. But this is not all. Massachusetts, in order to ob- tain for her citizens that protection which was denied, and especially to save them from the dread penalty of being sold into slavery, appointed a citizen of South Carolina to act as her agent for this purpose, and to bring suits in the Circuit Court of the United States in order to try the constitutionality of this pretension. Owing to the sensibility of the people in that State, this agent declined to render this sim- ple service. Massachusetts next selected one of her own sons, a venerable citizen, who had already served with honour in the lower House of Congress, and who was of admitted eminence as a lawyer, the Hon. Samuel Hoar, of Concord, to visit Charleston, and to do what the agent first appointed had shrunk from doing. This excellent gentleman, beloved by all who SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. 329 knew him, gentle in manners as he was firm in cha- racter, and with a countenance that was in itself a letter of recommendation, arrived at Charleston, ac- companied only by his daughter. Straightway all South Carolina was convulsed. According to a story in Boswell's Johnson, all the inhabitants of St. Kilda, a remote island of the Hebrides, on the approach of a stranger, " catch cold f but in South Carolina it is a fever that they '' catch." The Governor at the time made his arrival the subject of a special mes- sage to the Legislature, the Legislature all " caught" the fever, and swiftly adopted resolutions calling upon "his Excellency the Governor to expel from its territory the said agent, after due notice to de- part," and promising " to sustain the Executive au- thority in any measures it may adopt for the pur- poses aforesaid." Meanwhile the fever raged in Charleston. The agent of Massachusetts was first accosted in the streets by a person unknown to him, who, flourishing a bludgeon in his hand, (the bludgeon always shows itself where slavery is in question,) cried out : " You had better be travelling, and the sooner the better for you ; if you stay here until to-morrow morning, you will feel something you will not like, I'm thinking." ISText came threats of an attack, during the following night, on the hotel in which he was lodged ; then a request from the landlord that he should quit, in order to pre- serve the hotel itself from the impending danger of an infuriated mob ; then a committee of slave-masters, who politely proposed to conduct him to the boat. Thus arrested in his simple errand of good will, this venerable public servant, whoso aj)pearance alone — • like that of the " grave and pious man" mentioned by 28* 230 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. Virgil — would haA^^. softened any mob not inspired by slavery, yielded to the ejectment proposed — ^precisely as the prisoner yields to the officers of the law — and left Charleston, while a person in the crowd was heard to offer himself as " the leader of a tar-and-fea- ther gang, to be called into the service of the city on the occasion." ISTor is this all. The Legislature a second time " caught" the fever, and, yielding to its influence, passed another statute, forbidding, under severe penalties, any person within the State from accepting a commission to befriend these coloured mariners ; and under penalties severer still, extend- ing even to imprisonment for life, prohibiting any person " on his own behalf, or by virtue of any au- thority of an}^ State," to come within South Carolina for this purpose ; and then, to complete its work, the Legislature took away the writ of habeas corpus from all such mariners. Such is a simple narrative founded on authentic documents.* Such has been the conduct of South Carolina, and yet Massachusetts neither seceded nor rebelled ; and Northern men generally seemed disposed to pocket the insult, and indeed began to be strangely oblivious of its very existence. Yet this same South Carolina, in her declaration, charges the violation of the Con- stitution in the matter of the rendition of fugitive servants, as one of the causes of her secession; — although she probably never lost half a dozen slaves, and perhaps never a solitary slave, by such violation. The fact is, that, though the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was clearly not required by the Constitution, and was hold by a large number at the North to bo * See Sumner's speech of 1860. SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. 331 positively unconstitutional, and so declared by the solemn judgment of the Supreme Court of one of the States, — ^yet, according to the testimony of Stephen A. Douglas, 710 law of the United States was more faith- fully or efficiently executed throughout the country. In- deed it was looked upon, by many Northern as well as Southern men, and by some Presidents of the United States, as being the law of all laws, — the law to be executed at all hazards and at whatever cost. But how was it with the laws prohibiting the im- portation of slaves by the African slave trade ? Were not those laws also constitutional — plainly author- ized by the Constitution, after the year 1808 ? And yet, in direct violation of these laws, and with the ap- parent connivance of the Government itself, was not cargo after cargo of these slaves introduced into the Southern States? and did not agricultural societies offer public premiums for the best specimens of na- tive Africans brought directly from their homes? And we of the ISTorth took all this as a matter of course. Yet these very men, upon annulling the Con- stitution of their country, and rebelling against its Government, have the effrontery to allege in justifica- tion, that certain constitutional laws had been vio- lated at the North ; and some among us, alas ! with- out waiting for a decree of the proper tribunal, were ready to cry peccavimus, and fall on our knees to ask forgiveness. The truth is, that, notwithstanding all the belligerent passages which our "Christian Bishop" has gleaned from Parker, Emerson, and a few others, — we Northern people are essentially a Union-loving, a law-loving and a law-abiding people ; and the South- ern slaveholders have counted upon it ; we are lovers and followers of peace; and the slaveholders have 332 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. taken advantage of it ; we enter into war reluctantly, and are with difficulty trained to it ; and to this day, on the floor of the Senate, the taunt is familiarly east into the teeth of Massachusetts, by such men as the Senators from Kentucky, that her people are not ready to fight. No insinuation can be more utterly groundless than that Massachusetts, or any Northern State; or the Eepublican party, or the anti-slavery men anywhere, were making ready to inaugurate a rebellion or a civil war for the abolition of slavery. Whereas, it is notorious that the Southern conspira- tors, and particularly in South Carolina, had been plotting and preparing their treason and secession for thirty years past. The reasons alleged by the slaveholders in justifi- cation of their rebellion, are mere plausible pretexts caught at for the moment. If they were all true, they would not suffice to justify the rebellion. What must be its character, then, when they are all shown to be untenable or false ? As I have said, slavery is at the bottom of them all. And if slavery were removed, no occasion of quarrel could be found. It is sometimes thought im- possible to restore the old Union, on account of the sectional bitterness engendered by the war. But, if slavery were once abolished, there is no reason what- ever that South Carolinians and Virginians may not live as fraternally with Pennsylvanians, New York- ers, and New Englanders, as these do with each other, or with Ohians and Indianians. The country ivas formed by nature to be one, and must be one on some terms or other. On the one hand, the question has been much dis- cussed, how the seceded States may be restored to SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. the Union ; and, on the other hand, it has been con- tended that, as secession is a nullity, as the States have never been out of the Union, there is no need of any restoration at all. If the disputants would define exactly what they mean by a " State," they would find very little left to contend about. A " State" may be regarded as a certain extent of ter- ritory, or as a certain aggregation of people, or as a certain political organism ; or rather, all these ele- ments, and particularly the last, must be combined in the true and proper sense of the word. 'Now, so far as a " State" refers to a certain extent of terri- tory, undoubtedly the seceded States are still in the Union ; every inch of their territory is in the United States, and is under the jurisdiction of the United States. So far as a " State" refers to the people inhabiting a certain territory, the seceded States are no less in the Union ; every man, woman and child in them is, and has always continued, subject to the laws of the United States. Moreover, the people, the loyal peo- ple of each seceded State are, potentially, sovereign as before, and may recover all the constitutional rights and powers of the people of a sovereign State of the Union. But, at present, they have no organs by which that sovereignty can be exercised. As a people cannot exist as a State without a ter- ritor}^, so they cannot act as a State without an or- ganization. So far as a " State" refers to the politi- cal organization of the people of a certain territory — the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of their Government, — the seceded States are no longer in the Union; their existing organizations of govern- ment are, under our Constitution, nullities; their 334 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. governors, legislatures, and judges arc usurpers, are sworn to maintain the so-called Confederate Consti- tution and not the Constitution of the United States; those States are destitute of any legitimate govern- ments under the Constitution of the United States ; the people cannot proceed, constitutionally, to re-es- tablish such governments by the mere spontaneous movement of private individuals and without any legal authorization ; if their present pretended gov- ernments are nullities, any enactment, commission, or writ of election proceeding from them, is also a nullity ; the only way to start, therefore, is by au- thorization from the Government of the United States ; the Government of the United States is the only legitimate authority that now exists in the seceded States, the only sound portion of their political organization; from the Government of the United States, therefore, the vis medicatrix, which is to restore their political sys- tems, now lying paralyzed, must proceed. In this gense,— of re-establishing their political organizations as States in the Union, — the seceded States need to be restored to the Union; and they can be thus restored only under authority derived from the Gov- ernment of the United States. Whether this autho- rity is to emanate from a Proclamation of the Presi- dent or from an act of Congress, may be a very im- portant, but is still a subordinate, question. I shall not stop to discuss it. In short, then, secession took no State out of the Union either as a territory or as a people ; but, as a political organization, it did take every seceded State out of the Union, — ^that is to say, it left the State no organization in the Union, and the organization it has substituted is out of the Union; is, dejure, spu- SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. 335 rioiis, illegitimate, unconstitutional, null; and de facto hostile and rebellious. Neither the National Consti- tution nor national self-respect will allow the United States Government to recognize or in any manner to treat with such treasonable organizations. Such a recognition would itself be an acknowledgment of the dissolution of the Union. The rebellious States are all constitutionally and legally in the Union ; but, in order to resume their 'political functions as mem- bers of the Union, they must be organized de novo. In this sense and so far, they must be treated as "Territories." This reorganization must be based upon some enabling act or some legitimating autho- rity proceeding from the Grovernment of the United States. And such enabling act or legitimating au- thority cannot, without absurdity, be forbidden to prescribe such conditions, restrictions, and modes of procedure in the process of reorganization, as the rebellion itself has demonstrated to be absolutely necessary to the national existence, the nation al Union, and national peace. And what loyal people will object to such conditions as those? The Constitution has established a government, a SUPREME, federal government; but it has omitted to make any special provision for the case either of the secession or of the restoration of States. Of course therefore, any process of restoration, and that above proposed among the rest, must be extra-constitutional. But the assertion that such a process is wn-constitu- tional, that it is violative of the Constitution, must rest ultimately upon the monstrous doctrine that, under the Coristitution, any State may claim the right not only to secede with impunity, hid, having seceded, to re- turn to the Union at pleasure. It is not denied, how- 836 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. ever, that a reorganization of a State government effected by the spontaneous action of the loyal people, if so it be possible to effect it, might be legitimated by the subsequent recognition of the Federal Gov- ernment. But, on the other hand, if the present rebel officials in any seceded State should take the oath required by the Constitution of the United States, might they be recognized as the constitutional gov- ernment of such a State ? To this I answer, No ; because by previously taking and acting upon an oath to support the " Confederate" government, which was levying war against the United States, they have all aided and abetted the rebellion, and are guilty of treason — guilty by solemn official acts. And what can be more unreasonable or unconstitutional than that a body of confederate ringleaders in treason and rebellion should coolly wash their hands, and claim to be forthwith recognized as the constitutional gov- ernm.ent of a sovereign State in the Union ? Eut still the question is urged, AVhat right has the Federal Government, under the Constitution, to require the abandonment of slavery as a condition of recog- nizing a State reorganization ? Where does the Con- stitution delegate such a power? I answer, that when men have appealed to the arbitrament of arms, they cannot claim for themselves the rights of peace ; rebels cannot, without effrontery, claim the constitu- tional privileges of dutiful citizens. And who but their sympathizing friends will have the effrontery to make the claim for them? If it be said that even rebels are not to be wronged, and that the claim is made in the name of justice, let the rebels and their :idvocates thank Heaven that the Federal Government is not disposed to deal with them as the strictness of justice requires, but only as necessity and mercy demand. In this case the rights of war, the stern necessities of self-preservation, modify and control the rights of peace. As I have already said, the ease is extra-constitutional. Besides, I beg to invite the attention of those who so j)ersistently urge a strict construction of the Constitution in favour of slave- holding rebels and traitors, to some other constitu- tional questions which they may do well to settle before they so confidently draw their pro-slavery con- clusion. The Constitution nowhere confers upon the Fed- eral Grovernment the power to purchase foreign ter- ritory. Shall we, therefore, condemn, as a flagrant violation of the Constitution, Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana, or the later purchase of California and New Mexico and Arizona ? The Constitution no- where confers on the Federal Government the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus ; yet the Consti- tution itself takes for granted that the government, as such, possesses that power; and restricts and re- gulates its exercise. The Constitution does not expressly confer on the Federal Government even the power to suppress insurrections and put down rebellion ; but it takes for granted that the govern- ment, as such, possesses that power ; and points out the process and means by which it may be carried into effect ; but even then, the Constitution provides only for calling forth the militia, and nowhere ex- pressly delegates to the Federal Government the power to use the army and navy for the suppression of insurrection or rebellion ; — manifestly presuming, as a matter of course, that no government having an army and navy at its disposal, could, without absur- 29 338 SOUTHERN SLAVERY. ditj, be sui^posed incompetent to use them for such a purpose. So thought President Jackson, or he would not have signed the "Force BiU." The Con- stitution nowhere confers, and yet it expressly re- stricts, the power of the Federal Government, to prohibit the migration or importation of such per- sons as any of the then existing States should think proper to admit. The Constitution expressly pro- vides that " the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed ;" and it nowhere autho- rizes the Federal Government to require rebels to lay down their arms, any more than it authorizes that Government to require them to liberate their slaves. But whatever is plainly and imperatively demanded, not only for the general welfare, but for the national existence, the maintenance of the Union, and the public safety, the Constitution cannot be reasonably interpreted to forbid. It established a government, and endued that government with au- thority " to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution its appropriate powers;'^ — including, of course, whatever may be necessary and proper for its self-preservation ; for, else, how could those powers be carried into execution ? The Con- stitution is not a felo de se. There are but two modes of terminating the pre- sent struggle. The first is, that the IS'orth should be victorious. The consequence would be, the Union restored with universal Emancipation. The ultimate result, — peace secure, progressive civilization, the triumph of free government, a glorious and happy re- public, which would be the pride of the world and the terror of oppressors. The second is, that the South should be victorious. The consequence would be, SLAVERY AND THE REBELLION. 339 either the law of slavery established throughout the whole country at once, or the Union for a time dis- integrated only to be subsequently re-established with universal slavery. The ultimate result, — inter- minable wars, foreign and domestic, governmental despotism, and finally utter barbarism ; leaving the once free and happy America to be a by- word and a hissing among the nations of the earth to the end of time. Any compromise with slavery is, in the first place, a triumph to treason, and, in the second place, would end in substantially the same process as that last de- scribed. Slavery is an element of so corrupting and insidious a character, that the country cannot be safe while it exists in its bosom. If it remained but in a single corner, it would make itself the supreme law of the land. Our only electiofi lies between the universal law of freedom and the universal law of slavery. And the question reaches further than to the blacks; either we must be slaves side by side with the blacks^ or the blaclcs must be free side by side with their masters. My countrymen, which will you choose ? / APPENDIX. Note. — In reporting the Mormon Elder's discourse, the fol- lowing passage was overlooked at page 209 : "It is abundantly evident, also, that the so-much-boasted modern elevation of woman, the chivalrous regard for her which characterizes Christian Europe and America, is not derived from the Bible, or from the teachings or spirit of Christianity, but from a heathen origin, from the Romans, or, more prob- ably, from the customs of the northern barbarians. In proof of this, see the masterly interpretation of the Tenth Com- mandment by the Bishop of Vermont, where he demonstrates that, by the law of God, the wife is reckoned as a man's prop- erty, along with his man servant and maid-servant, his ox and his ass. The citations from St. Augustine, on pages 144 and 145, are here appended at large : Aug. in Epist. Joan, ad Parth. III. 2040. Radix omnium malorum avaritia. (Tim. vi. 10.) Initium omnis peccati Superhia. (Eccli. x. 15.) Sic ergo debet esse Christianus, ut non glorietur super alios homines. Dedit enim tibi Deus esse super bestias, id est, meliorem esse quam bestias. Hoc naturale habes ; semper melior eris quam bestia. Si vis melior esse quam alius homo, invidebis ei quando tibi esse videbis ucqualem. Debes velle omnes homines aequales tibi esse. . . Audi apostolum diccntem de visceribus charitatis : Vellem omnes homines esse sicut meip- 29* 341 342 APPENDIX. sum. Quomodo volebat omnes esse aequales? Ideo erat omnibus superior, quia charitate optabat omnes aequales. Excessit ergo homo modum ; avarior voluit esse ut super homines esset, qui supra pecora factus est: et ipsa est su- perbia. Aug. Serm. XXI. V. 145. Servum tuum manumittendum manu ducis in ecclesiam. Fit silentium, libellus tuus recitatur, aut fit desiderii tui pros- ecutio. Dicis te servum manumittere, quod tibi in omnibus servaverit fidem. Hoc diligas, hoc honoras, hoc donas premio libertatis : quidquid potes facis, facis liberum, quia non potes facere sempiternum. Deus tuus clamat ad te et in servo tuo convincit te : dicit tibi in corde tuo, Duxisti servum tuum de domo tua ad domum meam : vis eum de domo mea liberum revocare in domum tuam : tu quare male servis in domo mea ? Das illi quod potes ; permitto tibi quod possum : tu facis liber- um servantem tibi fidem ; ego te facio sempiternum, si serva- veris mihi fidem. Quid adhuc argumentaris contra me in animo tuo ? Redde domino tuo, quod laudas in servo tuo. Aug. Serm. CCCLYI. V. 1576. Hoc agitur, hoc sine dilatione peragendum est, ut illi ser- vuli dividantur, manumittantur, et sic det Ecclesiae, ut eorum excipiat alimentum. Aug. de Serm. Dom. in Monte. III. 1260. Si quis vuU judicio tecum contendere et tiinicam tuam tollere. Omnia ergo ilia intelligantur, de quibus judicio nobiscum contendi potest, ita ut a nostro jure in jus illius transeant, qui contendit vel pro quo contendit ; sicuti est vestis, domus, fundus, jumentum, et generaliter omnis pecunia. Quod utrum etiam de servis accipiendum sit magna quaestio est. Non enim Christianum oportet sic possidere servum quomodo equum aut argentum : quanquam fieri possit ut majore pretio valeat equus quam servus, et multo magis aliquid aureum vel argenteum. Sed ille servus, si rectius et honestius et ad Deura colendum accommodatius abs te domino educatur, aut rcgitur, APPENDIX. 343 quam ab illo potest qui eum cupit conferre ; nescio utrum quisnam dic-ere audeat, ut vestimentum eum debere contemni. Hominem namque homo tanquam seipsum diligere debet. Aug. De Civ. Dei. VII. 243. Hinc itaque etiam pax domestica oritur, id est, ordinataim- perandi obediendique concordia cohabitantium. Imperant enim qui consulunt: sicut vir uxori, parentes filiis, domini servis. Obediunt an tern quibus consulitur: sicut mulieres maritis, filii parentibus, servi dominis. Sed in domo justi viventis ex fide, et adhuc ab ilia coelesti civitate peregrinantis, etiam qui imperant serviunt eis quibus yidentur imperare. Neque enim dominandi cupiditate imperant, sed ojfficio consu- lendi; nee principandi superbia, sed providendi misericordia. Hoc naturalis ordo praescribit; ita Deus hominem condidit. Nam Dominetur, inquit, pisciuiii mai^is, et volatilium coeli, et omnium repentium quae repunt super terrain. (Gen. i. 26.) Rationalem factum ad imaginem suam noluit nisi irrationa- bilibus dominari : non hominem homini, sed hominem pecori. Ibid, 244. Quocirca etiamsi habuerunt servos justi patres nostri, sic quidem administrabant domesticam pacem, ut secundum haec temporalia bona, filiorum sortem a servorum conditione dis- tinguerent ; ad Deum autem colendum, in quo aeterna bona speranda sunt, omnibus domus suae membris pari dilectione consulerent. THE END. ai.77-2