II. THE ARGUMENTS AND POSITIONS OF ABOLITIONISTS…

II. THE ARGUMENTS AND POSITIONS OF ABOLITIONISTS

The first fallacy of the Abolitionist.--The second fallacy of the Abolitionist.--The third fallacy of the Abolitionist.--The fourth fallacy of the Abolitionist.--The fifth fallacy of the Abolitionist.--The sixth fallacy of the Abolitionist.--The seventh fallacy of the Abolitionist.--The eighth fallacy of the Abolitionist.--The ninth fallacy of the Abolitionist.--The tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth fallacies of the Abolitionist; or his seven arguments against the right of a man to hold property in his fellow-man.--The seventeenth fallacy of the Abolitionist; or, the Argument from the Declaration of Independence.

HAVING in the preceding chapter discussed and defined the nature of civil liberty, as well as laid down some of the political conditions on which its existence depends, we shall now proceed to examine the question of slavery. In the prosecution of this inquiry, we shall, in the first place, consider the arguments and positions of the advocates of immediate abolition; and, in the second, point out the reasons and grounds on which the institution of slavery is based and its justice vindicated. The first branch of the investigation, or that relating to the arguments and positions of the abolitionist, will occupy the remainder of the present chapter.

It is insisted by abolitionists that the institution of slavery is, in all cases and under all circumstances, morally wrong, or a violation of the law of God. Such is precisely the ground assumed by the one side and denied by the other.

Thus says Dr. Wayland: "I have wished to make it clear that slavery, or the holding of men in bondage, and 'obliging them to labor for our benefit, without their contract or consent,' is always and everywhere, or, as you well express it, semper et ubique, a moral wrong, a violation of the obligations under which we are created to our fellow-men, and a transgression of the law of our Creator."

Dr. Fuller likewise: "The simple question is, Whether it is necessarily, and amid all circumstances, a crime to hold men in a condition where they labor for another without their consent or contract? and in settling this matter all impertinences must be retrenched."

In one word, Dr. Wayland insists that slavery is condemned by the law of God, by the moral law of the universe. We purpose to examine the arguments which he has advanced in favor of this position. We select his arguments for examination, because, as a writer on moral and political science, he stands so high in the northern portion of the Union. His work on these subjects has indeed long since passed the fiftieth thousand; a degree of success which, in his own estimation, authorizes him to issue his letters on slavery over the signature of "THE AUTHOR OF THE MORAL SCIENCE." But the very fact that his popularity is so great, and that he is the author of the Moral Science, is a reason why his arguments on a question of such magnitude should be subjected to a severe analysis and searching scrutiny, in order that, under the sanction of so imposing a name, no error may be propagated and no mischief done.

Hence we shall hold Dr. Wayland amenable to all the laws of logic. Especially shall we require him to adhere to the point he has undertaken to discuss, and to retrench all irrelevancies. If, after having subjected his arguments to such a process, it shall be found that every position which is assumed on the subject is directly contradicted by himself, we shall not make haste to introduce anarchy into the Southern States, in order to make it answer to the anarchy in his views of civil and political freedom. But whether this be the case or not, it is not for us to determine; we shall simply proceed to examine, and permit the impartial reader to decide for himself.

§ I. The first fallacy of the abolitionist.

The abolitionists do not hold their passions in subjection to reason. This is not merely the judgment of a Southern man: it is the opinion of the more decent and respectable abolitionists themselves. Thus says Dr. Channing, censuring the conduct of the abolitionists: "They have done wrong, I believe; nor is their wrong to be winked at because done fanatically or with good intentions; for how much mischief may be wrought with good designs! They have fallen into the common error of enthusiasts--that of exaggerating their object, of feeling as if no evil existed but that which they opposed, and as if no guilt could be compared with that of countenancing or upholding it."[142] In like manner, Dr. Wayland says: "I unite with you and the lamented Dr Channing in the opinion that the tone of the abolitionists at the North has been frequently, I fear I must say generally, 'fierce, bitter, and abusive.' The abolitionist press has, I believe, from the beginning, too commonly indulged in exaggerated statement, in violent denunciation, and in coarse and lacerating invective. At our late Missionary Convention in Philadelphia, I heard many things from men who claim to be the exclusive friends of the slave, which pained me more than I can express. It seemed to me that the spirit which many of them manifested was very different from the spirit of Christ. I also cheerfully bear testimony to the general courtesy, the Christian urbanity, and the calmness under provocation which, in a remarkable degree, characterized the conduct of the members from the South."

In the flood of sophisms which the abolitionists usually pour out in their explosions of passion, none is more common than what is technically termed by logicians the ignoratio elenchi, or a mistaking of the point in dispute. Nor is this fallacy peculiar to the more vulgar sort of abolitionists. It glares from the pages of Dr. Wayland, no less than from the writings of the most fierce, bitter, and vindictive of his associates in the cause of abolitionism. Thus, in one of his letters to Dr. Fuller, he says: "To present this subject in a simple light. Let us suppose that your family and mine were neighbors. We, our wives and children, are all human beings in the sense that I have described, and, in consequence of that common nature, and by the will of our common Creator, are subject to the law, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Suppose that I should set fire to your house, shoot you as you came out of it, and seizing your wife and children, 'oblige them to labor for my benefit without their contract or consent.' Suppose, moreover, aware that I could not thus oblige them, unless they were inferior in intellect to myself, I should forbid them to read, and thus consign them to intellectual and moral imbecility. Suppose I should measure out to them the knowledge of God on the same principle. Suppose I should exercise this dominion over them and their children as long as I lived, and then do all in my power to render it certain that my children should exercise it after me. The question before us I suppose to be simply this: Would I, in so doing, act at variance with the relations existing between us as creatures of God? Would I, in other words, violate the supreme law of my Creator, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself? or that other, Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them? I do not see how any intelligent creature can give more than one answer to this question. Then I think that every intelligent creature must affirm that do this is wrong, or, in the other form of expression, that it is a great moral evil. Can we conceive of any greater?"

It was surely very kind in Dr. Wayland to undertake, with so much pains, to instruct us poor, benighted sons of the South in regard to the difference between right and wrong. We would fain give him full credit for all the kindly feeling he so freely professes for his "Southern brethren;" but if he really thinks that the question, whether arson, and murder, and cruelty are offenses against the "supreme law of the Creator," is still open for discussion among us, then we beg leave to inform him that he labors under a slight hallucination. If he had never written a word, we should have known, perhaps, that it is wrong for a man to set fire to his neighbor's house, and shoot him as he came out, and reduce his wife and children to a state of ignorance, degradation, and slavery. Nay, if we should find his house already burnt, and himself already shot, we should hardly feel justified in treating his wife and children in so cruel a manner. Not even if they were "guilty of a skin," or ever so degraded, should we deem ourselves justified in reducing them to a state of servitude. This is NOT "the question before us." We are quite satisfied on all such points. The precept, too, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, was not altogether unknown in the Southern States before his letters were written. A committee of very amiable philanthropists came all the way from England, as the agents of some abolition society there, and told us all that the law of God requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves. In this benevolent work of enlightenment they were, if we mistake not, several months in advance of Dr. Wayland. We no longer need to be enlightened on such points. Being sufficiently instructed, we admit that we should love our neighbor as ourselves, and also that arson, murder, and so forth are violations of this law. But we want to know whether, semper et ubique, the institution of slavery is morally wrong. This is the question, and to this we intend to hold the author.

§ II. The second fallacy of the abolitionist.

Lest we should be suspected of misrepresentation, we shall state the position of Dr. Wayland in his own words. In regard to the institution of slavery, he says: "I do not see that it does not sanction the whole system of the slave-trade. If I have a right to a thing after I have gotten it, I have a natural right to the means necessary for getting it. If this be so, I should be as much justified in sending a vessel to Africa, murdering a part of the inhabitants of a village, and making slaves of the rest, as I should be in hunting a herd of wild animals, and either slaying them or subjecting them to the yoke."

Now mark the principle on which this most wonderful argument is based: "If I have a right to a thing after I have gotten it, I have a natural right to the means for getting it." That is to say, If I have the right to a slave, now that I have got him, then I may rightfully use all necessary means to reduce other men to slavery! I may shoot, burn, or murder, if by this means I can only get slaves! Was any consequence ever more wildly drawn? Was any non sequitur ever more glaring?

Let us see how this argument would apply to other things. If I have a right to a watch after I have gotten it, no matter how, then I have a right to use the means necessary to get watches; I may steal them from my neighbors! Or, if I have a right to a wife, provided I can get one, then may I shoot my friend and marry his widow! Such is the argument of one who seeks to enlighten the South and reform its institutions!

§ III. The third fallacy of the abolitionist.

Nearly allied to the foregoing argument is that of the same author, in which he deduces from the right of slavery, supposing it to exist, another retinue of monstrous rights. "This right also," says Dr. Wayland, referring to the right to hold slaves, "as I have shown, involves the right to use all the means necessary to its establishment and perpetuity, and, of course, the right to crush his intellectual and social nature, and to stupefy his conscience, in so far as may be necessary to enable me to enjoy this right with the least possible peril." This is a compound fallacy, a many-sided error. But we will consider only two phases of its absurdity.

In the first place, if the slaveholder should reason in this way, no one would be more ready than the author himself to condemn his logic. If any slaveholder should say, That because I have a right to my slaves, therefore I have the right to crush the intellectual and moral nature of men, in order to establish and perpetuate their bondage,--he would be among the first to cry out against such reasoning. This is evident from the fact that he everywhere commends those slaveholders who deem it their duty, as a return for the service of their slaves, to promote both their temporal and eternal good. He everywhere insists that such is the duty of slaveholders; and if such be their duty, they surely have no right to violate it, by crushing the intellectual and moral nature of those whom they are bound to elevate in the scale of being. If the slaveholder, then, should adopt such an argument, his logic would be very justly chargeable by Dr. Wayland with evidencing not so much the existence of a clear head as of a bad heart.

In the second place, the above argument overlooks the fact that the Southern statesman vindicates the institution of slavery on the ground that it finds the Negro race already so degraded as to unfit it for a state of freedom. He does not argue that it is right to seize those who, by the possession of cultivated intellects and pure morals, are fit for freedom, and debase them in order to prepare them for social bondage. He does not imagine that it is ever right to shoot, burn, or corrupt, in order to reduce any portion of the enlightened universe to a state of servitude. He merely insists that those only who are already unfit for a higher and nobler state than one of slavery, should be held by society in such a state. This position, although it is so prominently set forth by every advocate of slavery at the South, is almost invariably overlooked by the Northern abolitionists. They talk, and reason, and declaim, indeed, just as if we had caught a bevy of black angels as they were winging their way to some island of purity and bliss here upon earth, and reduced them from their heavenly state, by the most diabolical cruelties and oppressions, to one of degradation, misery, and servitude. They forget that Africa is not yet a paradise, and that Southern servitude is not quite a hell. They forget--in the heat and haste of their argument they forget--that the institution of slavery is designed by the South not for the enlightened and the free, but only for the ignorant and the debased. They need to be constantly reminded that the institution of slavery is not the mother, but the daughter, of ignorance and degradation. It is, indeed, the legitimate offspring of that intellectual and moral debasement which, for so many thousand years, has been accumulating and growing upon the African race. And if the abolitionists at the North will only invent some method by which all this frightful mass of degradation may be blotted out at once, then will we most cheerfully consent to "the immediate abolition of slavery." On this point, however, we need not dwell, as we shall have occasion to recur to it again when we come to consider the grounds and reasons on which the institution of slavery is vindicated.

Having argued that the right of slavery, if it exist, implies the right to shoot and murder an enlightened neighbor, with a view to reduce his wife and children to a state of servitude, as well as to crush their intellectual and moral nature in order to keep them in such a state, the author adds, "If I err in making these inferences, I err innocently." We have no doubt of the most perfect and entire innocence of the author. But we would remind him that innocence, however perfect or childlike, is not the only quality which a great reformer should possess.

§ IV. The fourth fallacy of the abolitionist.

He is often guilty of a petitio principii, in taking it for granted that the institution of slavery is an injury to the slave, which is the very point in dispute. Thus says Dr. Wayland: "If it be asked when, [slavery must be abandoned,] I ask again, when shall a man begin to cease doing wrong? Is not the answer immediately? If a man is injuring us, do we doubt as to the time when he ought to cease? There is, then, no doubt in respect to the time when we ought to cease inflicting injury upon others."[143] Here it is assumed that slavery is an injury to the slave: but this is the very point which is denied, and which he should have discussed. If a state of slavery be a greater injury to the slave than a state of freedom would be, then are we willing to admit that it should be abolished. But even in that case, not immediately, unless it could be shown that the remedy would not be worse than the evil. If, on the whole, the institution of slavery be a curse to the slave, we say let it be abolished; not suddenly, however, as if by a whirlwind, but by the counsels of wise, cautious, and far-seeing statesmen, who, capable of looking both before and after, can comprehend in their plans of reform all the diversified and highly-complicated interests of society.

"But it may be said," continues the author, "immediate abolition would be the greatest possible injury to the slaves themselves. They are not competent to self-government." True: this is the very thing which may be, and which is, said by every Southern statesman in his advocacy of the institution of slavery. Let us see the author's reply. "This is a question of fact," says he, "which is not in the province of moral philosophy to decide. It very likely may be so. So far as I know, the facts are not sufficiently known to warrant a full opinion on the subject. We will, therefore, suppose it to be the case, and ask, What is the duty of masters under these circumstances?" In the discussion of this question, the author comes to the conclusion that a master may hold his slaves in bondage, provided his intentions be good, and with a view to set them at liberty as soon as they shall be qualified for such a state.

Moral philosophy, then, it seems, when it closes its eyes upon facts, pronounces that slavery should be immediately abolished; but if it consider facts, which, instead of being denied, are admitted to be "very likely" true, it decides against its immediate abolition! Or, rather, moral philosophy looks at the fact that slavery is an injury, in order to see that it should be forthwith abolished; but closes its eyes upon the fact that its abolition may be a still greater injury, lest this foregone conclusion should be called in question! Has moral philosophy, then, an eye only for the facts which lie one side of the question it proposes to decide?

Slavery is an injury, says Dr. Wayland, and therefore it should be immediately abolished. But its abolition would be a still greater injury, replies the objector. This may be true, says Dr. Wayland: it is highly probable; but then this question of injury is one of fact, which it is not in the province of moral philosophy to decide! So much for the consistency and even-handed justice of the author.

The position assumed by him, that questions of fact are not within the province of moral philosophy, is one of so great importance that it deserves a separate and distinct notice. Though seldom openly avowed, yet is it so often tacitly assumed in the arguments and declamations of abolitionists, that it shall be more fully considered in the following section.

§ V. The fifth fallacy of the abolitionist.

"Suppose that A has a right to use the body of B according to his--that is, A's--will. Now if this be true, it is true universally; and hence, A has the control over the body of B, and B has control over the body of C, C of D, &c., and Z again over the body of A: that is, every separate will has the right of control over some other body besides its own, and has no right of control over its own body or intellect."[144] Now, if men were cut out of pasteboard, all exactly alike, and distinguished from each other only by the letters of the alphabet, then the reasoning of the author would be excellent. But it happens that men are not cut out of pasteboard. They are distinguished by differences of character, by diverse habits and propensities, which render the reasonings of the political philosopher rather more difficult than if he had merely to deal with or arrange the letters of the alphabet. In one, for example, the intellectual and moral part is almost wholly eclipsed by the brute; while, in another, reason and religion have gained the ascendency, so as to maintain a steady empire over the whole man. The first, as the author himself admits, is incompetent to self-government, and should, therefore, be held by the law of society in a state of servitude. But does it follow that "if this be true, it is true universally?" Because one man who can not govern himself may be governed by another, does it follow that every man should be governed by others? Does it follow that the one who has acquired and maintained the most perfect self-government, should be subjected to the control of him who is wholly incompetent to control himself? Yes, certainly, if the reasoning of Dr. Wayland be true; but, according to every sound principle of political ethics, the answer is, emphatically, No!

There is a difference between a Hottentot and a Newton. The first should no more be condemned to astronomical calculations and discoveries, than the last should be required to follow a plough. Such differences, however, are overlooked by much of the reasoning of the abolitionist. In regard to the question of fact, whether a man is really a man and not a mere thing, he is profoundly versed. He can discourse most eloquently upon this subject: he can prove, by most irrefragable arguments, that a Hottentot is a man as well as a Newton. But as to the differences among men, such nice distinctions are beneath his philosophy! It is true that one may be sunk so low in the scale of being that civil freedom would be a curse to him; yet, whether this be so or not, is a question of fact which his philosophy does not stoop to decide. He merely wishes to know what rights A can possibly have, either by the law of God or man, which do not equally belong to B? And if A would feel it an injury to be placed under the control of B, then, "there is no doubt" that it is equally wrong to place B under the control of A? In plain English, if it would be injurious and wrong to subject a Newton to the will of a Hottentot, then it would be equally injurious and wrong to subject a Hottentot to the will of a Newton! Such is the inevitable consequence of his very profound political principles! Nay, such is the identical consequence which he draws from his own principles!

If questions of fact are not within the province of the moral philosopher, then the moral philosopher has no business with the science of political ethics. This is not a pure, it is a mixed science. Facts can no more be overlooked by the political architect, than magnitude can be disregarded by the mathematician. The man, the political dreamer, who pays no attention to them, may be fit, for aught we know, to frame a government out of moonshine for the inhabitants of Utopia; but, if we might choose our own teachers in political wisdom, we should decidedly prefer those who have an eye for facts as well as abstractions. If we may borrow a figure from Mr. Macaulay, the legislator who sees no difference among men, but proposes the same kind of government for all, acts about as wisely as a tailor who should measure the Apollo Belvidere to cut clothes for all his customers--for the pigmies as well as for the giants.

§ VI. The sixth fallacy of the abolitionist.

It is asserted by Dr. Wayland that the institution of slavery is condemned as "a violation of the plainest dictates of natural justice," by "the natural conscience of man, from at least as far back as the time of Aristotle." If any one should infer that Aristotle himself condemned the institution of slavery, he would be grossly deceived; for it is known to every one who has read the Politics of Aristotle that he is, under certain circumstances, a strenuous advocate of the natural justice, as well as of the political wisdom, of slavery. Hence we shall suppose that Dr. Wayland does not mean to include Aristotle in his broad assertion, but only those who came after him. Even in this sense, or to this extent, his positive assertion is so diametrically opposed to the plainest facts of history, that it is difficult to conceive how he could have persuaded himself of its truth. It is certain that, on other occasions, he was perfectly aware of the fact that the natural conscience of man, from the time of Aristotle down to that of the Christian era, was in favor of the institution of slavery; for as often as it has served his purpose to assert this fact, he has not hesitated to do so. Thus, "the universal existence of slavery at the time of Christ," says he, "took its origin from the moral darkness of the age. The immortality of the soul was unknown. Out of the Hebrew nation not a man on earth had any true conception of the character of the Deity or of our relations and obligations to him. The law of universal love to man had never been heard of."[145] No wonder he here argues that slavery received the universal sanction of the heathen world, since so great was the moral darkness in which they were involved. This darkness was so great, if we may believe the author, that the men of one nation esteemed those of another "as by nature foes, whom they had a right" not only "to subdue or enslave," but also to murder "whenever and in what manner soever they were able."[146] The sweeping assertion, that such was the moral darkness of the heathen world, is wide of the truth; for, at the time of Christ, no civilized nation "esteemed it right to murder or enslave, whenever and in what manner soever they were able," the people of other nations. There were some ideas of natural justice, even then, among men; and if there were not, why does Dr. Wayland appeal to their ideas of natural justice as one argument against slavery? If the heathen world "esteemed it right" to make slaves, how can it be said that its conscience condemned slavery? Is it not evident that Dr. Wayland is capable of asserting either the one thing or its opposite, just as it may happen to serve the purpose of his anti-slavery argument? Whether facts lie within the province of moral philosophy or not, it is certain, we think, that the moral philosopher who may be pleased to set facts at naught has no right to substitute fictions in their stead.

§ VII. The seventh fallacy of the abolitionist.

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," is the rule of action which, in the estimation of abolitionists, should at once and forever decide every good man against the institution of slavery. But when we consider the stupendous interests involved in the question, and especially those of an intellectual and moral nature, we dare not permit ourselves to be carried away by any form of mere words. We must pause and investigate. The fact that the dexterous brandishing of the beautiful precept in question has made, and will no doubt continue to make, its thousands of converts or victims, is a reason why its real import should be the more closely examined and the more clearly defined. The havoc it makes among those whose philanthropy is stronger than their judgment--or, if you please, whose judgment is weaker than their philanthropy--flows not from the divine precept itself, but only from human interpretations thereof. And it should ever be borne in mind that he is the real enemy of the great cause of philanthropy who, by absurd or overstrained applications of this sublime precept, lessens that profound respect to which it is so justly entitled from every portion of the rational universe.

It is repeatedly affirmed by Dr. Wayland that every slaveholder lives in the habitual and open violation of the precept which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves. "The moral precepts of the Bible," says he, "are diametrically opposed to slavery. These are, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' and 'All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.' Now, were this precept obeyed," he continues, "it is manifest that slavery could not in fact exist for a single instant. The principle of the precept is absolutely subversive of the principle of slavery." If strong assertion were argument, we should no doubt be overwhelmed by the irresistible logic of Dr. Wayland. But the assertion of no man can be accepted as sound argument. We want to know the very meaning of the words of the great Teacher, and to be guided by that, rather than by the fallible authority of an earthly oracle. What, then, is the meaning, the real meaning, of his inspired words?

Do they mean that whatsoever we might, in any relation of life, desire for ourselves, we should be willing to grant to others in the like relation or condition? This interpretation, we are aware, has been put upon the words by a very celebrated divine. If we may believe that divine, we cannot do as we would be done by, unless, when we desire the estate of another, we forthwith transfer our estate to him! If a poor man, for example, should happen to covet the estate of his rich neighbor, then he is bound by this golden rule of benevolence to give his little all to him, without regard to the necessities or wants of his own family! But this interpretation, though seriously propounded by a man of undoubted genius and piety, has not, so far as we know, made the slightest possible impression on the plain good sense of mankind. Even among his most enthusiastic admirers, it has merely excited a good-natured smile at what they could not but regard as the strange hallucination of a benevolent heart.

A wrong desire in one relation of life is not a reason for a wrong act in another relation thereof. A man may desire the estate, he may desire the man-servant, or the maid-servant, or the wife of his neighbor, but this is no reason why he should abandon his own man-servant, or his maid-servant, or his wife to the will of another. The criminal who trembles at the bar of justice may desire both judge and jury to acquit him, but this is no reason why, if acting in the capacity of either judge or juror, he should bring in a verdict of acquittal in favor of one justly accused of crime. If we would apply the rule in question aright, we should consider, not what we might wish or desire if placed in the situation of another, but what we ought to wish or desire.

If a man were a child, he might wish to be exempt from the wholesome restraint of his parents; but this, as every one will admit, is no reason why he should abandon his own children to themselves. In like manner, if he were a slave, he might most vehemently desire freedom; but this is no reason why he should set his slaves at liberty. The whole question of right turns upon what he ought to wish or desire if placed in such a condition. If he were an intelligent, cultivated, civilized man,--in one word, if he were fit for freedom,--then his desire for liberty would be a rational desire, would be such a feeling as he ought to cherish; and hence, he should be willing to extend the same blessing to all other intelligent, cultivated, civilized men, to all such as are prepared for its enjoyment. Such is the sentiment which he should entertain, and such is precisely the sentiment entertained at the South. No one here proposes to reduce any one to slavery, much less those who are qualified for freedom; and hence the inquiry so often propounded by Dr. Wayland and other abolitionists, how we would like to be subjected to bondage, is a grand impertinence. We should like it as little as themselves; and in this respect we shall do as we would be done by.

But suppose we were veritable slaves--slaves in character and in disposition as well as in fact--and as unfit for freedom as the Africans of the South--what ought we then to wish or desire? Ought we to desire freedom? We answer, no; because on that supposition freedom would be a curse and not a blessing. Dr. Wayland himself admits that "it is very likely" freedom would be "the greatest possible injury" to the slaves of the South. Hence, we cannot perceive that if we were such as they, we ought to desire so great an evil to ourselves. It would indeed be to desire "the greatest possible injury" to ourselves; and though, as ignorant and blind slaves, we might cherish so foolish a desire, especially if instigated by abolitionists, yet this is no reason why, as enlightened citizens, we should be willing to inflict the same great evil upon others. A foolish desire, we repeat, in one relation of life, is not a good reason for a foolish or injurious act in another relation thereof.

The precept which requires us to do as we would be done by, was intended to enlighten the conscience. It is used by abolitionists to hoodwink and deceive the conscience. This precept directs us to conceive ourselves placed in the condition of others, in order that we may the more clearly perceive what is due to them. The abolitionist employs it to convince us that, because we desire liberty for ourselves, we should extend it to all men, even to those who are not qualified for its enjoyment, and to whom it would prove "the greatest possible injury." He employs it not to show us what is due to others, but to persuade us to injure them! He may deceive himself; but so long as we believe what even he admits as highly probable--namely, that the "abolition of slavery would be the greatest possible injury to the slaves themselves"--we shall never use the divine precept as an instrument of delusion and of wrong. What! inflict the greatest injury on our neighbor, and that, too, out of pure Christian charity?

But we need not argue with the abolitionist upon his own admissions. We have infinitely stronger ground to stand on. The precept, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," is to be found in the Old Testament as well as in the New. Thus, in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, it is said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" and no greater love than this is any where inculcated in the New Testament. Yet in the twenty-fifth chapter of the same book, it is written, "Of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever." This language is too plain for controversy. In regard to this very passage, in which the Hebrews are commanded to enter upon and take possession of the land of the Canaanites, Dr. Wayland himself is constrained to admit--"The authority to take them as slaves seems to be a part of this original, peculiar, and I may perhaps say, anomalous grant."[147] Now, if the principle of slavery, and the principle of the precept, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, be as Dr. Wayland boldly asserts, always and everywhere at war with each other, how has it happened that both principles are so clearly and so unequivocally embodied in one and the same code by the Supreme Ruler of the world? Has this discrepancy escaped the eye of Omniscience, and remained in the code of laws from heaven, to be detected and exposed by "the author of the Moral Science"?

We do not mean that Dr. Wayland sees any discrepancy among the principles of the divine legislation. It is true he sees there the precept, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and also this injunction, "Thou shalt buy them for a possession," and "They shall be your bondmen forever;" but although this looks very "anomalous" to him, he dare not pronounce it absurd or self-contradictory. It is true, he declares, that slavery is condemned always and everywhere by "the plainest dictates of natural justice;" but yet, although, according to his own admission,[148] it was instituted by Heaven, he has found out a method to save the character of the Almighty from the disgrace of such a law. He says, "I know the word 'shalt' is used when speaking of this subject, but it is clearly used as prophetic, and not as mandatory." Ay, the words "thou shalt" are used in regard to the buying and holding of slaves, just as they are used in the commands which precede and follow this injunction. There is no change in the form of the expression. There is not, in any way, the slightest intimation that the Lawgiver is about to prophesy; all seems to be a series of commands, and is clothed in the same language of authority--"thou shalt." Yet in one particular instance, and in one instance only, this language seems "clearly" prophetic to Dr. Wayland, and not mandatory. Now, I submit to the candid and impartial reader, if this be not egregious trifling with the word of God.

Dr. Wayland forgets that he had himself admitted that the very passage in question clothed the Hebrews with "the authority to take slaves."[149] He now, in the face of his own admission, declares that this language "is clearly prophetic," and tells what would or what might be, and not what should or what must be." The poor Hebrews, however, when they took slaves by the authority of a "thou shalt" from the Lord, never imagined that they were merely fulfilling a prophecy, and committing an abominable sin.

This is clear to Dr. Wayland, if we may trust the last expression of his opinion. But it is to be regretted, that either the clearness of his perceptions, or the confidence of his assertions, is so often disproportioned to the evidence before him. Thus, he says with the most admirable modesty, "It seems to me that the soul is the most important part of a human being;"[150] and yet he peremptorily and positively declares that the very strongest language of authority ever found in Scripture "is clearly used as prophetic and not mandatory!" He may, however, well reserve the tone of dogmatic authority for such propositions, since, if they may not be carried by assertion, they must be left wholly without the least shadow of support. But one would suppose that strength of assertion in such cases required for its unembarrassed utterance no little strength of countenance.

"If any one doubts," says Dr. Wayland, "respecting the bearing of the Scripture precept upon this case, a few plain questions may throw additional light upon the subject."[151] Now, if we mistake not, the few plain questions which he deems so unanswerable may be answered with the most perfect ease. "Would the master be willing," he asks, "that another person should subject him to slavery, for the same reasons and on the same grounds that he holds his slave in bondage?" We answer, No. If any man should undertake to subject Southern masters to slavery, on the ground that they are intellectually and morally sunk so low as to be unfit for freedom or self-control, we should certainly not like the compliment. It may argue a very great degree of self-complacency in us, but yet the plain fact is, that we really do believe ourselves competent to govern ourselves, and to manage our affairs, without the aid of masters. And as we are not willing to be made slaves of, especially on any such humiliating grounds, so we are not willing to see any other nation or race of men, whom we may deem qualified for the glorious condition of freedom, subjected to servitude.

"Would the gospel allow us," he also asks, "if it were in our power, to reduce our fellow-citizens of our own color to slavery?" Certainly not. Nor do we propose to reduce any one, either white or black, to a state of slavery. It is amazing to see with what an air of confidence such questions are propounded. Dr. Channing, no less than Dr. Wayland, seems to think they must carry home irresistible conviction to the heart and conscience of every man who is not irremediably blinded by the detestable institution of slavery. "Now, let every reader," says he, "ask himself this plain question: Could I, can I, be rightfully seized and made an article of property?" And we, too, say, Let every reader ask himself this plain question, and then, if he please, answer it in the negative. But what, then, should follow? Why, if you please, he should refuse to seize any other man or to make him an article of property. He should be opposed to the crime of kidnapping. But if, from such an answer, he should conclude that the institution of slavery is "everywhere and always wrong," then surely, after what has been said, not another word is needed to expose the ineffable weakness and futility of the conclusion.

This golden rule, this divine precept, requires us to conceive ourselves placed in the condition of our slaves, and then to ask ourselves, How should we be treated by the master? in order to obtain a clear and impartial view of our duty to them. This it requires of us; and this we can most cheerfully perform. We can conceive that we are poor, helpless, dependent beings, possessing the passions of men and the intellects of children. We can conceive that we are by nature idle, improvident, and, without a protector and friend to guide and control us, utterly unable to take care of ourselves. And, having conceived all this, if we ask ourselves, How should we be treated by the masters whom the law has placed over us, what is the response? Is it that they should turn us loose to shift for ourselves? Is it that they should abandon us to ourselves, only to fall a prey to indolence, and to the legion of vices and crimes which ever follow in its train? Is it that they should set us free, and expose us, without protection, to the merciless impositions of the worst portions of a stronger and more sagacious race? Is it, in one word, that we should be free from the dominion of men, who, as a general thing, are humane and wise in their management of us, only to become the victims--the most debased and helpless victims--of every evil way? We answer, No! Even the spirit of abolitionism itself has, in the person of Dr. Wayland, declared that such treatment would, in all probability, be the greatest of calamities. We feel sure it would be an infinite and remediless curse. And as we believe that, if we were in the condition of slaves, such treatment would be so great and so withering a curse, so we cannot, out of a feeling of love, proceed to inflict this curse upon our slaves. On the contrary, we would do as we so clearly see we ought to be done by, if our conditions were changed.

Is it not amazing, as well as melancholy, that learned divines, who undertake to instruct the benighted South in the great principles of duty, should entertain such superficial and erroneous views of the first, great, and all-comprehending precept of the gospel? If their interpretation of this precept were correct, then the child might be set free from the authority of the father, and the criminal from the sentence of the judge. All justice would be extinguished, all order overthrown, and boundless confusion introduced into the affairs of men. Yet, with unspeakable self-complacency, they come with such miserable interpretations of the plainest truths to instruct those whom they conceive to be blinded by custom and the institution of slavery to the clearest light of heaven. They tell us, "Thou shouldst love thy neighbor as thyself;" and they reiterate these words in our ears, just as if we had never heard them before. If this is all they have to say, why then we would remind them that the meaning of the precept is the precept. It is not a mere sound, it is sense, which these glorious words are intended to convey. And if they can only repeat the words for us, why then they might just as well send a host of free negroes with good, strong lungs to be our instructors in moral science.

§ VIII. The eighth fallacy of the abolitionist.

An argument is drawn from the divine attributes against the institution of slavery. One would suppose that a declaration from God himself is some little evidence as to what is agreeable to his attributes; but it seems that moral philosophers have, now-a-days, found out a better method of arriving at what is implied by his perfections. Dr. Wayland is one of those who, setting aside the word of God, appeal to his attributes in favor of the immediate and universal abolition of slavery. If slavery were abolished, says he, "the laborer would then work in conformity with the conditions which God has appointed, whereas he now works at variance with them; in the one case, we should be attempting to accumulate property under the blessing of God, whereas now we are attempting to do it under his special and peculiar malediction. How can we expect to prosper, when there is not, as Mr. Jefferson remarks, 'an attribute of the Almighty that can be appealed to in our favor'?"[152] If we may rely upon his own words, rather than upon the confident assertions of Dr. Wayland, we need not fear the curse of God upon the slaveholder. The readiness with which Dr. Wayland points the thunders of the divine wrath at our heads, is better evidence of the passions of his own heart than of the perfections of the Almighty.

Again he says: "If Jefferson trembled for his country when he remembered that God is just, and declared that, 'in case of insurrection, the Almighty has no attribute that can take part with us in the contest,' surely it becomes a disciple of Jesus Christ to pause and reflect." Now let it be borne in mind that all this proceeds from a man, from a professed disciple of Jesus Christ, who, in various places, has truly, as well as emphatically, said, "The duty of slaves is also explicitly made known in the Bible. They are bound to obedience, fidelity, submission, and respect to their masters,"[153] etc., etc.

Such, then, according to Dr. Wayland himself, is the clear and unequivocal teaching of revelation. And such being the case, shall the real "disciple of Jesus Christ" be made to believe, on the authority of Mr. Jefferson or of any other man, that the Almighty has no attribute which could induce him to take sides with his own law? If, instead of submission to that law, there should be rebellion,--and not only rebellion, but bloodshed and murder,--shall we believe that the Almighty, the supreme Ruler of heaven and earth, would look on well pleased? Since such is the express declaration of God himself respecting the duty of slaves, it surely becomes a disciple of Christ to pause and reflect whether he will follow his voice or the voice of man.

We owe at least one benefit to the Northern abolitionists. Ere the subject of slavery was agitated by them, there were many loose, floating notions among us, as well as among themselves, respecting the nature of liberty, which were at variance with the institution of slavery. But since this agitation began, we have looked more narrowly into the grounds of slavery, as well as into the character of the arguments by which it is assailed, and we have found the first as solid as adamant, the last as unsubstantial as moonshine. If Mr. Jefferson had lived till the present day, there can be no doubt, we think, that he would have been on the same side of this great question with the Calhouns, the Clays, and the Websters of the country. We have known many who, at one time, fully concurred with Mr. Jefferson on this subject, but are now firm believers in the perfect justice and humanity of negro slavery.

§ IX. The ninth fallacy of the abolitionist.

We have already seen that the abolitionist argues the question of slavery as if Southerners were proposing to catch freemen and reduce them to bondage. He habitually overlooks the fact, that slavery results, not from the action of the individual, but from an ordinance of the State. He forgets that it is a civil institution, and proceeds to argue as if it were founded in individual wrong. And even when he rises--as he sometimes does--to a contemplation of the real question in dispute, he generally takes a most narrow and one-sided view of the subject. For he generally takes it for granted that the legislation which ordains the institution of slavery is intended solely and exclusively for the benefit of the master, without the least regard to the interests of the slave.

Thus says Dr. Wayland: "Domestic slavery proceeds upon the principle that the master has a right to control the actions--physical and intellectual--of the slave for his own (that is, the master's) individual benefit,"[154] etc. And again: "It supposes that the Creator intended one human being to govern the physical, intellectual, and moral actions of as many other human beings as, by purchase, he can bring within his physical power; and that one human being may thus acquire a right to sacrifice the happiness of any number of other human beings, for the purpose of promoting his own."[155] Now, surely, if this representation be just, then the institution of slavery should be held in infinite abhorrence by every man in Christendom.

But we can assure Dr. Wayland that, however ignorant or heathenish he may be pleased to consider the people of the Southern States, we are not so utterly lost to all reverence for the Creator as to suppose, even for a moment, that he intended any one human being to possess the right of sacrificing the happiness of his fellow-men to his own. We can assure him that we are not quite so dead to every sentiment of political justice, as to imagine that any legislation which intends to benefit the one at the expense of the many is otherwise than unequal and iniquitous in the extreme. There is some little sense of justice left among us yet; and hence we approve of no institution or law which proceeds on the monstrous principle that any one man has, or can have, the "right to sacrifice the happiness of any number of other human beings for the purpose of promoting his own." We recognize no such right. It is as vehemently abhorred and condemned by us as it can be abhorred and condemned by the author himself.

In thus taking it for granted, as Dr. Wayland so coolly does, that the institution in question is "intended" to sacrifice the happiness of the slaves to the selfish interest of the master, he incontinently begs the whole question. Let him establish this point, and the whole controversy will be at an end. But let him not hope to establish any thing, or to satisfy any one, by assuming the very point in dispute, and then proceed to demolish what every man at the South condemns no less than himself. Surely, no one who has looked at both sides of this great question can be ignorant that the legislation of the South proceeds on the principle that slavery is beneficial, not to the master only, but also and especially to the slave. Surely, no one who has either an eye or an ear for facts can be ignorant that the institution of slavery is based on the ground, or principle, that it is beneficial, not only to the parts, but also to the whole, of the society in which it exists. This ground, or principle, is set forth in every defense of slavery by the writers and speakers of the South; it is so clearly and so unequivocally set forth, that he who runs may read. Why, then, is it overlooked by Dr. Wayland? Why is he pleased to imagine that he is combating Southern principles, when, in reality, he is merely combating the monstrous figment, the distorted conception of his own brain,--namely, the right of one man to sacrifice the happiness of multitudes to his own will and pleasure? Is it because facts do not lie within the province of the moral philosopher? Is it because fiction alone is worthy of his attention? Or is it because a blind, partisan zeal has so far taken possession of his very understanding, that he finds it impossible to speak of the institution of slavery, except in the language of the grossest misrepresentation?

§ X. The tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth fallacies of the abolitionist; or his seven arguments against the right of a man to hold property in his fellow-man.

"This claim of property in a human being," says Dr. Channing, "is altogether false, groundless. No such right of man in man can exist. A human being cannot be justly owned." The only difficulty in maintaining this position is, according to Dr. Channing, "on account of its exceeding obviousness. It is too plain for proof. To defend it is like trying to confirm a self-evident truth," etc., etc. Yet he advances no less than seven "arguments," as he calls them, in order to establish this self-evident position. We shall examine these seven arguments, and see if his great confidence be not built on a mere abuse of words.

"The consciousness of our humanity," says he, "involves the persuasion that we cannot be owned as a tree or a brute." This, as every body knows, is one of the hackneyed commonplaces of the abolitionist. He never ceases to declaim about the injustice of slavery, because it regards, as he is pleased to assert, a man as a mere thing or a brute. Now, once for all, we freely admit that it were monstrously unjust to regard or treat a man otherwise than as a man. We freely admit that a human being "can not be owned as a tree or a brute."

A tree may be absolutely owned. That is to say, the owner of a tree may do what he pleases with his own, provided he do no harm or injury with it. He may cut it down; and, if he please, he may beat it as long as he has the power to raise an arm. He may work it into a house or into a piece of furniture, or he may lay it on the fire, and reduce it to ashes. He may, we repeat, do just exactly what he pleases with his own, if his own be such a thing as a tree, for a tree has no rights.

It is far otherwise with a brute. The owner of a horse, for example, may not do what he pleases with his own. Here his property is not absolute; it is limited. He may not beat his horse without mercy, "for a good man is merciful to his beast." He may not cut his horse to pieces, or burn him on the fire. For the horse has rights, which the owner himself is bound to respect. The horse has a right to food and kind treatment, and the owner who refuses these is a tyrant. Nay, the very worm that crawls beneath our feet has his rights as well as the monarch on his throne; and just in so far as these rights are disregarded by a man is that man a tyrant.

Hence even the brute may not be regarded or treated as a mere thing or a tree. He can be owned and treated no otherwise than as a brute. The horse, for example, may not be left, like a tree, without food and care; but he may be saddled and rode as a horse; or he may be hitched to the plough, and compelled to do his master's work.

In like manner, a man cannot be owned or treated as a horse. He cannot be saddled or rode, nor hitched to the plough and be made to do the work of a horse. On the contrary, he should be treated as a man, and required to perform only the work of a man. The right to such work is all the ownership which any one man can rightfully have in another; and this is all which any slaveholder of the South needs to claim.

The real question is, Can one man have a right to the personal service or obedience of another without his consent? We do not intend to let the abolitionist throw dust in our eyes, and shout victory amid a clamor of words. We intend to hold him to the point. Whether he be a learned divine, or a distinguished senator, we intend he shall speak to the point, or else his argument shall be judged, not according to the eloquent noise it makes or the excitement it produces, but according to the sense it contains.

Can a man, then, have a right to the labor or obedience of another without his consent? Give us this right, and it is all we ask. We lay no claim to the soul of the slave. We grant to the abolitionist, even more freely than he can assert, that the "soul of the slave is his own." Or, rather, we grant that his soul belongs exclusively to the God who gave it. The master may use him not as a tree or a brute, but only as a rational, accountable, and immortal being may be used. He may not command him to do any thing which is wrong; and if he should so far forget himself as to require such service of his slave, he would himself be guilty of the act. If he should require his slave to violate any law of the land, he would be held not as a particeps criminis merely, but as a criminal in the first degree. In like manner, if he should require him to violate the law of God, he would be guilty--far more guilty than the slave himself--in the sight of heaven. These are truths which are just as well understood at the South as they are at the North.

The master, we repeat, lays no claim to the soul of the slave. He demands no spiritual service of him, he exacts no divine honors. With his own soul he is fully permitted to serve his own God. With this soul he may follow the solemn injunction of the Most High, "Servants, obey your masters;" or he may listen to the voice of the tempter, "Servants, fly from your masters." Those only who instigate him to violate the law of God, whether at the North or at the South, are the men who seek to deprive him of his rights and to exercise an infamous dominion over his soul.

Since, then, the master claims only a right to the labor and lawful obedience of the slave, and no right whatever to his soul, it follows that the argument, which Dr. Channing regards as the strongest of his seven, has no real foundation. Since the master claims to have no property in the "rational, moral, and immortal" part of his being, so all the arguments, or rather all the empty declamation, based on the false supposition of such claim, falls to the ground. So the passionate appeals, proceeding on the supposition of such a monstrous claim, and addressed to the religious sensibilities of the multitude, are only calculated to deceive and mislead their judgment. It is a mere thing of words; and, though "full of sound and fury," it signifies nothing. "The traffic in human souls," which figures so largely in the speeches of the divines and demagogues, and which so fiercely stirs up the most unhallowed passions of their hearers, is merely the transfer of a right to labor.

Does any one doubt whether such a right may exist? The master certainly has a right to the labor of his apprentice for a specified period of time, though he has no right to his soul even for a moment. The father, too, has a right to the personal service and obedience of his child until he reach the age of twenty-one; but no one ever supposed that he owned the soul of his child, or might sell it, if he pleased, to another. Though he may not sell the soul of his child, it is universally admitted that he may, for good and sufficient reasons, transfer his right to the labor and obedience of his child. Why, then, should it be thought impossible that such a right to service may exist for life? If it may exist for one period, why not for a longer, and even for life? If the good of both parties and the good of the whole community require such a relation and such a right to exist, why should it be deemed so unjust, so iniquitous, so monstrous? This whole controversy turns, we repeat, not upon any consideration of abstract rights, but solely upon the highest good of all--upon the highest good of the slave as well as upon that of the community.

"It is plain," says Dr. Channing, in his first argument, "that if any one may be held as property, then any other man may be so held." This sophism has been already sufficiently refuted. It proceeds on the supposition that if one man, however incapable of self-government, may be placed under the control of another, then all men may be placed under the control of others! It proceeds on the idea that all men should be placed in precisely the same condition, subjected to precisely the same authority, and required to perform precisely the same kind of labor. In one word, it sees no difference and makes no distinction between a Negro and a Newton. But as an overstrained and false idea of equality lies at the foundation of this argument, so it will pass under review again, when we come to consider the great demonstration which the abolitionist is accustomed to deduce from the axiom that "all men are created equal."

The third argument of Dr. Channing is, like the first, "founded on the essential equality of men." Hence, like the first, it may be postponed until we come to consider the true meaning and the real political significancy of the natural equality of all men. We shall barely remark, in passing, that two arguments cannot be made out of one by merely changing the mode of expression.

The second argument of the author is as follows: "A man cannot be seized and held as property, because he has rights. . . . A being having rights cannot justly be made property, for this claim over him virtually annuls all his rights." This argument, it is obvious, is based on the arbitrary idea which the author has been pleased to attach to the term property. If it proves any thing, it would prove that a horse could not be held as property, for a horse certainly has rights. But, as we have seen, a limited property, or a right to the labor of a man, does not deny or annul all his rights, nor necessarily any one of them. This argument needs no further refutation. For we acknowledge that the slave has rights; and the limited or qualified property which the master claims in him, extending merely to his personal human labor and his lawful obedience, touches not one of these rights.

The fourth argument of Dr. Channing is identical with the second. "That a human being," says he, "cannot be justly held as property, is apparent from the very nature of property. Property is an exclusive right. It shuts out all claim but that of the possessor. What one man owns cannot belong to another." The only difference between the two arguments is this: in one the "nature of property" is said "to annul all rights;" and in the other it is said "to exclude all rights!" Both are based on the same idea of property, and both arrive at the same conclusion, with only a very slight difference in the mode of expression!

And both are equally unsound. True; "what one man owns cannot belong to another." But may not one man have a right to the labor of another, as a father to the labor of his son, or a master to the labor of his apprentice; and yet that other a right to food and raiment, as well as to other things? May not one have a right to the service of another, without annulling or excluding all the rights of that other? This argument proceeds, it is evident, on the false supposition that if any being be held as property, then he has no rights; a supposition which, if true, would exclude and annul the right of property in every living creature.

Dr. Channing's fifth argument is deduced from "the universal indignation excited toward a man who makes another his slave." "Our laws," says he, "know no higher crime than that of reducing a man to slavery. To steal or to buy an African on his own shores is piracy." "To steal a man," we reply, is one thing; and, by the authority of the law of the land, to require him to do certain labor, is, one would think, quite another. The first may be as high a crime as any known to our laws; the last is recognized by our laws themselves. Is it not wonderful that Dr. Channing could not see so plain a distinction, so broad and so glaring a difference? The father of his country held slaves; he did not commit the crime of man-stealing.

The sixth argument of Dr. Channing, "against the right of property in man," is "drawn from a very obvious principle of moral science. It is a plain truth, universally received, that every right supposes or involves a corresponding obligation. If, then, a man has a right to another's person or powers, the latter is under obligation to give himself up as a chattel to the former." Most assuredly, if one man has a right to the service or obedience of another, then that other is under obligation to render that service or obedience to him. But is such an obligation absurd? Is it inconsistent with the inherent, the inalienable, the universal rights of man that the "servant should obey his master?" If so, then we fear the rights of man were far better understood by Dr. Channing than by the Creator of the world and the Author of revelation.

Such are the seven arguments adduced by Dr. Channing to show that no man can rightfully hold property in his fellow-man. But before we quit this branch of the subject, we shall advert to a passage in the address of the Hon. Charles Sumner, before the people of New York, at the Metropolitan Theatre, May 9, 1855. "I desire to present this argument," says he, "on grounds above all controversy, impeachment, or suspicion, even from slave-masters themselves. Not on triumphant story, not even on indisputable facts, do I now accuse slavery, but on its character, as revealed in its own simple definition of itself. Out of its own mouth do I condemn it." Well, and why does he condemn it? Because, "by the law of slavery, man, created in the image of God, is divested of his human character and declared to be a mere chattel. That the statement may not seem to be put forward without precise authority, I quote the law of two different slave States." That is the accusation. It is to be proved by the law of slavery itself. It is to be proved beyond "all controversy," by an appeal to "indisputable facts." Now let us have the facts: here they are. "The law of another polished slave State, says Mr. Sumner, "gives this definition: 'Slaves shall be delivered, sold, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal, in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, and assignees, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever.'"

Now, mark; the learned Senator undertook to prove, beyond all doubt and controversy, that slavery divests the slave of his human character, and declares him to be a mere chattel. But he merely proves that it declares him to be a "chattel personal." He merely proves that the law of a Southern State regards the slave, not as real estate or landed property, but as a "chattel personal." Does this divest him of his human character? Does this make him a mere chattel? May the slave, in consequence of such law, be treated as a brute or a tree? May he be cut in pieces or worked to death at the will and pleasure of the master?

"We think that a learned Senator, especially when he undertakes to demonstrate, should distinguish between declaring a man to be "a chattel personal," and a mere chattel. No one doubts that a man is a thing; but is he therefore a mere thing, or nothing more than a thing? In like manner, no one doubts that a man is an animal; does it follow, therefore, that he is a mere animal, or nothing but an animal? It is clear, that to declare a man may be held as a "chattel personal," is a very different thing from declaring that he is a mere chattel. So much for his honor's "precise authority."

In what part of the law, then, is the slave "divested of his human character?" In no part whatever. If it had declared him to be a mere thing, or a mere chattel, or a mere animal, it would have denied his human character, we admit; but the law in question has done no such thing. Nor is any such declaration contained in the other law quoted by the learned Senator from the code of Louisiana. It is merely by the interpolation of this little word mere, that the Senator of Massachusetts has made the law of South Carolina divest an immortal being of his "human character." He is welcome to all the applause which this may have gained for him in the "Metropolitan Theatre."

The learned Senator adduces another authority. "A careful writer," says he, "Judge Stroud, in a work of juridical as well as philanthropic merit, thus sums up the laws: 'The cardinal principle of slavery--that the slave is not to be ranked among sentient[156] beings, but among things--as an article of property--a chattel personal--obtains as undoubted law in all these (the slave) States.'" We thus learn from this very "careful writer" that slaves among us are "not ranked among sentient beings," and that this is "the cardinal principle of slavery." No, they are not fed, nor clothed, nor treated as sentient beings! They are left without food and raiment, just as if they were stocks and stones! They are not talked to, nor reasoned with, as if they were rational animals, but only driven about, like dumb brutes beneath the lash! No, no, not the lash, for that would recognize them as "sentient beings!" They are only thrown about like stones, or boxed up like chattels; they are not set, like men, over the lower animals, required to do the work of men; the precise work which, of all others, in the grand and diversified economy of human industry, they are the best qualified to perform! So far, indeed, is this from being "the cardinal principle of slavery," that it is no principle of slavery at all. It bears not the most distant likeness or approximation to any principle of slavery, with which we of the South have any the most remote acquaintance.

That man may, in certain cases, be held as property, is a truth recognized by a higher authority than that of senators and divines. It is, as we have seen, recognized by the word of God himself. In that word, the slave is called the "possession"[157] of the master, and even "his money."[158] Now, is not this language as strong, if not stronger, than that adduced from the code of South Carolina? It certainly calls the "bondman" his master's "money." Why, then, did not the Senator from Massachusetts denounce this language, as divesting "a man of his human character," and declaring him to be mere money? Why did he not proceed to condemn the legislation of Heaven, as well as of the South, out of its own mouth? Most assuredly, if his principles be correct, then is he bound to pronounce the law of God itself manifestly unjust and iniquitous. For that law as clearly recognizes the right of property in man as it could possibly be recognized in words. But it nowhere commits the flagrant solecism of supposing that this right of the master annuls or excludes all the rights of the slave. On the contrary, the rights of the slave are recognized, as well as those of the master. For, according to the law of God, though "a possession," and an "inheritance," and "a bondman forever," yet is the slave, nevertheless, a man; and, as a man, is he protected in his rights; in his rights, not as defined by abolitionists, but as recognized by the word of God.

§ XI. The seventeenth fallacy of the abolitionist; or the argument from the Declaration of Independence.

This argument is regarded by the abolitionists as one of their great strongholds; and no doubt it is so in effect, for who can bear a superior? Lucifer himself, who fell from heaven because he could not acknowledge a superior, seduced our first parents by the suggestion that in throwing off the yoke of subjection, they should become "as gods." We need not wonder, then, if it should be found, that an appeal to the absolute equality of all men is the most ready way to effect the ruin of States. We can surely conceive of none better adapted to subvert all order among us of the South, involving the two races in a servile war, and the one or the other in utter extinction. Hence we shall examine this argument from the equality of all men, or rather this appeal to all men's abhorrence of inferiority. This appeal is usually based on the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." We do not mean to play upon these words; we intend to take them exactly as they are understood by our opponents. As they are not found in a metaphysical document or discussion, so it would be unfair to suppose--as is sometimes done--that they inculcate the wild dream of Helvetius, that all men are created with equal natural capacities of mind. They occur in a declaration of independence; and as the subject is the doctrine of human rights, so we suppose they mean to declare that all men are created equal with respect to natural rights.

Nor do we assert that there is no truth in this celebrated proposition or maxim; for we believe that, if rightly understood, it contains most important and precious truth. It is not on this account, however, the less dangerous as a maxim of political philosophy. Nay, falsehood is only then the more dangerous, when it is so blended with truth that its existence is not suspected by its victims. Hence the unspeakable importance of dissecting this pretended maxim, and separating the precious truth it contains from the pernicious falsehood by which its followers are deceived. Its truth is certainly very far from being self-evident, or rather its truth is self-evident to some, while its falsehood is equally self-evident to others, according to the side from which it is viewed. We shall endeavor to throw some light both upon its truth and its falsehood, and, if possible, draw the line which divides them from each other.

This maxim does not mean, then, that all men have, by nature, an equal right to political power or to posts of honor. No doubt the words are often understood in this sense by those who, without reflection, merely echo the Declaration of Independence; but, in this sense, they are utterly untenable. If all men had, by nature, an equal right to any of the offices of government, how could such rights be adjusted? How could such a conflict be reconciled? It is clear that all men could not be President of the United States; and if all men had an equal natural right to that office, no one man could be elevated to it without a wrong to all the rest. In such case, all men should have, at least, an equal chance to occupy the presidential chair. Such equal chance could not result from the right of all men to offer themselves as candidates for the office; for, at the bar of public opinion, vast multitudes would not have the least shadow of a chance. The only way to effect such an object would be by resorting to the lot. We might thus determine who, among so many equally just claimants, should actually possess the power of the supreme magistrate. This, it must be confessed, would be to recognize in deed, as well as in word, the equal rights of all men. But what more absurd than such an equality of rights? It is not without example in history; but it is to be hoped that such example will never be copied. The democracy of Athens, it is well known, was, at one time, so far carried away by the idea of equal rights, that her generals and orators and poets were elected by the lot. This was an equality, not in theory merely, but in practice. Though the lives and fortunes of mankind were thus intrusted to the most ignorant and depraved, or to the most wise and virtuous, as the lot might determine, yet this policy was based on an equality of rights. It is scarcely necessary to add that this idea of equality prevailed, not in the better days of the Athenian democracy, but only during its imbecility and corruption.

If all men, then, have not a natural right to fill an office of government, who has this right? Who has the natural right, for example, to occupy the office of President of the United States? Certainly some men have no such right. The man, for example, who has no capacity to govern himself, but needs a guardian, has no right to superintend the affairs of a great nation. Though a citizen, he has no more right to exercise such power or authority than if he were a Hottentot, or an African, or an ape. Hence, in bidding such a one to stand aside and keep aloof from such high office, no right is infringed and no injury done. Nay, right is secured, and injury prevented.

Who has such a right, then?--such natural right, or right according to the law of nature or reason? The man, we answer, who, all things considered, is the best qualified to discharge the duties of the office. The man who, by his superior wisdom, and virtue, and statesmanship, would use the power of such office more effectually for the good of the whole people than would any other man. If there be one such man, and only one, he of natural right should be our President. And all the laws framed to regulate the election of President are, or should be, only so many means designed to secure the services of that man, if possible, and thereby secure the rights of all against the possession of power by the unworthy or the less worthy. This object, it is true, is not always attained, these means are not always successful; but this is only one of the manifold imperfections which necessarily attach to all human institutions; one of the melancholy instances in which natural and legal right run in different channels. All that can be hoped, indeed, either in the construction or in the administration of human laws, is an approximation, more or less close, to the great principles of natural justice.

What is thus so clearly true in regard to the office of President, is equally true in regard to all the other offices of government. It is contrary to reason, to natural right, to justice, that either fools, or knaves, or demagogues should occupy seats in Congress; yet all of these classes are sometimes seen there, and by the law of the land are entitled to their seats. Here, again, that which is right and fit in itself is different from that which exists under the law.

The same remarks, it is evident, are applicable to governors, to judges, to sheriffs, to constables, and to justices of the peace. In every instance, he who is best qualified to discharge the duties of an office, and who would do so with greatest advantage to all concerned, has the natural right thereto. And no man who would fill any office, or exercise any power so as to injure the community, has any right to such office or power.

There is precisely the same limitation to the exercise of the elective franchise. Those only should be permitted to exercise this power who are qualified to do so with advantage to the community; and all laws which regulate or limit the possession of this power should have in view, not the equal rights of all men, but solely and exclusively the public good. It is on this principle that foreigners are not allowed to vote as soon as they land upon our shores, and that native Americans can do so only after they have reached a certain age. And if the public good required that any class of men, such as free blacks or slaves, for example, should be excluded from the privilege altogether, then no doubt can remain the law excluding them would be just. It might not be equal, but would be just. Indeed, in the high and holy sense of the word, it would be equal; for, if it excluded some from a privilege or power which it conferred upon others, this is because they were not included within the condition on which alone it should be extended to any. Such is not an equality of rights and power, it is true; but it is an equality of justice, like that which reigns in the divine government itself. In the light of that justice, it is clear that no man, and no class of men, can have a natural right to exercise a power which, if intrusted to them, would be wielded for harm, and not for good.

This great truth, when stripped of the manifold sophistications of a false logic, is so clear and unquestionable, that it has not failed to secure the approbation of abolitionists themselves. Thus, after all his wild extravagancies about inherent, inalienable, and equal rights, Dr. Channing has, in one of his calmer moods, recognized this great fundamental truth. "The slave," says he, "cannot rightfully, and should not, be owned by the individual. But, like every citizen, he is subject to the community, AND THE COMMUNITY HAS A RIGHT AND IS BOUND TO CONTINUE ALL SUCH RESTRAINTS AS ITS OWN SAFETY AND THE WELL-BEING OF THE SLAVE DEMANDS." Now this is all we ask in regard to the question of equal rights. All we ask is, that each and every individual may be in such wise and so far restrained as the public good demands and no further. All we ask is, as may be seen from the first chapter of this Essay, that the right of the individual, whether real or imaginary, may be held in subjection to the undoubted right of the community to protect itself and to secure its own highest good. This solemn right, so inseparably linked to a sacred duty, is paramount to the rights and powers of the individual. Nay, as we have already seen,[159] the individual can have no right that conflicts with this; because it is his duty to co-operate in the establishment of the general good. Surely he can have no right which is adverse to duty. Indeed, if for the general good, he would not cheerfully lay down both liberty and life, then both may be rightfully taken from him. We have, it is true, inherent and inalienable rights, but among these is neither liberty nor life. For these, upon our country's altar, may be sacrificed; but conscience, truth, honor may not be touched by man.

Has the community, then, after all, the right to compel "a man," a "rational and immortal being," to work? Let Dr. Channing answer: "If he (the slave) cannot be induced to work by rational and natural motives, he should be obliged to labor, on the same principle on which the vagrant in other communities is confined and compelled to earn his bread." Now, if a man be "confined, and compelled" to work in his confinement, what becomes of his "inalienable right to liberty?" We think there must be a slight mistake somewhere. Perhaps it is in the Declaration of Independence itself. Nay, is it not evident, indeed, that if all men have an inalienable right to liberty," then is this sacred right trampled in the dust by every government on earth? Is it not as really disregarded by the enlightened Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which "confines and compels" vagrants to earn their bread, as it is by the Legislature of Virginia, which has taken the wise precaution to prevent the rise of a swarm of vagrants more destructive than the locusts of Egypt? The plain truth is, that although this notion of the "inalienable right" of all to liberty may sound very well in a declaration of independence, and may be most admirably adapted to stir up the passions of men and produce fatal commotions in a commonwealth, yet no wise nation ever has been or ever will be guided by it in the construction of her laws. It may be a brand of discord in the hands of the abolitionist and the demagogue. It will never be an element of light, or power, or wisdom, in the bosom of the statesman.

"The gift of liberty," continues Dr. Channing, "would be a mere name, and worse than nominal, were he (the slave) to be let loose on society under circumstances driving him to commit crimes, for which he would be condemned to severer bondage than he had escaped." If then, after all, liberty may be worse than a mere name, is it not a pity that all men should have an "inalienable right" to it? If it may be a curse, is it not a pity that all men should be required to embrace it, and to be even ready to die for it, as an invaluable blessing? We trust that "no man," that "no rational and immortal being," will ever be so ungrateful as to complain of those who have withheld from him that which is "worse than nominal," and a curse. For if such, and such only, be his inalienable birthright, were it not most wisely exchanged for a mess of pottage? The vagrant, then, should not be consulted whether he will work or not. He should be "confined and compelled" to work, says Dr. Channing. Nor should the idle and the vicious, those who cannot be induced to work by rational motives, be asked whether they will remain pests to society, or whether they will eat their bread in the sweat of their brow. "For they, too," says Dr. Channing, "should be compelled to work." But how? "The slave should not have an owner," says Dr. Channing, "but he should have a guardian. He needs authority, to supply the lack of that discretion which he has not yet attained; but it should be the authority of a friend, an official authority, conferred by the State, and for which there should be responsibility to the State." Now, if all this be true, is not the doctrine of equal rights, as held by Dr. Channing, a mere dream? If one man may have "a guardian," "an official authority," appointed by the State, to compel him to work, why may not another be placed under the same authority, and subjected to the same servitude? Are not all equal? Have not all men an equal right to liberty and to a choice of the pursuits of happiness? Let these questions be answered by the admirers of Dr. Channing; and it will be found that they have overthrown all the plausible logic, and blown away all the splendid rhetoric, which has been reared, on the ground of equal rights, against the institution of slavery at the South.

We are agreed, then, that men may be compelled to work. We are also agreed that, for this purpose, the slaves of the South should be placed under guardians and friends by the authority of the State. Dr. Channing thinks, however, that the owner is not the best guardian or the best friend whom the State could place over the slave. On the contrary, he thinks his best friend and guardian would be an official overseer, bound to him by no ties of interest, and by no peculiar feelings of affection. In all this, we think Dr. Channing greatly mistaken; and mistaken because he is an utter stranger to the feelings usually called forth by the relation of master and slave. But, be this as it may, since such are the concessions made by Dr. Channing, it is no longer necessary to debate the question of slavery with him, on the high ground of abstract inalienable rights. It is brought down to one of practical utility, of public expediency.

And such being the nature of the question, we, as free citizens of the South, claim the right to settle the matter for ourselves. We claim the right to appoint such guardians and friends for this class of our population as we believe will be most advantageous to them, as well as to the whole community. We claim the right to impose such restraints, and such only, as the well-being of our own society seems to us to demand. This claim may be denied. The North may claim the right to think for us in regard to this question of expediency. But it cannot be denied that if liberty may be a curse, then no man can, in such case, have a right to it as a blessing.

If liberty would be an equal blessing to all men, then, we freely admit, all men would have an equal right to liberty. But to concede, as Dr. Channing does, that it were a curse to some men and yet contend that all men have an equal right to its enjoyment, is sheer absurdity and nonsense. But Dr. Channing, as we have seen, sometimes speaks a better sense. Thus, he has even said, "It would be cruelty, not kindness, to the latter (to the slave) to give him a freedom which he is unprepared to understand or enjoy. It would be cruelty to strike the fetters from a man whose first steps would infallibly lead him to a precipice." So far, then, according to the author himself, are all men from having an "inalienable right" to liberty, that some men have no right to it at all.

In like manner, Dr. Wayland, by his own admission, has overthrown all his most confident deductions from the notion of equal rights. He, too, quotes the Declaration of Independence, and adds, "That the equality here spoken of is not of the means of happiness, but in the right to use them as one wills, is too evident to need illustration." If this be the meaning, then the meaning is not so evidently true. On the contrary, the vaunted maxim in question, as understood by Dr. Wayland, appears to be pure and unmixed error. Power, for example, is one means of happiness; and so great a means, too, that without it all other means would be of no avail. But has any man a right to use this means of happiness as he wills? Most assuredly not. He has no right to use the power he may possess, nor any other means of happiness, as he will, but only as lawful authority has willed. If it be a power conferred by man, for example, such as that of a chief magistrate, or of a senator, or of a judge, he may use it no otherwise than as the law of the land permits, or in pursuance of the objects for which it was conferred. In like manner, if it proceed from the Almighty, it may be used only in conformity with his law. So far, then, is it from being true that all men possess an equal right to use the means of happiness as they please, that no man ever has, or ever will, possess any such right at all. And if such be the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, then the Declaration of Independence is too evidently erroneous to need any further refutation. Unless, indeed, man may put forth a declaration of independence which shall annul and destroy the immutable obligations of the moral law, and erect one's will as the rule of right. But is an equal exemption from the restraints of that law liberty, or is it universal anarchy and confusion?

It were much nearer the truth to say that all men have an equal right, not to act as "one wills," but to have their wills restrained by law. No greater want is known to man, indeed, than the restraints of law and government. Hence, all men have an equal right to these, but not to the same restraints, to the same laws and governments. All have an equal right to that government which is the best for them. But the same government is not the best for all. A despotism is best for some; a limited monarchy is best for others; while, for a third people, a representative republic is the best form of government.

This proposition is too plain for controversy. It has received the sanction of all the great teachers of political wisdom, from an Aristotle down to a Montesquieu, and from a Montesquieu down to a Burke. It has become, indeed, one of the commonplaces of political ethics; and, however strange the conjunction, it is often found in the very works which are loudest in proclaiming the universal equality of human rights. Thus, for example, says Dr. Wayland: "The best form of government for any people is the best that its present moral condition renders practicable. A people may be so entirely surrendered to the influence of passion, and so feebly influenced by moral restraints, that a government which relied upon moral restraint could not exist for a day. In this case, a subordinate and inferior principle remains--the principle of fear, and the only resort is to a government of force or a military despotism. And such do we see to be the fact." What, then, becomes of the equal and inalienable right of all men to freedom? Has it vanished with the occasion which gave it birth?

But this is not all. "Anarchy," continues Wayland, "always ends in this form of government. [A military despotism.] After this has been established, and habits of subordination have been formed, while the moral restraints are too feeble for self-government, an hereditary government, which addresses itself to the imagination, and strengthens itself by the influence of domestic connections, may be as good a form as a people can sustain. As they advance in intellectual and moral cultivation, it may advantageously become more and more elective, and, in a suitable moral condition, it may be wholly so. For beings who are willing to govern themselves by moral principles, there can be no doubt that a government relying upon moral principle is the true form of government. There is no reason why a man should be oppressed by taxation and subjected to fear who is willing to govern himself by the law of reciprocity. It is surely better for an intelligent and moral being to do right from his own will, than to pay another to force him to do right. And yet, as it is better that he should do right than wrong, even though he be forced to do it, it is well that he should pay others to force him, if there be no other way of insuring his good conduct. God has rendered the blessing of freedom inseparable from moral restraint to the individual; and hence it is vain for a people to expect to be free unless they are first willing to be virtuous." Again, "There is no self-sustaining power in any form of social organization. The only self-sustaining power is in individual virtue.

"And the form of a government will always adjust itself to the moral condition of a people. A virtuous people will, by their own moral power, frown away oppression, and, under any form of constitution, become essentially free. A people surrendered up to their own licentious passions must be held in subjection by force; for every one will find that force alone can protect him from his neighbors; and he will submit to be oppressed, if he can only be protected. Thus, in the feudal ages, the small independent landholders frequently made themselves slaves of one powerful chief to shield themselves from the incessant oppression of twenty."

Now all this is excellent sense. One might almost imagine that the author had been reading Aristotle, or Montesquieu, or Burke. It is certain he was not thinking of equal rights. It is equally certain that his eyes were turned away from the South; for he could see how even "independent landholders" might rightfully make slaves of themselves. After such concessions, one would think that all this clamor about inherent and inalienable rights ought to cease.

In a certain sense, or to a certain extent, all men have equal rights. All men have an equal right to the air and light of heaven; to the same air and the same light. In like manner, all men have an equal right to food and raiment, though not to the same food and raiment. That is, all men have an equal right to food and raiment, provided they will earn them. And if they will not earn them, choosing to remain idle, improvident, or nuisances to society, then they should be placed under a government of force, and compelled to earn them.

Again, all men have an equal right to serve God according to the dictates of their own consciences. The poorest slave on earth possesses this right--this inherent and inalienable right; and he possesses it as completely as the proudest monarch on his throne. He may choose his own religion, and worship his own God according to his own conscience, provided always he seek not in such service to interfere with the rights of others. But neither the slave nor the freeman has any right to murder, or instigate others to murder, the master, even though he should be ever so firmly persuaded that such is a part of his religious duty. He has, however, the most absolute and perfect right to worship the Creator of all men in all ways not inconsistent with the moral law. And wo be to the man by whom such right is denied or set at naught! Such a one we have never known; but whosoever he may be, or wheresoever he may be found, let all the abolitionists, we say, hunt him down. He is not fit to be a man, much less a Christian master.

But, it will be said, the slave has also a right to religious instruction, as well as to food and raiment. So plain a proposition no one doubts. But is this right regarded at the South? No more, we fear, than in many other portions of the so-called Christian world. Our children, too, and our poor, destitute neighbors, often suffer, we fear, the same wrong at our remiss hands and from our cold hearts. Though we have done much and would fain do more, yet, the truth must be confessed, this sacred and imperious claim has not been fully met by us.

It may be otherwise at the North. There, children and poor neighbors, too, may all be trained and taught to the full extent of the moral law. This godlike work may be fully done by our Christian brethren of the North. They certainly have a large surplus of benevolence to bestow on us. But if this glorious work has not been fully done by them, then let him who is without sin cast the first stone. This simple thought, perhaps, might call in doubt their right to rail at us, at least with such malignant bitterness and gall. This simple thought, perhaps, might save us many a pitiless pelting of philanthropy.

But here lies the difference--here lies our peculiar sin and shame. This great, primordial right is, with us, denied by law. The slave shall not be taught to read. Oh! that he might be taught! What floods of sympathy, what thunderings and lightnings of philanthropy, would then be spared the world! But why, we ask, should the slave be taught to read? That he might read the Bible, and feed on the food of eternal life, is the reply; and the reply is good.

Ah! if the slave would only read his Bible, and drink its very spirit in, we should rejoice at the change; for he would then be a better and a happier man. He would then know his duty, and the high ground on which his duty rests. He would then see, in the words of Dr. Wayland, "That the duty of slaves is explicitly made known in the Bible. They are bound to obedience, fidelity, submission, and respect to their masters--not only to the good and kind, but also to the unkind and froward; not, however, on the ground of duty to man, but on the ground of duty to God." But, with all, we have some little glimpse of our dangers, as well as some little sense of our duties.

The tempter is not asleep. His eye is still, as ever of old, fixed on the forbidden tree; and thither he will point his hapless victims. Like certain senators, and demagogues, and doctors of divinity, he will preach from the Declaration of Independence rather than from the Bible. He will teach, not that submission, but that resistance, is a duty. To every evil passion his inflammatory and murder-instigating appeals will be made. Stung by these appeals and maddened, the poor African, it is to be feared, would have no better notions of equality and freedom, and no better views of duty to God or man, than his teachers themselves have. Such, then, being the state of things, ask us not to prepare the slave for his own utter undoing. Ask us not--O most kind and benevolent Christian teacher!--ask us not to lay the train beneath our feet, that you may no longer hold the blazing torch in vain!

Let that torch be extinguished. Let all incendiary publications be destroyed. Let no conspiracies, no insurrections, and no murders be instigated. Let the pure precepts of the gospel and its sublime lessons of peace be everywhere set forth and inculcated. In one word, let it be seen that in reality the eternal good of the slave is aimed at, and, by the co-operation of all, may be secured, and then may we be asked to teach him to read. But until then we shall refuse to head a conspiracy against the good order, the security, the morals, and against the very lives, of both the white and the black men of the South.

We might point out other respects in which men are essentially equal, or have equal rights. But our object is not to write a treatise on the philosophy of politics. It is merely to expose the errors of those who push the idea of equality to an extreme, and thereby unwisely deny the great differences that exist among men. For if the scheme or the political principles of the abolitionists be correct, then there is no difference among men, not even among the different races of men, that is worthy the attention of the statesman.

There is one difference, we admit, which the abolitionists have discovered between the master and the slave at the South. Whether this discovery be entirely original with them, or whether they received hints of it from others, it is clear that they are now fully in possession of it. The dazzling idea of equality itself has not been able to exclude it from their visions. For, in spite of this idea, they have discovered that between the Southern master and slave there is a difference of color! Hence, as if this were the only difference, in their political harangues, whether from the stump or from the pulpit, they seldom fail to rebuke the Southern statesman in the words of the poet: "He finds his fellow guilty of a skin not colored like his own;" and "for such worthy cause dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey." Shame and confusion seize the man, we say, who thus dooms and devotes his fellow-man, because he finds him "guilty of a skin!" If his sensibilities were only as soft as his philosophy is shallow, he would certainly cry, "Down with the institution of slavery!" For how could he tolerate an institution which has no other foundation than a difference of color? Indeed, if such were the only difference between the two races among us, we should ourselves unite with Mr. Seward of New York, and most "affectionately advise all men to be born white." For thus, the only difference having been abolished, all men would be equal in fact, and consequently entitled to become equal in political rights, and power, and position. But if such be not the only difference between the white and the black man of the South, then neither philosophy nor paint can establish an equality between them.

Every man, we admit, is a man. But this profound aphorism is not the only one to which the political architect should give heed. An equality of conditions, of political powers and privileges, which has no solid basis in an equality of capacity or fitness, is one of the wildest and most impracticable of all Utopian dreams. If in the divine government such an equality should prevail, it is evident that all order would be overthrown, all justice extinguished, and utter confusion would reign. In like manner, if in human government such equality should exist, it would be only for a moment Indeed, to aim at an equality of conditions, or of rights and powers except by first aming at an equality of intelligence and virtue, is not to reform--it is to demolish--the governments of society. It is, indeed, to war against the eternal order of divine Providence itself in which an immutable justice ever regins. "It is this aiming after an equality," says Aristotle, "which is the cause of seditions." But though seditions it may have stirred up, and fierce passions kindled, yet has it never led its poor deluded victims to the boon after which they have so fondly panted.

Equality is not liberty. "The French," said Napoleon, "love equality: they care little for liberty." Equality is plain, simple, easily understood. Liberty is complex, and exceedingly difficult of comprehension. The most illiterate peasant may, at a glance, grasp the idea of equality; the most profound statesman may not, without much care and thought, comprehend the nature of liberty. Hence it is that equality, and not liberty, so readily seizes the mind of the multitude, and so mightily inflames its passions. The French are not the only people who care but little for liberty, while they are crazy for equality. The same blind passion, it is to be feared, is possible even in this enlightened portion of the globe. Even here, perhaps, a man may rant and rave about equality, while, really, he may know but little more, and consequently care but little more, about that complicated and beautiful structure called civil liberty, than a horse does about the mechanism of the heavens.

Thus, for example, a Senator[160] of the United States declares that the democratic principle is "Equality of natural rights, guaranteed and secured to all by the laws of a just, popular government. For one, I desire to see that principle applied to every subject of legislation, no matter what that subject may be--to the great question involved in the resolution now before the Senate, and to every other question." Again, this principle is "the element and guarantee of liberty."

Apply this principle, then, to every subject, to every question, and see what kind of government would be the result. All men have an equal right to freedom from restraint, and consequently all are made equally free. All have an equal right to the elective franchise, and to every political power and privilege. But suppose the government is designed for a State in which a large majority of the population is without the character, or disposition, or habits, or experience of freemen? No matter: the equal rights of all are natural; and hence they should be applied in all cases, and to every possible "subject of legislation." The principle of equality should reign everywhere, and mold every institution. Surely, after what has been said, no comment is necessary on a scheme so wild, on a dream so visionary. "As distant as heaven is from earth," says Montesquieu, "so is the true spirit of equality from that of extreme equality." And just so distant is the Senator in question, with all his adherents, from the true idea of civil and political freedom.

The Senator thinks the conduct of Virginia "singular enough," because, in presenting a bill of rights to Congress, she omitted the provision of "her own bill of rights," "that all men are born[161] equally free and independent." We think she acted wisely. For, in truth and in deed, all men are born absolutely dependent and utterly devoid of freedom. What right, we ask, has the new born infant? Has he the right to go where he pleases? He has no power to go at all; and hence he has no more a right to go than he has to fly. Has he the right to think for himself? The power of thought is as yet wholly undeveloped. Has he the right to worship God according to his own conscience? He has no idea of God, nor of the duties due to him. The plain truth is, that no human being possesses a right until the power or capacity on which the enjoyment of that right depends is suitably developed or acquired. The child, for instance, has no right to think for himself, or to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, until his intellectual and moral powers are suitably developed. He is certainly not born with such rights. Nor has he any right to go where he pleases, or attempt to do so, until he has learned to walk. Nor has he the right then, for, according to the laws of all civilized nations, he is subject to the control of the parent until he reaches the lawful age of freedom. The truth is, that all men are born not equally free and independent, but equally without freedom and without independence. "All men are born equal," says Montesquieu; but he does not say they "are born equally free and independent." The first proposition is true: the last is diametrically opposed to the truth.

Another Senator[162] seems to entertain the same passion for the principle of equality. In his speech on the Compromise Bill of 1850, he says that "a statesman or a founder of States" should adopt as an axiom the declaration, "That all men are created equal, and have inalienable rights of life, liberty, and choice of pursuits of happiness." Let us suppose, then, that this distinguished statesman is himself about to establish a constitution for the people of Mississippi or Louisiana, in which there are more blacks than whites. As they all have a natural and "inalienable right" to liberty, of course he would make them all free. But would he confer upon all, upon black as well as upon white, the power of the elective franchise? Most certainly. For he has said, "We of New York are guilty of slavery still by withholding the right of suffrage from the race we have emancipated." Surely, if he had to found a State himself, he would not thus be guilty of slavery--of the one odious thing which his soul abhors. All would then be invested with the right of suffrage. A black legislature would be the consequence. The laws passed by such a body would, we fear, be no better than the constitution provided by the Senator--by the statesman--from New York.

"All men are born equal," says Montesquieu; but in the hands of such a thinker no danger need be apprehended from such an axiom. For having drank deeply of the true spirit of law, he was, in matters of government, ever ready to sacrifice abstract perfection to concrete utility. Neither the principle of equality, nor any other, would he apply in all cases or to every subject. He was no dreamer. He was a profound thinker and a real statesman. "Though real equality," says he, "be the very soul of a democracy, it is so difficult to establish, that an extreme exactness in this respect is not always convenient."

Again, he says: "All inequalities in democracies ought to be derived from the nature of the government, and even from the principle of equality. For example, it may be apprehended that people who are obliged to live by labor would be too much impoverished by public employment, or neglect the duties of attending to it; that artisans would grow insolent; and that too great a number of freemen would overpower the ancient citizens. IN THIS CASE, THE EQUALITY IN A DEMOCRACY MAY BE SUPPRESSED FOR THE GOOD OF THE STATE."

Thus to give all men equal power where the majority is ignorant and depraved, would be indeed to establish equality, but not liberty. On the contrary, it would be to establish the most odious despotism on earth,--the reign of ignorance, passion, prejudice, and brutality. It would be to establish a mere nominal equality, and a real inequality. For, as Montesquieu says, by introducing "too great a number of freemen," the "ancient citizens" would be oppressed. In such case, the principle of equality, even in a democracy, should be "suppressed for the good of the State." It should be suppressed, in order to shut out a still greater and more tremendous inequality. The legislator, then, who aims to introduce an extreme equality, or to apply the principle of equality to every question, would really bring about the most frightful of all inequalities, especially in a commonwealth where the majority are ignorant and depraved.

Hence the principle of equality is merely a standard toward which an approximation may be made--an approximation always limited and controlled by the public good. This principle should be applied, not to every question, but only to such as the general good permits. For this good it "may be suppressed." Nay, it must be suppressed, if, without such suppression, the public order may not be sustained; for, as we have abundantly seen, it is only in the bosom of an enlightened public order that liberty can live, or move, or have its being. Thus, as Montesquieu advises, we deduce an inequality from the very principle of equality itself; since, if such inequality be not deduced and established by law, a still more terrific inequality would be forced upon us. Blind passion would dictate the laws, and brute force would reign, while innocence and virtue would be trampled in the dust. Such is the inequality to which the honorable senators would invite us; and that, too, by an appeal to our love of equality! If we decline the invitation, this is not because we are the enemies, but because we are the friends, of human freedom. It is not because we love equality less, but liberty more.

The legislators of the North may, if they please, choose the principle of equality as the very "element and guarantee" of their liberty; and, to make that liberty perfect, they may apply it to every possible "subject of legislation," and to "every question" under the sun. But, if we may be permitted to choose for ourselves, we should beg to be delivered from such an extreme equality. We should reject it as the very worst "element," and the very surest "guarantee" of an unbounded licentiousness and an intolerable oppression. As the "element and guarantee" of freedom for ourselves, and for our posterity, we should decidedly prefer the principle of an enlightened public order.

FOOTNOTES:

[142] Channing's Works, vol. ii. p. 126.

[143] Elements of Moral Science, Part ii. chap. i. sec. 11.

[144] Moral Science, Part ii. chap. i. sec. 2.

[145] Letters on Slavery, p. 89.

[146] Ibid, p. 92.

[147] Letters, p. 50.

[148] Letters, p. 50.

[149] Letters, p. 50.

[150] Letters, p. 113.

[151] Moral Science, Part ii. chap. i. sec. 2.

[152] Letters, p. 119, 120.

[153] Moral Science Part ii. chap. i. sec. 2.

[154] Moral Science, Part ii. chap. i. sec. 2.

[155] Ibid.

[156] The Italics are our own.

[157] Lev. chap. xxv.

[158] Exod. chap. xxi.

[159] In the first chapter.

[160] Mr. Chase, of Ohio.

[161] "By nature," in the Original Bill of Rights.

[162] Mr. Seward, of New York.

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III. THE ARGUMENT FROM THE SCRIPTURES

The Argument from the Old Testament.--The Argument from the New Testament.

IN discussing the arguments of the abolitionists, it was scarcely possible to avoid intimating, to a certain extent, the grounds on which we intend to vindicate the institution of slavery, as it exists among us at the South. But these grounds are entitled to a more distinct enunciation and to a more ample illustration. In the prosecution of this object we shall first advert to the argument from revelation; and, if we mistake not, it will be found that in the foregoing discussion we have been vindicating against aspersion not only the peculiar institution of the Southern States, but also the very legislation of Heaven itself.

§ I. The argument from the Old Testament.

The ground is taken by Dr. Wayland and other abolitionists, that slavery is always and everywhere, semper et ubique, morally wrong, and should, therefore, be instantly and universally swept away. We point to slavery among the Hebrews, and say, There is an instance in which it was not wrong, because there it received the sanction of the Almighty. Dr. Wayland chooses to overlook or evade the bearing of that case upon his fundamental position; and the means by which he seeks to evade its force is one of the grossest fallacies ever invented by the brain of man.

Let the reader examine and judge for himself. Here it is: "Let us reduce this argument to a syllogism, and it will stand thus: Whatever God sanctioned among the Hebrews he sanctions for all men and at all times. God sanctioned slavery among the Hebrews; therefore God sanctions slavery for all men and at all times."

Now I venture to affirm that no man at the South has ever put forth so absurd an argument in favor of slavery,--not only in favor of slavery for the negro race so long as they may remain unfit for freedom, but in favor of slavery for all men and for all times. If such an argument proved any thing, it would, indeed, prove that the white man of the South, no less than the black, might be subjected to bondage. But no one here argues in favor of the subjection of the white man, either South or North, to a state of servitude. No one here contends for the subjection to slavery of any portion of the civilized world. We only contend for slavery in certain cases; in opposition to the thesis of the abolitionist, we assert that it is not always and everywhere wrong. For the truth of this assertion we rely upon the express authority of God himself. We affirm that since slavery has been ordained by him, it cannot be always and everywhere wrong. And how does the abolitionist attempt to meet this reply? Why, by a little legerdemain, he converts this reply from an argument against his position, that slavery is always and everywhere wrong, into an argument in favor of the monstrous dogma that it is always and everywhere right! If we should contend that, in some cases, it is right to take the life of a man, he might just as fairly insist that we are in favor of having every man on earth put to death! Was any fallacy ever more glaring? was any misrepresentation ever more flagrant?

Indeed we should have supposed that Dr. Wayland might have seen that his representation is not a fair one, if he had not assured us of the contrary. We should have supposed that he might have distinguished between an argument in favor of slavery for the lowest grade of the ignorant and debased, and an argument in favor of slavery for all men and all times, if he had not assured us that he possesses no capacity to make it. For after having twisted the plea of the most enlightened statesmen of the South into an argument in favor of the universal subjection of mankind to slavery, he coolly adds, "I believe that in these words I express the argument correctly. If I do not, it is solely because I do not know how to state it more correctly." Is it possible Dr. Wayland could not distinguish between the principle of slavery for some men and the principle of slavery for all men? between the proposition that the ignorant, the idle, and the debased may be subjected to servitude, and the idea that all men, even the most enlightened and free, may be reduced to bondage? If he had not positively declared that he possessed no such capacity, we should most certainly have entertained a different opinion.

It will not be denied, we presume, that the very best men, whose lives are recorded in the Old Testament, were the owners and holders of slaves. "I grant at once," says Dr. Wayland, "that the Hebrews held slaves from the time of the conquest of Canaan, and that Abraham and the patriarchs held them many centuries before. I grant also that Moses enacted laws with special reference to that relation. . . . . I wonder that any should have had the hardihood to deny so plain a matter of record. I should almost as soon deny the delivery of the ten commandments to Moses."

Now, is it not wonderful that directly in the face of "so plain a matter of record," a pious Presbyterian pastor should have been arraigned by abolitionists, not for holding slaves, but for daring to be so far a freeman as to express his convictions on the subject of slavery? Most abolitionists must have found themselves a little embarrassed in such a proceeding. For there was the fact, staring them in the face, that Abraham himself, "the friend of God" and the "father of the faithful," was the owner and holder of more than a thousand slaves. How, then, could these professing Christians proceed to condemn and excommunicate a poor brother for having merely approved what Abraham had practiced? Of all the good men of old, Abraham was the most eminent. The sublimity of his faith and the fervor of his piety has, by the unerring voice of inspiration itself, been held up as a model for the imitation of all future ages. How, then, could a parcel of poor common saints presume, without blushing, to cry and condemn one of their number because he was no better than "Father Abraham?" This was the difficulty; and, but for a very happy discovery, it must have been an exceedingly perplexing one. But "Necessity is the mother of invention." On this trying occasion she conceived the happy thought that the plain matter of record "was all a mistake;" that Abraham never owned a slave; that, on the contrary, he was "a prince," and the "men whom he bought with his money" were "his subjects" merely! If, then, we poor sinners of the South should be driven to the utmost extremity,--all honest arguments and pleas failing us,--may we not escape the unutterable horrors of civil war, by calling our masters princes, and our slaves subjects?

We shall conclude this topic with the pointed and powerful words of Dr. Fuller, in his reply to Dr. Wayland: "Abraham," says he, "was 'the friend of God,' and walked with God in the closest and most endearing intercourse; nor can any thing be more exquisitely touching than those words, 'Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?' It is the language of a friend who feels that concealment would wrong the confidential intimacy existing. The love of this venerable servant of God in his promptness to immolate his son has been the theme of apostles and preachers for ages; and such was his faith, that all who believe are called 'the children of faithful Abraham.' This Abraham, you admit, held slaves. Who is surprised that Whitefield, with this single fact before him, could not believe slavery to be a sin? Yet if your definition of slavery be correct, holy Abraham lived all his life in the commission of one of the most aggravated crimes against God and man which can be conceived. His life was spent in outraging the rights of hundreds of human beings, as moral, intellectual, immortal, fallen creatures, and in violating their relations as parents and children, and husbands and wives. And God not only connived at this appalling iniquity, but, in the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham, expressly mentions it, and confirms the patriarch in it, speaking of those 'bought with his money,' and requiring him to circumcise them. Why, at the very first blush, every Christian will cry out against this statement. To this, however, you must come, or yield your position; and this is only the first utterly incredible and monstrous corollary involved in the assertion that slavery is essentially and always 'a sin of appalling magnitude.'"

Slavery among the Hebrews, however, was not left merely to a tacit or implied sanction. It was thus sanctioned by the express legislation of the Most High: "Both thy bondmen and thy bond-maids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bond-maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever."[163] Now these words are so perfectly explicit, that there is no getting around them. Even Dr. Wayland, as we have seen, admits that the authority to take slaves seems to be a part of "this original, peculiar," and perhaps "anomalous grant." No wonder it appeared peculiar and anomalous. The only wonder is, that it did not appear impious and absurd. So it has appeared to some of his co-agitators, who, because they could not agree with Moses, have denied his mission as an inspired teacher, and joined the ranks of infidelity.

Dr. Channing makes very light of this and other passages of Scripture. He sets aside this whole argument from revelation with a few bold strokes of the pen. "In this age of the world," says he, "and amid the light which has been thrown on the true interpretation of the Scriptures, such reasoning hardly deserves notice." Now, even if not for our benefit, we think there are two reasons why such passages as the above were worthy of Dr. Channing's notice. In the first place, if he had condescended to throw the light in his possession on such passages, he might have saved Dr. Wayland, as well as other of his admirers, from the necessity of making the very awkward admission that the Almighty had authorized his chosen people to buy slaves, and hold them as "bondmen forever." He might have enabled them to see through the great difficulty, that God has authorized his people to commit "a sin of apalling magnitude," to perpetrate as "great a crime as can be conceived;" which seems so clearly to be the case, if their views of slavery be correct. Secondly, he might have enabled his followers to espouse the cause of abolition without deserting, as so many of them have openly done, the armies of the living God. For these two reasons, if for no other, we think Dr. Channing owed it to the honor of his cause to notice the passages of Scripture bearing on the subject of slavery.

The Mosaic Institutes not only recognize slavery as lawful; they contain a multitude of minute directions for its regulation. We need not refer to all of them; it will be sufficient for our purpose if we only notice those which establish some of the leading characteristics of slavery among the people of God.

1. Slaves were regarded as property. They were, as we have seen, called a "possession" and an "inheritance."[164] They were even called the "money" of the master. Thus, it is said, "if a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money."[165] In one of the ten commandments this right of property is recognized: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's."

2. They might be sold. This is taken for granted in all those passages in which, for particular reasons, the master is forbidden to sell his slaves. Thus it is declared: "Thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her." And still more explicitly: "If a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please not her master who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her to a strange nation, he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.[166]

3. The slavery thus expressly sanctioned was hereditary and perpetual: "Ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever." Even the Hebrew servant might, by his own consent, become in certain cases a slave for life: "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve; and in the seventh shall he go out 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 she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and the children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto the judges: he shall also bring him to the door or unto the door-post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever."

Now it is evident, we think, that the legislator of the Hebrews was not inspired with the sentiments of an abolitionist. The principles of his legislation are, indeed, so diametrically opposed to the political notions of the abolitionist, that the latter is sadly perplexed to dispose of them. While some deny the authority of these principles altogether, and of the very book which contains them, others are content to evade their force by certain ingenious devices of their own. We shall now proceed to examine some of the more remarkable of these cunningly-devised fables.

It is admitted by the inventors of these devices, that God expressly permitted his chosen people to buy and hold slaves. Yet Dr. Wayland, by whom this admission is made, has endeavored to weaken the force of it by alleging that God has been pleased to enlighten our race progressively. If, he argues, the institution of slavery among His people appears so very "peculiar and anomalous," this is because he did not choose to make known his whole mind on the subject. He withheld a portion of it from his people, and allowed them, by express grant, to hold slaves until the fuller revelation of his will should blaze upon the world. Such is, perhaps, the most plausible defense which an abolitionist could possibly set up against the light of revelation.

But to what does it amount? If the views of Dr. Wayland and his followers, respecting slavery, be correct, it amounts to this: The Almighty has said to his people, you may commit "a sin of appalling magnitude;" you may perpetrate "as great an evil as can be conceived;" you may persist in a practice which consists in "outraging the rights" of your fellow-men, and in "crushing their intellectual and moral" nature. They have a natural, inherent, and inalienable right to liberty as well as yourselves, but yet you may make slaves of them, and they may be your bondmen forever. In one word, you, my chosen people, may degrade "rational, accountable, and immortal beings" to the "rank of brutes." Such, if we may believe Dr. Wayland, is the first stage in the divine enlightenment of the human race! It consists in making known a part of God's mind, not against the monstrous iniquity of slavery, but in its favor! It is the utterance, not of a partial truth, but of a monstrous falsehood! It is the revelation of his will, not against sin, but in favor of as great a sin "as can be conceived." Now, we may fearlessly ask if the cause which is reduced to the necessity of resorting to such a defense may not be pronounced desperate indeed, and unspeakably forlorn?

It is alleged that polygamy and divorce, as well as slavery, are permitted and regulated in the Old Testament. This, we reply, proves, in regard to polygamy and divorce, exactly what it proves in regard to slavery,--namely, that neither is in itself sinful, that neither is always and everywhere sinful. In other words, it proves that neither polygamy nor divorce, as permitted in the Old Testament, is "malum in se," is inconsistent with the eternal and unchangeable principles of right. They are forbidden in the New Testament, not because they are in themselves absolutely and immutably wrong, but because they are inconsistent with the best interests of society; especially in civilized and Christian communities. If they had been wrong in themselves, they never could have been permitted by a holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, except with inifinite abhorrence.

Again, it is contended by Dr. Wayland that "Moses intended to abolish slavery," because he forbade the Jews "to deliver up a fugitive slave." The words are these: "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant that is escaped from his master unto thee: "He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of the gates where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him."[167] "This precept, I think," says Dr. Wayland, "clearly shows that Moses intended to abolish slavery. How could slavery long continue in a country where every one was forbidden to deliver up a fugitive slave? How different would be the condition of slaves, and how soon would slavery itself cease, were this the law of compulsory bondage among us!"

The above passage of Scripture is a precious morsel with those who are opposed to a fugitive slave law. A petition from Albany, New York, from the enlightened seat of empire of the Empire State itself, signed, if we recollect right, by one hundred and fifty persons, was presented to the United States Senate by Mr. Seward, praying that no bill in relation to fugitive slaves might be passed, which should not contain that passage. Whether Mr. Seward was enlightened by his constituents, or whether he made the discovery for himself, it is certain that he holds an act for the reclamation of fugitive slaves to be "contrary to the divine law." It is certain that he agrees with his constituents, who, in the petition referred to, pronounced every such act "immoral," and contrary to the law of God. But let us look at this passage a little, and see if these abolitionists, who thus plant themselves so confidently upon "a higher law," even upon "the divine law" itself, be not as hasty and rash in their interpretation of this law as they are accustomed to be in their judgment respecting the most universal and long-established institutions of human society.

In the first place, if their interpretation be correct, we are at once met by a very serious difficulty. For we are required to believe that one passage of Scripture grants an "authority to take slaves," while another passage is designed to annul this authority. We are required to believe that, in one portion of the divine law, the right of the master to hold his slaves as "bondmen" is recognized, while another part of the same law denies the existence of such right. In fine, we are required to believe that the legislator of the Jews intended, in one and the same code, both to establish and to abolish slavery; that with one hand he struck down the very right and institution which he had set up with the other. How Dr. Channing and Mr. Sumner would have disposed of this difficulty we know full well, for they carry within their own bosoms a higher law than this higher law itself. But how Dr. Wayland, as an enlightened member of the good old orthodox Baptist Church, with whom the Scripture is really and in truth the inspired word of God, would have disposed of it, we are at some loss to conceive.

We labor under no such difficulty. The words in question do not relate to slaves owned by Hebrew masters. They relate to those slaves only who should escape from heathen masters, and seek an asylum among the people of God. "The first inquiry of course is," says a learned divine,[168] "in regard to those very words, 'Where does his master live?' Among the Hebrews, or among foreigners? The language of the passage fully develops this and answers the question. 'He has escaped from his master unto the Hebrews; (the text says--thee, i. e. Israel;) he shall dwell with thee, even among you . . . in one of thy gates.' Of course, then, he is an immigrant, and did not dwell among them before his flight. If he had been a Hebrew servant, belonging to a Hebrew, the whole face of the thing would be changed. Restoration, or restitution, if we may judge by the tenor of other property-laws among the Hebrews, would have surely been enjoined. But, be that as it may, the language of the text puts it beyond a doubt that the servant is a foreigner, and has fled from a heathen master. This entirely changes the complexion of the case. The Hebrews were God's chosen people, and were the only nation on earth which worshiped the only living and true God. . . . . In case a slave escaped from them (the heathen) and came to the Hebrews, two things were to be taken into consideration, according to the views of the Jewish legislator. The first was that the treatment of slaves among the heathen was far more severe and rigorous than it could lawfully be under the Mosaic law. The heathen master possessed the power of life and death, of scourging or imprisoning, or putting to excessive toil, even to any extent that he pleased. Not so among the Hebrews. Humanity pleaded there for the protection of the fugitive. The second and most important consideration was, that only among the Hebrews could the fugitive slave come to the knowledge and worship of the only living and true God."

Now this view of the passage in question harmonizes one portion of Scripture with another, and removes every difficulty. It shows, too, how greatly the abolitionists have deceived themselves in their rash and blind appeal to "the divine law" in question. "The reason of the law," says my Lord Coke, "is the law." It is applicable to those cases, and to those cases only, which come within the reason of the law. Hence, if it be a fact, and if our Northern brethren really believe that we are sunk in the darkness of heathen idolatry, while the light of the true religion is with them alone, why, then, we admit that the reason and principle of the divine law in question is in their favor. Then we admit that the return of our fugitive slaves is "contrary to the divine law." But if we are not heathen idolaters, if the God of the Hebrews be also the God of Southern masters, then the Northern States do not violate the precept in question--they only discharge a solemn constitutional obligation--in delivering up our "fugitives from labor."

§ II. The argument from the New Testament.

The New Testament, as Dr. Wayland remarks, was given, "not to one people, but to the whole race; not for one period, but for all time." Its lessons are, therefore, of universal and perpetual obligation. If, then, the Almighty had undertaken to enlighten the human race by degrees, with respect to the great sin of slavery, is it not wonderful that, in the very last revelation of his will, he has uttered not a single syllable in disapprobation thereof? Is it not wonderful, that he should have completed the revelation of his will,--that he should have set his seal to the last word he will ever say to man respecting his duties, and yet not one word about the great obligation of the master to emancipate his slaves, nor about the "appalling sin" of slavery? Such silence must, indeed, appear exceedingly peculiar and anomalous to the abolitionist. It would have been otherwise had he written the New Testament. He would, no doubt, have inserted at least one little precept against the sin of slavery.

As it is, however, the most profound silence reigns through the whole word of God with respect to the sinfulness of slavery. "It must be granted," says Dr. Wayland, "that the New Testament contains no precept prohibitory of slavery." Marvellous as such silence must needs be to the abolitionist, it cannot be more so to him than his attempts to account for it are to others. Let us briefly examine these attempts:

"You may give your child," says Dr. Wayland, "if he were approaching to years of discretion, permission to do an act, while you inculcate upon him principles which forbid it, for the sake of teaching him to be governed by principles, rather than by any direct enactment. In such case you would expect him to obey the principle, and not avail himself of the permission." Now we fearlessly ask every reader whose moral sense has not been perverted by false logic, if such a proceeding would not be infinitely unworthy of the Father of mercies? According to Dr. Wayland's view, he beholds his children living and dying in the practice of an abominable sin, and looks on without the slightest note of admonition or warning. Nay, he gives them permission to continue in the practice of this frightful enormity, to which they are already bound by the triple tie of habit, interest, and feeling! Though he gives them line upon line, and precept upon precept, in order to detach them from other sins, he yet gives them permission to live and die in this awful sin! And why? To teach them, forsooth, not to follow his permission, but to be guided by his principles! Even the guilty Eli remonstrated with his sons. Yet if, instead of doing this, he had given them permission to practice the very sins they were bent upon, he might have been, for all that, as pure and faithful as the Father of mercies himself is represented to be in the writings of Dr. Wayland. Such are the miserable straits, and such the impious sophisms, to which even divines are reduced, when, on the supposition that slavery is a sin, they undertake to vindicate or defend the word which they themselves are ordained to preach!

Another reason, scarcely less remarkable than the one already noticed, is assigned for the omission of all precepts against slavery. "It was no part of the scheme of the gospel revelation," we are told by Dr. Wayland, (who quotes from Archbishop Whately,) "to lay down any thing approaching to a complete system of moral precepts--to enumerate every thing that is enjoined or forbidden by our religion." If this method of teaching had been adopted, "the New Testament would," says Dr. Wayland, "have formed a library in itself, more voluminous than the laws of the realm of Great Britain." Now, all this is very true; and hence the necessity of leaving many points of duty to the enlightened conscience, and to the application of the more general precepts of the gospel. But how has it happened that slavery is passed over in silence? Because, we are told; "every thing" could not be noticed. If, indeed, slavery be so great a sin, would it not have been easier for the divine teacher to say, Let it be abolished, than to lay down so many minute precepts for its regulation? Would this have tended to swell the gospel into a vast library, or to abridge its teachings? Surely, when Dr. Wayland sets up such a plea, he must have forgotten that the New Testament, though it cannot notice "every thing," contains a multitude of rules to regulate the conduct of the master and the slave. Otherwise he could scarcely have imagined that it was from an aversion to minuteness, or from an impossibility to forbid every evil, that the sin of slavery is passed over in silence.

He must also have forgotten another thing. He must have forgotten the colors in which he had painted the evils of slavery. If we may rely upon these, then slavery is no trifling offense. It is, on the contrary, a stupendous sin, overspreading the earth, and crushing the faculties--both intellectual and moral--of millions of human beings beneath its odious and terrific influence. Now, if this be so, then would it have been too much to expect that at least one little word might have been directed against so great, so tremendous an evil? The method of the gospel may be comprehensive, if you please; it may teach by great principles rather than by minute precepts. Still, it is certain that St. Paul could give directions about his cloak; and he could spend many words in private salutations. In regard to the great social evil of the age, however, and beneath which a large majority of even the civilized world were crushed to the earth, he said nothing, lest he should become too minute,--lest his epistles should swell into too large a volume! Such is one of Dr. Wayland's defences of the gospel. We shall offer no remark; we shall let it speak for itself.

A third reason for the silence in question is the alleged ease with which precepts may be evaded. "A simple precept or prohibition," says Dr. Wayland, "is, of all things, the easiest to be evaded. Lord Eldon used to say, that 'no man in England could construct an act of Parliament through which he could not drive a coach-and-four.' We find this to have been illustrated by the case of the Jews in the time of our Saviour. The Pharisees, who prided themselves on their strict obedience to the letter, violated the spirit of every precept of the Mosaic code."

Now, in reply to this most extraordinary passage, we have several remarks to offer. In the first place, perhaps every one is not so good a driver as Lord Eldon. It is certain, that acts of Parliament have been passed, through which the most slippery of rogues have not been able to make their escape. They have been caught, tried, and condemned for their offenses, in spite of all their ingenuity and evasion.

Secondly, a "principle" is just as easily evaded as a "precept;" and, in most cases, it is far more so. The great principle of the New Testament, which our author deems so applicable to the subject of slavery, is this: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Now, if this be the great principle intended to enlighten us respecting the sin of slavery, we confess it has been most completely evaded by every slave State in the Union. We have, indeed, so entirely deceived ourselves in regard to its true import, that it seems to us to have not the most remote application to such a subject. If any one will give our remarks on this great "principle" a candid examination, we think he will admit that we have deceived ourselves on very plausible, if not on unanswerable, grounds. If slavery be a sin,--always and everywhere a monstrous iniquity,--then we should have been far more thoroughly enlightened with respect to its true nature, and found evasion far more difficult, if the New Testament had explicitly declared it to be such, and commanded all masters everywhere to emancipate their slaves. We could have driven a coach-and-four neither through, nor around, any such express prohibition. It is indeed only in consequence of the default, or omission, of such precept or command, that the abolitionist appeals to what he calls the principles of the gospel. If he had only one such precept,--if he had only one such precise and pointed prohibition, he might then, and he would, most triumphantly defy evasion. He would say, There is the word; and none but the obstinate gainsayers, or unbelievers, would dare reply. But as it is, he is compelled to lose himself in vague generalities, and pretend to a certainty which nowhere exists, except in his own heated mind. This pretense, indeed, that an express precept, prohibitory of slavery, is not the most direct way to reveal its true nature, because a precept is so much more easily evaded than a principle, is merely one of the desperate expedients of a forlorn and hopeless cause. If the abolitionist would maintain that cause, or vindicate his principles, it will be found that he must retire, and hide himself from the light of revelation.

Thirdly, the above passage seems to present a very strange view of the Divine proceedings. According to that view, it appears that the Almighty tried the method of teaching by precept in the Old Testament, and the experiment failed. For precepts may be so easily evaded, that every one in the Mosaic code was violated by the Pharisees. Hence, the method of teaching by precept was laid aside in the New Testament, and the better method of teaching by principle was adopted. Such is the conclusion to which we must come, if we adopt the reasoning of Dr. Wayland. But we cannot adopt his reasoning; since we should then have to believe that the experiment made in the Old Testament proved a failure, and that its Divine Author, having grown wiser by experience, improved upon his former method.

The truth is, that the method of the one Testament is the same as that of the other. In both, the method of teaching by precept is adopted; by precepts of greater and of lesser generality. Dr. Wayland's principle is merely a general or comprehensive precept; and his precept is merely a specific or limited principle. The distinction he makes between them, and the use he makes of this distinction, only reflect discredit upon the wisdom and consistency of the Divine Author of revelation.

A third account which Dr. Wayland gives of the silence of the New Testament respecting the sin of slavery, is as follows: "If this form of wrong had been singled out from all the others, and had alone been treated preceptively, the whole system would have been vitiated. We should have been authorized to inquire why were not similar precepts in other cases delivered? and if they were not delivered, we should have been at liberty to conclude that they were intentionally omitted, and that the acts which they would have forbidden are innocent." Very well. But idolatry, polygamy, divorce, is each and every one singled out, and forbidden by precept, in the New Testament. Slavery alone is passed over in silence. Hence, according to the principle of Dr. Wayland himself, we are at liberty to conclude that a precept forbidding slavery was "intentionally omitted," and that slavery itself "is innocent."

Each one of these reasons is not only exceedingly weak in itself, but it is inconsistent with the others. For if a precept forbidding slavery were purposely omitted, in order to teach mankind to be governed by principle and to disregard permissions, then the omission could not have arisen from a love of brevity. Were it not, indeed, just as easy to give a precept forbidding, as to give one permitting, the existence of slavery? Again, if a great and world-devouring sin, such as the abolitionists hold slavery to be, has been left unnoticed, lest its condemnation should impliedly sanction other sins, then is it not worse than puerile to suppose that the omission was made for the sake of brevity, or to teach mankind that the permissions of the Most High may in certain cases be treated with contempt, may be set at naught, and despised as utterly inconsistent, as diametrically opposed to the principles and purity of his law?

If the abolitionist is so completely lost in his attempts to meet the argument from the silence of Scripture, he finds it still more difficult to cope with that from its express precepts and injunctions. Servants, obey your masters, is one of the most explicit precepts of the New Testament. This precept just as certainly exists therein as does the great principle of love itself. "The obedience thus enjoined is placed," says Dr. Wayland, "not on the ground of duty to man, but on the ground of duty to God." We accept the interpretation. It cannot for one moment disturb the line of our argument. It is merely the shadow of an attempt at an evasion. All the obligations of the New Testament are, indeed, placed on the same high ground. The obligation of the slave to obey his master could be placed upon no higher, no more sacred, no more impregnable, ground.

Rights and obligations are correlative. That is, every right implies a corresponding obligation, and every obligation implies a corresponding right. Hence, as the slave is under an obligation to obey the master, so the master has a right to his obedience. Nor is this obligation weakened, or this right disturbed, by the fact that the first is imposed by the word of God, and rests on the immutable ground of duty to him. If, by the divine law, the obedience of the slave is due to the master, then, by the same law, the master has a right to his obedience.

Most assuredly, the master is neither "a robber," nor "a murderer," nor "a manstealer," merely because he claims of the slave that which God himself commands the slave to render. All these epithets may be, as they have been, hurled at us by the abolitionist. His anathemas may thunder. But it is some consolation to reflect, that, as he was not consulted in the construction of the moral code of the universe, so, it is to be hoped, he will not be called upon to take part in its execution.

The most enlightened abolitionists are sadly puzzled by the precept in question; and, from the manner in which they sometimes speak of it, we have reason to fear it holds no very high place in their respect. Thus, says the Hon. Charles Sumner, "Seeking to be brief, I shall not undertake to reconcile texts of the Old Testament, which, whatever may be their import, are all absorbed in the New; nor shall I stop to consider the precise interpretation of the oft-quoted phrase, Servants, obey your masters; nor seek to weigh any such imperfect injunction in the scales against those grand commandments on which hang all the law and the prophets."[169] Now this is a very significant passage. The orator, its learned author, will not stop to consider the texts of the Old Testament bearing on the subject of slavery, because they are all merged in the New! Nor will he stop to consider any "such imperfect injunction" as those contained in the New, because they are all swallowed up and lost in the grand commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!"

If he had bestowed a little more attention on this grand commandment itself, he might have seen, as we have shown, that it in no wise conflicts with the precept which enjoins servants to obey their masters. He might have seen that it is not at all necessary to "weigh" the one of those precepts "in the scales against" the other, or to brand either of them as imperfect. For he might have seen a perfect harmony between them. It is no matter of surprise, however, that an abolitionist should find imperfections in the moral code of the New Testament.

It is certainly no wonder that Mr. Sumner should have seen imperfections therein. For he has, in direct opposition to the plainest terms of the gospel, discovered that it is the first duty of the slave to fly from his master. In his speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, we find among various other quotations, a verse from Sarah W. Morton, in which she exhorts the slave to fly from bondage. Having produced this quotation "as part of the testimony of the times," and pronounced it "a truthful homage to the inalienable rights" of the slave, Mr. Sumner was in no mood to appreciate the divine precept, "Servants, obey your masters." Having declared fugitive slaves to be "the heroes of the age," he had not, as we may suppose, any very decided taste for the commonplace Scriptural duties of submission and obedience. Nay, he spurns at and rejects such duties as utterly inconsistent with the "inalienable rights of man." He appeals from the oracles of eternal truth to "the testimony of the times." He appeals from Christ and his apostles to Sarah W. Morton. And yet, although he thus takes ground directly against the plainest precepts of the gospel, and even ventures to brand some of them as "imperfect," he has the hardihood to rebuke those who find therein, not what it really contains, but only a reflection of themselves!

The precept in question is not an isolated injunction of the New Testament. It does not stand alone. It is surrounded by other injunctions, equally authoritative, equally explicit, equally unequivocal. Thus, in Eph. vi. 5: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh." Precisely the same doctrine was preached to the Colossians: (iii. 22:) "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God." Again, in St. Paul's Epistle to Timothy, he writes: "Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed." Likewise, in Tit. ii. 9, 10, we read: "Exhort servants to be obedient to their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again; not purloining, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." And in 1 Pet. ii. 18, it is written: "Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward." Yet, in the face of these passages, Mr. Sumner declares that it is the duty of slaves to fly from bondage, and thereby place themselves among "the heroes of the age." He does not attempt to interpret or explain these precepts; he merely sets them aside, or passes them by with silent contempt, as "imperfect." Indeed, if his doctrines be true, they are not only imperfect--they are radically wrong and infamously vicious. Thus, the issue which Mr. Sumner has made up is not with the slaveholders of the South; it is with the word of God itself. The contradiction is direct, plain, palpable, and without even the decency of a pretended disguise. We shall leave Mr. Sumner to settle this issue and controversy with the Divine Author of revelation.

In the mean time, we shall barely remind the reader of what that Divine Author has said in regard to those who counsel and advise slaves to disobey their masters, or fly from bondage. "They that have believing masters," says the great Apostle to the Gentiles, "let them not despise them because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing." Mr. Sumner congratulates himself that he has stripped "from slavery the apology of Christianity." Let servants "count their own masters worthy of all honor," and "do them service," says St. Paul. "Let servants disobey their masters," says Mr. Sumner, "and cease to do them service." "These things teach and exhort," says St. Paul. "These things denounce and abhor," says Mr. Sumner. "If any man teach otherwise," says St. Paul, "he is proud, knowing nothing." "I teach otherwise," says Mr. Sumner. And is it by such conflict that he strips from slavery the sanction of Christianity? If the sheer ipse dixit of Mr. Sumner be sufficient to annihilate the authority of the New Testament, which he professes to revere as divine, then, indeed, has he stripped the sanction of Christianity from the relation of master and slave. Otherwise, he has not even stripped from his own doctrines the burning words of her condemnation.

Dr. Wayland avoids a direct conflict with the teachings of the gospel. He is less bold, and more circumspect, than the Senator from Massachusetts. He has honestly and fairly quoted most of the texts bearing on the subject of slavery. He shows them no disrespect. He pronounces none of them imperfect. But with this array of texts before him he proceeds to say: "Now, I do not see that the scope of these passages can be misunderstood." Nor can we. It would seem, indeed, impossible for the ingenuity of man to misunderstand the words, quoted by Dr. Wayland himself, "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh." Dr. Wayland does not misunderstand them. For he has said, in his Moral Science: "The duty of slaves is explicitly made known in the Bible. They are bound to obedience, fidelity, submission, and respect to their masters, not only to the good and kind, but also to the unkind and froward." But when he comes to reason about these words, which he finds it so impossible for any one to misunderstand, he is not without a very ingenious method to evade their plain import and to escape from their influence. Let the reader hear, and determine for himself.

"I do not see," says Dr. Wayland, "that the scope of these passages can be misunderstood. They teach patience, meekness, fidelity, and charity--duties which are obligatory on Christians toward all men, and, of course, toward masters. These duties are obligatory on us toward enemies, because an enemy, like every other man, is a moral creature of God." True. But is this all? Patience, meekness, fidelity, charity--duties due to all men! But what has become of the word obedience? This occupies a prominent--nay, the most prominent--place in the teachings of St. Paul. It occupies no place at all in the reasonings of Dr. Wayland. It is simply dropped out by him, or overlooked; and this was well done, for this word obedience is an exceedingly inconvenient one for the abolitionist. If Dr. Wayland had retained it in his argument, he could not have added, "duties which are obligatory on Christians toward all men, and, of course, toward masters." Christians are not bound to obey all men. But slaves are bound to obey "their own masters." It is precisely upon this injunction to obedience that the whole argument turns. And it is precisely this injunction to obedience which Dr. Wayland leaves out in his argument. He does not, and he cannot, misunderstand the word. But he can just drop it out, and, in consequence, proceed to argue as if nothing more were required of slaves than is required of all Christian men!

The only portion of Scripture which Mr. Sumner condescends to notice is the Epistle of St. Paul to Philemon. He introduces the discussion of this epistle with the remark that, "In the support of slavery, it is the habit to pervert texts and to invent authority. Even St. Paul is vouched for a wrong which his Christian life rebukes."[170] Now we intend to examine who it is that really perverts texts of Scripture, and invents authority. We intend to show, as in the clear light of noonday, that it is the conduct of Mr. Sumner and other abolitionists, and not that of the slaveholder, which is rebuked by the life and writings of the great apostle.

The epistle in question was written to a slaveholder, who, if the doctrine of Mr. Sumner be true, lived in the habitual practice of "a wrong so transcendent, so loathsome, so direful," that it "must be encountered wherever it can be reached, and the battle must be continued, without truce or compromise, until the field is entirely won." Is there any thing like this in the Epistle to Philemon? Is there any thing like it in any of the epistles of St. Paul? Is there anywhere in his writings the slightest hint that slavery is a sin at all, or that the act of holding slaves is in the least degree inconsistent with the most exalted Christian purity of life? We may safely answer these questions in the negative. The very epistle before us is from "Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon, our dearly-beloved, and fellow-laborer." The inspired writer then proceeds in these words: "I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers. Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints; that the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother."

Now if, instead of leaving out this portion of the epistle, Mr. Sumner had pronounced it in the hearing of his audience, the suspicion might have arisen in some of their minds that the slaveholder may not, after all, be so vile a wretch. It might even have occurred to some, perhaps, that the Christian character of Philemon, the slaveholder, might possibly have been as good as that of those by whom all slaveholders are excommunicated and consigned to perdition. It might have been supposed that a Christian man may possibly hold slaves without being as bad as robbers, or cut-throats, or murderers. We do not say that Mr. Sumner shrunk from the reading of this portion of the epistle in the hearing of his audience, lest it should seem to rebuke the violence and the uncharitableness of his own sentiments, as well as those of his brother abolitionists at the North. We do say, however, that Mr. Sumner had no sort of use for this passage. It could in no way favor the impression his oration was designed to make. It breathes, indeed, a spirit of good-will toward the Christian master as different from that which pervades the speeches of the honorable Senator, as the pure charity of Heaven is from the dire malignity of earth.

"It might be shown," says Mr. Sumner, "that the present epistle, when truly interpreted, is a protest against slavery, and a voice for freedom." If, instead of merely asserting that this "might be done," the accomplished orator had actually done it, he would have achieved far more for the cause of abolitionism than has been effected by all the splendors of his showy rhetoric. He has, indeed, as we shall presently see, made some attempt to show that the Epistle to Philemon is an emancipation document. When we come to examine this most extraordinary attempt, we shall perceive that Mr. Sumner's power "to pervert texts and to invent authority," has not been wholly held in reserve for what "might be done." If his view of this portion of Scripture be not very profound, it certainly makes up in originality what it lacks in depth. If it should fail to instruct, it will at least amuse the reader. It shall be noticed in due time.

The next point that claims our attention is the intimation that St. Paul's "real judgment of slavery" may be inferred "from his condemnation, on another occasion, of 'manstealers,' or, according to the original text, slave-traders, in company with murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers." Were we disposed to enter into the exegesis of the passage thus referred to, we might easily show that Mr. Sumner is grossly at fault in his Greek. We might show that something far more enormous than even trading in slaves is aimed at by the condemnation of the apostle. But we have not undertaken to defend "manstealers," nor "slave-traders," in any form or shape. Hence, we shall dismiss this point with the opinion of Macknight, who thinks the persons thus condemned in company with murderers of fathers and mothers, are "they who make war for the inhuman purpose of selling the vanquished as slaves, as is the practice of the African princes." To take any free man, whether white or black, by force, and sell him into bondage, is manstealing. To make war for such a purpose, were, we admit, wholesale murder and manstealing combined. This view of the passage in question agrees with that of the great abolitionist, Mr. Barnes, who holds that "the essential idea of the term" in question, "is that of converting a free man into a slave" . . . . the "changing of a freeman into a slave, especially by traffic, subjection, etc." Now, as we of the South, against whom Mr. Sumner is pleased to inveigh, propose to make no such changes of freemen into slaves, much less to wage war for any such purpose, we may dismiss his gross perversion of the text in question. He may apply the condemnation of the apostle to us now, if it so please the benignity of his Christian charity, but it will not, we assure him, enter into our consciences, until we shall not only become "slave-traders," but also, with a view to the gain of such odious traffic, make war upon freemen.

We have undertaken to defend, as we have said, neither "slave-traders," nor "manstealers." We leave them both to the tender mercies of Mr. Sumner. But we have undertaken to defend slavery, that is, the slavery of the South, and to vindicate the character of Southern masters against the aspersions of their calumniators. And in this vindication we shrink not from St. Paul's "real judgment of slavery." Nay, we desire, above all things, to have his real judgment. His judgment, we mean, not of manstealers or of murderers, but of slavery and slaveholders. We have just seen "his real judgment" respecting the character of one slaveholder. We have seen it in the very epistle Mr. Sumner is discussing. Why, then, does he fly from St. Paul's opinion of the slaveholder to what he has said of the manstealer and the murderer? We would gather an author's opinion of slavery from what he has said of slavery itself, or of the slaveholder. But this does not seem to suit Mr. Sumner's purpose quite so well. Entirely disregarding the apostle's opinion of the slaveholder contained in the passage right before him, as well as elsewhere, Mr. Sumner infers his "real judgment of slavery" from what he has said of manstealers and murderers! He might just as well have inferred St. Paul's opinion of Philemon from what he has, "on another occasion," said of Judas Iscariot.

Mr. Sumner contents himself with "calling attention to two things, apparent on the face" of the epistle itself; and which, in his opinion, are "in themselves an all-sufficient response." The first of these things is, says he: "While it appears that Onesimus had been in some way the servant of Philemon, it does not appear that he had ever been held as a slave, much less as a chattel." It does not appear that Onesimus was the slave of Philemon, is the position of the celebrated senatorial abolitionist. We cannot argue this position with him, however, since he has not deigned to give any reasons for it, but chosen to let it rest upon his assertion merely. We shall, therefore, have to argue the point with Mr. Albert Barnes, and other abolitionists, who have been pleased to attempt to bolster up so novel, so original, and so bold an interpretation of Scripture with exegetical reasons and arguments.

In looking into these reasons and arguments,--if reasons and arguments they may be called,--we are at a loss to conceive on what principle their authors have proceeded. The most plausible conjecture we can make is, that it was deemed sufficient to show that it is possible, by a bold stroke of interpretation, to call in question the fact that Onesimus was the slave of Philemon; since, if this may only be questioned by the learned, then the unlearned need not trouble themselves with the Scripture, but simply proceed with the work of abolitionism. Then may they cry, "Who shall decide when doctors disagree?"[171] and give all such disputings to the wind. Such seems to us to have been the principle on which the assertion of Mr. Sumner and Mr. Barnes has proceeded; evincing, as it does, an utter, total, and reckless disregard of the plainest teachings of inspiration. But let the candid reader hear, and then determine for himself.

The Greek word δοῦλος, applied to Onesimus, means, according to Mr. Barnes, either a slave, or a hired servant, or an apprentice. It is not denied that it means a slave. "The word," says Mr. Barnes himself, "is that which is commonly applied to a slave." Indeed, to assert that the Greek word δοῦλος does not mean slave, were only a little less glaringly absurd than to affirm that no such meaning belongs to the English term slave itself. If it were necessary, this point might be most fully, clearly, and conclusively established; but since is is not denied, no such work of supererogation is required at our hands.

But it is insisted, that the word in question has a more extensive signification than the English term slave. "Thus," says Mr. Barnes, "it is so extensive in its signification as to be applicable to any species of servitude, whether voluntary or involuntary." Again: "All that is necessairly implied by it is, that he was, in some way, the servant of Philemon--whether hired or bought cannot be shown." Once more, he says: "The word denotes servant of any kind, and it should never be assumed that those to whom it was applied were slaves." Thus, according to Mr. Barnes, the word in question denotes a slave, or a hired servant, or, as he has elsewhere said, an apprentice. It denotes "servant of any kind," whether "voluntary or involuntary."

Such is the positive assertion of Mr. Barnes. But where is the proof? Where is the authority on which it rests? Surely, if this word is applied to hired servants, either in the Greek classics or in the New Testament, Mr. Barnes, or Mr. Sumner, or some other learned abolitionist, should refer us to the passage where it is so used. We have Mr. Barnes' assertion, again and again repeated, in his very elaborate Notes on the Epistle to Philemon; but not the shadow of an authority for any such use of the word. But stop: in making this assertion, he refers us to his "Notes on Eph. vi 5, and 1 Tim. vi." Perhaps we may find his authority by the help of one of these references. We turn, then, to Eph. vi. 5; and we find the following note: "Servants. Οἱ δοῦλοι. The word here used denotes one who is bound to render service to another, whether that service be free or voluntary, and may denote, therefore, either a slave, or one who binds himself to render service to another. It is often used in these senses in the New Testament, just as it is elsewhere."[172] Why, then, if it is so often used to denote a hired servant, or an apprentice, or a voluntary servant of any kind, in the New Testament, is not at least one such instance of its use produced by Mr. Barnes? He must have been aware that one such authority from the New Testament was worth more than his bare assertion, though it were a hundred times repeated. Yet no such authority is adduced or referred to; he merely supports his assertion in the one place by his assertion in the other?

Let us look, in the next place, to his other reference, which is to 1 Tim. vi. 1. Here, again, we find not the shadow of an authority that the word in question is applicable to "hired servants," or "apprentices." We simply meet the oft-repeated assertion of the author, that it is applicable to any species of servitude. He refers from assertion to assertion, and nowhere gives a single authority to the point in question. If we may believe him, such authorities are abundant, even in the New Testament; yet he leaves the whole matter to rest upon his own naked assertion! Yea, as Greek scholars, he would have us to believe that δοῦλος may mean a "hired servant," just as well as a slave; and he would have us to believe this, too, not upon the usage of Greek writers, but upon his mere assertion! We look for other evidence; and we intend to pin him down to proof, ere we follow him in questions of such momentous import as the one we have in hand.

Why is it, then, we ask the candid reader, if the term in question mean "a hired servant," as well as a slave, that no such application of the word is given? If such applications be as abundant as our author asserts they are, why not refer us to a single instance, that our utter ignorance may be at least relieved by one little ray of light? Why refer us from assertion to assertion, if authorities may be so plentifully had? We cannot conceive, unless the object be to deceive the unwary, or those who may be willingly deceived. An assertion merely, bolstered up with a "See note," here or there, may be enough for such; but if, after all, there be nothing but assertion on assertion piled, we shall not let it pass for proof. Especially, if such assertion be at war with truth, we shall track its author, and, if possible, efface his footprints from the immaculate word of God.

If the term δοῦλος signifies "a hired servant," or "an apprentice," it is certainly a most extraordinary circumstance that the best lexicographers of the Greek language have not made the discovery. This were the more wonderful, if, as Mr. Barnes asserts, the word "is often used in these senses" by Greek writers. We have several Greek lexicons before us, and in not one of them is there any such meaning given to the word. Thus, in Donnegan, for example, we find: "δοῦλος, a slave, a servant, as opposed to δεσποτης, a master." But we do not find from him that it is ever applied to hired servants or apprentices. In like manner, Liddell and Scott have "δοῦλος, a slave, bondman, strictly one born so, opposed to ανδραποδον." But they do not lay down "a hired servant," or "an apprentice," as one of its significations. If such, indeed, be found among the meanings of the word, these celebrated lexicographers were as ignorant of the fact as ourselves. Stephens also, as any one may see by referring to his "Thesaurus, Ling. Græc., Tom I. art. Δοῦλος," was equally ignorant of any such use of the term in question. Is it not a pity, then, that, since such knowledge rested with Mr. Barnes, and since, according to his own statement, proofs of its accuracy were so abundant, he should have withheld all the evidence in his possession, and left so important a point to stand or fall with his bare assertion? Even if the rights of mankind had not been in question, the interests of Greek literature were, one would think, sufficient to have induced him to enlighten our best lexicographers with respect to the use of the word under consideration. Such, an achievement would, we can assure him, have detracted nothing from his reputation for scholarship.

But how stands the word in the New Testament? It is certain that, however "often it may be applied" to hired servants in the New Testament, Mr. Barnes has not condescended to adduce a single application of the kind. This is not all. Those who have examined every text of the New Testament in which the word δοῦλος occurs, and compiled lexicons especially for the elucidation of the sacred volume, have found no such instance of its application.

Thus, Schleusner, in his Lexicon of the New Testament, tells us that it means slave as opposed to, ελευθερος, freeman. His own words are: Δοῦλος, ου, ὁ, (1) proprie: servus, minister, homo non liber nec sui juris, et opponitur τῷ ελευθερος. Matt. viii. 9; xiii. 27, 28; 1 Cor. vii. 21, 22; xii. 13; εἴτε δοῦλοι, εἴτε ἐλεύθεροι. Tit. ii. 9."

We next appeal to Robinson's Lexicon of the New Testament. We there find these words: "δοῦλος, ου, ὁ, a bondman, slave, servant, pr. by birth; diff. from ανδραποδον, 'one enslaved in war,' comp. Xen. An., iv. 1, 12," etc. Now if, as Mr. Barnes asserts, the word in question is so often applied to hired servants in the New Testament, is it not passing strange that neither Schleusner nor Robinson should have discovered any such application of it? So far, indeed, is Dr. Robinson from having made any such discovery, that he expressly declares that the δοῦλος "WAS NEVER A HIRED SERVANT; the latter being called μισθιος, μισθωτος." "In a family," continues the same high authority, "the δοῦλος was bound to serve, a slave, and was the property of his master, 'a living possession,' as Aristotle calls him."

"The Greek δοῦλος," says Dr. Smith, in his Dictionary of Antiquities, "like the Latin servus, corresponds to the usual meaning of our word slave. . . . . Aristotle (Polit. i. 3.) says that a complete household is that which consists of slaves and freemen, (οἰκία δὲ τέλειος εκδουλων καὶ ελευθερων,) and he defines a slave to be a living working-tool and possession. (Ὁ δοῦλος ἔμφυχον, ὄργανον, Ethic. Nicim. viii. 13; ὁ δοῦλος κτημα τι εμφυχον, Pol. i. 4.) Thus Aristotle himself defines the δοῦλος to be, not a "servant of any kind," but a slave; and we presume that he understood the force of this Greek word at least as well as Mr. Barnes or Mr. Sumner. And Dr. Robinson, as we have just seen, declares that it never means a hired servant.

Indeed, all this is so well understood by Greek scholars, that Dr. Macknight does not hesitate to render the term δοῦλος, applied to Onesimus in the Epistle to Philemon, by the English word slave. He has not even added a footnote, as is customary with him when he deems any other translation of a word than that given by himself at all worthy of notice. In like manner, Moses Stuart just proceeds to call Onesimus "the slave of Philemon," as if there could be no ground for doubt on so plain a point. Such is the testimony of these two great Biblical critics, who devoted their lives in great measure to the study of the language, literature, and interpretation of the Epistles of the New Testament.

Now, it should be observed, that not one of the authorities quoted by us had any motive "to pervert texts," or "to invent authorities," "in support of slavery." Neither Donnegan, nor Liddell and Scott, nor Stephens, nor Schleusner, nor Robinson, nor Smith, nor Macknight, nor Stuart, could possibly have had any such motive. If they were not all perfectly unbiassed witnesses, it is certain they had no bias in favor of slavery. It is, indeed, the abolitionist, and not the slaveholder, who, in this case, "has perverted texts;" and if he has not "invented authorities," it is because his attempts to do so have proved abortive.

Beside the clear and unequivocal import of the word applied to Onesimus, it is evident, from other considerations, that he was the slave of Philemon. To dwell upon all of these would, we fear, be more tedious than profitable to the reader. Hence we shall confine our attention to a single circumstance, which will, we think, be sufficient for any candid or impartial inquirer after truth. Among the arguments used by St. Paul to induce Philemon to receive his fugitive slave kindly, we find this: "For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him forever." This verse is thus paraphrased by Macknight: "To mitigate thy resentment, consider, that perhaps also for this reason he was separated from thee for a little while, (so προς ὡραν signified, 1 Thess. ii. 17, note 2,) that thou mightest have him thy slave for life." Dr. Macknight also adds, in a footnote: "By telling Philemon that he would now have Onesimus forever, the apostle intimates to him his firm persuasion that Onesimus would never any more run away from him." Such seems to be the plain, obvious import of the apostle's argument. No one, it is believed, who had no set purpose to subserve, or no foregone conclusion to support, would view this argument in any other light. Perhaps he was separated for a while as a slave, that "thou mightest have him forever," or for life. How have him? Surely, one would think, as a slave, or in the same capacity from which he was separated for a while. The argument requires this; the opposition of the words, and the force of the passage, imperatively require it. But yet, if we may believe Mr. Barnes, the meaning of St. Paul is, that perhaps Onesimus was separated for a while as a servant, that Philemon might never receive him again as a servant, but forever as a Christian brother! Lest we should be suspected of misrepresentation, we shall give his own words. "The meaning is," says he, "that it was possible that this was permitted in the providence of God, in order that Onesimus might be brought under the influence of the gospel, and be far more serviceable to Philemon as a Christian than he could have been in his former relation to him."

In the twelfth verse of the epistle, St. Paul says: "Whom I have sent again," or, as Macknight more accurately renders the words, "Him I have sent back," (ὅν ανεπεμφα.) Here we see the great apostle actually sending back a fugitive slave to his master. That act of St. Paul is not, and cannot be, denied. The words are too plain for denial. Onesimus "I have sent back." Surely it cannot be otherwise than a most unpleasant spectacle to abolitionist eyes thus to see Paul, the aged--perhaps the most venerable and glorious hero whose life is upon record--assume such an attitude toward the institution of slavery. Had he dealt with slavery as he always dealt with every thing which he regarded as sin; had he assumed toward it an attitude of stern and uncompromising hostility, and had his words been thunderbolts of denunciation, then indeed would he have been a hero after the very hearts of the abolitionists. But, as it is, they have to apologize for the great apostle, and try, as best they may, to deliver him from his very equivocal position! But if they are true apostles, and not false, then, we fear, the best apology for his conduct is that he had never read the Declaration of Independence, nor breathed the air of Boston.

This point, however, we shall not decide. We shall examine their apologies, and let the candid reader decide for himself. St. Paul, it is not denied, sent back Onesimus. But, says Mr. Barnes, he did not compel or urge him to go. He did not send him back against his will. Onesimus, no doubt, desired to return, and St. Paul was moved to send him by his own request. Now, in the first place, this apology is built on sheer assumption. There is not the slightest evidence that Onesimus requested St. Paul to send him back to his master. "There may have been many reasons," says Mr. Barnes, "why Onesimus desired to return to Colosse, and no one can prove that he did not express that desire to St. Paul, and that his 'sending' him was not in consequence of such request." True; even if Onesimus had felt no such desire, and had expressed no such desire to St. Paul, it would have been impossible, in the very nature of things, for any one to prove such negatives, unless he had been expressly informed on the subject by the writer of the epistle. But is it not truly wonderful, that any one should, without the least particle or shadow of evidence, be pleased to imagine a series of propositions, and then call upon the opposite party to disprove them? Is not such proceeding the very stuff that dreams are made of?

No doubt there may have been reasons why Onesimus should desire to return to his master. There were certainly reasons, and reasons of tremendous force, too, why he should have desired no such thing. The fact that Philemon, whom he had offended by running away, had, according to law, the power of life and death over him, is one of the reasons why he should have dreaded to return. Hence, unless required by the apostle to return, he may have desired no such thing, and no one can prove that an expression of such desire on his part was the ground of the apostle's action. It is certain, that he who affirms should prove.

In the second place, if St. Paul were an abolitionist at heart, he should have avoided the appearance of so great an evil. He should not, for a moment, have permitted himself to stand before the world in the simple and unexplained attitude of one who had sent back a fugitive slave to his master. No honest abolitionist would permit himself to appear in such a light. He would scorn to occupy such a position. Hence, we repeat, if St. Paul were an abolitionist at heart, he should have let it be known that, in sending Onesimus back, he was moved, not originally by the principles of his own heart, but by the desire and request of the fugitive himself. By such a course, he would have delivered himself from a false position, and spared his friends among the abolitionists the necessity of making awkward apologies for his conduct.

Thirdly, the positions of Mr. Barnes are not merely sheer assumptions; they are perfectly gratuitous. For it is easy to explain the determination of St. Paul to send Onesimus back, without having recourse to the supposition that Onesimus desired him to do so. Such determination was, indeed, the natural and necessary result of the well known principles of the great apostle. He had repeatedly, and most emphatically, inculcated the principle, that it is the duty of slaves to "obey their masters," and to "count them worthy of all honor." This duty Onesimus had clearly violated in running away from his master. If St. Paul, then, had not taught Onesimus a different doctrine from that which he had taught the churches, he must have felt that he had done wrong in absconding from Philemon, and desired to repair the wrong by returning to him. "It is," says Mr. Barnes, "by no means necessary to suppose that Paul felt that Onesimus was under obligation to return." But we must suppose this, unless we suppose that Paul felt that Onesimus was under no obligation to obey the precepts which he himself had delivered for the guidance and direction of all Christian servants.

We shall now briefly notice a few other of Mr. Barnes' arguments, and then dismiss this branch of the subject. "If St. Paul sent back Onesimus," says he, "this was, doubtless, at his own request; for there is not the slightest evidence that he compelled him, or even urged him, to go." We might just as well conclude that St. Paul first required Onesimus to return, because there is not the slightest evidence that Onesimus made any such request.

"Paul," says Mr. Barnes, "had no power to send Onesimus back to his master unless he chose to go." This is very true. But still Onesimus may have chosen to go, just because St. Paul, his greatest benefactor and friend, had told him it was his duty to do so. He may have chosen to go, just because the apostle had told him it is the duty of servants not to run away from their masters, but to obey them, and count them worthy of all honor. It is also true, that "there is not the slightest evidence that he compelled him, or even urged him, to go." It is, on the other hand, equally true, that there is not the slightest evidence that any thing more than a bare expression of the apostle's opinion, or a reiteration of his well-known sentiments, was necessary to induce him to return.

"The language is just as would have been used," says our author, "on the supposition, either that he requested him to go and bear a letter to Colosse, or that Onesimus desired to go, and that Paul sent him agreeably to his request. Compare Phil. ii. 25: 'Yet I suppose it necessary to send Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labor,' etc.; Col. iv. 7, 8: 'All my estate shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord: whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate.' But Epaphroditus and Tychicus were not sent against their own will,--nor is there any more reason to think that Onesimus was." Now there is not the least evidence that either Epaphroditus or Tychicus requested the apostle to send them as he did; and, so far as appears from his statements, the whole thing originated with himself. It is simply said that he sent them. It is true, they were "not sent against their own will," for they were ready and willing to obey his directions. We have good reason, as we have seen, to believe that precisely the same thing was true in regard to the sending of Onesimus.

But there is another case of sending which Mr. Barnes has overlooked. It is recorded in the same chapter of the same epistle which speaks of the sending of Epaphroditus. We shall adduce it, for it is a case directly in point. "But ye know the proof of him, (i. e. of Timothy,) that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the gospel. Him, therefore, I hope to send presently, so soon as I shall see how it will go with me." Now, here the apostle proposes to send Timothy, not so soon as Timothy should request to be sent, but so soon as he should see how it would go with himself as a prisoner at Rome. "As a son with the father," so Timothy, after his conversion, served with the great apostle, and, not against his own will, but most cheerfully, obeyed his directions. And in precisely the same ineffably endearing relation did Onesimus stand to the apostle. As a recent convert,--as a sincere and humble Christian,--he naturally looked to his great inspired teacher for advice, and was, no doubt, with more than filial affection, ready to obey.

Hence, we insist that Paul was responsible for the return of Onesimus to his master. He might have prevented his return, had he so desired; for he tells us so himself, (ver. 13.) But he chose to send him back. And why? Because Onesimus requested? The apostle says not so. "I would have retained him with me," says he to Philemon, "that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel. BUT WITHOUT THY MIND WOULD I DO NOTHING." Nay, whatever may have been his own desires, or those of Onesimus, he would do nothing without the mind of Philemon. Such is the reason which the apostle assigns for his own conduct, for his own determination not to retain the fugitive slave.

"What the apostle wrote to Philemon on this occasion is," says Dr. Macknight, "highly worthy of notice; namely, that although he had great need of an affectionate, honest servant to minister to him in his bonds, such as Onesimus was, who had expressed a great inclination to stay with him; and although, if Onesimus had remained with him, he would only have discharged the duty which Philemon himself owed to his spiritual father, yet the apostle would by no means detain Onesimus without Philemon's leave, because it belonged to him to dispose of his own slave in the way he thought proper. Such was the apostle's regard to justice, and to the rights of mankind!"

According to Mr. Barnes, however, the apostle was governed in this transaction, not by a regard to principle or the rights of mankind, but by a regard for the feelings of the master! Just listen, for one moment, to his marvellous discourse: "It is probable," says he, "that if Onesimus had proposed to return, it would have been easy for Paul to have retained him with him. He might have represented his own want of a friend. He might have appealed to his gratitude on account of his efforts for his conversion. He might have shown him that he was under no moral obligation to go back. He might have refused to give him this letter, and might have so represented to him the dangers of the way, and the probability of a harsh reception, as effectually to have dissuaded him from such a purpose. But, in that case, it is clear that this might have caused hard feeling in the bosom of Philemon, and rather than do that, he preferred to let him return to his master, and to plead for him that he might have a kind reception. It is, therefore, by no means necessary to suppose that Paul felt that Onesimus was under obligation to return, or that he was disposed to compel him, or that Onesimus was not inclined to return voluntarily; but all the circumstances of the case are met by the supposition that, if Paul had retained him, Philemon might conceive that he had injured him."

Alas! that so much truth should have been suppressed; and that, too, by the most glorious champion of truth the world has ever seen. He tells not his "son Onesimus" that he is under no moral obligation to return to his master. On the contrary, he leaves him ignorant of his rights--of his inherent, sacred, and eternal rights. He sees him blindly put off "the hero," and put on "the brute" again. And why? Because, forsooth, if he should only speak, he might cause hard feeling in the bosom of his master! Should he retain Onesimus, his son, he would not injure Philemon at all. But then Philemon "might conceive" that he had injured him. Ah! when will abolitionist again suppress such mighty truth, lest he disturb some fancied right, or absurd feeling ruffle? When the volcano of his mind suppress and keep its furious fires in, lest he consume some petty despot's despicable sway; or else, at least, touch his tender sensibilities with momentary pain? "Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum," is a favorite maxim with other abolitionists. But St. Paul, it seems, could not assume quite so lofty a tone. He could not say, "Let justice be done, though the heavens should fall." He could not even say, "Let justice be done," though the feelings of Philemon should be hurt.

It is evident, we think, that St. Paul needs to be defended against Mr. Barnes' defenses of him, and vindicated against his apologies. If, indeed, he were so pitiful a pleader of "the innocent cause" as Mr. Barnes would have us to believe he is, then, we ask if those abolitionists are not in the right who despise both the apostle and his doctrine? No other abolitionist, it is certain, will ever imitate his example, as that example is represented by Mr. Barnes. No other abolitionist will ever suppress the great truths--as he conceives them to be--with which his soul is on fire, and which, in his view, lie at the foundation of human happiness, lest he should "cause hard feelings" in the bosom of a slaveholder.

It may be said, perhaps, that the remarks and apology of Mr. Barnes do not proceed on the supposition that Onesimus was a slave. If so, the answer is at hand. For surely Mr. Barnes cannot think it would have been dishonorable in the apostle to advise, or even to urge, "a hired servant," or "an apprentice," to return and fulfill his contract. It is evident that, although Mr. Barnes would have the reader to believe that Onesimus was merely a hired servant or an apprentice, he soon forgets his own interpretation, and proceeds to reason just as if he himself regarded him as a slave. This, if possible, will soon appear still more evident.

The apostle did not, according to Mr. Barnes, wholly conceal his abolition sentiments. He made them known to Philemon. Yes, we are gravely told, the letter which Onesimus carried in his pocket, as he wended his way back from Rome to Colosse, was and is an emancipation document! This great discovery is, we believe, due to the abolitionists of the present day. It was first made by Mr. Barnes, or Dr. Channing, or some other learned emancipationist, and after them by Mr. Sumner. Indeed, the discovery that it appears from the face of the epistle itself that it is an emancipation document, is the second of the two "conclusive things" which, in Mr. Sumner's opinion, constitute "an all-sufficient response" to anti-abolitionists.

Now supposing St. Paul to have been an abolitionist, such a disclosure of his views would, we admit, afford some little relief to our minds. For it would show that, although he did not provoke opposition by proclaiming the truth to the churches and to the world, he could at least run the risk of hurting the feelings of a slaveholder. But let us look into this great discovery, and see if the apostle has, in reality, whispered any such words of emancipation in the ear of Philemon.

In his note to the sixteenth verse of the epistle, Mr. Barnes says: "Not now as a servant. The adverb rendered 'not now,' (οὐκέτι) means no more, no further, no longer." So let it be. We doubt not that such is its meaning. Hence, we need not examine Mr. Barnes' numerous authorities, to show that such is the force of the adverb in question. He has, we admit, most abundantly established his point that οὐκέτι means no longer. But then this is a point which no anti-abolitionist has the least occasion to deny. We find precisely the same rendition in Macknight, and we are perfectly willing to abide by his translation. If Mr. Barnes had spared himself the trouble of producing these authorities, and adduced only one to show that δοῦλος means a hired servant, or an apprentice, his labor would have been bestowed where it is needed.

As the passage stands, then, St. Paul exhorts Philemon to receive Onesimus, "no longer as a servant." Now this, we admit, is perfectly correct as far as it goes. "It (i. e. this adverb) implies," says Mr. Barnes, "that he had been in this condition, but was not to be now." He was no longer to be a servant! Over this view of the passage, Mr. Sumner goes into quite a paroxysm of triumphant joy. "Secondly," says he, "in charging Onesimus with this epistle to Philemon, the apostle announces him as 'not now a servant, but above a servant,--a brother beloved;' and he enjoins upon his correspondent the hospitality due only to a freeman, saying expressly, 'If thou count me, therefore, as a partner, receive him as myself;' ay, sir, not as slave, not even as servant, but as a brother beloved, even as the apostle himself. Thus with apostolic pen wrote Paul to his disciple Philemon. Beyond all doubt, in these words of gentleness, benediction, and EMANCIPATION,[173] dropping with celestial, soul-awakening power, there can be no justification for a conspiracy, which, beginning with the treachery of Iscariot, and the temptation of pieces of silver, seeks by fraud, brutality, and violence, through officers of the law armed to the teeth like pirates, and amid soldiers who degrade their uniform, to hurl a fellow-man back into the lash-resounding den of American slavery; and if any one can thus pervert this beneficent example, allow me to say that he gives too much occasion to doubt his intelligence or his sincerity."

Now in regard to the spirit of this passage we have at present nothing to say. The sudden transition from the apostle's "words of blessing and benediction," to Mr. Sumner's words of railing and vituperation, we shall pass by unnoticed. Upon these the reader may make his own comments. It is our object simply to comment on the words of the great apostle. And, in the first place, we venture to suggest that there are several very serious difficulties in the way of Mr. Barnes' and Mr. Sumner's interpretation of the passage in question.

Let us, for the sake of argument, concede to these gentlemen that Onesimus was merely the hired servant, or apprentice, of Philemon. What then follows? If they are not in error, it clearly and unequivocally follows that St. Paul's "words of emancipation" were intended, not for slaves merely, but for hired servants and apprentices! For servants of any and every desrciption! Mr. Sumner expressly tells us that he was to return, "not as a slave, not even as a servant, but as a brother beloved." Now such a scheme of emancipation would, it seems to us, suit the people of Boston as little as it would those of Richmond. It would abolish every kind of "servitude, whether voluntary or involuntary," and release all hired servants, as well as apprentices, from the obligation of their contracts. Such is one of the difficulties in their way. It may not detract from the "sincerity," it certainly reflects no credit on the "intelligence," of Mr. Sumner, to be guilty of such an oversight.

There is another very grave difficulty in the way of these gentlemen. St. Paul writes that the servant Onesimus, who had been unprofitable to Philemon in times past, would now be profitable to him. But how profitable? As a servant? No! he was no longer to serve him at all. His "emancipation" was announced! He was to be received, not as a slave, not even as a servant, but only as a brother beloved! Philemon was, indeed, to extend to him the hospitalities due to a freeman, even such as were due to the apostle himself? Now, for aught we know, it may have been very agreeable to the feelings of Philemon, to have his former servant thus unceremoniously "emancipated," and quartered upon him as "a gentleman of elegant leisure;" but how this could have been so profitable to him is more than we can conceive.

It must be admitted, we think, that in a worldly point of view, all the profits would have been on the side of Onesimus. "But," says Mr. Barnes, "he would now be more profitable as a Christian brother." It is true, Onesimus had not been very profitable as a Christian brother before he ran away, for he had not been a Christian brother at all. But if he were sent back by the apostle, because he would be profitable merely as a Christian brother, we cannot see why any other Christian brother would not have answered the purpose just as well as Onesimus. If such, indeed, were the apostle's object, he might have conferred a still greater benefit upon Philemon by sending several Christian brethren to live with him, and to feast upon his good things.

Thirdly, the supposition that St. Paul thus announced the emancipation of Onesimus, is as inconsistent with the whole scope and design of the passage, as it is with the character of the apostle. If he would do nothing without the consent of Philemon, not even retain his servant to minister to himself while in prison, much less would he declare him emancipated, and introduce him to his former master as a freeman. We submit to the candid reader, we submit to every one who has the least perception of the character and spirit of the apostle, if such an interpretation of his words be not simply ridiculous.

It is certain that such an interpretation is peculiar to abolitionists. "Men," says Mr. Sumner, "are prone to find in uncertain, disconnected texts, a confirmation of their own personal prejudices or prepossessions. And I,"--he continues, "who am no divine, but only a simple layman--make bold to say, that whosoever finds in the gospel any sanction of slavery, finds there merely a reflection of himself." He must have been a very simple layman indeed, if he did not perceive how very easily his words might have been retorted. We venture to affirm that no one, except an abolitionist, has ever found the slightest tincture of abolitionism in the writings of the great apostle to the Gentiles.

The plain truth is, that Philemon is exhorted to receive Onesimus "no longer as a slave ONLY, but above a slave,--a brother beloved." Such is the translation of Macknight, and such, too, is the concurrent voice of every commentator to whom we have access. Pool, Clarke, Scott, Benson, Doddridge--all unite in the interpretation that Onesimus was, in the heaven-inspired and soul-subduing words of the loving apostle, commended to his master, not as a slave merely, but also as a Christian brother. The great fact--the "words of emancipation," which Mr. Sumner sees so clearly on "the face of the epistle,"--they cannot see at all. Neither sign nor shadow of any such thing can they perceive. It is a sheer reflection of the abolitionist himself. Thus, the Old Testament is not only merged in the New, but the New itself is merged in Mr. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts.

We shall notice one passage more of Scripture. The seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians begins thus: "Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me;" and it proceeds to notice, among other things, the relation of master and slave. This passage was designed to correct the disorders among the Christian slaves at Corinth, who, agreeably to the doctrine of the false teacher, claimed their liberty, on pretense that, as brethren in Christ, they were on an equality with their Christian masters." Here, then, St. Paul met abolitionism face to face. And how did he proceed? Did he favor the false teacher? Did he recognize the claim of the discontented Christian slaves? Did he even once hint that they were entitled to their freedom, on the ground that all men are equal, or on any other ground whatever? His own words will furnish the best answer to these questions.

"Let every man," says he, "abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called, being a servant? care not for it." Thus, were Christian slaves exhorted to continue in that condition of life in which they were when converted to Christianity. This will not be denied. It is too plain for controversy. It is even admitted by Mr. Barnes himself. In the devout contemplation of this passage Chrysostom exclaims: "Hast thou been called, being a slave? Care not for it. Continue to be a slave. Hast thou been called, being in uncircumcision? Remain uncircumcised. Being circumcised, didst thou become a believer? Continue circumcised. For these are no hindrances to piety. Thou are called, being a slave; another, with an unbelieving wife; another, being circumcised. [Astonishing! Where has he put slavery?] As circumcision profits not, and uncircumcision does no harm, so neither doth slavery nor yet liberty."

"The great argument" against slavery is, according to Dr. Channing and other abolitionists, drawn from the immortality of the soul. "Into every human being," says he, "God has breathed an immortal spirit, more precious than the whole outward creation. No earthly nor celestial language can exaggerate the worth of a human being." The powers of this immortal spirit, he concludes, "reduce to insignificance all outward distinctions." Yea, according to St. Paul himself, they reduce to utter insignificance all outward distinctions, and especially the distinction between liberty and slavery. "Art thou called," says he, "being a slave? care not for it." Art thou, indeed, the Lord's freeman and as such destined to reign on a throne of glory forever? Oh, then, care not for the paltry distinctions of the passing world!

Now, whom shall the Christian teacher take for his model?--St. Paul, or Dr. Channing? Shall he seek to make men contented with the condition in which God has placed them, or shall he stir up discontent, and inflame the restless passions of men? Shall he himself, like the great apostle, be content to preach the doctrines of eternal life to a perishing world; or shall he make politics his calling, and inveigh against the domestic relations of society? Shall he exhort men not to continue in the condition of life in which God has placed them, but to take his providence out of his hands, and, in direct opposition to his word, assert their rights? In one word, shall he preach the gospel of Christ and his apostles, or shall he preach the gospel of the abolitionist?

"Art thou called, being a servant? care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather." The Greek runs thus: αλλ' εἱ καἱ δὑνασαι ἑλἑὑθερος γενἑσαι μαλλον χρἡσαι,--literally, "but even if thou canst become free, rather make use of." Make use of what? The Greek verb is left without a case. How, then, shall this be applied? To what does the ambiguous it of our translation refer? "One and all of the native Greek commentators in the early ages," says Stuart, "and many expositors in modern times, say that the word to be supplied is δουλεἱα, i. e. slavery, bondage. The reason which they give for it is, that this is the only construction which can support the proposition the apostle is laboring to establish, viz.: 'Let every man abide in statu quo.' Even De Wette, (who, for his high liberty notions, was banished from Germany,) in his commentary on this passage, seems plainly to accede to the force of this reasoning; and with him many others have agreed. No man can look at the simple continuity of logic in the passage without feeling that there is force in the appeal." Yet the fact should not be concealed, that Stuart himself is "not satisfied with this exegesis of the passage;" which, according to his own statement, was the universal interpretation from "the early ages" down to the sixteenth century. This change, says he, "seems to have been the spontaneous prompting of the spirit of liberty, that beat high" in the bosom of its author.

Now have we not some reason to distrust an interpretation which comes not exactly from Heaven, but from a spirit beating high in the human breast? That is certainly not an unerring spirit. We have already seen what it can do with the Scriptures. But whether it has erred in this instance, or not, it is certain that it should never be permitted to beat so very high in any human breast as to annul the teachings of the apostle, or to make him contradict himself. This has been too often done. We too frequently hear those who admit that St. Paul exhorts "slaves to continue in slavery," still contend that "if they may be made free," they should move heaven and earth to attain so desirable an object. They "should continue in that state," and yet exert all their power to escape therefrom!

Conybeare and Howson, who are acknowledged to be among the best commentators of the Epistles of St. Paul, have restored "the continuity of his logic." They translate his words thus: "Nay, though thou have power to gain thy freedom, seek rather to remain content." This translation certainly possesses the advantage that it makes the doctrine of St. Paul perfectly consistent with itself.

But let us return to the point in regard to which there is no controversy. It is on all sides agreed, that St. Paul no less than three times exhorts every man to continue in the condition in which Providence has placed him. "And this rule," says he, "ordain I in all the churches." Yet--would any man believe it possible?--the very quintessence of abolitionism itself has been extracted from this passage of his writings! Let us consider for a moment the wonderful alchemy by which this has been effected.

We find in this passage the words: "Be not ye the servants of men." These words are taken from the connection in which they stand, dissevered from the words which precede and follow them, and then made to teach that slaves should not submit to the authority of their masters, should not continue in their present condition. It is certain that no one but an abolitionist, who has lost all respect for revelation except when it happens to square with his own notions, could thus make the apostle so directly and so flatly contradict himself and all his teaching. Different interpretations have been given to the words just quoted; but until abolitionism set its cloven foot upon the Bible, such violence had not been done to its sacred pages.

Conybeare and Howson suppose that the words in question are intended to caution the Corinthians against "their servile adherence to party leaders." Bloomfield, in like manner, says: "The best commentators are agreed," that they are "to be taken figuratively, in the sense, 'do not be blindly followers of men, conforming to their opinions,' etc." It is certain that Rosenmüller, Grotius, and we know not how many more, have all concurred in this interpretation. But be the meaning what it may, it is not an exhortation to slaves to burst their bonds in sunder, unless the apostle has, in one and the same breath, taught diametrically opposite doctrines.

Yet, in direct opposition to the plain words of the apostle, and to the concurrent voice of commentators and critics, is he made to teach that slaves should throw off the authority of their masters! Lest such a thing should be deemed impossible, we quote the words of the author by whom this outrage has been perpetrated. "The command of the 23d verse," says he, "'be not ye the servants of men,' is equally plain. There are no such commands uttered in regard to the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, as are here given in regard to slavery. No one is thus urged to dissolve the marriage relation. No such commands are given to relieve children from obedience to their parents," etc.[174] Nor is any such command, we repeat, given to relieve slaves from obedience to their masters, or to dissolve the relation between them.

If such violence to Scripture had been done by an obscure scribbler, or by an infidel quoting the word of God merely for a purpose, it would not have been matter of such profound astonishment. But is it not unspeakably shocking that a Christian man, nay, that a Christian minister and doctor of divinity, should thus set at naught the clearest, the most unequivocal, and the most universally received teachings of the gospel? If he had merely accused the Christian man of the South, as he has so often done in his two stupid volumes on slavery, of the crimes of "swindling," of "theft," of "robbing," and of "manstealing," we could have borne with him well; and, as we have hitherto done, continued to pass by his labors with silent contempt. But we have deemed it important to show in what manner, and to what extent, the spirit of abolitionism can wrest the pure word of God to its antichristian purpose.

We shall conclude the argument from scripture with the following just and impressive testimony of the Princeton Review: "The mass of the pious and thinking people in this country are neither abolitionists nor the advocates of slavery. They stand where they ever have stood--on the broad Scriptural foundation; maintaining the obligation of all men, in their several places and relations, to act on the law of love, and to promote the spiritual and temporal welfare of others by every means in their power. They stand aloof from the abolitionists for various reasons. In the first place, they disapprove of their principles. The leading characteristic doctrine of this sect is that slaveholding is in all cases a sin, and should, therefore, under all circumstances, be immediately abandoned. As nothing can be plainer than that slaveholders were admitted to the Christian church by the inspired apostles, the advocates of this doctrine are brought into direct collision with the Scriptures. This leads to one of the most dangerous evils connected with the whole system, viz., a disregard of the authority of the word of God, a setting up a different and higher standard of truth and duty, and a proud and confident wresting of Scripture to suit their own purposes. THE HISTORY OF INTERPRETATION FURNISHES NO EXAMPLES OF MORE WILLFUL AND VIOLENT PERVERSIONS OF THE SACRED TEXT THAN ARE TO BE FOUND IN THE WRITINGS OF THE ABOLITIONISTS. THEY SEEM TO CONSIDER THEMSELVES ABOVE THE SCRIPTURES; AND WHEN THEY PUT THEMSELVES ABOVE THE LAW OF GOD, IT IS NOT WONDERFUL THAT THEY SHOULD DISREGARD THE LAWS OF MEN. Significant manifestations of the result of this disposition to consider their own light a surer guide than the word of God, are visible in the anarchical opinions about human governments, civil and ecclesiastical, and on the rights of women, which have found appropriate advocates in the abolition publications. Let these principles be carried out, and there is an end to all social subordination, to all security for life and property, to all guarantee for public or domestic virtue. If our women are to be emancipated from subjection to the law which God has imposed upon them, if they are to quit the retirement of domestic life, where they preside in stillness over the character and destiny of society; if they are to come forth in the liberty of men, to be our agents, our public lecturers, our committee-men, our rulers; if, in studied insult to the authority of God, we are to renounce in the marriage contract all claim to obedience, we shall soon have a country over which the genius of Mary Wolstonecraft would delight to preside, but from which all order and all virtue would speedily be banished. There is no form of human excellence before which we bow with profounder deference than that which appears in a delicate woman, adorned with the inward graces and devoted to the peculiar duties of her sex; and there is no deformity of human character from which we turn with deeper loathing than from a woman forgetful of her nature, and clamorous for the vocation and rights of men. It would not be fair to object to the abolitionists the disgusting and disorganizing opinions of even some of their leading advocates and publications, did they not continue to patronize those publications, and were not these opinions the legitimate consequences of their own principles. Their women do but apply their own method of dealing with Scripture to another case. This no inconsiderable portion of the party have candor enough to acknowledge, and are therefore prepared to abide the result."

FOOTNOTES:

[163] Lev. xxv. 44, 45, 56.

[164] Lev. xxv. 44, 45, 46.

[165] Exod. xxi. 20, 21.

[166] Exod. xxi. 7, 8.

[167] Deut. xxiii. 15, 16.

[168] Moses Stewart, a divine of Massachusetts, who had devoted a long and laborious life to the interpretation of Scripture, and who was by no means a friend to the institution of slavery.

[169] Speech in the Metropolitan Theatre, 1855.

[170] Speech at the Metropolitan Theatre, 1855.

[171] Fools may hope to escape responsibility by such a cry. But if there be any truth in moral science, than every man should examine and decide, or else forbear to act.

[172] The Italics are ours.

[173] The emphasis is ours.

[174] Elliott on Slavery, vol. i. p. 205.

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