A chapter on slavery : presenting a sketch of its origin and history, with the reasons for its permission, and the probable manner of its removal.

Front matter

A

CHAPTER ON SLAVERY

PRESENTING

Preface

This little work is entitled A Chapter on Slavery, because it was originally written as a Chapter of the author's lately published work, God Manifest. The object of that work was to set forth the goodness and wisdom of God, as manifested in his works and Word, : and also to explain the reasons for the permission of evil in the world. In elucidating the latter subject, various evils, moral, physical, and social, were cited as examples, and the causes of their permission sought to be made plain. Slavery was one of the evils intended to be dwelt upon, and its origin shown, together with the reasons for its temporary permission, under Divine Providence, and the probable mode of its future removal. But the Chapter, when written out, being found to be quite disproportionate, in length, to its proper place in a work of that general character, it was thought best to omit it from that work, and publish it in a separate form. Hence the present publication.

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PREFACE.

Ill treating this interesting subject, the author has striven to speak in a calm and dispassionate manner,- — the only way, indeed, in which a matter involving such great and varied interests ought to be spoken of. He has endeavored to look at it not merely from a civil and a moral point of view, but also from a spiritual one — from which it has not, perhaps, been sufficiently contemplated. He has sought to show the workings of a Divine Providence in the permission of negro slavery, the probable object of that permission, and the means already in operation by which the same Providence designs to bring it gradually to an end. He has sought to make the reflecting, and particularly the religious, portion of the community who are interested in this subject, feel and realize— what in principle they must know to be true — that this great concern, affecting, as it does, the welfare of so many mil] ions of human beings, has not been abandoned by an overruling Providence, and is by no means disregarded by a God of goodness— as some in their haste and passion seem to think — but that He is working for it quietly, but effectively, and that in due time He will show His hand, and bring forth the desired result.

Finally, the writer has endeavored, in discussing this somewhat exciting subject, to do justice to all parties concerned: to exonerate the Americans, his countrvmen, so far as he thinks they deserve exoneration ; to

PREFACE.

V lay upon the European originators of American slavery their due share of the blame ; but, especially, to show that in Africa itself is to be sought the true fountain and source of the slavery of Africans in the New World : thus, that negro slavery is but another instance of evil and moral degradation punishing itself. Yet, in conclusion, looking rather to the future than to the present or the past, he has endeavored to hold out the hope of a final deliverance from this evil, and to show the means by which he believes that deliverance is ultimately to be accomplished.

September 24, 1860.

Section I

GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT — SLAVERY IN ANCIENT TIMES—IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

It may seem, to the casual observer, strange and unaccountable, that, if there be a great and overruling Providence, a wise and good Being, the Creator and Father of all, He should suffer any of His intelligent creatures — still more, such numbers of them — to be held in bondage, in absolute subjection to the will and caprice of their fellow-men. He wonders that the God above looks on and suffers such wrongs; he wonders that He does not send down His lightningbolts, and break their chains in an instant. But one who thinks more deeply will take a wider and a wiser view of the subject. Fweflecting on the present nature of man, he perceives that slavery is but one of the great black branches, springing from the poisonous root of evil in the human heart; — that it is one of the direct and natural consequences of man's fall.

The essential principle of evil is self-love — a preference of self to others ; as the essential principle of

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A CHAPTER ON SLAVERY.

goodness is the lope of Others in an equal degree with, or in preference to, ourselves. The latter is $ie Divine character, for "God is Love it is the character of Him who came to " give His life a ransom for many." So it is of all who become conformed to His image and likeness. It is the character of angels : " Are they not all," says the Apostle, " ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation ? " * It is the delight of angelic beings to bless and to do good to each other and to man. So, among men, disinterested benevolence, the love of others, an unselfish devotion to the good and happiness of one's fellow-men, — when united to and founded upon a love and worship of the Lord — is acknowledged to be the very test of essential goodness of heart. But, on the other hand, self-love or selfishness, an indifference to the comfort and welfare of one's fellow-men, and a consequent disregard of their rights and interests in comparison with one's own, — is felt by all to be the essential and moving principle of evil in the human heart. All the various forms of evil seen in the world are, indeed, but sprouts from this germ. Pride, contempt, hate, avarice, envy, anger and fury against others, proceeding even to the extent of murder, — all these are direct derivatives from a single source, Self-love,

Now, one of the most common forms in which this essential principle of evil appears, is that of the love of dominion, — the disposition to rule over others. Such a disposition, it is plain, is the direct and natural offspring of self-love. If a man prefer himself to others/ and consequently is seeking to secure his own

* Hebrews i. 14.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT.

interests and effect his own objects, without regard to the welfare and happiness of others, he will naturally seek to bring them into subjection to himself, to make them his instruments, and to cause them to serve him in every way in his power. If h^ be a ruler, or in public life, he will tyrannize over his countrymen. If in private life, he will show the same selfish disposition in all his business transactions : he will cunningly seek to turn the labors of others to his own advantage; he \ will get from others all he can, and give as little as | possible in return. If an employer, he will task his men to the utmost, reckless of their health or comfort, * and this, too, at the lowest wages possible ; or if an | employe, he will get from his master all in his power, | and render as little honest return of labor as he § can. For, the same selfish principle works in both \ ways : the servant seeks to rule the master, as well as the master the servant. This truth no one will misunderstand ; for, alas ! we may see this demon at work everywhere about us in society, and every hour in the day: we may find it in our own hearts, too, if wo search for it. For, this evil passion, the love of rule, the disposition to subject others to ourselves, is as universal as self-love; and self-love, in this fallen day, is born in every heart. Hence it is so common, that many hardly conceive it to be evil at all ; and some even hold it to be a virtue, — little thinking that it is in man's heart the essential germ of hell : it is Satan himself that says (as represented by the poet), " Better to rule in hell, than serve in heaven." Now, slavery is nothing more than one form of the love of rule, existing in manifest exercise, and estab-

A CHAPTER ON SLAVER*".

lislied in power. It is simply tlie result of circumstances so operating as to permit that natural love of rule, which exists in every unregenerate heart, to cany itself into act and unrestrained indulgence. Hence we may expect to find the custom of slavery existing from very ancient times. For as soon as evil was born in the human heart, that self-love, wliich is its essential principle, would begin to show itself in the desire to bring others into subjection and servitude. The father would tyrannize over his children, the older brother over the younger ones, the stronger over the weaker. The patriarch would seek to exercise absolute sway over his family and dependents; and in the contests which self-love would soon cause to arise between one shepherd and another, captives would be taken, who would at once be made slaves, — that is, would be compelled to remain in subjection to their conqueror, and labor for his comfort and at his pleasure. Wherever might is made the only law of right, a state of slavery at once ensues. Then, as communities became enlarged, and small kingdoms established, the king or ruler would be the master of his subjects, holding their property and lives at his disposal. Such, we know, is the state of nearly all Oriental countries to this day : the inhabitants are all in a manner slaves, — the king is their general master. The example set by the superior would be followed by inferiors : each subject would, in his turn, have slaves, as many as he was able to procure and support. These would be captives taken in war, or sometimes insolvent debtors, or, in fine, any persons whom superior wealth or power could bring into one's possession. Thus slavery, beginning in early times,

SLAVERY IN ANCIENT TIMES.

would become at length a general and almost universal institution.

This view we find borne out by all historical testimony. " Slavery and the slave-trade/' says an eminent historian, "are older than the records of human society. They are found to have existed wherever the savagei hunter began to assume the habits of pastoral or agri-l cultural life; and with the exception of Australasia, they have extended to every portion of the globe. They pervaded every nation of civilized antiquity. The earliest glimpses of Egyptian history exhibit pictures of bondage; the oldest monuments of human labor on the Egyptian soil are evidently the results of slave-labor. The founder of the Jewish nation was a slave-holder and a purchaser of slaves. Every patriarch was lord in his own household. The Hebrews, when they burst the bonds of their own thraldom, carried with them beyond the desert the institution of slavery. Slavery planted itself even in the Promised Land. The Hebrew father might doom his daughter to Bondage ; the wife and children and posterity of the emancipated slave remained the property of the master and his heirs. It is even probable, that, at a later period, a man's family might be sold for the payment of his debts. The countries that bordered on Palestine were equally familiar with domestic servitude; and, like Babylon, Tyre also, the oldest and most famous commercial city of Phoenicia, was a market for the i persons of men.' The Scythians of the desert had already established slavery throughout the plains and forests of the unknown North.

"Old as are the traditions of Greece, the existence

A CHAPTER ON SLAVERY.

of slavery is still older. The wrath of Achilles grew out of the quarrel for a slave ; tfie Grecian dames had crowds of servile attendants; the heroes before Troy made incursions into the neighboring villages and towns, to enslave the inhabitants. Greek pirates, roving, like the corsairs of Barbary, in quest of men, laid the foundations of Greek commerce; each commercial town was a slave-mart ; and every cottage near the sea-side was in danger from the kidnapper. Greeks enslaved each other. The Grecian city, that made war on its neighbor city, exulted in its captives as a source of profit; the hero of Macedon sold men of his own kindred and language into hopeless slavery. The idea of universal free labor had not been generated. Aristotle had written that all mankind were brothers; yet the thought of equal enfranchisement never presented itself to his sagacious understanding. In every Grecian republic slavery was an indispensable element.

"The wide diffusion of bondage throughout the dominions of "Rome, and the extreme severities of the Roman law towards the slave, contributed to hasten the fall of the Roman commonwealth. The power of the father to sell his children, of the creditor to sell his insolvent debtor, of the warrior to sell his captive, carried the influence of the institution into the bosom of every Roman family, into the conditions of every contract, into the heart of every unhappy land that was invaded by the Roman eagle. The slave-markets of Rome were filled with men of every complexion and of every clime.

"When the freedom of savage life succeeded in

SLAVERY IN ENGLAND.

establishing its power on the ruins of the Roman empire, the great swarms of Roman slaves began to disappear; but the middle age witnessed rather a change in the channels of the slave-trade, than a diminution of its evils. The pirate, and the kidnapper, and the conqueror, still continued their pursuits. The Saxon race carried the most repulsive forms of slavery to England, where not half the population could assert a right to freedom, and where the price of a man was but four times the price of an ox. The importation of foreign slaves was freely tolerated ; in defiance of severe penalties, the Saxons sold their own kindred into slavery on the Continent ; nor could the traffic be checked, till religion, pleading the cause of humanity, made its appeal to conscience. Even after the Conquest, slaves were exported from England to Ireland, till the reign of Henry II., when a national synod of the Irish, — to remove the pretext for an invasion., — decreed the emancipation of all English slaves in the island.

" The German nations made the shores of the Baltic the scenes of the same desolating traffic; and the Dnieper formed the highway on which Russian merchants conveyed to Constantinople the slaves that had been purchased in the market? of Russia. The wretched often submitted to bondage, as the bitter but only refuge from absolute want. But it was the long wars between the German and Slavonic tribes, which imparted to the slave-trade its greatest activity, and filled France and the neighboring states with such numbers of victims that they gave the name of the Slavonic nation to servitude itself; and every country

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of western Europe still preserves in its language the record of the barbarous traffic in 6 Slaves'" *

From the account here given we may see how wide^- spread, both in ancient and in modem times, has been the existence of slavery. And the reason already assigned sufficiently explains a fact which would seem otherwise so strange, viz., that slavery, or the disposition to enslave one's fellow-men, springs directly and naturally from the love of rule, which evil passion is the ^vJrttun^J^^ thatse^^Te v which is the

essential principle of e^r.™Hence we see that slavery k^Jf 18 been almost as extensive and as universal as evil itself Here, then, we have the true answer to the ^question, "Why does God not at once send down His ^thunderbolts and break all slave-chains at a blow?— #why does He permit such wrongs'?" He does not destroy it for the same reason that He does not destroy any other evil and all evils: He permits it for the same reason that He permits the existence of evil at all in the world. The essential reason for the permission of any particular evil is to prevent a greater; and the reason for the permission of sin itself, is because it was the only alternative to the destruction of man's mental liberty, and the consequent non-existence of any rational and intelligent creatures in the universe. The possession of reason or rationality, together with mental liberty, is essential to man as man : without it he would be a stock or a statue, or but as one of the lower animals,— either inanimate or irrational. But rationality and liberty imply the power of thought and of choice— the power to turn to this side or that, to

* Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. i., chap. v.

Reasons for its permission.

look upward or downward/ to turn to God or from God. Turning from God to self, and resting in and depending upon self,, at length begat self-dependence, self-love, sin. Thus the possession of reason and mental liberty necessarily implied the possibility of sin or evil. God permitted this possibility to go into actuality,~~or in other words, permitted evil, because, as just shown, it could not be prevented without destroying reason and liberty, thus destroying the essential human constitution—humanity itself. And He saw it to be better that there should be some bad humanity, than no humanity at all. He saw it to be better that there should be some eviPin the world, than no good; some suffering, than no happiness; better, even, that there should be a hell, than no heaven. For what, after all, is that which is called hell, in its essence 1 It is simply a perverted mental state, into which the evil have themselves brought themselves. Abusing that mental liberty which is given to every man, they have chosen a perverse course, and adhered to it till it has at length become fixed with them : in the solemn words of Scripture, they have "chosen death rather than life."* But shall the millions, and millions, and millions more, of the good, who have lived, and have yet to live in the lapse of coming ages, be deprived of that joyous inheritance which the good Creator has provided for all who will accept of it— simply because some do not choose to have 'it? Surely, not. The 1 whole scheme of existence, in a word, is this : God, in His infinite love, creates myriads and millions of beings, to the end that He may bless them and make them

* Jeremiah viii. 3.

happy forever, But, in order that they may be giffced with the highest kind of blessing and happiness, — a happiness akin to His own Divine joy, — they must be rational and intelligent creatures, formed, thus, after His own image and likeness. Such a high nature implies mental liberty. Now, those who will not abuse this liberty, but keep themselves in the original and healthful order in which they were created, are capable of receiving the eternal happiness which, the good Creator designed for them; but those who, abusing their liberty, pervert and disorder their moral natures, render themselves incapable of receiving it, and, on the contrary, bring themselves into a state of unhappiness. This latter state is what is called hell — the former, heaven.

Such, then, we see, is the reason for the permission of evil in general. Slavery, as one of the natural fruits of evil — the natural offspring of man's selfishness and sin— was necessarily permitted also : the tree must bring forth its own fruit.

For that social disease, however, the Savior, when he came into the world, brought a remedy, which, in his Divine wisdom, he knew -would be gradually but certainly effectual. He did not violently attack the institution of slavery, though existing all around him, and indeed throughout the known world, at that time ; he made no open assault upon it, for "he knew what was in man," — he knew better how to reach the human heart. He laid down a great law, the law of love : "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." As this se^d of heavenly truth became sown, and took root in the human heart,

ITS REMEDY.

and expanded and grew, lie knew that it would gradually up-root and east out the weeds-— he knew that selfish and evil passions could not endure its celestial atmosphere, and that the poisonous fruits and flowers of those Upas trees would one by one wither and drop off. This would be the case, both individually and nationally. As the individual received into his mind the law of love, and, aided by the Divine strength, strove to bring that law into action, and thus sought to do to others as he would wish others to do to him, — - he could not wilfully hold his feUpw-man in sja^ish bojadage, feast indolently on the fruits of another's tott, and deprive his brother of that liberty which was to h|mselx so dear : the law of love forbade it. A Again, as a nation, or political society (which is, m tact, but an aggregate of individuals), became impressed with the same thought, and imbued with the same spirit, it would not willingly suffer any institution or order of things to exist within its bosom, which stood opposed, to that Divine principle. It would freely and of its own accord, and without any need of violence or assault from without, throw out from its midst those bonds, which, while they enchained others, were also fetters on itself; and clogs to its own prosperity and peace. It would do so, however, not merely from policy or from selfish calculation of effects and consequences, but from high principle. The national heart, impressed with the great law, " love thy neighbor as thyself/' could not bear to see men within it* borders oppressed and trodden down under the feet of fellow-men, — slaves to ano ther's will^ tpjling day and night for another^ jadU vant age. T he injustice of such a state of things would

A CHAPTER ON SLAVERY.

strike them forcibly: the public conscience, enlightened from above, could not endure this wrong, and they would meet together and resolve, with one heart and one voice, to put an end to it. And, in that State or Nation, slavery would cease. And thus would the ball of light and heavenly fire roll on from nation to r nation, dissipating the dark stains of slavery as it went, ■■till -at length the whole earth would be purified; and then would this orb of ours go glittering on its way through the heavens, wo^hv to be looked upon by "angels' eyes.

This effect the All-Wise Savior foresaw when he announced that law of love: "A new commandment give I unto you, — that ye love one another." And this result, though not yet complete, is, nevertheless, in j^^ . great part accomplished. Most of Europe is now^en- * ^^franchised. Greece, which, at the time our Lord was *^j|awJ|pon earth, was full of slaves, has now not one. Rome. A^" w "^whose "slave-markets," as shown in the testimony before adduced, "were filled with men of every complexion and every clime," has no slave-market now. Other forms of oppression, indeed, yet exist there; but that of domestic servitude, at least, is wanting. Most of the other nations of Europe — Northern Italy, France, Germany, England, which during the middle ages, all contained hordes of bondmen — are now de- .. livered from this evil and purged from this stain. And this is all the direct result of the influence of Christianity, working quietly but deeply in the heart of society; accomplishing its great purposes without violence or noise or rude attack; acting, not as the storm but as the sunshine, — melting the frosty bonds

MEANS OP ENFRANCHISEMENT.

by the power of love; and by the warmth of genial charity, causing man to cast from him the cloak of selfishness, which the blasts of abuse would have only made him wrap more closely about him. Enfranchisement, effected in this gentle and gradual manner, is, like mercy,

" Twice blessed; It blesseth Mm that gives and him that takes."

And this, we are persuaded, is the only way it ever has been or can be accomplished, to the lasting good and advantage of both or either of the parties concerned, the master or the slave,

Section II. Slaveky In Russia

Russia now remains, we believe, the only nation of Europe that still contains within its borders large numbers of hereditary bondmen. The people, from whom the term Slave was originally derived — the Slavonian or Slavonic race — is still the one, and the only remaining one in Europe, among whom exists the condition of slavery. The number of people there held in bondage is indeed immense and startling to hear. In Russia (including Poland) there are upwards of forty millions of slaves,— -more than ten times the number of those in the United States of America. It is common, indeed, to call these people serfs; but that is only a different term for the same thing — the word serf (from the Latin serviis) signifying a slave. As the term serf however, conveys no very distinct idea to the English mind, we prefer to use one that is clearly defined — viz., slaves; for they are truly slaves. "Slavery," as defined by Paley, "is the obligation to labor for the benefit of the master, without the contract or consent of the servant:" and such, certainly, is the condition of these 40,000,000 of persons. They

SLAVERY IN RUSSIA.

toil for a master without compensation ; they are his property, and are called tilings rather than persons; they are bought and sold — usually, though not always, with the land — their price varying from 700 to 2,000 roubles each; they are subject to the master's absolute will, and may be punished by the lash or in any other manner the master may choose, and to any extent, saving life and limb. They cannot marry but at his pleasure or with his consent. If they run away, they may be pursued and brought back; or if found at any time, even though it be ten years after, they must be returned to the owner.* A "fugitive-slave law" is there in full force; and indeed what else is to be expected, wherever slavery exists at all? If a slave could obtain his freedom, simply by becoming a fugitive, that is, by running away, slavery, of course, could not long continue, whether in Russia or elsewhere. The Russian government, also, interdicts every kind of instruction to the serfs: ignorance is the necessary guard of slavery. Moreover, it is very difficult for the serfs even to purchase their freedom—as the pride of the nobles renders them oftentimes unwilling to sell at any price. There are, indeed, some ameliorating circumstances attending Russian servitude. It is, for instance, forbidden by the Russian law, to announce in the public papers any sale of serfs without lands, or to proceed publicly to such sales at fairs or markets. Proprietors, moreover, cannot divide families, separating husband from wife, or unmarried children from their parents.t But notwithstanding these modifications,

* See "Russia under Nicholas" by Ivan Golovine, vol. ii., ch. i. f Ibid.

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the condition of this immense and unfortunate class is bad enough.*

The abject misery of a great part of her inhabitants was probably a chief cause of the downfall of Poland. It was called a Republic, because the monarchy was elective : but what sort of a republic was that, in w Ji but 100,000 of the citizens were freemen, and the remaining eleven millions, serfs or slaves — whose only spur to industry was the master's lash 'J We deplore the misfortunes of that oppressed country, and are apt to wonder that an overruling Providence should permit such wrong. But if we look more deeply into the state of the case, we shall find that in this as in most other instances, it is man's own evils that bring upon him what are called misfortunes. The partition of Poland could never have taken place had it been united within itself, and had its people been bound together by the firm bands of truth and justice. Ninety-nine hundredths of the people were bondmen, with no voice whatever in the government, and with

* Alexander Herzen, a Russian, writing in one of the London journals, in November, 1853, says : " It is an established and constant practice to seU serfs, if not separately, at least by family. — The lord is under no obligation to his servants beyond supplying them with just enough food and clothing to- prevent their perishing with hunger and cold. — The lord has the right to have them flogged, only not to death." The writer adds, somewhat tartly : " Shall these monstrosities continue, without an incessant, universal protest? The mask must be torn from these Slave-holders of the North, who go lounging over Europe, mingling with your affairs, assuming the rank of civilized beings,— nay, of liberal-minded men, who read * Uncle Tom's Cabin' with horror, and shudder when they read of sellers of black flesh. Why, these same brilliant spies of the salons are the very ones who on their return to their domains^ rob, flog, sell the white slave, and are served at table by their living property."

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no rights to defend. "The Polish serf," says a writer, "drowned in brandy all activity of mind, for his motto was, — 'Only what I drink is mine.' At the same time the masters were divided among themselves, engaged in perpetual dissensions, and living in luxury and corruption. The throne was sold to the highest bidder. In its moral tone, too, which aimed at uniting French wit and frivolousness with excess and rudeness, Poland had gone back many steps towards the times of violence. Religious animosities, also, raged through the country. Encroachments were made by the Catholics on the constitutional rights of the Dissidents, that is, the Protestants and Greek Church; and this destruction of religious freedom was a main cause of the civil war which plunged Poland into the wildest disorder, and accelerated the ruin of the state. Russia embraced the cause of the Dissidents; foreign troops laid waste the country; and the lawless conduct of some of the Polish party chiefs excited among the neighboring Powers such a contempt of the natural rights of the Poles, that, to use the expression of Catherine, they deemed Poland a country in which it was 'only necessary to stoop to pick up something.' "* Such was the distracted state of the nation when the infamous plan of partition was formed by the three neighboring Powers; and this, their own death-warrant, was, under Russian compulsion, signed by the Polish Diet itself. Could anything have brought the nation to such ignominy, but their own internal weakness, the result of moral unworthiness? No excuse whatever, indeed, is this for the infamous conduct of the oppressors and partition ers of