The Church and Slavery

Front matter

THE

BY

ALBERT BARNES.

Introduction

tain error and wrong, or be of sucb a nature that his name can be referred to as furnishing a support for cruelty and oppression.

As it is true that the only thing that ever has threatened to destroy this Union, or that now threatens to destroy it, is slavery, so it is true that the only thing that alienates one portion of the land from the other is slavery. In language, in customs, in laws, in religion, we are, and always have been, otherwise, a united people. We have a common origin. We all look to the same “fatherland,” and we all claim that the glory of that land, in literature, in science, and in the arts, is a part of our common inheritance. We look back to the times of the Revolution ; and, whatever wisdom there was in council, or whatever valour there was in battle, or whatever there was that was self-sacrificing in the cause of liberty, is a part of the common inheritance of this generation. Our railroads spread a network over all the States, making them one. Simultaneously through all the States of the Union the telegraph bears to millions of minds at once what is of common interest to all. Some of our great rivers roll along through vast States, Northern and Southern ; and by our location, and by all the varieties of climate and soil constituting mutual dependence, we are designed by nature to be one people. On the question of slavery only are we divided. This question meets us everywhere, generates all the bad feeling there is between the North and the South, subjects us to all the reproach that we encounter .from abroad; and it is the source of all that tends to produce civil strife, to cause alienation and dis-

THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY.

cord in the churches, or to embroil us with the nations of the earth.

It cannot hut be an inquiry of great importance how far the church is connected with this state of things, and how far, if at all, it is responsible for it. In a country so extensively under the influence of religion as ours; where religion undeniably so much controls public sentiment; where so large a portion of the cbmmunity is connected with the church ; and where the Christian ministry exerts so wide an influence on the public mind, it cannot be an unimportant question what the church is doing, and what it ought to do, in reference to an evil so vast, and so perilous to all our institutions.

I write over my own name. It is not because I suppose that my name will have any special claim in influencing the public mind ; and not because I suppose it to be important that I should “define my position,” as if the public had any particular interest in my position ; and not because I suppose that the public will concern itself long to learn how any one individual thinks or feels on any subject that he may deem of special importance; but because I think it fair and manly that a man should be willing to attach his name to any sentiments which he holds, and which he chooses, for any reason, to submit to the consideration of mankind. I have no wish also to deny that I desire that my name should be found associated with any well-directed effort to remove slavery from the earth. I believe that the religion which I profess is opposed in its whole spirit and tendency to slavery; that its fair and legitimate application would remove the last remnant of it from the

INTRODUCTION.

world; and that in every effort which I may mate to show to my fellow-men the evils of the system, or to promote universal emancipation, I am performing the appropriate duty of a Christian man, and of a minister of the gospel of Christ.

TIIE CHURCH AND SLAVERY.

Chapter I. The General Relation Oe The Church To Slavery

In forming a correct view of the subject, it is important, first of all, to ascertain what is the actual relation of the church to slavery, or how the church becomes interested in the questions that pertain to it, and what responsibility it sustains in regard to it; then to inquire what is the actual position of the church in regard to it; and then what is the duty of the church, in the present state of things in our country, in regard to it. I write with special reference to my own denomination ; but at the same time I shall write in such a manner as to show what is the general relation which the various denominations of Christians in this land sustain to the system. There is an essential brotherhood in the family of Christian churches in regard to what is good. Alas ! it is to be feared that there is, to a great extent, a fearful brotherhood in those churches in sustaining enormous evils.

The following facts, then, will he admitted to be undeniable; and they will show how the church becomes interested in the questions relating to slavery.

1. Not a few church-members are slave-holders. Compared, indeed, with all the members of the church in the land, or compared with those who are slave-holders who are not members of the church,

RELATION OF THE CIITJRCH TO SLAVERY. 13

the number is few; but in the aggregate the number of members of the church, in all the religious denominations, who hold their fellow-men in bondage, is not small. I am not aware that the exact number of slave-holders in any denomination has been ascertained, nor do I know of any data by which a probable approximation to the number could be made ; but the fact that there arc such members of the church, and that the number in the aggregate is not small, it would be as impossible to deny as it is painful to admit it. It is to be conceded, also, that a portion of these are ministers of the gospel and others who bear important offices, and who sustain important stations in the churches. It is to be admitted, also, that of these church-members, embracing also, it is to be feared, some who arc ministers of the gospel, there are those who are slave-holders in the most rigid and offensive sense, — who hold slaves not merely by inheritance, or by a legal relation for the good of the slave; who hold them not because they are aged and need a protector ; who hold them not in transitu and for the purpose of emancipating them ; who hold them not as preparing them for freedom, and with properly-executed instruments which would secure their freedom should they themselves die ; who hold them under none of the forms of mere guardianship and for the purpose of humanity, but as slaves, as property, as chattels, as liable to be disposed of like the other portions of their estate when they die. There are those also in the churches who purchase and sell slaves as they do any other property; who buy them that they may avail themselves of their unrequited

THE CIIURCII AND SLAVERY.

labour; and who sell them as they do any other pioperty, for the sake of gain. It is to be admitted, also, that there are those who thus hold slaves under laws which forbid their being taught to read, and who comply with those laws; under laws which restrain their religious liberty, and who comply with those laws; under laws which prevent all proper formation of the marriage-relation, and all proper organization of the family-relation, and who comply with those laws ; and under laws which, when a man dies, make his slaves liable to be sold for the payment of his debts, — like any other part of his property. It is to be admitted, also, that there are those connected with the Christian churches who hold their slaves under laws which furnish no security for maintaining the relation between man and wife, and parents and children, among their slaves, and who lift up no voice of remonstrance against the iniquity of those laws, and make no effort to secure their own slaves from the tremendous evils inflicted on human beings by their operation. If this is a fact, one source ol the interest which the church has in the subject of slavery will be at once apparent ; if this is a fact, no one can question the propriety of an appeal to the church on the subject.

2. Hot a few ministers of the gospel, and members of the churches, either apologize for slavery, or openly defend it, even as it exists in the Ijnited States. It is not affirmed here that the proportion of those who thus apologize for slavery, or who defend it, as compared with those who entertain otbei views, is large, or that a majority of the ministers of religion or members of the churches in the land are impli-

RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 15

catcd in the guilt of defending the system; and it cannot he denied that gross injustice is often done to the ministers of the gospel in this country, and to members of the churches, hy charging on all that which belongs only to a part, and much the smallest part, of the entire body. But still the following facts are undeniable : —

(a) There are those, as has been already remarked, who are themselves slave-holders, and, so far as appears, slave-holders in the proper sense of the term : holding their fellow-men in bondage, not as guardians, not as sustaining merely the legal relation with a mew to their freedom, not as educating them for freedom, and not making provision for their emancipation, but as slaves , — as property, — with a view to worldly gain from the relation, and without remonstrance against the oppressive laws which withhold from them the word of God, and which regard them as liable to be treated like any other property in case of the death of the master.

( b ) There are those w r ho defend the system as one authorized by the Bible, and as having for its sanction the authority of God; who refer to it as a “patriarchal” institution, sustained by the example of the holy men of early times, and as not, as they allege, discountenanced by the teaching of the Saviour and his apostles. This number is not, indeed, large; but no one can doubt that there are those in the church who occupy this position, and whose aid is relied on by those who wish to make the system perpetual in the land.

(c) There are those who, while they are not themselves slave-holders, and are not open advocates of

THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY.

the system, and who would consider that great injustice was done them if they were represented as proslavery men, yet regard the system as substantially on the same foundation as the other relations in life;— not wrong in itself, wrong only in its abuses. Thus, the relation of “master and servant” is compared with the relation of hushed and wife, and parent and child, and landlord and tenant, and guardian and ward, and master and apprentice,— relations growing out of the constitution of things, or springing up in the necessities of society, and, as such, relations which may he expected always to exist m the world. By this class of ministers and church members, it is sometimes affirmed that the relation is founded on the judgment of God on a doomed race, — the descendants of Ham ; sometimes that it is founded on the inferiority of the African race ; sometimes that it is justified by the difference of complexion, sometimes by the alleged fact that, incapable ot guiding themselves, they need the guardianship and protection of a superior race, and sometimes by the alleged fact that it is only in this way that the African can be raised to a participation in the blessings of civilization and Christianity. 'Whatever may be the foundation of the representation, the essential idea is that the relation is one that is lawful, or that it is on the same basis as the lawful relations of human society. For the abuses of the system they would hold men responsible, as they would in the relation of parents and children, and master and apprentice, hut not for the relation itself any more in the one case than in the other. According to this view, the fact of being a slave-holder furnishes no more

RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 17

presumption against a man’s Christian character than the fact of being a husband and father, or than the fact of being at the head of a large mercantile or manufacturing establishment: for the abuse of power in either case, and precisely for the same reasons, he would he justly responsible, and would incur blame ; but not for the mere relation in the one case more than in the other.

(d) There are those in the ministry, and those who are private members of the churches, who, whatever may he their real sentiments, are, from their position, their silence, or their avowed conservatism, classed in public estimation with the apologists for slavery, and whose aid can never be relied on in any efforts for the emancipation of those who are in bondage. They have attached an importance to the modern idea of conservatism which cannot he justified by any reference to the teachings of the Bible, or the life and doctrines of the Saviour, — an idea which makes it possible to plead their example in favour of that which is wrong, as well as of that which is right. They regard that which is fixed and settled as so important that it is better that a wrong should be endured, rather than to peril the safety of existing institutions by anjr change whatever. They have afiixed to the Union of the States such a value that it is fairly inferred from their opinion that it is better that any evil should he endured — that any number of millions of human beings should he held in hopeless bondage — than that the existence of the Union should be perilled. They have affixed an odious idea to the word abolitionist, and, so far as their infiuence goes, led the public to do it also;

THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY.

surrounding it with all that is disorganizing and radical, with all that is repulsive in fanaticism and dangerous in politics, with all that is hateful in intermeddling in the concerns of others, and with all that arouses the soul in the idea of treason. With this name, also, this class of ministers of the gospel, and these members of the churches, endeavour to associate the idea of infidelity; and, because some who have assumed the name have rejected the Bible and denounced the Christian church and the Christian ministry as upholders of this enormous evil, their influence in fact goes to convey the inference that abolitionism and infidelity are really if not quite identical, and that to attempt to emancipate the slave would be an attempt to spread the evils of skepticism through the land.

(e) There are editors of religious papers, and authors of books connected with the Christian church, whose opinions are of great value to slaveholders in defending the system of slavery. If there is no formal and avowed defence of slavery, and even if there is an occasional formal statement that they are personally opposed to the system, yet their influence is such as to make it possible and convenient to refer to them in support of the system. Their words of condemnation are so cold, so formal, so few and so far between, that with the advocates of the system they pass for mere form. They speak of the relation of master and slave as they do of any other relation ; they inculcate the duties of the master and the duties of the slave as they do the duties of the parent and the duties of the child, with the

RELATION OP THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 19 underlying idea that the relations are equally lawful and designed to be equally permanent. They enjoin on the slave submission to his condition, as they do on the poor man contentment in his poverty, as if both were in the same sense among the fixed though mysterious arrangements of Providence. They adduce arguments from the Bible in regard to the relation which are gratifying in an eminent degree to the slave-holder, and they adopt such expositions uf the Bible as are exactly what he desires in order to sustain him in his position and to sanction his holding his fellow-men in bondage. They employ words in regard to the system so smooth that, if they do not actually furnish a formal defence ot the evil, yet will not disturb the sleep of the slave-holder, but are rather fitted to give ease to his conscience and to impart to him quiet slumbers and pleasant dreams. Meantime they make use of just such words and just such arguments in regard to abolitionism as to be grateful in the highest degree to slave-holders themselves. Mo one can doubt that not a few of the conductors of the religious press in this country are constantly thus expressing views which are eminently gratifying to slave-holders as such, and which are among the means by which they sustain themselves in their position and by which they justify themselves in holding their fellow-men in bondage.

3. Large portions ot the church are in the midst ot slavery. The institutions which Surround the c iuic me those which are connected with slavery an w ich take a peculiar cast and complexion lorn sa\er}. In many respects those institutions

THE CIIURCn AND SLAVERY.

are different from similar institutions where freedom prevails. The customs of society are different. The intercourse in social life is different. The modes of speech are different. The views entertained of labour are different. The views of rank and position in society are different. They who are in the condition of domestics or servants are regarded and treated in a different manner. A different kind of deference towards their superiors is expected, and a different mode of treating them and of speaking to them is expected. Children at the North and the South grow up with different modes ot speech and behaviour, and they enter on life with different views of the essential organization of society. Slavery touches on society at a thousand different points ; and it is impossible that there should be any institution in a region where slavery prevails whioh will not be more or less affected by it.

Besides, though the churches located in the midst of slavery may be wholly free from any direct participation in it, it is still true that the church is designed to influence all surrounding institutions. This is a part of its mission in the world,— a part of the reason why it is established and perpetuated on the earth. The church often springs up in the midst of a mass of moral corruption for the very purpose of modifying by its influence existiug institutions, and changing the whole aspect of society. Pure in itself, it sheds a benign influence on all around, and its contact with prevailing institutions rebukes what is wrong and suggests and sanctions what is right. By a healthful contact it diffuses moral purity through a community. A church, relation of the church to slavery. 21

therefore, located in the midst of slavery, though all its members may be wholly unconnected with slavery, yet owes an important duty to society and to God in reference to the system; and its mission will not be accomplished by securing merely the sanctification of its own members, or even by drawing within its fold multitudes of those who shall be saved. It is not merely by an orthodox faith, or by the pure lives of its own members, that it fulfils its work on the earth; it is not merely by its being the patron of schools and colleges, or by its influence in sending the gospel to heathen lands ; it is not by the establishment of Sabbath-schools for the children of its own families, or by zeal in distributing Bibles and the publications of the Tract Society within its geographical limits, that its work is to be done. Its primary work as a church may have reference to an existing evil within its own geographical limits. The burden which is laid upon it may not be primarily the conversion of the heathen or the diffusion of Bibles and tracts abroad : the work which God requires it to do, and for which specified ly it has been planted there, may be to diffuse a definite moral influence in respect to an existing evil institution. On all that is wrong in social life, 'ii 1 1 ie modes of intercourse, in the habits of training the young, and in the prevailing sentiments in the community that have grown out of existing instituleuis, God may have planted the church there to cx'Tt a definite moral influence, — a work for himself. W hetlier it is to make a direct assault on such institutions may be another question; but there can be no diflcrence of opinion as to the fact that a

THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY.

church thus situated has much to do with all existing institutions, and, therefore, with slavery; and that its influence in regard to that system is a part of the work which it is to accomplish in the world. In the nature of the case it cannot be otherwise than that it will, in very important respects, come in contact with slavery. The church wilt affect the institution of slavery, or the institution of slavery will affect the church. It will send out a healthful moral influence to secure its removal, or the system will send out a corrupt influence into the church itself, to mould the opinions of its members, to corrupt their piety, to make them apologists for oppression and wrong, and to secure its sanction in sustaining the system itself. Which will be the preponderating influence cannot he determined by mere conjecture. It would be a more sad and dark page in the history of the church than could he desired, if one should undertake to record the actual result. Whether, in our own country, it has moulded the system in the midst of which it is placed, or the system has moulded *7, is an inquiry on which one who is desirous to show that the church has always exerted a good influence on the surrounding world would perhaps prefer to be silent.

4. The interest which the church has in the subject of slavery may be seen, in connection with the preceding remark, from the power which the church necessarily lias on all great moral subjects. In reference to this the following things will commend themselves as worthy of attention : —

(a) The number of professing Christians in ' all parts of this land where slavery abounds, in the

RELATION OP THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 23 aggregate, is not small. Compared with the whole population, or with the whole number of slaveholders, or with the whole number of members in the great religious denominations in the land, we shall see, indeed, in another part of this Essay, that the number is not large; and yet it is probable that a community of slave-holders cannot he found where there is not a portion of the people who are either professors of religion, or who sustain an intimate relation to the church. 5To community of slave-holders in this land is made up of a heathen population; none of a population avowedly infidel. There is no R **oh community in which the prevailing views in regard to slavery itself are derived from the speculations of heathen philosophers or moralists; none in vhich the authority of the Bible is professedly abjured ; none in whieh the Sabbath and the sanctuary, the Sabbath-school and the prayer-meeting, are wholly unknown. The mass of slave-holders themselves, though not professing Christians, are not, avowed infidels ; nor is it known that iufi-

. e ,- v P revaila aiuon g them to a greater extent than it does in other portions of the community. Indeed, rt would probably be found, from causes which need not now be inquired into, that avowed infidehty is less common at the South than at the vh b and that there are fewer men, in the States l .l ' H davery prevails, who would be willing to than tl J n ° f ° peu re i ecti °n of the Bible, Xorth * lL aie ami(ist the frecr institutions of the

The 1 m'en\? arCh ^ iufhienCC “ a11 8ach PW 10 compose it are not altogether those

THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY.

of the humbler ranks, or those who have little, or nothing at stake in society. A respectable portion of the members of the church, in places where slavery prevails as well as elsewhere, is composed of men of wealth, of education, and of elevated standing in the community. Not a few occupy public positions; not a few are members of the learned professions ; and no one can doubt that, as members of the church, they do much to control the public mind on the subject of morals.

(c) Again: In our country there is no class of men who exert more influence than ministers of the gospel; and there is, perhaps, no portion of the land where ministers of the gospel m fact exert more influence than they do in slave-holding communities. Probably there is no part ot the land where they mingle so freely m social life. There is no portion of the land where they are admitted more readily to the intimacies of families, or where their presence is regarded as more desirable in society. It should be added, also, that there is no part of the land where more lime is actually spent by ministers of the gospel in social life, or in free, pleasant, and familiar intercourse with the people. From the nature of the prevalent habits in the free States, where so few men have leisure for social intercourse, it is undoubtedly a fact that ministers of the gospel are much more a distinct portion of the community — under a much stronger inducement to withdraw from social life — than in slave-holding communities; and, if there is any portion of the land where ministers of the gospel enjoy peculiar facilities for influencing the public mind, directly relation op the church to slavery. 25

and indirectly, it would seem to be in the slaveholding States. And, as no one could estimate tbe power which ministers of the gospel might have, in such communities, in removing this evil, so no one can estimate the actual influence which they do exert in sustaining and perpetuating it. If it should be found to be true that they are silent on this subject while they freely denounce all other forms of sin,— if it should be true that they apologize for it as they would not dare or wish to do for intemperance, Sabbath-breaking, licentiousness, gambling or, lotteries, — if it should be true that they refer to this relation as they do to the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, master and apprentice, landlord and tenant, — if it should be true that they make a frequent reference, and. one quite satisfactory to slave-holders, to the institution of slavery as ‘ patriarchal,’ implying that the slavery now existing is of the same nature as that which existed in patriarchal times, or implying that the sanction of a patriarch gave authority to slavery any more than it did to polygamy or fraud, — if it should be true that they indulge in groat, freedom of language, and language everyway gratifying to slave-holders, in regard to abolitionists, and that they usually represent the fact of being an '■d’ol itiu uist as being synonymous with being an infidel, a fanatic, a disorgauizer, or an enemy of tho I niou, — then it is clear that no one can estimat" the actual influence of the ministers of the gospel in sustaining slavery, and no one can fail to see i hat, the church has an important interest in the giv.it questions respecting slavery and freedom.

TIIE CIIURCH AND SLAVERY.

(d) Again, to recur a moment to a point already referred to: — There is a large number of editors of papers and authors of books who are connected with the church, and whose influence must be great in regard to cpiestious like those which pertain to slavery. Not a few of those editors and authors arc educated ministers of the gospel ; and the community is accustomed to look up to them, as ministers and as conductors of the press, for the formation of its opinions on moral subjects. No class of men, perhaps, exert a wider influence than the conductors of the press; and on no subject is that influence more likely to be referred to as forming the public mind than on the subject of slavery. It is easy, therefore, to see that the church in this respect may have a very intimate connection with slavery. If the conductors of the press — and especially of the religious press — shall be found to speak of slavery as a scriptural, a permanent, or a ‘ patriarchal’ institution, — if they more frequently refer to the comparatively dark and barbarous times when the patriarchs lived than to the teachings of the Saviour, — if they make constant reference to it as an institution that is on the same basis as the relations of master and apprentice, husband and wife, parent and child, — if their sympathy is always with the master and never with the slave, always with those portions of the country where slavery prevails and never with any others, — if, instead of seeing no North, no South, they see only the South, — if they are loud in their denunciations of abolitionists, and liberal in the use of the terms ‘fanatics’ and ‘ disorganizes, ’ as applied to them, —