The governing race: a book for the time, and for all times

Front matter

.0^

,.VA p if, '

aV^^

Part I. Is Slavery Sanctioned By The Old Testament ?

The furious controversy concerning Negro Slavery, now raging throughout our land, is no longer a mere political question. Both parties have appealed to the Bible.

Those who sustain or vindicate the slavery of the negro race in the United States justify themselves by asserting that " this institution is just, wise, and beneficent ;" that " it is ordained by Nature, and is a necessity of both races." — Speech of 3Ir. O'Connor,

They also declare that " this social institution (slavery) is founded entirely on the revealed laws of God ; the Bible is the source of all our laws as well social as civil, and hence reverence and worship of its Divine Author are more general among southern slaveholders than almost any other people." — Be Bow a Review^ Vol. 3, No. 1, January., 1860, jp. 12.

Furthermore : " That slavery is a great moral, social, and political blessing — a blessing to the master, and a blessing to the slave." — Speech of Senator Brown^ of Mississippi.

The abolitionists, on the other hand, assert (of slavery) that " God has forbidden it." — Br. Cheever's Speech, at the Cooper Institute.

" Slavery is founded on principles of injustice, extortion and oppression, manslaughter and robbery ; slavery is the fosterparent of inhumanity and murder." — Sermon hy Rev. Br. Mattison.

" American slavery is the sum of all villanies, and a combination of all cruelties, crimes, and robberies, of murder, piracy, and adultery, and whatever else is impure, unholy, and accursed." — Resolution of the Anti-Slavery Convention, Buffalo. January 10, 1860.

From the above expressions of the anti-slavery party — and volumes might be filled with the like bitter invectives against the system — it must be plain to every reflecting mind that this fierce and agitating controversy cannot be settled by compromises. It is a question between right and wrong, morally, not politically considered ; it is, therefore, taken out of the reach of expediency altogether.

Even the most upright and patriotic statesmen, were they wise and self-sacrificing as those who won our independence and framed the Constitution, could not settle this now vexed question. Those who deny the right of man to hold another man in the bondage of slavery spurn the authority of the Constitution and the laws of Congress ; they appeal to a " higher law."

There must, then, be found somewhere moral power to compel obedience to the Constitution of the United States, or the Union will be dissolved, or resort had to physical force.

The law of God is the rule directing and compelling a rational creature in moral and religious actions. There is no moral lawgiver save the Lord God. There is no code of His divine law save that contained in the Bible.

Let us, then, people of the United States, take up this momentous question in the true spirit of Christian obedience to God's law ; seeking, reverently, to understand what is set forth in the Old and New Testaments concerning slavery, and submitting ourselves to the authority of the Bible as the only unerring standard of truth and righteousness.

The Bible gives us three notable instances of laws in which our Creator imposed certain specified penalties for sin on certain classes of the human race.

The first was God's sentence on Adam for eating the forbidden fruit. " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." The ground was cursed for his sake, (or sin,) and all his sons, to the end of time, were subjected to the same hard necessity of labor.

Will any Christian say that this sentence of God was unjust? AVill any man of right reason contend that this judgment ever has been set aside without worse evils to the human race than hard labor being the result ?

When the penalty for disobedience — death — was for a time remitted to fallen man, was not hard labor the best condition in which he could be placed for his repentance and reformation ? If Adam and all his descendants had submitted to the punishment, and had " done well" their work, would they not have been accepted of the Lord ? Have not the most dreadful crimes against God and man resulted from the selfish attempts made, by individuals and classes of men, to escape this universal doom of labor,: and to impose their own tasks on others, while those selfish rulers of the people live on the bread earned by the sweat and blood of the laboring classes ?

Do we not feel that God's law, in this penalty of hard labor, is founded in mercy as well as righteousness, and that its failure to reclaim man arises from his own sins against this righteous ordinance ?

So, too, of the second penalty : God's sentence on Eve. She was subjected to increased sorrows in maternity, and to that dependence on her husband which placed her under his personal control ; and this doom for her transgression was to be and is imposed on all her daughters, and will be on them to the end of time.

Will any Christian say that the sentence was unjust ? Will any man assert that this law should be abrogated, and the wife cease to " reverence her husband" as " the saviour of the body ?" Would it be well for humanity to have this penalty set aside, and the wife, spurning dependence upon her husband, and leaving the duties of home and the care of their little children, push forward in the conflicts of public life, and engage in the hard labor that wins bread ?

The third instance of these special judgments for particular sins was that given against the posterity of Ham. The earth was recovering from the curse of the flood, which the " corruption of all flesh" had rendered inevitable. Noah and his three sons, and the children born to them after the flood, were beginning to enjoy the fruits of their labor when the awful scene occurred.

A class of persons, descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham, was doomed to a state of servitude, of menial labor and dependence for their improvement on their brethren, the descendants of Shem and Japheth.

We will give the text, because it is not always convenient for the reader to seek out references, and this text is very important :

" And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard.

" And he drank of the wine, and was drunken ; and he was uncovered within his tent.

" And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.

" And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father : and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.

" And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

" And he said, Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

b IS SLAVERY SANCTIONED BY

" And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shetn ; and Canaan shall be his servant.

God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant.

[See Genesis, 9th chapter, verses 20 to 28, inclusive.

Such is the brief record of holy writ. The import cannot be mistaken, nor the penalty of the transgressor misunderstood. A class of persons, descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham. were sentenced to perpetual servitude or inferiority, and the descendants of Shem and Japheth — the latter more especially designated as superior — should be masters.

Let us pause here and examine the nature of the sin which could justify Noah in passing such a sentence of degradation on his " younger son."

Obedience to the law of God is the first duty of man. This divine law settles the destiny of the human race.

It was this law which governed Adam in Eden, and " disobedience" was the sin that " brought death into the world, and all our woe." Next to obedience of man to God, our heavenly Father, comes the duty of obedience of children to their human parents.

This is proven, because such obedience is made the first commandment of the second table, thus showing it to be the root and foundation of moral requirements in the laws that govern society. Obedience to parents establishes in their children the habit of obedience to law, and also sanctifies the religious principle in human nature, by giving honor to that condition of life which represents the relation of man to his God.

So important for human improvement is this obedience of children to their parents, that the merciful God, condescending to the weakness of our fallen nature, offered a reioard, the promise of long life, to those who honored their parents. No other commandment in the decalogue has a promise annexed.

But were the laws of the decalogue in force when Ham sinned?

Assuredly ; because these moral laws are righteous, and righteousness is eternal.

Disobedience to parents was not and is not sin because forbidden in the fifth commandment, but because it was and is a sin of itself; therefore it was and is forbidden.

Noah, the " the preacher of righteousness," understood the requirements of God's moral law. He knew, as well as we do, that murder was sin. Had not Cain been condemned by this law ?

He knew that adultery was sin ; and all the myriad corruptions that flow from disobedience to the moral law. Had not those sins been punished by the awful judgment of the Flood ?

Sin is, in its own nature, a disturber and disorganizer. It debases before it destroys. It is disobedience to God, and adherence to the devil: — as manifested by our first parents.

The sin of Ham, that of dishonoring his father, was aggravated in the highest degree by the relation which Noah held to the future of our fallen race. He was the head of humanity on earth. He was prophet, priest, and king. He represented the judgment and the mercy of God and man. He embodied, in his experience and wisdom, the laws, precepts, and knowledge which were to guide his posterity in the better way.

It is no excuse for Ham to say that his father had done wrong ; that he had debased^ himself by drunkenness.

We do not seek to palliate the transgression of Noah. In yielding the reins to appetite, and thus dethroning reason, he had committed a grievous sin against the natural laws of God. Was he not most grievously punished for his fault when " he awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him ?"

Think of the old man, the loving father, who had seen the world of transgressors swept from off the earth because of their wicked lusts and corrupt imaginations : and then to find the poison of the same polluting depravity in his own family — the little group spared from the general destruction.

What was the anguish of the Roman Brutus, passing sentence of death on his own sons for treason against the State, compared with the sorrow of Noah, dooming his " younger son," for treason against nature and rebellion against God, to that condition of perpetual inferiority which, like a brand of shame, would mark a portion of his (Noah's) descendants forever !

As in the case of Adam and Eve, it was sin that brought the curse and the punishment. The sentence is proof of the guilt of the sinner. The doom was not from Noah, but from the justice of a righteous God.

Ham had shown, by his conduct, that he loved iniquity. His sin was more wicked in its inception, more polluting in its nature than the fratricide of Cain. The brother struck at the natural life of his brother ; the son claimed to overthrow and destroy the moral life of mankind by the dishonor of his father. Had Ham's sin gone unpunished, all fear and love of God, all reverence and obedience for His laws, must have perished, because only through and by the parental relation was religious duty then taught and exemplified.

He who commits sin is the servant of sin. Ham had, by his own wicked carnality, sold himself to the power of evil; he was in the bonds of corruption. The penalty of his awful crime was

O IS SLAVERY SANCTIONED BY

death ! There was only misery and destruction before him and his till the sentence was pronounced.

Then we see how mercy preponderated. Ham was reprieved from direct personal punishment, and only one of his four sons was subjected to the penalty of servitude. Even to Canaan there was mercy shown. He was to live and not die. His brethren were his keepers, his task-masters, and in the special promises made them and their posterity he and his were included.

Why was Canaan, the youngest son of Ham, singled out for this doom of servitude? Commentators and expounders of scripture have conjectured that this son was with his. father and joined him in mocking Noah. But what God has not revealed concerning this transaction, human reason can never discover.

We know, however, if we believe the Bible to be divine revelation, that "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. (Ps., 10 : 9.) We know that " the curse causeless shall not come." [Prov., 26 : 2.)

There is no recognition of any original inequality between the three brothers, causing the differences in their destinies. It was the natural propensities, exhibited in this transaction, which decided their condition.

Had the brothers of Ham listened greedily when he " mocked at his father," had they yielded to his wicked temptation of dishonoring him by indulging in pithy imaginations concerning their father, they, too, would have been accursed. Their chaste reverence and filial obedience were accepted and rewarded, and thus the good gained its first great triumph over the evil in our fallen world.

" Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. " Blessed be the Lord God of Sheni; and Canaan shall be his servant. " God shall enlarge Japlieth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant." — Genesis, chap, 'd, verses 25-6-7.

Has not this announcement of the destiny of the three tribes or races of men, descended from Noah, come true, according to the Word ?

Does not history, secular as well as sacred, confirm the truth of this prophecy in the past ?

Is it not true at this moment that the posterity of Japheth dwell in the tents of Shem, and that the posterity of Canaan are in servitude to the posterity of Japheth ?

We have not time now to spare to go into details here, or to quote authorities; but no person acquainted with ancient annals can deny that one race, the black, a branch of the Hametic stock, has, SO far as is known, always been in a state of servitude, either to tyrants of their own color, or to masters of the other two races.

The hieroglyphical records of the oldest monuments of old Egypt show the black man then a slave. Nearly the whole continent of Africa is now a place of black slaves. If some few of these men, as rulers, have liberty to destroy or sell others of their own race, the women, one-half the population, are without exception slaves to the physical force and brutal lusts of the male descendants of Ham. From the ferocious king of the Ashantees, whose ornaments and monuments are the skulls and bones of his slave victims ; to the Yorubas of Central Africa, whose government is a "perfect despotism," and on to the Makololos of the South, described by Rev. Dr. Livingstone, where the negro man is supported by the labor of his slave wives, we find two conditions of life, polygamy and slavery, everywhere. Till the first is overcome it is in vain to talk of freedom or improvement for the black race.

The whole negro population of Africa, some eighty or a hundred millions, with the exception of those belonging to Liberia, and, perhaps, some few tribes improved a little under British rule at Sierra Leone, now manifest in their low animal propensities, the same utter lack of reverence for duty, the disregard of decency, and the insensibility to shame, which characterized the conduct of Ham towards his father Noah, more than four thousand years ago.

These sensual propensities, when predominating, mark the lowest type of human beings, whatever may be the color, or in whatever caste, country, or condition they may be found.

We know that such people never improve when living together, without care or coercion, or both, from persons of better developments. We can understand that such a race must be degraded, would degrade themselves, and that only by divine miracle, or by the natural means of subjection to, and training by, a higher class of minds, a better organized race, could the lower type be influenced, instructed, and finally improved.

Was it not merciful, as well as righteous, for the wise and good God to place such a race under tutelage or subjection, that they might be saved from themselves ?

" A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethreti." Was God's sentence on Canaan, by the mouth of Noah, an unjust judgment ? It was the punishment of a great sin, not the arbitrary decree of an ofi"ended father ; it was from the Lord.

A state of human servitude or slavery is then compatible loith divine justice, with the perfect righteousness of God's laws, as surely as the necessity of hard labor in order to gain bread is for man, or the sufferings of women in childbirth and the subjection of the wife to her husband are compatible with His righteousness.

The aim of just punishment is to make those that suffer it better, and not worse. When it has the latter effect, it is through the perversion of the law by the criminal himself, or through the sins of other criminals ; not by the penalty he suffers.

Now, let us see what were the regulations given in the Bible concerning slavery ; let us see if these are not framed so as to make the servitude of the condemned race a blessing, and not a curse.

Abraham* is the first slaveholder on record ; yet from the tenor of the divine history there can be no doubt of the prevalence of slavery among all nations before that era. When the covenant of God was established with the patriarch, all his servants were admitted to the rite of circumcision, all were made members of the church, and thus given the opportunity of knowing and serving the true God.

Was not this a blessed privilege to those born idolaters ? Was it not better to be a servant or slave of Abraham than a free citizen of Sodom ?

From the time of this patriarch till the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, there are few direct allusions to slaves or bond servants among the chosen people.

But let us dwell a moment on the memorable narrative of Joseph's enslavement; His brethren " hated him," seized him by violence, " sold him to the Egyptians." Were they as wicked as murderers ? They committed a heinous crime ; but was it as "accursed" as the sin they had proposed, when they said:

*It has been urged by those who denounce slavery as sin, that Abraham was drawn into polygamy by having bond women in his household, and that the two institutions are, therefore, coincident and equally iniquitous. No conclusion could be more erroneous. The connection between Abraham and Hagar was not marriage. He never considered the bond woman as his wife, never defended her conduct, never protected her from the anger of her mistress and his wife, Sarah. Hagar Avas the slave always, and her son was not the true heir, as St. Paul bears witness. The whole history of that miserable attempt to bring about the purposes of divine wisdom by human devices, wicked in their inception, because contrary to God's holy law of marriage — one man with one woman, the twain made one — as established at the creation, shows the folly as well as sinfulness into which those persons who are really ceeking to do good will fall, if they set aside the laws of God, or interpret His statutes to suit their own selfish purposes.

THE OLD TESTAMENT ? H

"Come, let us slay him?" [aen., chap. 37, verse 20.) Were they punished as God punished Cain ? — as he punished Ham ? Let these questions be well considered before we brand slavery as ^Hhe sum of all villanies."

Joseph was sold a slave in Egypt, and his example is a model for all in his condition. He feared God and kept his commandments, and was faithful in all his duties to those whom he served. God blessed Joseph in his bondage ; and so will He bless goodness in every condition of life. Did the servile condition of Joseph disgrace him, or prevent his final exaltation ? Nay, more : was it not the direct means to his promotion in honor and usefulness ? Could a sinful condition have done this ?

Did either of his masters suffer because of buying and holding him in slavery ? Did not each party, master and servant, gain good by the connection ? Could this result have been reached if slavery is sin, like disobedience to 2Jarents, murder, aldidtery, theft, false witness, covetousness ?

The seed of Jacob were destined to become slaves in Egypt. The manner by which they were reduced to servitude was unjust and wicked ; their taskmasters were cruel. For this cruelty and injustice the Egyptians were punished.

If slavery is sin, would it not have been rebuked in this instance, because here was a flagrant breach of the law of servitude for sin, as established in the case of Canaan ? The Hebrews were of the race of Shem, consequently were not subjected by that law to the inferior race of Ham. Yet not a word of condemnation against slavery itself is to be found in the Mosaic history ; all the denunciations are against its abuses.

Nor were the Hebrews encouraged to seek their own liberation, or permitted to avenge their own wrongs. Even Moses, when he killed the cruel Egyptian tormentor, was severely punished by the ingratitude of those he sought to aid, and by his own selfbanishment for forty years ; and his crime brought additional severity of bondage on his brethren in Egypt. God did not instruct His people to " take their liberty at all hazards."

When Moses was sent to free the Hebrews they were not incited to any act of violence, any deed of sin. They were to obey all the laws of God, and through His providence look for deliverance. [Exodus, chapters Zd, 4th, 5th, 1th to 15th.)

Will American abolitionism take this Bible pattern of emancipation for its rule ? Will it keep God's laws ?

At length Israel was emancipated and brought out from Egypt, not as independent individuals, who had, each one, the ''^inalienable right to personal liberty," but as servants of Jehovah, the only living and true God ; a condition that every son and daughter of Adam inherits : all are equal here — all are bound to obey the laws of God.

Did the laws of God establish slavery in the Hebrew nation ? Did the decalogue sanction slavery by its injunctions ?

Let us carefully examine these questions.

When the Hebrews stood before Mount Sinai they were just freed from Egyptian bondage. Probably there was not a slave in the congregation. What an opportunity was here to impress on this chosen people of God the sinfulness of slavery — if it had been sin.

If slavery — the property of man in man — had been the "sum of all villanies," "the mother of all crimes," would not God, by the Son He gave, have prohibited it as strictly, at least, as He prohibited murder, adultery, theft?

Yet we find that the Lord God in Uvo of the ten commandments, which were to be the standard of all morality in the civil as well as religious codes of mankind, did provide for the condition of personal servitude.

The fourth commandment provides that the blessing of the Sabbath shall be on the servant or bondman, as well as on the master. Rest from labor one-seventh portion of time is the privilege of the slave; thus showing that God cares for all men equally, and has so framed His statutes that all may serve Him acceptably, in whatever condition of life He has placed them.

Thus we see that the law of the first table secures the right of the slave to worship God. The law of the second table secures as surely the right of the master to hold his servant.

In the tenth commandment "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's man servant, nor his maid servant," is as peremptory a prohibition as that which forbids theft. The desire, even, to take away the servant from his master is sin.

That the condition thus recognized and regulated by the laws of the Almighty was righteous as well as wise no true believer in the Bible will dare deny. And that this condition was, or included, that we now call slavery — the right of man to hold property in man — is proven by the special laws of Moses,^ which were, in all cases, conformable to the law of Mount Sinai.

The first statute, promulgated by the Hebrew lawgiver to the people, concerned slavery. Hebrew servitude was established by statute. This was the law of the man servant :

"Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them. " If thou buy au Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve : and in the seventh he shall 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 her 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. — Exodus, chap. 21, verses 2 to 7.

In the second clause, the rule concerning children born in slavery of these Hebrew parents, the mother being free, is left unexplained. But in a recapitulation of these laws this ambiguity is entirely removed. After providing that the Hebrew man may be sold as a slave even to a stranger, but must be well treated, not as a bond servant but as a hired servant, and at the jubilee, the fiftieth year, then —

" Shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him." — Leviticus, chap. 25, 41.

These laws in Exodus and Leviticus show three things or conditions :

First. A Hebrew man could sell himself, or be sold as a slave or servant, for six years, or till the jubilee ; and if he had a wife and children they shared his lot and his liberation ; but the daughters were never considered slaves.

Second. He could have but one wife, thus establishing monogamy as the law of marriage in slavery. If he had none when he became a slave, his master might give him a wife ; and if there were children born, the wife and children continued with the master.

Third. The Hebrew man had a right to make himself a slave for life ; the Hebrew woman was never permitted to become a slave. The Hebrew father reduced to poverty, who sold himself and family, could only sell his daughter to become a wife — either the wife of her master, or, if he were married, of his son. She was considered as betrothed, and was to be cared for as a daughter of the house. If the condition — honorable marriage — was not fulfilled, then the Hebrew maiden must be maintained like a daughter, or provided for in marriage with another man, or go out free. The Hebrew, who bought her, could not re-sell her. — [Ex.., chap. 21, verses 7 — 11.)

Now, remember that these ordinances were from God, and for His chosen people. Were the laws unjust ? unrighteous ? Will you contend with the Almighty ? Are you Aviser than He ? Will you say, as some of the advocates for " human freedom"

do, that " liberty is the inalienable right of men, and cannot be abrogated even by the consent of the individual who would become a slave?"

Why, those who assert this really abridge human liberty. The right to his time, after he comes of age, is surely one of the elementary rights of the freeman. If he has the right to engage, that is, sell himself or his services for six months, has he not the same right to sell himself for six years ? or to make the contract during life ? This last condition was strictly guarded in the law. The Hebrew man could not make a surrender of himself at once. Time was given, six years, wherein to test his master, who was also his brother Israelite. If then the Hebrew servant wished to become a slave for life, he was at liberty to choose his lot.