Part 7 (1/2)
”I cannot refrain from expressing, in this connection, my grief that many abolitionists have allowed their faith in the Bible to be shaken.”
In my short trip to the North, I was struck with nothing so much as the avowed infidelity of many, and the Christianity melting into infidelity, of the great ma.s.s of the balance with whom I conversed. I have no doubt, however, that although such a state of things is too common at the North, yet my peculiar a.s.sociations made the evil appear greater than it really is. The religious and conservative, like the lily of the valley, are silent and secluded. As a specimen of this religion melting, as I think, into infidelity, I will give another extract from the letter to Wendell Phillips:
”You have been much censured for holding that the anti-slavery cause can reach success only over the ruins of the American government and the American church. Nevertheless, you are right.
The religion which tolerates--nay, sanctifies--slavery, must necessarily be conquered ere the devotees and dupes of that religion will suffer slavery to be abolished. Again, so long as the actual government is on the side of slavery, the bloodless abolition of slavery is impracticable.”
The author of the letter from which I quote, and Mr. Phillips to whom it is addressed, are gentlemen, scholars and christians. They are, besides, historical characters. We violate no privacy in holding up their opinions to public view and general criticism. Is their's not Christianity melting into infidelity? I have lately received a book, in two volumes, ent.i.tled ”The Democracy of Christianity,” from its author--William Goodell of New York, a member of the Liberty Party. The author evinces much ability, ingenuity and research. He is one of the millenial Christians--obviously pious and sincere. He sees no exodus from the appalling evils of Free Society, except that state of perfect equality, peace, happiness and security, that he, like the men of Cromwell's day, thinks is promised and predicted in the Bible. I cite the following pa.s.sage from the conclusion of his work:
”Glance over again the items included in these predictions:--The general and permanent prevalence of peace--the result of justice, equity, security, and the actual possession, by each and every one, of 'his vine and fig tree,' i. e. of soil sufficient to produce the needful fruits of the earth, or in some way, a supply of his physical wants.”
If this state of things ever occur, G.o.d will bring it about without the help of abolitionists.
We do not deem it necessary to quote from the infidel agrarians and abolitionists, because their splendid promises and b.l.o.o.d.y and disastrous failures, have been matters of every day's history and of every day's occurrence, from the times of Marat and the guillotine to those of Lamartine and Cavaignac.
The Proletariat of France, the nomadic pauper banditti of England, the starving tenantry of Ireland, the Lazzaroni of Italy, and the half-savages of Hayti, are the admitted results of practical abolition.
But, say the Liberty party, abolition has stopped half-way; abolish churches, law, government, marriage, and separate property in lands, and then the scheme will work charmingly.
Well, possibly it will; but as we are very happy, comfortable and contented in slave society, suppose you try the ”experimentum in vile corpus.” Begin at home, and if the experiment works well, we of the South will follow your example. You have a little Eden now near Lake Oneida. Some hundreds of Oneida perfectionists, living in primitive simplicity, among whom there is no ”marrying or giving in marriage,” no separate property, all things enjoyed in common; and we suppose, neither priest nor officer to disturb or mar the harmony of millenial society.
”We but tell the tale as 'twas told to us.” Does it work well? If so, why not form all your inst.i.tutions on that model?
You of the Liberty party seem to think that ”pa.s.sional attraction” and ”attractive labor” will keep all men up to their duties, and dispense with the necessity of Church and State, Law and Religion, Priest and Officer. You think you follow nature, but in truth you are superficial observers of nature. Man, it is true, is a social and gregarious animal, but like all animals of that kind, he is, by nature, law-making and law-abiding. The ants and bees are ruled by despotic and exacting governments, and by laws and regulations, wise and less changeable than those of the Medes and Persians. But man is not only a law-making animal, but a religious one also. In remitting him to a state of anarchy and infidelity, you would not remit him to a state of nature, but one of continuous, exterminating warfare, such as France witnessed during the reign of terror.
I find, Messrs. Editors, that I am somewhat wandering from the subject with which I commenced, and will conclude--for the present, at least.
Very respectfully, your ob't serv't.
G. F.”
LETTER TO MR. HOGEBOOM.
_Port Royal_, Va., Jan. 14th, 1856.
To A. HOGEBOOM, Esq., Sheds Corners, Madison county, N. Y.
DEAR SIR:--Your letter reached this office during my absence from home.
I embrace the earliest opportunity of replying to it, because I rejoice that public attention at the North may, by this means, be excited to the subject of my book. I am sure I should not have been honored with your correspondence had you read the book and known its subject. That subject is the ”Failure of Free Society.” You have only read extracts from it, you say, in the Northern papers. Those papers will be slow to notice the facts, authorities and admissions which it cites, to prove the failure of their form of society. I send you the book and refer you particularly to the preface, to the second and third chapters, and to the ”summing up” in the concluding chapter.
If this does not satisfy you that free society is a cruel failure, read the history of the English Poor laws, and you will find that the laboring cla.s.s of England have, every day since the emanc.i.p.ation of the villeins, been in a worse condition, morally and physically, than any slaves ever were. Read, also, two articles, the one in the North British Review, and the other in Blackwood for December, depicting the demoralized and starving condition of the whole laboring cla.s.s of Great Britain. Read, also, Carlyle's Latter Day Pamphlets. If this does not convince you that the _Little Experiment_, (for it is a very little one, both in time and s.p.a.ce,) is a disastrous and cruel failure, look at home! How comes it that your distinguished neighbor, Gerrit Smith, proposes to make land as free for the enjoyment of all as air and water?
Confessedly, because the despotism of capital over labor is _intolerable_. Confessedly, because your form of society is found to be a failure in practice! Why does another distinguished abolitionist, Mr.
Goodell, of New York, in his book, on the Democracy of Christianity, declare, that wealth now is more cruel, oppressive and _murderous_, than Feudal masters? Why does Mr. Greely advocate the doctrines of Fourier, and propose to subvert your society and reconstruct it from top to bottom, making a sort of common property of women and children, as well as of lands and houses? Why does, much your ablest philosopher, Stephen Pearle Andrews, propose plans of reform still more sweeping?
And, why are his doctrines popular with the ”higher cla.s.ses” in New York? Why, in fine, are the larger number of the abolitionists, millenial Christians, in daily expectation of the advent of Christ, who is to divide all property equally, and give to each one his ”vine and fig tree.” And why are the others, Atheists, like Owen and Fourier, attempting to invent new and better forms of society?
Why have you Bloomer's and Women's Right's men, and strong-minded women, and Mormons, and anti-renters, and ”vote myself a farm” men, Millerites, and Spiritual Rappers, and Shakers, and Widow Wakemanites, and Agrarians, and Grahamites, and a thousand other superst.i.tious and infidel isms at the North? Why is there faith in nothing, speculation about everything? Why is this unsettled, half demented state of the human mind co-extensive in time and s.p.a.ce, with free society? Why is Western Europe now starving? and why has it been fighting and starving for seventy years? Why all this, except that free society is a failure?
Slave society needs no defence till some other permanently practicable form of society has been discovered. None such has been discovered.
n.o.body at the North who reads my book will attempt to reply to it; for all the learned abolitionists had unconsciously discovered and proclaimed the failure of free society long before I did.