Part 30 (2/2)

Each of them is a part of himself, and all of them together const.i.tute himself. All else that belongs to man, is acquired by the _use_ of these powers. The interest belongs to him, because the princ.i.p.al does; the product is his, because he is the producer. Owners.h.i.+p of any thing, is owners.h.i.+p of its _use_. The right to use according to will, is _itself_ owners.h.i.+p. The eighth commandment presupposes and a.s.sumes the right of every man to his powers, and their product. Slavery robs of both. A man's right to himself, is the only right absolutely original and intrinsic--his right to anything else is merely _relative_ to this, is derived from it, and held only by virtue of it. SELF-RIGHT is the _foundation right_--the _post in the middle_, to which all other rights are fastened. Slaveholders, when talking about their RIGHT to their slaves, always a.s.sume their own right to themselves. What slave-holder ever undertook to prove his right to himself? He knows it to be a self-evident proposition, that _a man belongs to himself_--that the right is intrinsic and absolute. In making out his own t.i.tle, he makes out the t.i.tle of every human being. As the fact of being _a man_ is itself the t.i.tle, the whole human family have one common t.i.tle deed. If one man's t.i.tle is valid, all are valid. If one is worthless, all are.

To deny the validity of the _slave's_ t.i.tle is to deny the validity of _his own_; and yet in the act of making a man a slave, the slaveholder _a.s.serts_ the validity of his own t.i.tle, while he seizes him as his property who has the _same_ t.i.tle. Further, in making him a slave, he does not merely disfranchise of humanity _one_ individual, but UNIVERSAL MAN. He destroys the foundations. He annihilates _all rights_. He attacks not only the human race, but _universal being_, and rushes upon JEHOVAH. For rights are _rights_; G.o.d's are no more--man's are no less.

The eighth commandment forbids the taking of _any part_ of that which belongs to another. Slavery takes the _whole_. Does the same Bible which prohibits the taking of _any_ thing from him, sanction the taking of _every_ thing! Does it thunder wrath against the man who robs his neighbor of a _cent_, yet commission him to rob his neighbour of _himself?_ Slaveholding is the highest possible violation of the eight commandment. To take from a man his earnings, is theft. But to take the _earner_, is a compound, life-long theft--supreme robbery that vaults up the climax at a leap--the dread, terrific, giant robbery, that towers among other robberies a solitary horror. The eight commandment forbids the taking away, and the tenth adds, ”Thou shalt not _covet_ any thing that is thy neighbor's;” thus guarding every man's right to himself and property, by making not only the actual taking away a sin, but even that state of mind which would _tempt_ to it. Who ever made human beings slaves, without _coveting_ them? Why take from them their time, labor, liberty, right of self-preservation and improvement, their right to acquire property, to wors.h.i.+p according to conscience, to search the Scriptures, to live with their families, and their right to their own bodies, if they do not _desire_ them? They COVET them for purposes of gain, convenience, l.u.s.t of dominion, of sensual gratification, of pride and ostentation. THEY BREAK THE TENTH COMMANDMENT, and pluck down upon their heads the plagues that are written in the book. _Ten_ commandments const.i.tute the brief compend of human duty. _Two_ of these brand slavery as sin.

MANSTEALING--EXAMINATION OF EX. XXI. 16.

The giving of the law at Sinai, immediately preceded the promulgation of that body of laws called the ”Mosaic system.” Over the gateway of that system, fearful words were written by the finger of G.o.d--”HE THAT STEALETH A MAN AND SELLETH HIM, OR IF HE BE FOUND IN HIS HAND, HE SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH[A].” Ex. xxi. 16.

[Footnote A: A writer in the American Quarterly Review, commenting on this pa.s.sage, thus blasphemes. ”On this pa.s.sage an impression has gone abroad that slave-owners are necessarily menstealers; how hastily, any one will perceive who consults the pa.s.sage in its connection. Being found in the chapter which authorizes this species of property among the Hebrews, it must of course relate to _its full protection from the danger of being enticed away from its rightful owner.”_--Am. Quart.

Review for June, 1833. Article ”Negro slavery.”]

The oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, and the wonders wrought for their deliverance, proclaim the reason for such a law at such a time.

They had just been emanc.i.p.ated. The tragedies of their house of bondage were the realities of yesterday, and peopled their memories with thronging horrors. They had just witnessed G.o.d's testimony against oppression in the plagues of Egypt--the burning blains on man and beast; the dust quickened into loathsome life, and swarming upon every living thing; the streets, the palaces, the temples, and every house heaped up with the carcases of things abhorred; the kneading troughs and ovens, the secret chambers and the couches, reeking and dissolving with the putrid death; the pestilence walking in darkness at noonday, the devouring locusts, and hail mingled with fire, the first-born death-struck, and the waters blood; and last of all, that dread high hand and stretched-out arm, that whelmed the monarch and his hosts, and strewed their corpses on the sea. All this their eyes had looked upon; earth's proudest city, wasted and thunder-scarred, lying in desolation, and the doom of oppressors traced on her ruins in the hand-writing of G.o.d, glaring in letters of fire mingled with blood--a blackened monument of wrath to the uttermost against the stealers of men. No wonder that G.o.d, in a code of laws prepared for such a people at such a time, should uprear on its foreground a blazing beacon to flash terror on slaveholders. ”_He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.”_ Ex. xxi. 16. Deut.

xxiv, 7[A]. G.o.d's cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance to the Mosaic system!

[Footnote A: Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish Commentators, who wrote seven hundred years ago, in his comment on this stealing and making merchandize of men, gives the meaning thus:--”Using a man against his will, as a servant lawfully purchased; yea, though he should use his services ever so little, only to the value of a farthing, or use but his arm to lean on to support him, _if he be forced so to act as a servant_, the person compelling him but once to do so, shall die as a thief, whether he has sold him or not.”]

The word _Ganabh_ here rendered _stealeth,_ means, the taking of what belongs to another, whether by violence or fraud; the same word is used in the eight commandment, and prohibits both robbery and theft.

The crime specified, is that of depriving SOMEBODY of the owners.h.i.+p of a man. Is this somebody a master? and is the crime that of depriving a master of his servant? Then it would have been ”he that stealeth” a _servant_, not ”he that stealeth a _man_.” If the crime had been the taking of an individual from _another_, then the _term_ used would have been expressive of that relation, and most especially if it was the relation of property and _proprietor!_

The crime is stated in a three-fold form--man _stealing_, _selling_, and _holding_. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one penalty--DEATH[A]. This _somebody_ deprived of the owners.h.i.+p of a man, is the _man himself_, robbed of personal owners.h.i.+p. Joseph said, ”Indeed I was _stolen_ away out of the land of the Hebrews.” Gen. xl. 15. How _stolen?_ His brethren sold him as an article of merchandize. Contrast this penalty for _man_-stealing with that for _property_-stealing, Ex.

xxii. 14. If a man had stolen an _ox_ and killed or sold it, he was to restore five oxen; if he had neither sold nor killed it, two oxen. But in the case of stealing a _man_, the _first_ act drew down the utmost power of punishment; however often repeated or aggravated the crime, human penalty could do no more. The fact that the penalty for _man_-stealing was death, and the penalty for _property_-stealing, the mere restoration of double, shows that the two cases were adjudicated on totally different principles. The man stolen might be diseased or totally past labor, consequently instead of being profitable to the thief, he would be a tax upon him, yet death was still the penalty, though not a cent's worth of _property-value_ was taken. The penalty for stealing property was a mere property-penalty. However large the theft, the payment of double wiped out the score. It might have a greater money value than a thousand men, yet death was not the penalty, nor maiming, nor braiding, nor even stripes, but double _of the same kind_. Why was not the rule uniform? When a _man_ was stolen why was not the thief required to restore double of the same kind--two men, or if he had sold him, five men? Do you say that the man-thief might not _have_ them? So the ox-thief might not have two oxen, or if he had killed it, five. But if G.o.d permitted men to hold _men_ as property, equally with oxen, the man-thief, could get men with whom to pay the penalty, as well as the ox-thief, oxen. Further, when property was stolen, the legal penalty was a compensation to the person injured. But when a _man_ was stolen, no property compensation was offered. To tender money as an equivalent, would have been to repeat the outrage with intolerable aggravations.

Compute the value of a MAN in _money!_ Throw dust into the scale against immortality! The law recoiled from such supreme insult and impiety. To have permitted the man-thief to expiate his crime by restoring double, would have been making the repet.i.tion of crime its atonement. But the infliction of death for man-stealing exacted the utmost possibility of reparation. It wrung from the guilty wretch as he gave up the ghost, the testimony of blood, and death-groans, to the infinite dignity and worth of man,--a proclamation to the universe, voiced in mortal agony, ”MAN IS INVIOLABLE.”--a confession shrieked in phrenzy at the grave's mouth--”I die accursed, and G.o.d is just.”

[Footnote A: ”Those are _men-stealers_ who abduct, _keep_, sell, or buy slaves or freemen.” GROTIUS.]

If G.o.d permitted man to hold man as property, why did he punish for stealing that kind of property infinitely more than for stealing any other kind of property? Why punish with death for stealing a very little of _that_ sort of property, and make a mere fine the penalty for stealing a thousand times as much, of any other sort of property--especially if by his own act, G.o.d had annihilated the difference between man and _property_, by putting him on a level with it?

The guilt of a crime, depends much upon the nature, character, and condition of the victim. To steal is a crime, whoever the thief, or whatever the plunder. To steal bread from a full man, is theft; to steal it from a starving man, is both theft and murder. If I steal my neighbor's property, the crime consists not in altering the _nature_ of the article, but in taking as _mine_ what is _his_. But when I take my neighbor himself, and first make him _property_, and then _my_ property, the latter act, which was the sole crime in the former case, dwindles to nothing. The sin in stealing a man, is not the transfer from its owner to another of that which is already property, but the turning of _personality_ into _property_. True, the attributes of man remain, but the rights and immunities which grow out of them are annihilated. It is the first law both of reason and revelation, to regard things and beings as they are; and the sum of religion, to feel and act toward them according to their value. Knowingly to treat them otherwise is sin; and the degree of violence done to their nature, relations, and value, measures its guilt. When things are sundered which G.o.d has indissolubly joined, or confounded in one, which he has separated by infinite extremes; when sacred and eternal distinctions, which he has garnished with glory, are derided and set at nought, then, if ever, sin reddens to its ”scarlet dye.” The sin specified in the pa.s.sage, is that of doing violence to the _nature_ of a _man_--to his intrinsic value as a rational being. In the verse preceding the one under consideration, and in that which follows, the same principle is laid down. Verse 15, ”He that smiteth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.”

Verse. 17, ”He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death.” If a Jew smote his neighbor, the law merely smote him in return; but if the blow was given to a _parent_, it struck the smiter dead. The parental relation is the _centre_ of human society. G.o.d guards it with peculiar care. To violate that, is to violate all. Whoever tramples on that, shows that _no_ relation has any sacredness in his eyes--that he is unfit to move among human relations who violates one so sacred and tender. Therefore, the Mosaic law uplifted his bleeding corpse, and brandished the ghastly terror around the parental relation to guard it from impious inroads.

Why such a difference in penalties, for the same act? Answer. 1. The relation violated was obvious--the distinction between parents and others self-evident, dictated by a law of nature. 2. The act was violence to nature--a suicide on const.i.tutional susceptibilities. 3. The parental relation then, as now, was the focal point of the social system, and required powerful safe-guards. ”_Honor thy father and thy mother_,” stands at the head of those commands which prescribe the duties of man to man; and throughout the Bible, the parental state is G.o.d's favorite ill.u.s.tration of his own relations to the human family. In this case, death was to be inflicted not for smiting a _man,_ but a _parent_--_a distinction_ made sacred by G.o.d, and fortified by a bulwark of defence. In the next verse, ”He that stealeth a man,” &c., the SAME PRINCIPLE is wrought out in still stronger relief. The crime to be punished with death was not the taking of property from its owner, but violence to an _immortal nature_, the blotting out of a sacred _distinction_--making MEN ”chattels.”

The incessant pains taken in the Old Testament to separate human beings from brutes and things, shows G.o.d's regard for this, his own distinction. ”In the beginning” he proclaimed it to the universe as it rose into being. Creation stood up at the instant of its birth, to do it homage. It paused in adoration while G.o.d ushered forth its crowning work. Why that dread pause and that creating arm held back in mid career and that high conference in the G.o.dhead? ”Let us make man in OUR IMAGE after OUR LIKENESS, and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth.” Then while every living thing, with land, and sea, and firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to swell the shout of morning stars--then G.o.d created man IN HIS OWN IMAGE; IN THE IMAGE OF G.o.d created he him.” This solves the problem, IN THE IMAGE OF G.o.d, CREATED HE HIM. This distinction is often repeated and always with great solemnity. In Gen. i. 26-28, it is expressed in various forms. In Gen.

v. 1, we find it again, ”IN THE LIKENESS OF G.o.d MADE HE HIM.” In Gen.

ix. 6, again. After giving license to shed the blood of ”every moving thing that liveth,” it is added, ”_Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for_ IN THE IMAGE OF G.o.d MADE HE MAN.” As though it had been said, ”All these creatures are your property, designed for your use--they have the likeness of earth, and their spirits go downward; but this other being, MAN, has my own likeness: IN THE IMAGE OF G.o.d made I man; an intelligent, moral, immortal agent, invited to all that I can give and he can be. So in Lev. xxiv. 17, 18, 21, ”He that killeth any MAN shall surely be put to death; and he that killeth a beast shall make it good, beast for beast; and he that killeth a MAN he shall be put to death.” So in Ps. viii. 5, 6, we have an enumeration of particulars, each separating infinitely MEN from brutes and things! 1. ”_Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.”_ Slavery drags him down among _brutes._ 2. _”And hast crowned him with glory and honor.”_ Slavery tears off his crown, and puts on a _yoke_. 3.

_”Thou madest him to have dominion_[A] OVER _the works of thy hands.”_ Slavery breaks his sceptre, and cast him down _among_ those works--yea, _beneath them_. 4. _”Thou hast put all things under his feet_.” Slavery puts HIM under the feet of an ”owner.” Who, but an impious scorner, dare thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate HIS IMAGE, and blaspheme the Holy One, who saith, _”Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto ME._”

[Footnote A: ”Thou madest him to have dominion.” In Gen. i. 28, G.o.d says to man, _”Have dominion_ over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth,” thus vesting in _every_ human being the right of owners.h.i.+p over the earth, its products and animal life, and in _each_ human being the _same_ right. By so doing G.o.d prohibited the exercise of owners.h.i.+p by man over _man_; for the grant to _all_ men of _equal_ owners.h.i.+p, for ever _shut_ out the possibility of their exercising owners.h.i.+p over _each other_, as whoever is the owner of a _man_, is the owner of his _right of property_--in other words, when one man becomes the property of another his rights become such too, his _right of property_ is transferred to his ”owner,” and thus as far as _himself_ is concerned, is annihilated.

Finally, by originally vesting _all_ men with dominion or owners.h.i.+p over property, G.o.d proclaimed the _right of all_ to exercise it, and p.r.o.nounced every man who takes it away a robber of the highest grade.

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