Part 65 (1/2)

An equally obvious deduction from the fact above referred to, is, that slaveholding is not necessarily sinful. The a.s.sumption of the contrary is the great reason why the modern abolitionists have adopted their peculiar course. They argue thus: slaveholding is under all circ.u.mstances sinful, it must, therefore, under all circ.u.mstances, and at all hazards, be immediately abandoned. This reasoning is perfectly conclusive. If there is error any where, it is in the premises, and not in the deduction. It requires no argument to show that sin ought to be at once abandoned. Every thing, therefore, is conceded which the abolitionists need require, when it is granted that slaveholding is in itself a crime. But how can this a.s.sumption be reconciled with the conduct of Christ and the apostles? Did they shut their eyes to the enormities of a great offence against G.o.d and man? Did they temporize with a henious evil, because it was common and popular? Did they abstain from even exhorting masters to emanc.i.p.ate their slaves, though an imperative duty, from fear of consequences? Did they admit the perpetrators of the greatest crimes to the Christian communion? Who will undertake to charge the blessed Redeemer and his inspired followers with such connivance at sin, and such fellows.h.i.+p with iniquity? Were drunkards, murderers, liars, and adulterers thus treated? Were they pa.s.sed over without even an exhortation to forsake their sins? Were they recognized as Christians? It can not be that slaveholding belongs to the same category with these crimes; and to a.s.sert the contrary, is to a.s.sert that Christ is the minister of sin.

This is a point of so much importance, lying as it does at the very foundation of the whole subject, that it deserves to be attentively considered. The grand mistake, as we apprehend, of those who maintain that slaveholding is itself a crime, is, that they do not discriminate between slaveholding in itself considered, and its accessories at any particular time or place. Because masters may treat their slaves unjustly, or governments make oppressive laws in relation to them, is no more a valid argument against the lawfulness of slaveholding, than the abuse of parental authority, or the unjust political laws of certain states, is an argument against the lawfulness of the parental relation, or of civil government. This confusion of points so widely distinct, appears to us to run through almost all the popular publications on slavery, and to vitiate their arguments. Mr. Jay, for example, quotes the second article of the const.i.tution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, which declares that ”slaveholding is a heinous crime in the sight of G.o.d,” and then, to justify this declaration, makes large citations from the laws of the several Southern States, to show what the system of slavery is in this country, and concludes by saying, ”This is the system which the American Anti-Slavery Society declares to be sinful, and ought therefore to be immediately abolished.” There is, however, no necessary connection between his premises and conclusion. We may admit all those laws which forbid the instruction of slaves; which interfere with their marital or parental rights; which subject them to the insults and oppression of the whites, to be in the highest degree unjust, without at all admitting that slaveholding itself is a crime.

Slavery may exist without any one of these concomitants. In p.r.o.nouncing on the moral character of an act, it is obviously necessary to have a clear idea of what it is; yet how few of those who denounce slavery, have any well-defined conception of its nature. They have a confused idea of chains and whips, of degradation and misery, of ignorance and vice, and to this complex conception they apply the name slavery, and denounce it as the aggregate of all moral and physical evil. Do such persons suppose that slavery, as it existed in the family of Abraham, was such as their imaginations thus picture to themselves? Might not that patriarch have had men purchased with his silver who were well clothed, well instructed, well compensated for their labor, and in all respects treated with parental kindness? Neither inadequate remuneration, physical discomfort, intellectual ignorance, moral degradation, is essential to the condition of a slave. Yet if all these ideas are removed from the commonly received notion of slavery, how little will remain. All the ideas which necessarily enter into the definition of slavery are deprivation of personal liberty, obligation of service at the discretion of another, and the transferable character of the authority and claim of service of the master.[263] The manner in which men are brought into this condition; its continuance, and the means adopted for securing the authority and claim of masters, are all incidental and variable. They may be reasonable or unreasonable, just or unjust, at different times and places. The question, therefore, which the abolitionists have undertaken to decide, is not whether the laws enacted in the slaveholding States in relation to this subject are just or not, but whether slaveholding, in itself considered, is a crime. The confusion of these two points has not only brought the abolitionists into conflict with the Scriptures, but it has, as a necessary consequence, prevented their gaining the confidence of the North, or power over the conscience of the South. When Southern Christians are told that they are guilty of a heinous crime, worse than piracy, robbery, or murder, because they hold slaves, when they know that Christ and his apostles never denounced slaveholding as a crime, never called upon men to renounce it as a condition of admission into the church, they are shocked and offended, without being convinced. They are sure that their accusers can not be wiser or better than their divine Master, and their consciences are untouched by denunciations which they know, if well founded, must affect not them only, but the authors of the religion of the Bible.

The argument from the conduct of Christ and his immediate followers, seems to us decisive on the point, that slaveholding, in itself considered, is not a crime. Let us see how this argument has been answered. In the able ”Address to the Presbyterians of Kentucky, proposing a plan for the instruction and emanc.i.p.ation of their slaves, by a committee of the Synod of Kentucky,” there is a strong and extended argument to prove the sinfulness of slavery, _as it exists among us_, to which we have little to object. When, however, the distinguished draughter of that address comes to answer the objection, ”G.o.d's word sanctions slavery, and it can not, therefore, be sinful,” he forgets the essential limitation of the proposition which he had undertaken to establish, and proceeds to prove that the Bible condemns slaveholding, and not merely the kind or system of slavery which prevails in this country. The argument drawn from the Scriptures, he says, needs no elaborate reply. If the Bible sanctions slavery, it sanctions the kind of slavery which then prevailed; the atrocious system which authorized masters to starve their slaves, to torture them, to beat them, to put them to death, and to throw them into their fish ponds. And he justly asks, whether a man could insult the G.o.d of heaven worse than by saying he does not disapprove of such a system? Dr. Channing presents strongly the same view, and says, that an infidel would be laboring in his vocation in a.s.serting that the Bible does not condemn slavery. These gentlemen, however, are far too clear-sighted not to discover, on a moment's reflection, that they have allowed their benevolent feelings to blind them to the real point at issue. No one denies that the Bible condemns all injustice, cruelty, oppression, and violence. And just so far as the laws then existing authorized these crimes, the Bible condemned them. But what stronger argument can be presented, to prove that the sacred writers did not regard slaveholding as in itself sinful, than that while they condemn all unjust or unkind treatment (even threatening), on the part of masters towards their slaves, they did not condemn slavery itself? While they required the master to treat his slave according to the law of love, they did not command him to set him free. The very atrocity, therefore, of the system which then prevailed, instead of weakening the argument, gives it tenfold strength. Then, if ever, when the inst.i.tution was so fearfully abused, we might expect to hear the interpreters of the divine will, saying that a system which leads to such results is the concentrated essence of all crimes, and must be instantly abandoned, on pain of eternal condemnation. This, however, they did not say, and we can not now force them to say it. They treated the subject precisely as they did the cruel despotism of the Roman emperors. The licentiousness, the injustice, the rapine and murders of those wicked men, they condemned with the full force of divine authority; but the mere extent of their power, though so liable to abuse, they left unnoticed.

Another answer to the argument in question is, that ”The New Testament does condemn slaveholding, as _practiced among us_, in the most explicit terms furnished by the language in which the sacred penman wrote.” This a.s.sertion is supported by saying that G.o.d has condemned slavery, because he has specified the parts which compose it and condemned them, one by one, in the most ample and unequivocal form.[264] It is to be remarked that the saving clause ”slaveholding _as it exists among us_,” is introduced into the statement, though it seems to be lost sight of in the ill.u.s.tration and confirmation of it which follow. We readily admit, that if G.o.d does condemn all the parts of which slavery consists, he condemns slavery itself. But the draughter of the address has made no attempt to prove that this is actually done in the sacred Scriptures.

That many of the attributes of the system as established by law in this country, are condemned, is indeed very plain; but that slaveholding in itself is condemned, has not been and can not be proved. The writer, indeed, says, ”The Greek language had a word corresponding exactly, in signification, with our word servant, but it had none which answered precisely to our term slave. How then was an apostle writing in Greek, to condemn our slavery? How can we expect to find in Scripture, the words 'slavery is sinful,' when the language in which it is written contained no term which expressed the meaning of our word slavery?” Does the gentleman mean to say the Greek language could not express the idea that slaveholding is sinful? Could not the apostles have communicated the thought that it was the duty of masters to set their slaves free?

Were they obliged from paucity of words to admit slaveholders into the Church? We have no doubt the writer himself could, with all ease, pen a declaration in the Greek language void of all ambiguity, proclaiming freedom to every slave upon earth, and denouncing the vengeance of heaven upon every man who dared to hold a fellow creature in bondage. It is not words we care for. We want evidence that the sacred writers taught that it was inc.u.mbent on every slaveholder, as a matter of duty, to emanc.i.p.ate his slaves (which no Roman or Greek law forbade), and that his refusing to do so was a heinous crime in the sight of G.o.d. The Greek language must be poor indeed if it can not convey such ideas.

Another answer is given by Dr. Channing. ”Slavery,” he says, ”in the age of the apostle, had so penetrated society, was so intimately interwoven with it, and the materials of servile war were so abundant, that a religion, preaching freedom to its victims, would have armed against itself the whole power of the State. Of consequence Paul did not a.s.sail it. He satisfied himself with spreading principles, which, however slowly, could not but work its destruction.” To the same effect, Dr.

Wayland says, ”The gospel was designed, not for one race or one time, but for all men and for all times. It looked not at the abolition of this form of evil for that age alone, but for its universal abolition.

Hence the important object of its author was to gain it a lodgment in every part of the known world; so that, by its universal diffusion among all cla.s.ses of society, it might quietly and peacefully modify and subdue the evil pa.s.sions of men; and thus, without violence, work a revolution in the whole ma.s.s of mankind. In this manner alone could its object, a universal moral revolution, be accomplished. For if it had forbidden the _evil_ without subduing the _principle_, if it had proclaimed the unlawfulness of slavery, and taught slaves to _resist_ the oppression of their masters, it would instantly have arrayed the two parties in deadly hostility throughout the civilized world; its announcement would have been the signal of a servile war; and the very name of the Christian religion would have been forgotten amidst the agitations of universal bloodshed. The fact, under these circ.u.mstances, that the gospel does not forbid slavery, affords no reason to suppose that it does not mean to prohibit it, much less does it afford ground for belief that Jesus Christ intended to authorize it.”[265]

Before considering the force of this reasoning, it may be well to notice one or two important admissions contained in these extracts. First, then, it is admitted by these distinguished moralists, that the apostles did not preach a religion proclaiming freedom to slaves; that Paul did not a.s.sail slavery; that the gospel did not proclaim the unlawfulness of slaveholding; it did not forbid it. This is going the whole length that we have gone in our statement of the conduct of Christ and his apostles, Secondly, these writers admit that the course adopted by the authors of our religion was the only wise and proper one. Paul satisfied himself, says Dr. Channing, with spreading principles, which, however slowly, could not but work its destruction. Dr. Wayland says, that if the apostles had pursued the opposite plan of denouncing slavery as a crime, the Christian religion would have been ruined; its very name would have been forgotten. Then how can the course of the modern abolitionists, under circ.u.mstances so nearly similar, or even that of these reverend gentlemen themselves be right? Why do not they content themselves with doing what Christ and his apostles did? Why must they proclaim the unlawfulness of slavery? Is human nature so much altered, that a course, which would have produced universal bloodshed, and led to the very destruction of the Christian religion, in one age, wise and Christian in another?

Let us, however, consider the force of the argument as stated above. It amounts to this: Christ and his apostles thought slaveholding a great crime, but they abstained from saying so, for fear of the consequences.

The very statement of the argument, in its naked form, is its refutation. These holy men did not refrain from condemning sin from a regard to consequences. They did not hesitate to array against the religion which they taught, the strongest pa.s.sions of men. Nor did they content themselves with denouncing the general principles of evil; they condemned its special manifestations. They did not simply forbid intemperate sensual indulgence, and leave it to their hearers to decide what did or what did not come under that name. They declared that no fornicator, no adulterer, no drunkard could be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. They did not hesitate, even when a little band, a hundred and twenty souls, to place themselves in direct and irreconcilable opposition to the whole polity, civil and religious, of the Jewish State. It will hardly be maintained that slavery was, at that time, more intimately interwoven with the inst.i.tutions of society than idolatry was. It entered into the arrangements of every family; of every city and province, and of the whole Roman empire. The emperor was the Pontifex Maximus; every department of the State, civil and military, was pervaded by it. It was so united with the fabric of the government that it could not be removed without effecting a revolution in all its parts.

The apostles knew this. They knew that to denounce polytheism, was to array against them the whole power of the State. Their divine Master had distinctly apprized them of the result. He told them that it would set the father against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; and that a man's enemies should be those of his own household. He said that he came not to bring peace, but a sword, and that such would be the opposition to his followers, that whosoever killed them, would think he did G.o.d service. Yet in view of these certain consequences, the apostles did denounce idolatry, not merely in principle, but by name. The result was precisely what Christ had foretold. The Romans, tolerant of every other religion, bent the whole force of their wisdom and arms to extirpate Christianity. The scenes of bloodshed, which century after century followed the introduction of the gospel, did not induce the followers of Christ to keep back or modify the truth. They adhered to their declaration, that idolatry was a heinous crime. And they were right. We expect similar conduct of our missionaries. We do not expect them to refrain from denouncing the inst.i.tutions of the heathen, as sinful, because they are popular, or intimately interwoven with society. The Jesuits, who adopted this plan, forfeited the confidence of Christendom, without making converts of the heathen. It is, therefore, perfectly evident that the authors of our religion were not withheld by these considerations, from declaring slavery to be unlawful. If they did abstain from this declaration, as is admitted, it must have been because they did not consider it as in itself a crime. No other solution of their conduct is consistent with their truth or fidelity.

Another answer to the argument from Scripture is given by Dr. Channing and others. It is said that it proves too much; that it makes the Bible sanction despotism, even the despotism of Nero. Our reply to this objection shall be very brief. We have already pointed out the fallacy of confounding slaveholding itself with the particular system of slavery prevalent at the time of Christ, and shown that the recognition of slaveholders as Christians, though irreconcilable with the a.s.sumption that slavery is a heinous crime, gives no manner of sanction to the atrocious laws and customs of that age, in relation to that subject.

Because the apostles admitted the masters of slaves to the communion of the church, it would be a strange inference that they would have given this testimony to the Christian character of the master who oppressed, starved, or murdered his slaves. Such a master would have been rejected as an oppressor, or murderer, however, not as a slaveholder. In like manner, the declaration that government is an ordinance of G.o.d, that magistrates are to be obeyed within the sphere of their lawful authority; that resistance to them, when in the exercise of that authority, is sinful,[266] gives no sanction to the oppression of the Roman emperors, or to the petty vexations of provincial officers. The argument urged from Scripture in favor of pa.s.sive submission, is not so exactly parallel with the argument for slavery, as Dr. Channing supposes. They agree in some points, but they differ in others. The former is founded upon a false interpretation of Rom. xiii: 1-3; it supposes that pa.s.sage to mean what it does not mean, whereas the latter is founded upon the sense which Dr. C. and other opponents of slavery, admit to be the true sense. This must be allowed to alter the case materially. Again, the argument for the lawfulness of slaveholding, is not founded on the mere injunction, ”Slaves, obey your masters,”

a.n.a.lagous to the command, ”Let every soul be subject to the higher powers,” but on the fact that the apostles did not condemn slavery; that they did not require emanc.i.p.ation, and that they recognized slaveholders as Christian brethren. To make Dr. Channing's argument of any force, it must be shown that Paul not only enjoined obedience to a despotic monarch, but that he recognized Nero as a Christian. When this is done, then we shall admit that our argument is fairly met, and that it is just as true that he sanctioned the conduct of Nero, as that he acknowledged the lawfulness of slavery.

The two cases, however, are a.n.a.logous as to one important point. The fact that Paul enjoins obedience under a despotic government, is a valid argument to prove, not that he sanctioned the conduct of the reigning Roman emperor, but that he did not consider the possession of despotic power a crime. The argument of Dr. C. would be far stronger, and the two cases more exactly parallel, had one of the emperors become a penitent believer during the apostolic age, and been admitted to the Christian church by inspired men, notwithstanding the fact that he retained his office and authority. But even without this latter decisive circ.u.mstance, we acknowledge that the mere holding of despotic power is proved not to be a crime by the fact that the apostles enjoined obedience to those who exercised it. Thus far the arguments are a.n.a.logous; and they prove that both political despotism and domestic slavery, belong in morals to the _adiaphora_, to things indifferent.

They may be expedient or inexpedient, right or wrong, according to circ.u.mstances. Belonging to the same cla.s.s, they should be treated in the same way. Neither is to be denounced as necessarily sinful, and to be abolished immediately under all circ.u.mstances and at all hazards.

Both should be left to the operation of those general principles of the gospel, which have peacefully ameliorated political inst.i.tutions, and destroyed domestic slavery throughout the greater part of Christendom.

The truth on this subject is so obvious that it sometimes escapes unconsciously from the lips of the most strenuous abolitionists. Mr.

Birney says: ”He would have retained the power and authority of an emperor; yet his oppressions, his cruelties would have ceased; the very temper that prompted them, would have been suppressed; his power would have been put forth for good and not for evil.”[267] Here every thing is conceded. The possession of despotic power is thus admitted not to be a crime, even when it extends over millions of men, and subjects their lives as well as their property and services to the will of an individual. What becomes then of the arguments and denunciations of slaveholding, which is despotism on a small scale? Would Mr. Birney continue in the deliberate practice of a crime worse than robbery, piracy, or murder? When he penned the above sentiment, he must have seen that neither by the law of G.o.d nor of reason is it necessarily sinful to sustain the relation of master over our fellow creatures; that if this unlimited authority be used for the good of those over whom it extends and for the glory of G.o.d, its possessor may be one of the best and most useful of men. It is the abuse of this power for base and selfish purposes which const.i.tutes criminality, and not its simple possession.

He may say that the tendency to abuse absolute power is so great that it ought never to be confided to the hands of men. This, as a general rule, is no doubt true, and establishes the inexpediency of all despotic governments, whether for the state or the family. But it leaves the morality of the question just where it was, and where it was seen to be, when Mr. Birney said he could with a good conscience be a Roman emperor, _i. e._ the master of millions of slaves.

The consideration of the Old Testament economy leads us to the same conclusion on this subject. It is not denied that slavery was tolerated among the ancient people of G.o.d. Abraham had servants in his family who were ”bought with his money,” Gen. xvii: 13. ”Abimeleck took sheep and oxen and men servants and maid servants and gave them unto Abraham.”

Moses, finding this inst.i.tution among the Hebrews and all surrounding nations, did not abolish it. He enacted laws directing how slaves were to be treated, on what conditions they were to be liberated, under what circ.u.mstances they might and might not be sold; he recognizes the distinction between slaves and hired servants, (Deut. xv: 18); he speaks of the way by which these bondmen might be procured; as by war, by purchase, by the right of creditors.h.i.+p, by the sentence of a judge, by birth; but not by seizing on those who were free, an offense punished by death.[268] The fact that the Mosaic inst.i.tutions recognized the lawfulness of slavery is a point too plain to need proof, and is almost universally admitted. Our argument from this acknowledged fact is, that if G.o.d allowed slavery to exist, if he directed how slaves might be lawfully acquired, and how they were to be treated, it is in vain to contend that slaveholding is a sin, and yet profess reverence for the Scriptures. Every one must feel that if perjury, murder, or idolatry had been thus authorized, it would bring the Mosaic inst.i.tutions into conflict with the eternal principles of morals, and that our faith in the divine origin of one or the other must be given up.

Dr. Channing says, of this argument also, that it proves too much. ”If usages, sanctioned under the Old Testament and not forbidden under the New, are right, then our moral code will undergo a sad deterioration.

Polygamy was allowed to the Israelites, was the practice of the holiest men, and was common and licensed in the age of the apostles. But the apostles no where condemn it, nor was the renunciation of it made an essential condition of admission into the Christian Church.” To this we answer, that so far as polygamy and divorce were permitted under the old dispensation, they were lawful, and became so by that permission; and they ceased to be lawful when the permission was withdrawn, and a new law given. That Christ did give a new law on this subject is abundantly evident.[269] With regard to divorce, it is as explicit as language can make it; and with regard to polygamy it is so plain as to have secured the a.s.sent of every portion of the Christian churches in all ages. The very fact that there has been no diversity of opinion or practice among Christians with regard to polygamy, is itself decisive evidence that the will of Christ was clearly revealed on the subject. The temptation to continue the practice was as strong, both from the pa.s.sions of men, and the sanction of prior ages, as in regard to slavery. Yet we find no traces of the toleration of polygamy in the Christian church, though slavery long continued to prevail. There is no evidence that the apostles admitted to the fellows.h.i.+p of Christians, those who were guilty of this infraction of the law of marriage. It is indeed possible that in cases where the converts had already more than one wife, the connection was not broken off. It is evident this must have occasioned great evil.

It would lead to the breaking up of families, the separation of parents and children, as well as husbands and wives. Under these circ.u.mstances the connection may have been allowed to continue. It is however very doubtful whether even this was permitted. It is remarkable that among the numerous cases of conscience connected with marriage, submitted to the apostles, this never occurs.

Dr. Channing uses language much too strong when he says that polygamy was common and licensed in the days of the apostles. It was contrary both to Roman and Grecian laws and usages until the most degenerate periods of the history of those nations. It was very far from being customary among the Jews, though it might have been allowed. It is probable that it was, therefore, comparatively extremely rare in the apostolic age. This accounts for the fact that scarcely any notice is taken of, the practice in the New Testament. Wherever marriage is spoken of, it seems to be taken for granted, as a well understood fact, that it was a contract for life between one man and one woman; compare Rom. vii: 2, 3. 1 Cor. vii: 1, 2, 39. It is further to be remarked on this subject, that marriage is a positive inst.i.tution. If G.o.d had ordained that every man should have two or more wives, instead of one, polygamy would have been lawful. But slaveholding is denounced as a _malum in se_; as essentially unjust and wicked. This being the case, it could at no period of the world receive the divine sanction, much less could it have continued in the Christian church under the direction of inspired men, when there was nothing to prevent its immediate abolition. The answer then of Dr. Channing is unsatisfactory, first, because polygamy does not belong to the same category in morals as that to which slaveholding is affirmed to belong; and secondly, because it was so plainly prohibited by Christ and his apostles as to secure the a.s.sent of all Christians in all ages of the church.