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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Defence of Virginia, by Robert L. Dabney
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: A Defence of Virginia
+       And Through Her, of the South, in Recent and Pending
+       Contests Against the Sectional Party
+
+Author: Robert L. Dabney
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2014 [EBook #47422]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DEFENCE OF VIRGINIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Katie Hernandez, Jason Isbell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    A
+
+    DEFENCE OF VIRGINIA,
+
+    [AND THROUGH HER, OF THE SOUTH,]
+
+    IN
+
+    RECENT AND PENDING CONTESTS AGAINST
+    THE SECTIONAL PARTY.
+
+    BY
+
+    PROF. ROBERT L. DABNEY, D.D.,
+
+    OF VIRGINIA,
+    LATE OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY.
+
+    NEW YORK:
+    E. J. HALE & SON, 16 MURRAY STREET.
+    1867.
+
+
+    Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867,
+
+    BY E. J. HALE & SON,
+
+    In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
+    the Southern District of New York.
+
+
+
+
+    CONTENTS.
+
+
+    CHAPTER I.
+    INTRODUCTORY                                                      9
+
+    CHAPTER II.
+    THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE                                          27
+
+    CHAPTER III.
+    LEGAL STATUS OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES                     61
+
+    CHAPTER IV.
+    HISTORY OF EMANCIPATION                                          79
+
+    CHAPTER V.
+    THE OLD TESTAMENT ARGUMENT                                       94
+      The Curse upon Canaan                                         101
+      Abraham a Slaveholder                                         104
+      Hagar Remanded to Slavery by God                              110
+      Slavery in the Laws of Moses                                  114
+      Slavery in the Decalogue                                      122
+      Objections to the Old Testament Argument                      124
+
+    CHAPTER VI.
+    THE NEW TESTAMENT ARGUMENT                                      146
+      Definition of Δουλος                                          146
+      Slavery often mentioned; yet not condemned                    149
+      Christ Applauds a Slaveholder                                 153
+      The Apostles Separate Slavery and its Abuses                  155
+      Slavery no Essential Religious Evil                           158
+      Slaveholders fully Admitted to Church-membership              161
+      Relative Duties of Masters and Slaves Recognized              167
+      Philemon and Onesimus                                         176
+      St. Paul Reprobates Abolitionists                             185
+      The Golden Rule Compatible with Slavery                       192
+      Was Christ Afraid to Condemn Slavery?                         198
+
+    CHAPTER VII.
+    THE ETHICAL ARGUMENT                                            209
+      Misrepresentations Cleared                                    213
+      The Rights of Man and Slavery                                 241
+      Abolitionism is Jacobinism                                    262
+      Labour of Another may be Property                             271
+      The Slave Received due Wages                                  273
+      Effects of Slavery on Moral Character                         276
+      Slavery and the African Slave Trade                           288
+      The Morality of Slavery Vindicated by its Results             293
+
+    CHAPTER VIII.
+    ECONOMICAL EFFECTS OF SLAVERY                                   295
+      Slavery and Republican Government                             297
+      Slavery and Malthusianism                                     303
+      Comparative Productiveness of Slave Labour                    317
+      Effects of Slavery in the South, compared with those of Free
+        Labour in the North                                         331
+      Effects of Slavery on Population, Disease, and Crime          340
+
+    CHAPTER IX.
+    CONCLUSION                                                      349
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+To the conquerors of my native State, and perhaps to some of her sons,
+a large part of the following defence will appear wholly unseasonable.
+A discussion of a social order totally overthrown, and never to be
+restored here, will appear as completely out of date to them as the
+ribs of Noah's ark, bleaching amidst the eternal snows of Ararat, to
+his posterity, when engaged in building the Tower of Babel. Let me
+distinctly premise, that I do not dream of affecting the perverted
+judgments of the great anti-slavery party which now rules the hour. Of
+course, a set of people who make success the test of truth, as they
+avowedly do in this matter, and who have been busily and triumphantly
+engaged for so many years in perfecting a plain injustice, to which
+they had deliberately made up their minds, are not within the reach of
+reasoning. Nothing but the hand of a retributive Providence can avail
+to reach them. The few among them who do not pass me by with silent
+neglect, I am well aware will content themselves with scolding; they
+will not venture a rational reply.
+
+But my purpose in the following pages is, first and chiefly, to lay
+this pious and filial defence upon the tomb of my murdered mother,
+Virginia. Her detractors, after committing the crime of
+destroying a sovereign and co-equal commonwealth, seek also to bury
+her memory under a load of obloquy and falsehood. The last and only
+office that remains to her sons is to leave their testimony for her
+righteous fame--feeble it may be now, amidst the din of passion and
+material power, yet inextinguishable as Truth's own torch. History
+will some day bring present events before her impartial bar; and then
+her ministers will recall my obscure little book, and will recognize
+in it the words of truth and righteousness, attested by the signatures
+of time and events.
+
+Again: if there is indeed any future for civilized government in what
+were the United States, the refutation of the abolitionist postulates
+must possess a living interest still. Men ask, "Is not the slavery
+question dead? Why discuss it longer?" I reply: Would God it were
+dead! Would that its mischievous principles were as completely a thing
+of the past as our rights in the Union in this particular are! But in
+the Church, abolitionism lives, and is more rampant and mischievous
+than ever, as infidelity; for this is its true nature. Therefore the
+faithful servants of the Lord Jesus Christ dare not cease to oppose
+and unmask it. And in the State, abolitionism still lives in its full
+activity, as Jacobinism; a fell spirit which is the destroyer of every
+hope of just government and Christian order. Hence, the enlightened
+patriot cannot cease to contend with it, until he has accepted, in his
+hopelessness, the _nefas de republica desperandi_. Whether wise and
+good men deem that this discussion is antiquated, may be judged from
+the fact that Bishop Hopkins (one of the most revered divines among
+Episcopalians) judged it proper, in 1864, and Dr. Stuart Robinson, of
+Louisville, (equally esteemed among Presbyterians,) in 1865, to put
+forth new and able arguments upon this question.
+
+It should be added, in explanation, that, as a son of Virginia, I have
+naturally taken her, the oldest and greatest of the slaveholding
+States, as a representative. I was most familiar with her laws. In
+defending her, I have virtually defended the whole South, of which she
+was the type; for the differences between her slave institutions and
+theirs were in no respect essential.
+
+The most fearful consequence of the despotic government to which the
+South is now subjected, is not the plundering of our goods, nor the
+abridgment of privileges, nor the death of innocent men, but the
+degrading and debauching of the moral sensibilities and principles of
+the helpless victims. The weapon of arbitrary rulers is physical
+force; the shield of its victims is usually evasion and duplicity.
+Again: few minds and consciences have that stable independence which
+remains erect and undebauched amidst the disappointments, anguish, and
+losses of defeat, and the desertion of numbers, and the obloquy of a
+lost cause. Hence it has usually been found, in the history of
+subjugated nations, that they receive at the hands of their conquerors
+this crowning woe--a depraved, cringing, and cowardly spirit. The
+wisest, kindest, most patriotic thing which any man can do for his
+country, amidst such calamities, is to aid in preserving and
+reinstating the tottering principles of his countrymen; to teach them,
+while they give place to inexorable force, to abate nothing of
+righteous convictions and of self-respect. And in this work he is as
+really a benefactor of the conquerors as of the conquered. For thus
+he aids in preserving that precious seed of men, who are men of
+principle, and not of expediency; who alone (if any can) are able to
+reconstruct society, after the tumult of faction shall have spent its
+rage, upon the foundations of truth and justice. The men at the North
+who have stood firmly aloof from the errors and crimes of this
+revolution, and the men at the South who have not been unmanned and
+debauched by defeat--these are the men whom Providence will call forth
+from their seclusion, when the fury of fanaticism shall have done its
+worst, to repair its mischiefs, and save America from chronic anarchy
+and barbarism; if, indeed, any rescue is designed for us. It is this
+audience, "few but fit," with which I would chiefly commune. They will
+appreciate this humble effort to justify the history of our native
+States, and to sustain the hearts of their sons in the hour of cruel
+reproach.
+
+    _Hampden Sidney, Virginia, June, 1867._
+
+
+
+
+A DEFENCE OF VIRGINIA.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+To the rational historian who, two hundred years hence, shall study
+the history of the nineteenth century, it will appear one of the most
+curious vagaries of human opinion, that the Christianity and
+philanthropy of our day should have given so disproportionate an
+attention to the evils of African slavery. Such a dispassionate
+observer will perceive that, while many other gigantic evils were
+rampant in this age, there prevailed a sort of epidemic fashion of
+selecting this one upon which to exhaust the virtuous indignation and
+sympathies of the professed friends of human amelioration. And he will
+probably see in this a proof that the Christianity and benevolence of
+the nineteenth century were not so superior, in wisdom and breadth, to
+those of the seventeenth and eighteenth, as the busy actors in them
+had persuaded themselves; but were, in fact, conceited, overweening,
+and fantastic.
+
+It will appear to him a still stranger fact, that this zeal against
+African slavery was so partial in its exhibition. Up to this day, not
+only the Southern States of the late American Union, but the
+Brazilian, Turkish, and Spanish empires, among civilized nations, and
+many barbarous people, have continued the explicit practice of
+slavery, in so stern a form, that the institution in the Confederate
+States was, by comparison, extremely mild. Yet, throughout the
+Northern States of America and Europe, it is upon the devoted heads of
+Southern masters almost exclusively that the vials of holy wrath are
+poured out. Renascent Spain is quite a pet among Yankees and
+Europeans, though tenaciously clinging, in her colonies, to a system
+of slavery at whose barbarities the public sentiment of these Southern
+States would shudder, and though persistently winking at the African
+Slave Trade in addition. Slaveholding Brazil is on most pleasing terms
+with the United States and the European governments, which vie in
+soliciting her commercial intercourse and friendship with most amiable
+suavity. But when the sounding lash of the self-constituted friend of
+man is raised to chastise "the wickedness of slavery," all Yankeedom
+and all Europe seem to think only of us sinners. And yet here, of all
+places where it prevailed, African bondage was most ameliorated and
+most justifiable! Indeed, not a few of these consistent reformers have
+ten-fold as much patience with that demon of slaveholders, the King of
+Dahomey, as with the benignant Christian master in Virginia; and go to
+that truculent savage to request him not to cut the throats of another
+thousand of his inoffensive slaves in a "grand custom," with far more
+of courtesy, forbearance, and amiability, than they can exercise
+towards us, when they come to reason with us touching the rights of
+our late peaceful and well-fed domestics. We see no reason for this
+partiality, but that the King of Dahomey is himself of that colour,
+which seems to be the only one acceptable to the tastes of this type
+of philanthropists. An Abolitionist poet has sung of our oppressing
+our brother man, because he was "guilty of a skin." To give the
+contrast, these persons act as though, in their view, the King of
+Dahomey's meritorious possession of the skin of approved colour, were
+enough to cover his multitude of sins! Now, if the rest of Christendom
+have determined to take slaveholders for their pet objects of abuse,
+we may justly demand of them, at least, to distribute their hard words
+more generally, and give all a share.
+
+This injustice is to be accounted for, in part, by the greater
+prominence which the late United States held before the world, making
+all their supposed sins more prominent; and in part by the zeal of our
+late very amiable and equitable partners, the Yankee people. They
+reserved their abuse and venom on this subject for their Southern
+fellow-citizens alone. They made it their business to direct the whole
+storm of odium, from abroad and at home, on our heads. They, having
+the manufacture of American books chiefly in their hands, took pains
+to fill Europe and their own country with industrious slanders against
+their own brethren: and so occupied the ear of the world with abuse of
+us, as to make men almost forget that there were any other
+slaveholders. For this they had two motives, one calculated, and the
+other passionate and instinctive. The latter was the sectional
+animosity which was bred by the very intimacy of their association
+under one government, with rival interests. The man who has learned to
+hate his brother, hates him, and can abuse him, more heartily than any
+more distant enemy. The deliberative motive was, to reduce the South
+to a state of colonial dependency upon themselves, and exclude all
+other nations from the rich plunder which they were accustomed to draw
+from the oppressed section, by means of the odium and misunderstanding
+which they created concerning us. The South was their precious gold
+mine, from which they had quarried, and hoped yet again to quarry,
+hoards of wealth, by the instruments of legislative and commercial
+jugglery. From this precious mine, they wished to keep other
+adventurers away by the customary expedient of spreading an odious
+character for moral _malaria_ and pestilential vices around it. It did
+not suit their selfish purposes, that Europe should know, that in this
+slaveholding South was the true conservative power of the American
+Government, the most solid type of old English character, the greatest
+social stability and purity, and above all, the very fountain of
+international commerce and wealth; lest Europe should desire to visit
+and to trade with this section for itself. And the readiest way to
+prevent this, was to paint the South to all the rest of the world, in
+the blackest colours of misrepresentation, so as to have us regarded
+as a semi-barbarous race of domestic tyrants, whose chief occupations
+were chaining or scourging negroes, and stabbing each other with
+bowie-knives. The trick was a success. The Yankee almost monopolized
+the advantages of Southern trade and intercourse.
+
+But the South should have been impelled by the same facts to defend
+its institutions before the public opinion of the civilized world; for
+_opinion_ is always omnipotent in the end, whatever prejudices and
+physical powers may oppose it. If its current is allowed to flow
+unchecked, its silent waters gradually undermine the sternest
+obstacles. This great truth men of thought are more apt to recognize
+than men of action. While the true statesman is fully awake to it, the
+mere politician is unconscious of its power; and when his
+expedients--his parties and his statutes--have all been silently swept
+away by the diffusion of abstract principles opposed to them, he
+cannot understand his overthrow. If the late Confederate States would
+have gained that to which they aspired, the position of a respectable
+and prosperous people among the nations of the world, it was extremely
+important that they should secure from their neighbours a more just
+appreciation of their institutions. A respectful and powerful appeal
+in defence of those institutions was due to our neighbours' opinions,
+unfair and unkind as they have been to us; and due to our own rights
+and self-respect.
+
+Our mere politicians committed an error in this particular, while we
+were still members of the United States, by which we should now learn.
+They failed to meet the Abolitionists with sufficient persistence and
+force on the radical question--the righteousness of African servitude
+as existing among us. It is true that this fundamental point has
+received a discussion at the South, chiefly at the hands of clergymen
+and literary men, which has evoked a number of works of the highest
+merit and power, constituting almost a literature on the subject. One
+valuable effect of this literature was to enlighten and satisfy the
+Southern mind, and to produce a settled unanimity of opinion, even
+greater than that which existed against us in other States. But such
+is the customary and overweening egotism of the Yankee mind, that none
+of these works, whatever their merit, could ever obtain general
+circulation or reading in the North. People there were satisfied to
+read only their own shallow and one-sided arguments, quietly treating
+us as though our guilt was too clear to admit of any argument, or we
+were too inferior to be capable of it. The consequence was, that
+although the North has made the wrongs of the African its own peculiar
+cause--its great master-question--it is pitiably ignorant of the facts
+and arguments of the case. After twenty-five years of discussion, we
+find that the staple of the logic of their writers is still the same
+set of miserable and shallow sophisms, which Southern divines and
+statesmen have threshed into dust, and driven away as the chaff before
+the whirlwind, so long ago, and so often, that any intelligent man
+among us is almost ashamed to allude to them as requiring an answer.
+When the polemic heat of this quarrel shall have passed away, and the
+dispassionate antiquary shall compare the literature of the two
+parties, he will be amazed to see that of the popular one so poor,
+beggarly, and false, and that of the unpopular one so manly,
+philosophic, and powerful. But at present, such is the clamour of
+prejudice, our cause has not obtained a hearing from the world.
+
+The North having arrogated to itself the name of chief manufacturer
+of literary material, and having chief control of the channels of
+foreign intercourse, of course our plea has been less listened to
+across the Atlantic than in America. The South has been condemned
+unheard. Well-informed men in Great Britain, we presume, are ignorant
+of the names and works of the able and dignified advocates to whom the
+South confidently and proudly committed her justification; and were
+willing to render their verdict upon the mere accusations of our
+interested slanderers. But while the United States yet existed
+unbroken, there was one _forum_, where we could have demanded a
+hearing upon the fundamental question: the Federal Legislature. From
+that centre of universal attention, our defence of the righteousness
+of the relation of master and slave, as existing among us, might have
+been spread before the public mind; and the abstract question having
+been decided by triumphant argument, the troubles of our Federal
+relations might possibly have been quieted. There were two courses,
+either of which might have been followed by our politicians, in
+defending our Federal rights against Abolitionism. One plan would have
+been, to exclude the whole question of slavery persistently from the
+national councils, as extra-constitutional and dangerous, and to
+assert this exclusion always, and at every risk, as the essential
+condition of the continuance of the South in those councils. The other
+plan was, to meet that abstract question from the first, as underlying
+and determining the whole subject, and to debate it everywhere, until
+it was decided, and the verdict of the national mind was passed upon
+it. Unfortunately, the Southern men did neither persistently. After
+temporary resistance, they permitted the debate; and then failed to
+conduct it on fundamental principles. With the exception of Mr.
+Calhoun, (whom events have now shown to have been the most far-seeing
+of our statesmen, notwithstanding the fashion of men to depreciate him
+as an "abstractionist" while he lived,) Southern politicians usually
+satisfied themselves with saying, that the whole matter was, according
+to the Constitution, one of State sovereignty; that Congress had no
+right to legislate concerning its merits; and that therefore they
+would not seem to admit such a right, by condescending to argue the
+matter on its merits. The premise was true; but the inference was
+practically most mischievous. If the Congress had no right to
+legislate about slavery, then it should not have been permitted to
+debate it. And Southern men, if they intended to make their stand on
+that ground, should have exacted the exclusion of all debate, at every
+cost. But this was perhaps impossible. The debate came; and, of
+course, the principles agitated ran at once back of the Constitution,
+to the abstract ethical question: "Is the holding of an African slave
+in the South a moral wrong in itself?" Southern men should have
+industriously followed them there; but they did not do it: and soon
+the heat and animosity of an aggressive and growing faction hurried
+the country beyond the point of calm consideration. A moment's
+reflection should have shown that the decisive question was the
+abstract righteousness of the relation of master and slave. The
+Constitution gave to the Federal Government no power over that
+relation in the States. True; but that Constitution was a compact
+between sovereign commonwealth: it certainly gave recognition and
+protection to the relation of master and slave; and if that relation
+is intrinsically unrighteous, then it protected a wrong. Then the
+sovereign States of the North were found in the attitude of protecting
+a wrong by their voluntary compact; and therefore it would have been
+the duty of all citizens of those States to seek, by all righteous
+means, the amendment or repeal of that compact. They would not,
+indeed, have been justified to claim all the benefits of the compact,
+and still agitate under it a matter which the compact excluded. But
+they would have been more than justified, they would have been bound
+to clear their skirts of the wrong, by surrendering the compact, if
+necessary. There was no evasion from the duty, except by proving that
+the Constitution did nothing unrighteous by protecting the relation;
+in other words, that the relation was not unrighteous. Again, on the
+subject of the "Higher Law," our conservative statesmen and divines
+threw up a vast amount of pious dust. This partially quieted the
+country for a time; but, as might have been foreseen, it was destined
+to be inevitably blown away. There _is a higher law_, superior to
+constitutions and statutes; not, indeed, the perjured and unprincipled
+cant which has no conscience against swearing allegiance to a
+Constitution and laws which it declares sinful, in order to grasp
+emoluments and advantages, and then pleads "conscience" for disobeying
+what it had voluntarily sworn to obey; but the everlasting law of
+right in the word of God. Constitutions and laws which contravene
+this, ought to be lawfully amended or repealed; and it is the duty of
+all citizens to seek it. Let this be applied to the Fugitive Slave
+Law. If the bondage was intrinsically unrighteous, then the Federal
+law which aided in remanding the fugitive to it, legalized a wrong. It
+became, therefore, the duty of all United States officers, who were
+required by statute to execute this law--not, indeed, to hold their
+offices and emoluments, and swear fidelity, and then plead
+conscientious scruples for the neglect of these sworn functions, (for
+this is a detestable union of theft and perjury with hypocrisy,)--but
+to resign those offices wholly, with their profits and their sinful
+functions. It would have become the duty of any private citizen, who
+might have been summoned by a United States officer, to act in a
+_posse_, guard, or any other way in enforcing this law, to decline
+obedience; and then, in accordance with Scripture, to submit meekly to
+the legal penalty of such a refusal, until the unrighteous law were
+repealed. But, moreover, it would have become the right and duty of
+these and all other citizens to seek the repeal of that law, or, if
+necessary, the abrogation of that Federal compact which necessitated
+it. But on the other hand, when we proved that the relation of master
+and slave is not unrighteous, and that therefore the Fugitive Slave
+Law required the perpetration of no wrong, and was constitutional, it
+became the clear moral duty of every citizen to concur in obeying it.
+
+Once more: the true key of the more commanding question of _free soil_
+was in the same abstract ethical point. If the relation of master and
+servant was unrighteous, and the institution a standing sin against
+God and human rights, then it was not to be extended at the mere
+dictate of convenience and gain. Although Northern men might be
+compelled to admit that, in the States, it was subject to State
+control alone, and expressly exempted from all interference of the
+Federal Government by the Constitution; yet, outside of the States,
+that Constitution and Government, representative as it was as a
+majority of free States, ought not to have been prostituted to the
+extension of a great moral wrong. Those free States ought, if their
+Southern partners would not consent to relinquish their right by a
+peaceable amendment of the Constitution, to have retired from the
+odious compact, and to have surrendered the advantages of the Union
+for conscience' sake. If, on the contrary, African slavery in America
+was no unrighteousness, no sin against human rights, and no
+contradiction to the doctrines of the Constitution, then the general
+teachings of that instrument concerning the absolute equality of the
+States and their several citizens under it, were too clear to leave a
+doubt, that the letter and spirit of the document gave the slaveholder
+just the same right to carry his slaves into any territory, with that
+of the Connecticut man to carry his clock-factory. Hence the ethical
+question, when once the slavery agitation became inevitable, should
+have been made the great question by us. The halls of Congress should
+have rung with the arguments, the newspaper press should have teemed
+with them. But little was done to purpose in this discussion, save by
+clergymen and literary men; and for reasons already indicated they
+were practically unheard. After it was too late to stem the torrent of
+passion and sectional ambition pouring against us, politicians did
+indeed awake to a tardy perception of these important views; but the
+eyes of the Northern people were then obstinately closed against them
+by a foregone conclusion.
+
+We have cited these recent and striking illustrations of the
+fundamental importance of the ethical discussion, to justify the task
+we have undertaken. Some may suppose that, as the United States are no
+more as they were, and slaveholding is absolutely and finally ended,
+the question is obsolete. This is a great mistake. The status of the
+negro is just beginning to develop itself as an agitating and potent
+element in the politics of America. It will still continue the great
+ground of contrast, and subject of moral strife, between the North and
+the South.
+
+We have attempted to indicate the potency of the slow and silent but
+irresistible influence of opinion over human affairs. Let our enemies
+claim the triumph without question in the field of opinion; let them
+continue to persuade mankind successfully that we were a people
+stained by a standing social crime; and we shall be continually
+worsted by them. In order to be free, we must be respected: and to
+this end we must defend our good name. We need not urge that
+instinctive desire for the good opinion of our fellow-men, and that
+sense of justice, which must ever render it painful to be the objects
+of undeserved odium. Instead, therefore, of regarding the discussion
+of the rightfulness of African slavery as henceforth antiquated, we
+believe that it assumes, at this era, a new and wider importance.
+While the swords of our people were fighting the battles of a
+necessary self-defence, the pens of our statesmen should have been no
+less diligent in defending us against the adverse opinion of a
+prejudiced world. Every opening should have been seized to disabuse
+the minds of Europeans, a jury to which we have hitherto had no
+access, although condemned by it. The discussion should everywhere
+have been urged, until public opinion was effectually rectified and
+made just to the Confederate States.
+
+At the first glance, it appears an arduous, if not a hopeless
+undertaking, to address the minds of such nations as the North and
+Great Britain in defence of Southern slavery. We have to contend
+against the prescriptive opinions and prejudices of years' growth. We
+assert a thesis which our adversaries have taken pains to represent as
+an impossible absurdity, of which the very assertion is an insult to
+the understanding and heart of a freeman. Ten thousand slanders have
+given to the very name of Southern slaveholder a colouring, which
+darkens every argument that can be advanced in his favour. Yet the
+task of self-defence is not entirely discouraging. Our best hope is in
+the fact that the cause of our defence is the cause of God's Word, and
+of its supreme authority over the human conscience. For, as we shall
+evince, that Word is on our side, and the teachings of Abolitionism
+are clearly of rationalistic origin, of infidel tendency, and only
+sustained by reckless and licentious perversions of the meaning of the
+Sacred text. It will in the end become apparent to the world, not only
+that the conviction of the wickedness of slaveholding was drawn wholly
+from sources foreign to the Bible, but that it is a legitimate
+corollary from that fantastic, atheistic, and radical theory of human
+rights, which made the Reign of Terror in France, which has threatened
+that country, and which now threatens the United States, with the
+horrors of Red-Republicanism. Because we believe that God intends to
+vindicate His Divine Word, and to make all nations honour it; because
+we confidently rely in the force of truth to explode all dangerous
+error; therefore we confidently expect that the world will yet do
+justice to Southern slaveholders. The anti-scriptural, infidel, and
+radical grounds upon which our assailants have placed themselves, make
+our cause practically the cause of truth and order. This is already
+understood here by thinking men who have seen Abolitionism bear its
+fruit unto perfection: and the world will some day understand it. We
+shall possess at this time another advantage in defending our good
+name, derived from our late effort for independence. Hitherto we have
+been little known to Europeans, save through the very charitable
+representations of our fraternal partners, the Yankees. Foreigners
+visiting the United States almost always assumed, that when they had
+seen the North, they had seen the country, (for Yankeedom always
+modestly represented itself as constituting all of America that was
+worth looking at.) Hence the character of the South was not known, nor
+its importance appreciated. Its books and periodicals were unread by
+Europeans. But now the very interest excited by our struggle has
+caused other nations to observe for themselves, and to find that we
+are not _Troglodytes_ nor _Anthropophagi_.
+
+Another introductory remark which should be made is, that this
+discussion, to produce any good result, must distinctly disclaim some
+extravagant and erroneous grounds which have sometimes been assumed.
+It is not our purpose to rest our defence on an assumption of a
+diversity of race, which is contradicted both by natural history and
+by the Scripture, declaring that "God hath made of one blood all
+nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." Nor does
+the Southern cause demand such assertions as that the condition of
+master and slave is everywhere the normal condition of human society,
+and preferable to all others under all circumstances. The burden of
+odium which the cause will then carry, abroad, will be immeasurably
+increased by such positions. Nor can a purpose be ever subserved by
+arguing the question by a series of comparisons of the relative
+advantages of slave and free labour, laudatory to the one part and
+invidious to the other. There has been hitherto, on both sides of this
+debate, a mischievous forgetfulness of the old adage, "comparisons are
+odious!" When Southern men thus argued, they assumed the disadvantage
+of appearing as the propagandists, instead of the peaceful defenders,
+of an institution which immediately concerned nobody but themselves;
+and they arrayed the self-esteem of all opponents against us by making
+our defence the necessary disparagement of the other parties. True,
+those parties have usually been but too zealous to play at this
+invidious game, beginning it in advance. We should not imitate them.
+It is time all parties had learned that the lawfulness and policy of
+different social systems cannot be decided by painting the special and
+exceptional features of hardship, abuse, or mismanagement, which
+either of the advocates may imagine he sees in the system of his
+opponent. The course of this great discussion has too often been this:
+Each party has set up an easel, and spread a canvas upon it, and
+drawn the system of its adversary in contrast with its own, in the
+blackest colours which a heated and angry fancy could discover amidst
+the evils and abuses imputed to the rival institution. The only
+possible result was, that each should blacken his adversary more and
+more; and consequently that both should grow more and more enraged.
+And this result did not argue the entire falsehood of either set of
+accusations. For, unfortunately, the human race is a fallen
+race--depraved, selfish, unrighteous and oppressive, under all
+institutions. Out of the best social order, committed to such hands,
+there still proceeds a hideous amount of wrongs and woe; and that, not
+because the order is unrighteous, but because it is administered by
+depraved man. For this reason, and for another equally conclusive, we
+assert that the lawfulness, and even the wisdom or policy of social
+institutions affecting a great population, cannot be decided by these
+odious contrasts of their special wrong results. That second reason
+is, that the field of view is too vast and varied to be brought fairly
+under comparison in all its details before the limited eye of man.
+First, then, if we attempt to settle the matter by endeavouring to
+find how much evil can be discovered in the working of the opposite
+system, there will probably be no end at all to the melancholy
+discoveries which both parties will make against each other, and so no
+end to the debate: for the guilty passions of men are everywhere
+perpetual fountains of wrong-doing. And second, the comparison of
+results must be deceptive, because no finite mind can take in all the
+details of both the wholes. Our wisdom, then, will be to take no
+extreme positions, and to make no invidious comparisons
+unnecessarily. It is enough for us to place ourselves on this
+impregnable stand; that the relation of master and slave is recognized
+as lawful in itself by a sound philosophy, and above all, by the Word
+of God. It is enough for us to say (what is capable of overwhelming
+demonstration) that for the African race, such as Providence has made
+it, and where He has placed it in America, slavery was the righteous,
+the best, yea, the only tolerable relation. Whether it would be wise
+or just for other States to introduce it, we need not argue.
+
+And in conclusion, we would state that it is our purpose to argue this
+proposition chiefly on Bible grounds. Our people and our national
+neighbours are professedly Christians; the vast majority of them
+profess to get their ideas of morality, as all should, from the Sacred
+Scriptures. A few speculative minds may reason out moral conclusions
+from ethical principles; but the masses derive their ideas of right
+and wrong from a "Thus saith the Lord." And it is a homage we owe to
+the Bible, from whose principles we have derived so much of social
+prosperity and blessing, to appeal to its verdict on every subject
+upon which it has spoken. Indeed, when we remember how human reason
+and learning have blundered in their philosophizings; how great
+parties have held for ages the doctrine of the divine right of kings
+as a political axiom; how the whole civilized world held to the
+righteousness of persecuting errors in opinion, even for a century
+after the Reformation; we shall feel little confidence in mere human
+reasonings on political principles; we shall rejoice to follow a
+steadier light. The scriptural argument for the righteousness of
+slavery gives us, moreover, this great advantage: If we urge it
+successfully, we compel the Abolitionists either to submit, or else to
+declare their true infidel character. We thrust them fairly to the
+wall, by proving that the Bible is against them; and if they declare
+themselves against the Bible (as the most of them doubtless will) they
+lose the support of all honest believers in God's Word.
+
+This discussion will therefore be, in the main, a series of
+expositions. The principles of scriptural exposition are simply those
+of common sense; and it will be the writer's aim so to explain them
+that they shall commend themselves to every honest mind, and to rid
+them of the sophisms of the Abolitionists.
+
+But before we proceed to this discussion we propose to devote a few
+pages to the exposition of the historical facts which place the
+attitude of Virginia in the proper light.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.
+
+
+This iniquitous traffick, beginning with the importation of negroes
+into Hispaniola in 1503, was first pursued by the English in 1562,
+under Sir John Hawkins, who sold a cargo at the same island that year.
+The news of his success reaching Queen Elizabeth, she became a partner
+with him in other voyages. Under the Stuart kings, repeated charters
+were given to noblemen and merchants, to form companies for this
+trade, in one of which, the Duke of York, afterwards James II., was a
+partner. The colony of Virginia was planted in 1607. The first cargo
+of negroes, only twenty in number, arrived there in a Dutch vessel in
+1620, and was bought by the colonists. All the commercial nations of
+Europe were implicated in the trade; and all the colonies in America
+were supplied, to a greater or less extent, with slave labour from
+Africa, whether Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, or Dutch. But
+England became, on the whole, the leader in this trade, and was
+unrivalled by any, save her daughter, New England.
+
+The happy revolution of 1688, which placed William and Mary on the
+throne, arrested for a time the activity of the royal company for
+slave trading, by throwing the business open to the whole nation. For
+one of the reforms, stipulated with the new government, was the
+abolition of all monopolies. But the company did not give up its
+operations; and it even succeeded in exacting from Parliament an
+indemnity of £10,000 _per annum_ for the loss of its exclusive
+privilege. But the most splendid triumph of British enterprise was
+that achieved by the treaty of Utrecht, 1712, between Queen Anne and
+Spain. By a compact called the _Asiento_ treaty, the Spanish monarch
+resigned to the English South Sea Company, the exclusive slave trade
+even between Africa and the Spanish colonies. Four thousand eight
+hundred slaves were to be furnished to the Spanish colonies annually,
+for thirty years, paying to the King of Spain an impost of
+thirty-three and a third dollars per head; but the company had the
+privilege of introducing as many more as they could sell, paying half
+duty upon them. The citizens of every other nation, even Spaniards
+themselves, were prohibited from bringing a single slave. The British
+Queen and the King of Spain became stockholders in the venture, to the
+extent of one-fourth each; the remainder of the stock was left to
+British citizens. And Anne, in her speech from the throne, detailing
+to her Parliament the provisions of the treaty of Utrecht,
+congratulated them on this monopoly of slave trading, as the most
+splendid triumph of her arms and diplomacy.[1] Meantime, the African
+Company, with private adventurers at a later day, plied the trade with
+equal activity, for furnishing the British colonies. Finally, in 1749,
+every restriction upon private enterprise was removed; and the slave
+trade was thrown open to all Englishmen; for, says the statute: "the
+slave trade is very advantageous to Great Britain." But every resource
+of legislation, and even of war, was employed during the eighteenth
+century to secure the monopoly of the trade to British subjects, and
+to enlarge the market for their commodity in all the colonies. To this
+end, the royal government of the plantations, which afterwards became
+the United States, was perseveringly directed. The complaint of Hugh
+Drysdale, Deputy Governor of Virginia, in 1726, that when a tax was
+imposed to check the influx of Africans, "the interfering interest of
+the African company has obtained the repeal of the law,"[2] was common
+to him and all the patriotic rulers of the Southern colonies.
+
+[Footnote 1: Bancroft, Hist. U. S., vol. iii., p. 232. Com. Boutwell,
+Slave Trade. Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 414.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 415.]
+
+Reynal estimates the whole number of negroes stolen from Africa before
+1776 at nine millions; Bancroft at something more than six millions.
+Of these, British subjects carried at least half: and to the above
+numbers must be added a quarter of a million thrown by Englishmen into
+the Atlantic on the voyage.[3] As the traffick continued in full
+activity until 1808, it is a safe estimate that the number of victims
+to British cupidity taken from Africa was increased to five millions.
+The profit made by Englishmen upon the three millions carried to
+America before 1776, could not have been less than four hundred
+millions of dollars. The negroes cost the traders nothing but
+worthless trinkets, damaged fire-arms, and New England rum: they were
+usually paid for in hard money at the place of sale. This lucrative
+trade laid the foundation, to a great degree, for the commercial
+wealth of London, Bristol, and Liverpool. The capital which now makes
+England the workshop and _emporium_ of the world, was in large part
+born of the African slave trade. Especially was this the chief source
+of the riches which founded the British empire in Hindostan. The South
+Sea and the African Companies were the prototypes and pioneers of that
+wonderful institution, the East India Company; and the money by which
+the latter was set on foot was derived mainly from the profitable
+slave-catching of the former. When the direct returns of the African
+trade in the eighteenth century are remembered; when it is noted how
+much colonial trade has contributed to British greatness, and when it
+is considered that England's colonial system was wholly built upon
+African slavery, the intelligent reader will be convinced that the
+slave trade was the corner-stone of the present splendid prosperity of
+that Empire.
+
+[Footnote 3: Ibid., vol. iii., pp. 411, 412.]
+
+But after the nineteenth century had arrived, the prospective impolicy
+of the trade,[4] the prevalence of democratic and Jacobin opinions
+imported from France, the shame inspired by the example of Virginia,
+with (we would fain hope) some influences of the Christian religion
+upon the better spirits, began to create a powerful party against the
+trade. First, Clarkson published in Latin, and then in English, his
+work against the slave trade, exposing its unutterable barbarities, as
+practised by Englishmen, and arguing its intrinsic unrighteousness.
+The powerful parliamentary influence of Wilberforce was added, and
+afterwards that of the younger Pitt. The commercial classes made a
+tremendous resistance for many years, sustained by many noblemen and
+by the royal family; but at length the Parliament, in 1808, declared
+the trade illicit, and took measures to suppress it. Since that time,
+the British Government, with a tardy zeal, but without disgorging any
+of the gross spoils with which it is so plethoric, wrung from the
+tears and blood of Africa, has arrogated to itself the special task of
+the catchpole of the seas, to "police" the world against the
+continuance of its once profitable sin. Its present attitude is in
+curious contrast with its recent position, as greedy monopolist, and
+queen of slave traders; and especially when the observer adverts to
+her activity in the Coolie traffick, that new and more frightful form,
+under which the Phariseeism of this age has restored the trade, he
+will have little difficulty in deciding, whether the meddlesome
+activity of England is prompted by a virtuous repentance, or by a
+desire to replace the advantages of the African commerce with other
+fruits of commercial supremacy.
+
+[Footnote 4: Speeches of Pitt and Fox, in Clarkson's Hist., pp. 315,
+339.]
+
+The share of the Colony of Virginia in the African slave trade was
+that of an unwilling recipient; never that of an active party. She had
+no ships engaged in any foreign trade; for the strict obedience of her
+governors and citizens to the colonial laws of the mother country
+prevented her trading to foreign ports, and all the carrying trade to
+British ports and colonies was in the hands of New Englanders and
+Englishmen. In the replies submitted by Sir William Berkeley,
+Governor, 1671, to certain written inquiries of the "Lords of
+Plantations," we find the following statement: "And this is the cause
+why no great or small vessels are built here; for we are most obedient
+to all laws, while the men of New England break through, and trade to
+any place that their interest leads them."[5] The same facts, and the
+sense of grievance which the colonists derived from them, are
+curiously attested by the party of Nathaniel Bacon also, who opposed
+Sir William Berkeley. When they supposed that they had wrested the
+government from his hands, Sarah Drummond, an enthusiastic patriot,
+exclaimed: "Now we can build ships, and like New England, trade to any
+part of the world."[6] But her hopes were not realized: Virginia
+continued without ships. No vessel ever went from her ports, or was
+ever manned by her citizens, to engage in the slave trade; and while
+her government can claim the high and peculiar honour of having ever
+opposed the cruel traffick, her citizens have been precluded by
+Providence from the least participation in it.
+
+[Footnote 5: Herring, Stat. at Large, vol. ii., p. 516.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Campbell's Virginia, p. 304.]
+
+The planting of the commercial States of North America began with the
+colony of Puritan Independents at Plymouth, in 1620, which was
+subsequently enlarged into the State of Massachusetts. The other
+trading colonies, Rhode Island and Connecticut, as well as New
+Hampshire (which never had an extensive shipping interest), were
+offshoots of Massachusetts. They partook of the same characteristics
+and pursuits; and hence, the example of the parent colony is taken
+here as a fair representation of them. The first ship from America,
+which embarked in the African slave trade, was the _Desire_, Captain
+Pierce, of Salem; and this was among the first vessels ever built in
+the colony. The promptitude with which the "Puritan Fathers" embarked
+in this business may be comprehended, when it is stated that the
+Desire sailed upon her voyage in June, 1637.[7] The first feeble and
+dubious foothold was gained by the white man at Plymouth less than
+seventeen years before; and as is well known, many years were expended
+by the struggle of the handful of settlers for existence. So that it
+may be correctly said, that the commerce of New England was born of
+the slave trade; as its subsequent prosperity was largely founded upon
+it. The Desire, proceeding to the Bahamas, with a cargo of "dry fish
+and strong liquors, the only commodities for those parts," obtained
+the negroes from two British men-of-war, which had captured them from
+a Spanish slaver.
+
+[Footnote 7: Winthrop's Journal, i., 254. Moore's Slavery in Mass.,
+pp. 5, 6.]
+
+To understand the growth of the New England slave trade, two connected
+topics must be a little illustrated. The first of these is the
+enslaving of Indians. The pious "Puritan Fathers" found it convenient
+to assume that they were God's chosen Israel, and the pagans about
+them were Amalek and Amorites. They hence deduced their righteous
+title to exterminate or enslave the Indians, whenever they became
+troublesome. As soon as the Indian wars began, we find the captives
+enslaved. The ministers and magistrates solemnly authorized the
+enslaving of the wives and posterity of their enemies for the crimes
+of the fathers and husbands in daring to defend their own soil. In
+1646, the Commissioners of the United Colonies made an order,[8] that
+upon complaint of a trespass by Indians, any of that plantation of
+Indians that should entertain, protect, or rescue the offender, might
+be seized by reprisal, and held as hostages for the delivery of the
+culprits; in failure of which, the innocent persons seized should be
+slaves, and be exported for sale as such. In 1677, the General Court
+of Massachusetts[9] ordered the enslaving of the Indian youths or
+girls "of such as had been in hostility with the colony, or had lived
+among its enemies in the time of the War." In the winter of 1675-6,
+Major Waldron, commissioner of the General Court for that territory
+now included in Maine, issued a general warrant for seizing,
+enslaving, and exporting every Indian "known to be a manslayer,
+traitor, or conspirator."[10] The reader will not be surprised to
+hear, that so monstrous an order, committed for execution to any or
+every man's irresponsible hands, was employed by many shipmasters for
+the vilest purposes of kidnapping and slave hunting. But in addition,
+in numerous instances whole companies of peaceable and inoffensive
+Indians, submitting to the colonial authorities, were seized and
+enslaved by publick order. In one case one hundred and fifty of the
+Dartmouth tribe, including their women and children, coming in by a
+voluntary submission, and under a general pledge of amnesty, and in
+another instance, four hundred of a different tribe, were shamelessly
+enslaved. By means of these proceedings, the numbers of Indian
+servants became so large, that they were regarded as dangerous to the
+Colony. They were, moreover, often untameable in temper, prone to run
+away to their kinsmen in the neighbouring wilderness, and much less
+docile and effective for labour than the "blackamoors." Hence the
+prudent and thrifty saints saw the advantage of exporting them to the
+Bermudas, Barbadoes, and other islands, in exchange for negroes and
+merchandise; and this traffick, being much encouraged, and finally
+enjoined, by the authorities, became so extensive as to substitute
+negroes for Indian slaves, almost wholly in the Colony.[11] Among the
+slaves thus deported were the favourite wife and little son of the
+heroic King Philip. The holy Independent Divines, Cotton, Arnold, and
+Increase Mather, inclined to the opinion that he should be slain for
+his father's sins, after the example of the children of Achan and
+Agag;[12] but the authorities probably concluded that his deportation
+would be a more profitable, as well as a harsher punishment. These
+shocking incidents will no longer appear incredible to the reader,
+when he is informed that the same magistrates sold and transported
+into foreign slavery two English children, one of them a girl, for
+attending a Quaker meeting;[13] while the adult ladies present were
+fined £10 each, and whipped.[14]
+
+[Footnote 8: Moore's Slavery in Mass., p. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Ibid., p. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Ibid., p. 47.]
+
+[Footnote 11: On the whole of above, see Moore, pp. 33-46.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Moore, p. 45.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Ibid., pp. 33, 34.]
+
+[Footnote 14: The following passage, from a late valuable letter of
+Thomas P. Devereux, Esq., of Halifax County, North Carolina, to the
+Governor of that State, gives us one _item_ of evidence as to the
+extent of this abominable usage of the "Pilgrim Fathers." See Raleigh
+Daily Sentinel, Dec. 12th, 1866: "It is worthy of note that, amongst
+my slaves, there was a large intermixture of Indian blood from the
+Pequots, brought from Massachusetts and sold in North Carolina, in the
+early part of the 18th century, and, up to the act of emancipation, I
+could, with tolerable certainty, detect the mixed race by their
+addiction to liquor and its effects upon them."]
+
+In pleasing contrast with these enormities, stands the contemporaneous
+legislation of the Colony of Virginia touching its Indian neighbours.
+By three acts, 1655 to 1657, the colonists were strictly forbidden to
+trespass upon the lands of the Indians, or to dispossess them of their
+homes even by purchase. Slaying an Indian for his trespass was
+prohibited. The Indians, provided they were not armed, were authorized
+to pass freely through the several settlements, for trading, fishing,
+and gathering wild fruits. It was forbidden to enslave or deport any
+Indian, no matter under what circumstances he was captured; and Indian
+apprentices or servants for a term of years could only be held as such
+by authority of their parents, or if they had none, of the
+magistrates.[15] Their careful training in Christianity was enjoined,
+and at the end of their terms, their discharge, with wages, was
+secured by law.
+
+[Footnote 15: Herring, Stat. at Large, vol. i., pp. 395, 415, 456.]
+
+The second, and more potent cause of development of the New England
+slave trade, was the commerce between those colonies and the West
+Indies. Each of the mother countries endeavoured to monopolize to
+herself all the trade and transportation of her own colonies. But it
+was the perpetual policy of Great Britain to intrude into this
+monopoly, which Spain preserved between herself and her colonies,
+while she jealously maintained her own intact. This motive prompted
+her systematic connivance at every species of illicit navigation and
+traffick of her subjects in those seas. The New England colonies were
+not slow to imitate their brethren at home; and although their
+maritime ventures were as really violations of the colonial laws of
+England, as of the rights of Spain, the mother country easily connived
+at them for the sake of their direction. The Spanish Main was
+consequently the scene of a busy trade during the seventeenth century,
+which was as unscrupulous and daring as the operations of the
+Buccaneers of the previous age. The only difference was, that the
+red-handed plunder was now perpetrated on the African villages instead
+of the Spanish, and for the joint advantage of the New England
+adventurers and the Spanish and British planters. At length, the
+treaty of Utrecht, in 1712, recognized this encroaching trade, and
+provided for its extension throughout the Indies.[16] New England
+adventure, as well as British, thus received a new _impetus_. The
+wine-staves of her forests, the salt fish of her coasts, the tobacco
+and flour of Virginia, were exchanged for sugar and molasses. These
+were distilled into that famous New England rum, which, as Dr. Jeremy
+Belknap, of Massachusetts, declared, was the foundation of the African
+slave trade.[17] The slave ships, freighted with this rum, proceeded
+to the coast of Guinea, and, by a most gainful traffick, exchanged it
+for negroes, leaving the savage communities behind them on fire with
+barbarian excess, out of which a new crop of petty wars, murders,
+enslavements, and kidnappings grew, to furnish future cargoes of
+victims; while they wafted their human freight to the Spanish and
+British Indies, Virginia, the Carolinas, and their own colonies. The
+larger number of their victims were sold in these markets; the less
+saleable remnants of cargoes were brought home, and sold in the New
+England ports. But not seldom, whole cargoes were brought thither
+directly. Dr. Belknap remembered, among many others, one which
+consisted almost wholly of children.[18]
+
+[Footnote 16: Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 231.]
+
+[Footnote 17: Moore's Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Moore, p. 68.]
+
+Thus, the trade of which the good ship Desire, of Salem, was the
+harbinger, grew into grand proportions; and for nearly two centuries
+poured a flood of wealth into New England, as well as no
+inconsiderable number of slaves. The General Court of Massachusetts
+recognized the trade as legal, imposing a duty of £4 per head on each
+negro sold in the province, with a drawback for those resold out of
+it, or dying in twelve months.[19] The weight of this duty is only
+evidence of a desire to raise revenue, and to discourage the
+settlement of numbers of negroes in Massachusetts; not of any
+disapproval of the traffick in itself, as a proper employment of New
+England enterprise. The government of the province preferred white
+servants, and was already aware of the unprofitable nature of African
+labour in their inhospitable climate; but the furnishing of other
+colonies with negroes was a favoured branch of commerce. The increase
+of negro slaves in Massachusetts during the seventeenth century was
+slow. But the following century changed the record.
+
+[Footnote 19: Idem, pp. 59, 60.]
+
+In 1720, Governor Shute states their numbers at two thousand. In 1754,
+a census of negroes gave four thousand five hundred; and the first
+United States census, in 1790, returned six thousand.[20]
+
+[Footnote 20: Moore, pp. 50, 51.]
+
+Meantime, the other maritime colonies of Rhode Island and Providence
+Plantations, and Connecticut, followed the example of their elder
+sister emulously; and their commercial history is but a repetition of
+that of Massachusetts. The towns of Providence, Newport, and New Haven
+became famous slave trading ports. The magnificent harbour of the
+second, especially, was the favourite starting-place of the slave
+ships; and its commerce rivalled, or even exceeded, that of the
+present commercial metropolis, New York. All the four original States,
+of course, became slaveholding.[21]
+
+[Footnote 21: Bancroft, vol. iii., ch. 24, does justice to the crimes
+of England against the Africans, and against her own colonies; but is
+absolutely silent touching the complicity of New England! And, as
+though this _suppressio veri_ were not enough, he proceeds to a
+studious _suggestio falsi_. Page 405th he says: "Of a direct voyage
+from Guinea to the coast of the United States, no journal is known to
+exist, though slave ships from Africa entered nearly every
+considerable harbour south of Newport." And, p. 410: "The English
+continental colonies, in the aggregate, were always opposed to the
+African slave trade." We have seen evidence, that Bancroft must have
+known that every American slaver which ever entered a port of the
+United States, was either from this same Newport, or other ports north
+of it. We shall see hereafter, that he must have known also, that
+Massachusetts was certainly not among that "aggregate" of the colonies
+which opposed the African slave trade. Yet, in this chapter, he
+endeavours expressly to produce that impression. See p. 408.]
+
+No records exist, accessible to the historian, by which the numbers of
+slaves brought to this country by New England traders can be
+ascertained. Their operations were mingled with those of Englishmen
+from the mother country. While the total of the operations of the
+latter, including their importations into the Spanish colonies, was
+greatly larger than that of the New Englanders, the latter probably
+sustained at least an equal share of the trade to the thirteen
+colonies, up to the time of the Revolution; and thenceforward, to the
+year 1808, when the importations were nominally arrested, they carried
+on nearly the whole. So that the presence of the major part of the
+four millions of Africans now in America, is due to New England. Some
+further illustrations will be given of the method and spirit in which
+that section conducted the trade. The number of The Boston Post-Boy
+and Advertiser for September 12th, 1763, contains the following:
+
+"By a gentleman who arrived here a few days ago from the coast of
+Africa, we are informed of the arrivals of Captains Morris, Ferguson,
+and Wickham, of this port, who write very discouraging accounts of the
+trade upon the coast; and that upwards of two hundred gallons of real
+rum had been given for slaves per head, and scarcely to be got at any
+rate for that commodity. This must be sensibly felt by this poor and
+distressed Government, _the inhabitants whereof being very large
+adventurers in the trade, having sent and about sending upwards of
+twenty sail of vessels_, computed to carry in the whole about nine
+thousand hogsheads of rum, a quantity much too large for the places on
+the coast, where that commodity has generally been vended. We hear
+that many vessels are also gone and going from the neighbouring
+Governments, likewise from Barbadoes, from which place a large cargo
+of rum had arrived before our informant left the coast, of which they
+gave two hundred and seventy gallons for a prime slave."
+
+When it is remembered that the Massachusetts ports were then small
+towns, the fact that they had more than twenty ships simultaneously
+engaged in the trade to the Guinea coast alone, clearly reveals that
+it was the leading branch of their maritime adventure, and main source
+of their wealth. The ingenuous lament of the printer over the
+increasing cost of "a prime slave," gives us the correct clue to the
+change in their views concerning the propriety of the trade. When the
+negro rose in value to two hundred gallons "of real rum" (the sable
+slave hunters were becoming as acute as Brother Jonathan himself,
+touching the adulterated article), the conscience of the holy
+adventurer began to be disturbed about the righteousness of the
+traffick. When the slave cost two hundred and fifty gallons, the
+scruples became troublesome; and when his price mounted up towards
+three hundred, by reason of the imprudence of the naughty man with his
+large cargo, from Barbadoes, the stings of conscience became
+intolerable. By the principles of that religion which "supposeth that
+gain is godliness,"[22] the trade was now become clearly wrong.
+
+[Footnote 22: St. Paul's description of Abolitionists, 1 Tim., vi.,
+1-5.]
+
+The following extracts are from the letter of instructions given by a
+leading Salem firm to the captain of their ship, upon its clearing for
+the African coast:[23]
+
+[Footnote 23: Felt's Salem, ii., 289, 290.]
+
+    "CAPTAIN----: Our brig, of which you have the command, being
+    cleared at the office, and being in every other respect complete
+    for sea, our orders are, that you embrace the first fair wind, and
+    make the best of your way to the coast of Africa, and there invest
+    your cargo in slaves. As slaves, when brought to market, like
+    other articles, generally appear to the best advantage; therefore
+    too critical an inspection cannot be paid to them before purchase,
+    to see that no dangerous distemper is lurking about them, to
+    attend particularly to their age, to their countenances, to the
+    straightness of their limbs, and, as far as possible, to the
+    goodness or badness of their constitution, etc., etc., will be
+    very considerable objects. Male or female slaves, whether full
+    grown or not, we cannot particularly instruct you about; and on
+    this head shall only observe that prime male slaves generally sell
+    best in any market."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Upon your return, you will touch at St. Pierre's, Martinico, and
+    call on Mr. John Mounreau for your further advice and destination.
+    We submit the conducting of the voyage to your good judgment and
+    prudent management, not doubting of your best endeavours to serve
+    our interest in all cases; and conclude with committing you to the
+    almighty Disposer of all events."
+
+The present commercial and manufacturing wealth of New England is to
+be traced, even more than that of Old England, to the proceeds of the
+slave trade, and slave labour. The capital of the former was derived
+mainly from the profits of the Guinea trade. The shipping which first
+earned wealth for its owners in carrying the bodies of the slaves, was
+next employed in transporting the cotton, tobacco, and rice which
+they reared, and the imports purchased therewith. And when the unjust
+tariff policy of the United States allured the next generation of New
+Englanders to invest the swollen accumulations of their slave trading
+fathers in factories, it was still slave grown cotton which kept their
+spindles busy. The structure of New England wealth is cemented with
+the sweat and blood of Africans.
+
+In bright contrast with its guilty cupidity, stands the consistent
+action of Virginia, which, from its very foundation as a colony,
+always denounced and endeavoured to resist the trade. It is one of the
+strange freaks of history, that this commonwealth, which was guiltless
+in this thing, and which always presented a steady protest against the
+enormity, should become, in spite of herself, the home of the largest
+number of African slaves found within any of the States, and thus,
+should be held up by Abolitionists as the representative of the "sin
+of slaveholding;" while Massachusetts, which was, next to England, the
+pioneer and patroness of the slave trade, and chief criminal, having
+gained for her share the wages of iniquity instead of the persons of
+the victims, has arrogated to herself the post of chief accuser of
+Virginia. It is because the latter colony was made, in this affair,
+the helpless victim of the tyranny of Great Britain and the relentless
+avarice of New England. The sober evidence of history which will be
+presented, will cause the breast of the most deliberate reader to burn
+with indignation for the injustice suffered by Virginia, and the
+profound hypocrisy of her detractors.
+
+The preamble to the State Constitution of Virginia, drawn up by George
+Mason, and adopted by the Convention June 29th, 1776, was written by
+Thomas Jefferson. In the recital of grievances against Great Britain,
+which had prompted the commonwealth to assume its independence, this
+preamble contains the following words: "By prompting our negroes to
+rise in arms among us; those very negroes whom, by an inhuman use of
+his negative, he had refused us permission to exclude by law."[24] Mr.
+Jefferson, long a leading member of the House of Burgesses, and most
+learned of all his contemporaries in the legislation of his country,
+certainly knew whereof he affirmed. His witness is more than confirmed
+by that of Mr. Madison,[25] who says: "The British Government
+constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to this
+infernal traffick." Mr. Jefferson, in a passage which was expunged
+from the Declaration of Independence by New England votes in the
+Congress, strongly stated the same charge. And George Mason, perhaps
+the greatest and most influential of Virginians, next to Washington,
+reiterated the accusation with equal strength, in the speech in the
+Federal Convention, 1787, in which he urged the immediate prohibition
+of the slave trade by the United States. See Madison Papers, vol.
+iii., pp. 1388-1398. A learned Virginian antiquary has found,
+notwithstanding the destruction of the appropriate evidences, which
+will be explained anon, no less than twenty-eight several attempts
+made by the Burgesses to arrest the evil by their legislation, all of
+which were either suppressed or negatived by the proprietary or royal
+authority. A learned and pious Huguenot divine, having planted his
+family in the colony, in the first half of the last century, bears
+this testimony: "But our Assembly, foreseeing the ill consequences of
+importing such numbers among us, hath often attempted to lay a duty
+upon them which would amount to a prohibition, such as ten or twenty
+pounds a head; but no governor dare pass such a law, having
+instructions to the contrary from the Board of Trade at home. By this
+means they are forced upon us, whether we will or not. This plainly
+shows the African Company hath the advantage of the colonies, and may
+do as it pleases with the ministry."[26] These personal testimonies
+are recited the more carefully, because the Vandalism of the British
+officers at the Revolution annihilated that regular documentary
+evidence, to which the appeal might otherwise be made. Governor
+Dunmore first, and afterwards Colonel Tarleton and Earl Cornwallis,
+carried off and destroyed all the archives of the colony which they
+could seize, and among them the whole of the original journals of the
+House of Burgesses, except the volumes containing the proceedings of
+1769 and 1772. The only sure knowledge which remains of those precious
+records is derived from other documents and fragmentary copies of some
+passages, found afterwards in the desks of a few citizens. The
+wonderfully complete collection of their laws edited by Hening, under
+the title of "Statutes at Large," was drawn from copies and
+collections of the acts which, having received the assent of the
+governors and kings, were promulgated to the counties as actual law.
+Of course the suppressed and negatived motions against the slave trade
+are not to be sought among these, but could only have been found in
+the lost journals of the House. But enough of the documentary evidence
+remains, to substantiate triumphantly the testimony of individuals.
+
+[Footnote 24: Code of Virginia, p. 36.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Madison Papers, iii., 1390.]
+
+[Footnote 26: Rev. P. Fontaine, Huguenot Family, pp. 348, 351.]
+
+The first act touching the importation of slaves, which was allowed by
+the royal governor and king, was that of the 11th William III., 1699,
+laying an impost of twenty shillings upon each servant or African
+slave imported. The motive assigned is the raising of a revenue to
+rebuild the Capitol or State House, lately burned down; and the law
+was limited to three years.[27] This impost was renewed for two
+farther terms of three years, by subsequent Assemblies.[28] Before the
+expiration of this period, the Assembly of 1705 laid a permanent duty
+of sixpence per head on all passengers and slaves entering the
+colony;[29] and this little burthen, the most which the jealousy of
+the British slave traders would permit, was the germ of the future
+taxes on the importation. This impost was increased by the Assembly of
+1732, to a duty of five _per centum ad valorem_, for four years.[30]
+Subsequent Assemblies continued this tax until 1740, and then doubled
+it, on the plea of the war then existing.[31] During the remainder of
+the colonial government, the impost remained at this grade, ten _per
+centum_ on the price of the slaves, and twenty _per centum_ upon
+those imported from Maryland or Carolina. As the all-powerful African
+Company in England was not concerned in maintaining a transit of the
+slaves from one colony to another, after they were once off their
+hands, they permitted the Burgesses to do as they pleased with the
+Maryland and Carolina importations. Here, therefore, we have an
+unconfined expression of the sentiments of the Assemblies; and they
+showed their fixed opposition to the trade by imposing what was
+virtually a prohibitory duty. In 1769, the House of Burgesses passed
+an act for raising the duty on all slaves imported, to twenty _per
+centum_.[32] The records of the Executive Department show that this
+law was vetoed by the king, and declared repealed by a proclamation of
+William Nelson, President of the Council, April 3d, 1771. The Assembly
+of 1772 passed the same law again, with the substitution of a duty of
+£5 per head, instead of the twenty _per centum_, on slaves from
+Maryland and Carolina;[33] and it received the signature of Governor
+Dunmore. It may well be doubted whether it escaped the royal veto.
+
+[Footnote 27: Hening, Stat. at Large, vol. iii., p. 193.]
+
+[Footnote 28: Idem, pp. 212, 233.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Idem, pp. 346, 492.]
+
+[Footnote 30: Hening, vol. iv., p. 319.]
+
+[Footnote 31: Hening, iv., 394, and v., 29, 92, 160, 318.]
+
+[Footnote 32: Hening, viii., 336.]
+
+[Footnote 33: Idem, 531.]
+
+But the House now proceeded to a more direct effort to extinguish the
+nefarious traffick. Friday, March 20th, 1772, it was[34] "Resolved,
+that an humble address be prepared to be presented to his Majesty, to
+express the high opinion we entertain of his benevolent intentions
+towards his subjects in the colonies, and that we are thereby induced
+to ask his paternal assistance in averting a calamity of a most
+alarming nature; that the importation of negroes from Africa has long
+been considered as a trade of great inhumanity, and under its present
+encouragement may endanger the existence of his American dominions;
+that self-preservation, therefore, urges us to implore him to remove
+all restraints on his Governors from passing acts of Assembly which
+are intended to check this pernicious commerce; and that we presume to
+hope the interests of a few of his subjects in Great Britain will be
+disregarded, when such a number of his people look up to him for
+protection in a point so essential; that when our duty calls upon us
+to make application for his attention to the welfare of this, his
+antient colony, we cannot refrain from renewing those professions of
+loyalty and affection we have so often, with great sincerity, made, or
+from assuring him that we regard his wisdom and virtue as the surest
+pledges of the happiness of his people."
+
+[Footnote 34: House Journal.]
+
+"Ordered, That a Committee be appointed to draw up an address to be
+presented to his Majesty, upon the said resolution." And a Committee
+was appointed of Mr. Harrison, Mr. Carey, Mr. Edmund Pendleton, Mr.
+Richard Henry Lee, Mr. Treasurer, and Mr. Bland.
+
+"Wednesday, April 1st, 1772: Mr. Harrison reported from the Committee
+appointed upon Friday, the twentieth day of last month, to draw up an
+address to be presented to his Majesty, that the Committee had drawn
+up an address accordingly, which they had directed him to report to
+the House; and he read the same in his place; which is as followeth,"
+etc. The address is so nearly in the words of the resolution, that the
+reader need not be detained by its repetition. The House agreed,
+_nemine contradicente_, to the address, and the same Committee was
+appointed to present an address to the Governor, asking him to
+transmit the address to his Majesty, "and to support it in such manner
+as he shall think most likely to promote the desirable end proposed."
+This earnest appeal met the fate of all the previous: Mammon and the
+African Company were still paramount at Court, over humanity and
+right. But the Revolution was near at hand, bringing a different
+redress for the grievance.
+
+On the 15th of May, 1776, Virginia declared her independence of Great
+Britain, and the Confederacy, following her example, issued its
+declaration on the 4th of July of the same year. The strict blockade
+observed by the British navy, of course arrested the foreign slave
+trade, as well as all other commerce. But in 1778, the State of
+Virginia, determined to provide in good time against the resumption of
+the traffick when commerce should be reopened, gave final expression
+to her will against it. At the General Assembly held October 5th,
+Patrick Henry being Governor of the Commonwealth, the following law
+was the first passed:
+
+    AN ACT FOR PREVENTING THE FARTHER IMPORTATION OF SLAVES.[35]
+
+[Footnote 35: Hening, v. ix., p. 471.]
+
+    "I. For preventing the farther importation of slaves into this
+    Commonwealth: _Be it enacted by the General Assembly_, That from
+    and after the passing of this act, no slave or slaves shall
+    hereafter be imported into this Commonwealth by sea or land, nor
+    shall any slaves so imported be bought or sold by any person
+    whatsoever.
+
+    "II. Every person hereafter importing slaves into this
+    Commonwealth contrary to this act, shall forfeit and pay the sum
+    of one thousand pounds for every slave so imported, and every
+    person selling or buying any such slaves, shall in like manner
+    forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred pounds for every slave so
+    bought or sold, one moiety of which forfeitures shall be to the
+    use of the Commonwealth, and the other moiety to him or them that
+    will sue for the same, to be recovered by action of debt or
+    information in any court of record.
+
+    "III. _And be it further enacted_, That every slave imported into
+    this Commonwealth, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this
+    act, shall, upon such importation, become free."
+
+The remaining sections of the law only proceed to exempt from the
+penalty citizens of the other United States, coming to live as actual
+residents with their slaves in the Commonwealth, and citizens of
+Virginia bringing in slaves from other States of the Union by actual
+inheritance.
+
+Thus Virginia has the honour of being the first Commonwealth on earth
+to declare against the African slave trade, and to make it a penal
+offence. Her action antedates by thirty years the much bepraised
+legislation of the British Parliament, and by ten years the earliest
+movement of Massachusetts on the subject; while it has the immense
+advantage, besides, of consistency; because she was never stained by
+any complicity in the trade, and she exercised her earliest
+untrammelled power to stay its evils effectually in her dominions.
+Thus, almost before the Clarksons and Wilberforces were born, had
+Virginia done that very work for which her slanderers now pretend so
+much to laud those philanthropists. All that these reformers needed to
+do was to bid the British Government go and imitate the example which
+Virginia was the first to set, among the kingdoms of the world. It is
+true that the first Congress of 1774, at Philadelphia, had adopted a
+resolution that the slave trade ought to cease; but this body had no
+powers, either federal or national; it was a mere committee; and its
+inspiration upon this subject, as upon most others, came from
+Virginia. In 1788, Massachusetts passed an act forbidding her citizens
+from importing, transporting, buying, or selling any of the
+inhabitants of Africa as slaves, on a penalty of fifty pounds for each
+person so misused, and of two hundred pounds for every vessel employed
+in this traffick. Vessels which had already sailed were exempted from
+all penalty for their present voyages.[36] It is manifest from the
+character of the penalties, that this law was not passed to be
+enforced; and the evidence soon to be adduced will show, beyond all
+doubt, that this is true. The act was one of those cheap tributes
+which Pharisaic avarice knows so well how to pay to appearances.
+Connecticut passed a very similar law the same year, prohibiting her
+citizens to engage in the slave trade, and voiding the policies of
+insurance on slave ships. The slave trade of New England continued in
+increasing activity for twenty years longer.
+
+[Footnote 36: Moore, Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 227.]
+
+It may be said, that if the government of Virginia was opposed to the
+African slave trade, her people purchased more of its victims than
+those of any other colony; and the aphorism may be quoted against
+them, that the receiver is as guilty as the thief. This is rarely true
+in the case of individuals, and when applied to communities, it is
+notoriously false. All States contain a large number of irresponsible
+persons. The character of a free people as a whole should be estimated
+by that of its corporate acts, in which the common will is expressed.
+The individuals who purchased slaves of the traders were doubtless
+actuated by various motives. Many persuaded themselves that, as they
+were already enslaved, and without their agency, and as their refusal
+to purchase them would have no effect whatever to procure their
+restoration to their own country and to liberty, they might become
+their owners, without partaking in the wrong of which they were the
+victims. Many were prompted by genuine compassion, because they saw
+that to buy the miserable creatures was the only practicable way in
+their reach to rescue them from their pitiable condition; for
+tradition testifies that often when the captives were exposed in long
+ranks upon the shore, near their floating prisons, for the inspection
+of purchasers, they besought the planters and their wives to buy them,
+and testified an extravagant joy and gratitude at the event. All
+purchasers were, perhaps, influenced partly by the convenience and
+advantage of possessing their labour. Had every individual in Virginia
+been as intelligent and virtuous as the patriots who, in the
+Burgesses, denounced the inhuman traffick, the colony might perhaps
+have remained without a slave, notwithstanding the two centuries of
+temptation during which its ports were plied with cargoes seeking
+sale. But a commonwealth without a single weak, or selfish, or bad
+man, is a Utopia. The proper rulers were forbidden by the mother
+country to employ that prohibitory legislation which is, in all
+States, the necessary guardian of the publick virtue; and it is
+therefore that we place the guilt of the sale where that of the
+importation justly belongs. Doubtless many an honourable citizen,
+after sincerely sustaining the endeavour of his Burgess to arrest the
+whole trade, himself purchased Africans, because he saw that their
+general introduction into the country was inevitable, without
+legislative interference; and his self-denial would only have
+subjected him to the severe inconveniences of being without slaves in
+a community of slaveholders, whilst it did not arrest the evil.
+
+The government of Virginia was unquestionably actuated, in prohibiting
+the slave trade, by a sincere sense of its intrinsic injustice and
+cruelty. Mr. Jefferson, a representative man, in his "Notes on
+Virginia," had given indignant expression to this sentiment. And the
+reprobation of that national wrong, with regret for the presence of
+the African on the soil, was the universal feeling of that generation
+which succeeded the Revolution; while they firmly asserted the
+rightfulness of that slavery which they had inherited. But human
+motives are always complex; and along with the moral disapprobation
+for the crime against Africa, the Burgesses felt other motives, which,
+although more personal, were right and proper. They were sober, wise
+and practical men, who felt that to protect the rights, purity, and
+prosperity of their own country and posterity, was more properly
+their task, than to plead the wrongs of a distant and alien people,
+great although those wrongs might be. They deprecated the slave trade,
+because it was peopling their soil so largely with an inferior and
+savage race, incapable of union, instead of with civilized Englishmen.
+This was precisely their apprehension of the enormous wrong done the
+colony by the mother country. They understood also the deep political
+motive which combined with the lust of gain to prompt the relentless
+policy of the Home Government. With it, the familiar argument was:
+"Let us stock the plantations plentifully with Africans, not only that
+they may be good customers for our manufactures, and producers for our
+commerce; but that they may remain dependent and submissive. An
+Englishman who emigrates, becomes the bold assertor of popular and
+colonial rights; but the negro is only fit for bondage." For the same
+reason, the colonies felt that the forcing of the Africans upon them
+was as much a political as a social wrong. But that righteous
+Providence, whose glory it is to make the crimes of the designing
+their own punishment, employed African slavery in the Southern
+colonies as a potent influence in forming the character of the
+Southern gentleman, without whose high spirit, independence, and
+chivalry, America would never have won her freedom from British rule.
+
+This contrast between the policy and principles of Virginia and of the
+New England colonies will be concluded with two evidences. The one is
+presented in the history of the Declaration of Independence. Mr.
+Jefferson, the author, states that he had inserted in the enumeration
+of grievances against the King of Great Britain, a paragraph strongly
+reprobating his arbitrary support of the slave trade, against the
+remonstrances of some of the colonies. When the Congress discussed the
+paper, this paragraph was struck out, "in complaisance," he declares,
+"to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain
+the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to
+continue it. Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little
+tender under these censures; for though their people had very few
+slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of
+them to others."[37] Thus New England assisted to expunge from that
+immortal paper a testimony against the slave trade, which Virginia
+endeavoured to place there.
+
+[Footnote 37: Jefferson's Correspondence, vol i., p. 15.]
+
+The other evidence is presented by a case much more practical. In the
+Convention of 1787, which framed the Constitution of the United
+States, two questions concerning African slaves caused dissension.
+Upon the supreme right of the States over the whole subject of slavery
+within their own dominions, upon the recognition of slaves as property
+protected by the federal laws, wherever slavery existed, and upon the
+fugitive slave law, not a voice was raised in opposition. But the
+Convention presumed (what subsequent history did not confirm,) that
+the main expenses of the federal government would be met by direct
+taxation; and some principle was to be adopted, for determining how
+slaves should rank with freemen, in assessing capitation taxes, and
+apportioning representation. The other question of difficulty was the
+suppression of the African slave trade, which, upon the return of
+peace, had been actively revived by New England, with the connivance
+of Carolina and Georgia. The Southern States, who expected to have
+nearly the whole tax on slaves to pay, desired to rate them very low;
+some members proposed that five slaves should count as equal to only
+one white freeman; others, that three slaves should count for one. The
+New England colonies generally desired to make a negro count as a
+white man, both for representation and taxation! After much
+difference, the majority of the Convention agreed to a middle
+conclusion proposed by Mr. Madison, that five negroes should count for
+three persons.[38] But the other question was not so easily arranged.
+The Committee of eleven appointed to draw up a first draught of a
+constitution had proposed that in Art. vii., § 4, of their draught,
+Congress should be prohibited from laying any import duty on African
+slaves brought into the country. The effect of this, so far as the
+federal government was concerned, would be to legalize the slave trade
+forever, and protect it from all burdens.[39] Maryland (by her
+legislature, then sitting,) to her immortal honour, and Pennsylvania
+and Virginia, exhibited a determination to change this section, so as
+to arrest the trade through the action of the federal government,
+either by prohibition or tax. The New England States, South Carolina,
+and Georgia, opposed them, and advocated the original section,
+assigning various grounds. The difference threatened to make shipwreck
+of the whole work of the Convention, when Gouverneur Morris adroitly
+proposed to commit the subject, along with that of the proposed
+navigation law, in order that disagreeing parties might be induced, by
+private conference, to combine mutual concessions into a sort of
+bargain. The subjects were accordingly committed to a Committee of one
+from each State. This Committee reported, August 24th, "in favour of
+not allowing Congress to prohibit the importation of slaves before
+1800, but giving them power to impose a duty at a rate not exceeding
+the average of other imports." South Carolina (through General
+Pinckney) moved to prolong the importation from 1800 to 1808, _and
+Massachusetts_ (through Mr. Gorham) _seconded the motion_. It was then
+passed, as last proposed, _New Hampshire_, _Massachusetts_,
+_Connecticut_, (the only New England States then present,) Maryland,
+North Carolina, and South Carolina, voting in the affirmative, and New
+Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia in the negative.[40] The
+maritime States soon after gained their point, of authorizing Congress
+to pass, by a majority vote, a navigation law for their advantage.
+
+[Footnote 38: Madison Papers, v. i., pp. 422-425.]
+
+[Footnote 39: Ibid., v. ii., p. 1234.]
+
+[Footnote 40: Madison Papers, v. iii., pp. 1398 _et seq._]
+
+Thus, by the assistance of New England, the iniquities of the African
+slave trade, and the influx of that alien and savage race into
+America, were prolonged from the institution of the federal government
+until 1808. Is it said, that New England had at this time no interest
+in slavery, did not value it, and was already engaged in removing it
+at home? This is true; and it is so much the worse for her historical
+position. It only shows that she desired to fix that institution
+which she had ascertained to be a curse to her, upon her neighbours,
+for the sake of keeping open twenty years longer an infamous but
+gainful employment, and of securing a legislative bounty to her
+shipping. In other words, her policy was simply mercenary. And these
+votes for prolonging the slave trade effectually rob her of credit for
+emancipation at home; proving beyond all peradventure, that the latter
+measure was wholly prompted by her sense of her own interests, and not
+of the rights of the negro. For if the latter motive had governed,
+must it not have made her the equal opponent of the increase of
+slavery in Carolina and Georgia?
+
+But the agency of New England in that increase was still more active
+and direct. As though to "make hay while the sun shone," the people of
+that section renewed their activity on the African coast, with a
+diligence continually increasing up to 1808. Carey, in his work upon
+the slave trade, estimates the importations into the thirteen colonies
+between 1771 and 1790, (nineteen years,) at thirty-four thousand; but
+that between the institution of the federal government and 1808, he
+places at seventy thousand. His estimate here is unquestionably far
+too low; because forty thousand were introduced at the port of
+Charleston, South Carolina, alone, the last four years;[41] and within
+the years 1806 and 1807, there were six hundred arrivals of New
+England slavers at that place.[42] The latter fact shows that those
+States must have possessed nearly the whole traffick. And the former
+bears out Mr. De Bow, in enlarging the total of importations under
+the federal government to one hundred and twenty-five thousand, at
+least. For the average at one port was ten thousand per year. In 1860,
+there were ten-fold as many Africans in the United States as had been
+originally brought thither from Africa. But as many of these had been
+multiplying for four, or even five generations, this rate of increase
+is too large to assume for the importations of 1800, whose descendants
+had only come to the third generation. Assuming the half as nearly
+correct, which seems a moderate estimate, we find their increase
+five-fold. So that there were, in 1860, six hundred and twenty-five
+thousand more slaves in the United States than would have been found
+here, had not New England's cruelty and avarice assisted to prolong
+the slave trade nineteen years after Virginia and the federal
+government would otherwise have arrested it.
+
+[Footnote 41: De Bow, Compend. of Census, 1850, pp. 83, 84.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Com. Boutwell.]
+
+After the British, and even after the other governments of Europe, had
+abolished the trade in name, it continued with a vast volume. Whereas
+at the time of the abolition, in 1808, eighty-five thousand slaves
+were taken from Africa annually, nearly fifty thousand annually were
+still carried, as late as 1847, to Brazil and the Spanish Indies.[43]
+In this illicit trade, no Virginian (and, indeed, no Southern) ship or
+shipmaster has ever been in a single case implicated, although our
+State had meantime begun no inconsiderable career of maritime
+adventure. But adventurers from New England ports and New York were
+continually found sharing the lion's portion of the foul spoils. And
+to the latest reclamations of the British Government upon the Brazilian,
+for violations of the treaties and laws against the slave trade upon the
+extended shores of that empire, the answer of its noble Emperor has
+still been, that if Britain would find the real culprits, she must go to
+the ports of Boston and New York to seek them.[44]
+
+[Footnote 43: De Bow, p. 84.]
+
+[Footnote 44: Journal do Commercio, (Rio,) May 26, 1856.]
+
+But one more fact remains: When the late Confederate Government
+adopted a constitution, although it was composed exclusively of
+slaveholding States, it voluntarily did what the United States has
+never done: it placed an absolute prohibition of the foreign slave
+trade in its organic law.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+LEGAL STATUS OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+
+It has been a favourite and persistent assertion of Abolitionists,
+that slavery in America was an exceptional institution, and contrary
+to the law of nature and nations. They represent it as owing its
+existence solely to the _lex loci_ of the States where it was
+legalized by their own legislation; and hence they draw the
+conclusion, that the moment a slave passed out of one of these States
+into a free State, or into the territories of the United States, his
+bondage terminated of itself. Hence, also, they argue that
+slaveholders had no right to the protection of that species of
+property in the territories, which were the common possession of the
+citizens of all the States; and that the federal government could not
+properly permit the growth of, or recognize, new slave States. Their
+party cry was: "Freedom is national; slavery is local." It is plain
+that this proposition is the premise necessary to all the above
+assumptions. It will now be shown that this proposition is untrue.
+Slavery in the United States, instead of being the mere creature of
+_lex loci_, was founded on a basis as broad as that of the American
+Union, was in full accordance with the law of nature and nations as
+then recognized by the States and the federal government, and had
+universal recognition by the force of general law. The exclusion of
+slavery from any State was legally the exception, owing its validity
+purely to the _lex loci_, and to the recognized sovereignty of the
+States over their own local affairs. Hence, the rights of slaveholders
+stood valid, of course, in all the common territories of the United
+States, and everywhere, save where the sovereignty of a
+non-slaveholding State arrested them within its own borders. This
+representation is established by the following facts:
+
+First. When the federal government was formed, all the family of
+European nations was slaveholding; and they all alike held the
+Africans as unquestioned and legitimate subjects of bondage. The slave
+trade was held by publick law as legitimate as the trade in corn. It
+was the subject of treaty stipulations between the several powers; and
+slave trading companies were formally chartered and protected by all
+the leading powers. Slaves were declared by the English judges to be
+merchandise.[45] They were universally held legal prize of war when
+taken on the high seas.[46] They were recognized subjects of
+reclamation in forming and executing treaties. Thus, not to go outside
+of our own history, we find General Washington, in 1783, by order of
+Congress, remonstrating with the British commander evacuating New York
+city, because certain officers of the retiring forces carried away
+with them the fugitive slaves of American citizens; and the latter was
+compelled to surrender the attempt, as an unauthorized spoliation of
+property.[47] In 1788, the Government of the United States claimed of
+Spain the return of fugitive slaves from the Spanish colony of
+Florida;[48] and our government promised, in return, the rendition of
+Spanish slaves found in the United States. It is well known that the
+treaty of the United States with Great Britain, negotiated by Mr. Jay,
+and ratified by President Washington, and the treaty of Ghent, in
+1815, both secured indemnities for slaves of American citizens
+abducted during the two wars; thus treating them as property under the
+protection of national law in America, and of the law of nations. In
+face of this array of facts, we boldly ask, with what face it can be
+asserted that slavery was not recognized by international law? Whether
+it is not as consonant with the law of nature as of nations, will
+appear at another place.
+
+[Footnote 45: Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 414.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Moore's Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 162.]
+
+[Footnote 47: Justice Campbell, in Howard, 19th, Dred Scott Case.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Idem.]
+
+Second. During the whole planting and growth of the British colonies
+in America, and at the time when they passed from that government into
+the federal Union, the Empire of Great Britain was slaveholding in all
+its parts. The obvious consequence is, that the government formed by
+the thirteen colonies in a part of the territory of that empire,
+inherited the legal condition of their mother, in this particular. In
+seceding from that empire, they brought away the slaveholding
+_status_; and this subsisted _ipso facto_, except where it was changed
+by the _lex loci_. All the original territory of the American Union
+was slave territory, as was that subsequently acquired from France.
+Hence slave owners of course possessed their rights in all this
+territory, unless they were expressly restrained by special
+legislation of the States, sovereign each one within its own borders.
+The consequence cannot be denied, if the premise be admitted. Let the
+reader consider the following evidences of it:
+
+In 1772, only four years before the Declaration of Independence, Lord
+Mansfield, in the Court of King's Bench, decided the famous Somersett
+case, by which, it has usually been asserted, slavery was forever
+terminated in England, and the principle was settled that this
+relation was inconsistent with her free laws. Mr. Stewart, a citizen
+of Virginia, going to England on business, carried with him a negro
+slave, Somersett, whom he had bought in Jamaica. After a time he
+indicated a purpose to return home, carrying his slave with him;
+whereupon the negro absconded. His master had him seized, and placed
+on board a ship in the Thames, to be forcibly carried to Jamaica and
+sold. The negro then sued out an application for _habeas corpus_,
+which being argued at a previous term, was finally decided by Lord
+Mansfield, at the Trinity term, 1772. The true extent of that decision
+will hereafter be shown. Our purpose here is to cite the admissions
+made by the court, as to the existing state of English laws.[49] It is
+noticeable, that this tribunal exhibited a great reluctance to decide
+the case, declaring that it was attended with great, and almost
+inextricable difficulties, and that Lord Mansfield proposed to evade
+a decision by recommending a compromise between Mr. Stewart and the
+black. This not being done, the court stated that there were then
+fifteen thousand negro slaves in England, worth not less than seven
+hundred thousand pounds sterling. It also recognized the decisions of
+Sir Philip Yorke, and Lord Chief Justice Talbot, confirmed in 1749, by
+that of the chancellor, Lord Hardewicke, that if a slave, brought by
+his master to England, should be detained from him, an action of
+_trover_ for his recovery would lie; and the decision of Lord Talbot,
+that a negro slave brought by his master to England from a colony, or
+baptized by the clergy, did not thereby gain his liberty; and the
+opinion of the latter that while the Statute of Tenures had abolished
+manorial villeinage, a white man might still become a _villein in
+gross_, by the laws of England.[50] The court declared farther, that
+the slave property of a debtor was undoubtedly liable to action in the
+English courts, to recover the sums due a creditor. But after all
+these admissions, which clearly amount to a recognition of the fact
+that England itself was then by law a slaveholding country, Lord
+Mansfield proceeds to settle the principle (the only one, as he
+carefully declares, to which his decision extends) that the power of
+the writ of _habeas corpus_, not being limited to free persons by
+express statute, should, as he thinks, in England be extended to
+slaves, when they invoke it, and should be held to override the rights
+of the master under the laws; because those rights were now regarded
+as odious and excessive by current publick opinion. Such, and no more,
+is the extent of this much be praised, and much misunderstood
+decision! It is plain to common sense, that if it is not an instance
+of the judicial abuse of making, instead of expounding, law, it only
+establishes the fact that the laws of slaveholding England were then
+in a ridiculously inconsistent state.
+
+[Footnote 49: See, on all the following statements from Lord
+Mansfield, Lofft's Reports, 12th Geo. 3d, pp. 1, 8, 17, 18, etc.]
+
+[Footnote 50: What the _villein in gross_ was, may be learned from the
+following, of Bracton, Lib. iv., 208:
+
+"Purum villenagium est, a quo præstatur servilium incertum et
+indeterminatum; ubi scire non potest vespere, quale servitium fieri
+debet mane, viz., ubi quis facere tenetur quicquid ei præceptum fuit."
+See also Blackstone, Lib. ii., 93.]
+
+In fact, not only were there then fifteen thousand negro slaves in
+England, but they were publickly bought and sold in the markets of
+London. The prevalence of slavery is attested by another species of
+historical evidence, very different from that of learned judges, but
+at least as authentick. The pictures by which Hogarth has fixed the
+follies and peculiarities of fashionable life on his immortal canvass,
+frequently contain the African valet; showing that the possession of
+this species of servants was demanded by high life. From the Normans,
+those noted slaveholders, to 1775, no statute had been passed upon the
+subject of personal slavery.[51] There then existed, in the northern
+part of the kingdom of Great Britain, from thirty thousand to forty
+thousand persons, of whom the Parliament said, "Many colliers,
+coal-heavers, and salters, are in a state of slavery, or bondage,
+bound to the collieries or salt-works where they work, for life,
+transferable with the collieries and salt-works, when their original
+masters have no use for them."[52] Again in 1799, they declare that
+"many colliers and coal-heavers still continue in a state of bondage."
+
+[Footnote 51: Justice Campbell, on Dred Scott case, 19th Howard, 109.]
+
+[Footnote 52: Parliament, 15th Geo. 3d.]
+
+Thus it appears that England was itself slave territory, at the time
+the thirteen colonies, declaring their independence, brought away her
+laws and institutions. But our argument of this fact is _ex
+abundantia_; it may be waived, and still our conclusion holds,
+because, by existing laws, all the plantations and colonies of England
+in America were then, yet more indisputably, slave territory. No
+stronger proof of this proposition can be imagined, than the manner in
+which slavery was planted in these communities. Not only were all the
+thirteen colonies, and all the West India plantations, slaveholding;
+but it required no statute, either of Parliament or of colonial
+legislature, to introduce African slavery, or to establish the right
+of the owner, because it was already established by imperial law and
+usage. The first negroes were bought in Virginia in 1620; the first
+act touching their bondage was passed by the Burgesses in 1659; and
+this does not enact their slavery, but recognizes it as existing. It
+was not until 1670,[53] that any law was passed which expressly
+enacted their slavery. But for fifty years they had been unquestioned
+slaves, had paid impost duty as such, had been bought and sold, had
+been bequeathed, had been subject of suits. By what law? Obviously by
+the general law of the British Empire, and of nations. The manner of
+the introduction of slavery into Massachusetts was the same. "The
+involuntary servitude of Indians and negroes in the several colonies
+originated under a law not promulgated by legislation, and rested upon
+prevalent views of universal jurisprudence, or the _law of nations_,
+supported by the express or implied authority of the Home
+Government."[54] But the "canny" Puritans, more careful than the
+Virginians to fortify their slave property, enacted slavery of both
+classes, in their earliest codes of laws, 1641 and 1660.[55]
+
+[Footnote 53: Hening, Stat. at Large, vol. ii., p. 283.]
+
+[Footnote 54: Hurd, Law of Freedom and Bondage, § 216, i., 225.]
+
+[Footnote 55: Moore, Slavery in Mass., pp. 12, 15.]
+
+That African slavery was the universal law of the British colonial
+empire, is equally plain from the facts already given concerning the
+legalizing of the slave trade. The treaty of Utrecht secured to
+Britain a monopoly of that traffick. The Parliament chartered the
+African Company, with the right to trade in slaves to all the
+colonies. The Parliament then by statute threw the trade open to all
+British subjects. The Parliament, by express law, made the property in
+slaves held in the colonies subject of action in English courts. The
+Solicitor-General, with Chancellor after Chancellor, decided that
+residence in England did not emancipate the slave upon his return to
+his colonial home. The General Court of Massachusetts enacted the same
+rule, as did the Burgesses of Virginia, again and again; and were
+never disallowed therein by the king. Even so late as 1827, fifty-five
+years after the Somersett case, Lord Stowell decided, in the case of
+the slave Grace, from Antigua, that on her return to the colony, her
+condition as a slave for life was fully revived.[56] And in the
+correctness of this decision, we find Mr. Justice Story
+concurring.[57]
+
+[Footnote 56: 2d Haggard, p. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 57: Letter to Lord Stowell.]
+
+The argument then is, that at the American Revolution all the
+territory claimed by the thirteen colonies was, by the law of the
+Empire, and of nations, slaveholding territory. The colonies, in
+assuming their independence, brought away the rights and institutions
+which they had inherited as colonial parts of that empire; and
+whatever prescriptive right was not expressly changed by law, was
+universally held to survive, as of course. Hence all the territory of
+the American Union was slave territory; and the only mode by which any
+part became non-slaveholding, was by the exercise of State sovereignty
+enacting a _lex loci_, which was only operative within the bounds of
+the State itself.
+
+Third. The chief territory which the United States acquired between
+the Revolution and the Mexican war, was Louisiana. This vast region
+was gained by treaty from France in 1803. It was then a single
+province and government of the French Republick, and was, through all
+its extent, a slaveholding country. In the third article of the treaty
+for its purchase, between the United States and the First Consul, it
+was stipulated that until the ceded territory should be incorporated,
+as States, in the Union, all its citizens should be "in the mean time
+maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty,
+property, and the religion which they profess." The settled doctrine
+of the courts of Louisiana has always been, that this guarantee
+covered all the citizens emigrating into any part of the territory
+before its erection into a State, as fully as those living in
+Louisiana in 1803.[58] Thus, the rights of slave owners in the whole
+of the Louisiana purchase were guaranteed to them by treaty, until
+such time as the part they inhabited became a sovereign State, and
+thus assumed plenary power over the subject. But, by Article 6th, §
+2d, of the Constitution of the United States, all treaties made by the
+authority of the United States are declared to be the supreme law of
+the land. Thus the rights of the master in all this region were placed
+above the power of the legislature itself.
+
+[Footnote 58: Justice Catron, 19th Howard, p. 131.]
+
+Fourth. The federal constitution recognized and protected property in
+slaves, in every way which was competent to a federative compact of
+this kind. The slaveholding States had representation for three-fifths
+of their slaves. The slaves were made subjects of direct taxation, as
+property. The constitution provided expressly for a fugitive slave
+law, which was soon passed by the Congress, and continued to be the
+law of the land until the termination of the government. By the
+constitution, property in slaves was created like any other property;
+and no ground can be found for the assertion that its rights were more
+restricted than rights in cattle or lands. But the fundamental idea of
+that instrument was the impartial equality of all the citizens before
+the law. Whatever authority Congress had over the common territories,
+was as trustee for all the citizens of the United States equally.
+Hence it seems obvious that this body was bound to recognize in all
+the citizens equal rights, in going into those territories with any
+species of property which they might hold by the laws of any State, or
+of Congress, and to protect them in those rights while the country was
+in a territorial condition.
+
+Finally, these principles have been expressly decided by the highest
+constitutional authority in the land, as well as by the voice of the
+most enlightened founders of the government. When the mischievous
+contest concerning the admission of Missouri was rising in 1819, Mr.
+Madison declared, concerning the article of the constitution which
+conferred on Congress its powers over the territories, (Art. 4, § 3,)
+that "it cannot be well extended beyond a power over the territories
+_as property_, and the power to make provisions really needful or
+necessary for the government of settlers, until ripe for admission
+into the Union."[59] The Supreme Court of the United States, in the
+well-known case of Dred Scott, decided that Africans were not citizens
+of the United States in the meaning of the constitution;[60] that
+property in African slaves was on the same footing under that
+instrument with other legal property;[61] that the residence of a
+slave in a territory of the United States did not emancipate him, nor
+did his residence in a non-slaveholding State for a time, prevent the
+recurrence of his state of bondage, on his return to the State in
+which he had been a slave;[62] and that Congress had no power to use
+its authority to exclude slavery from any part of the territories.[63]
+
+[Footnote 59: Letter to Robert Walsh, Nov. 27, 1819.]
+
+[Footnote 60: 19th Howard, pp. 12, 33.]
+
+[Footnote 61: 19th Howard, p. 57.]
+
+[Footnote 62: Ibid., p. 38, 58.]
+
+[Footnote 63: 19th Howard, p. 58.]
+
+Thus the main proposition with which we set out is abundantly
+sustained by the history and legislation of the country. Three
+evasions from this conclusion have been attempted, of which the first
+is from the language of the Declaration of Independence, in which
+these famous words occur: "We hold these truths to be self-evident:
+that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator
+with certain unalienable rights; that among them are life, liberty,
+and the pursuit of happiness," etc. The inference is, that the
+Declaration intended to imply that the slavery of the Africans was a
+natural wrong incapable of being legalized; and it is claimed that
+this document is of the organic force of constitutional law to the
+confederation which then asserted its independence. Both these
+suppositions are erroneous. As to the latter, it may be justly argued,
+that the Declaration of Independence was simply what it calls itself:
+a _declaration_, a justificatory statement addressed to the world
+without, and not an act of organic legislation ascertaining the rights
+of the citizens within. The evidence is, that it _enacts nothing_ save
+the one point of the independence of the colonies. Neither the
+Confederation nor the new Union formed in 1787 ever based any
+legislation upon it, save as their acts involved the fact of
+independence. The constitution made no reference to it; did not ground
+itself upon it, and did not reënact it. Hence, let its meaning be what
+it may, it legislates nothing for or against slavery.
+
+But it is too clear to be disputed, that the enslaved African race
+were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who
+asserted their rights in this Declaration. The evidence is, that if
+the men who framed it had intended to refer to African slavery, they
+would have completely stultified themselves. For the majority of them,
+and of the States which they represented, continued to hold Africans
+in bondage just as before. A few years after, the same men met in
+federal convention, and framed the late constitution of the United
+States; by which property in slaves was protected and perpetuated as
+before, and traffick in Africans was prolonged until 1808, and made
+subject of taxation like other merchandise. The States which were
+emancipating their own Africans, equally with those which retained
+them in bondage, retained their laws prohibiting the marriage of
+Africans with whites.[64] Connecticut, until 1796, prohibited free
+negroes from travelling beyond their township without a pass. New
+Hampshire, and Congress itself, precluded negroes from serving in the
+militia.[65] The Declaration of Independence was therefore intended by
+its framers to assert the liberties of civilized Americans and
+Englishmen, and not of African barbarians held in bondage. Whether
+their consistency therein can be defended, is a separate question, to
+which attention will be given in the proper place. But all publicists
+are agreed, that the meaning of a document is the document; and that
+this meaning is to be ascertained by the intentions of those who
+frame and adopt it.
+
+[Footnote 64: Law of Massachusetts, 1786, reënacted 1836. Rhode
+Island, Laws of, 1822 and 1844.]
+
+[Footnote 65: Code of New Hampshire, 1815. Acts of Congress, 1792.]
+
+The second objection to our conclusion is grounded upon the Ordinance
+of the Confederation, in 1787, by which slavery was prohibited in the
+North-western Territory ceded to the United States by Virginia. This
+magnificent domain, including the present States of Ohio, Indiana and
+Illinois, was conquered from the public enemy in the years 1778-9, by
+the Commonwealth of Virginia. She sent out her own troops, at her own
+charges, without either authority or assistance from the
+Confederation, then also engaged in a war with Great Britain, under
+her own commission to her heroick son, General George Rogers Clarke.
+Upon the conquest of the country, she disposed by her own State action
+of the prisoners of war captured, and annexed the territory to the
+State of Virginia, which then also included Kentucky. The other
+States, and the Confederation, uniformly recognized this region as
+legitimately a part of Virginia. But during and after the war, the
+States which owned no unsettled territory grew exceedingly jealous of
+those which possessed such regions, and especially of Virginia. They
+feared her ulterior grandeur and power. But their expressed plea was,
+that she, and other States possessed of vacant lands, could pay their
+share of the common war debt, without taxation, by the sale of these
+lands, which, as they claimed, were the fruits of the common exertions
+of the States, while the others would be subjected to an onerous
+taxation. The North-west Territory had, in fact, been won by Virginia,
+with her own bow and spear; but at the request of the Congress of the
+Confederation, she magnanimously laid the splendid prize upon the
+altar of the common cause, ceding it in 1784 to Congress, for the
+common behoof of the United States. The Congress of the Confederation
+passed a long enactment, known as the Ordinance of 1787, providing, in
+many articles, for its settlement, for its government while a
+territory, and for the sale of lands. Among these was a clause
+prohibiting slavery in it. But meantime, the Confederation was
+superseded by the general government organized under the new
+constitution of 1787. The first Congress during the administration of
+General Washington, acting under the article of the constitution
+already cited for taking and managing the "territory and other
+property" of the Confederation, passed an act, (August 7th, 1789,) for
+putting in effect the Ordinance of the Congress of the Confederation,
+now extinct.
+
+Such is the history of the case. The inference of the objector is,
+that because the Congress of 1789, acting under the late constitution,
+claimed power to execute the ordinance of 1787, (passed by the
+previous and different general government,) with its anti-slavery
+clause included, therefore that constitution gave it power to exclude
+slavery from any other territory. But the inference is worthless. For,
+first, the Congress of the old Confederation had not a particle of
+constitutional power to adopt such an anti-slavery clause. So declared
+Mr. Madison emphatically:[66] and so has decided the Supreme Court of
+the United States.[67] Both these high authorities declare, that if
+the clause had any validity, it derived it only from the assent of
+Virginia, who had full sovereignty over the territory, and who
+accepted and ratified the exclusion by act of her General Assembly, as
+well as by the mouths of her representatives in the Confederation. And
+the Congress of 1789, in accepting the conditions imposed by the
+Ordinance of 1787 on the territory, as valid and abiding, undertook to
+change nothing, because it regarded that validity as the result of
+treaty stipulations between Virginia and the other twelve States
+represented by the old Congress. It conceived itself as having
+inherited from a previous and different government powers over this
+particular territory, which it could by no means have originated by
+its own constitutional authority.[68] Second: The government framed
+under the new constitution was one of limited powers; and Congress was
+expressly inhibited, by the instrument which created it, from
+exercising any authority not granted. But such a power as that to
+exclude citizens of any of the United States from the common
+territory, because they proposed to carry there property legalized
+both by the Constitution of the United States and of their own State,
+was not granted to Congress. That a government whose very foundation
+was the equality of the States, should thus attempt to disfranchise
+some States of a part of their rights, was a solecism too monstrous
+for these able and enlightened men. Third: When similar cessions of
+territory were afterwards made by North Carolina and Georgia, these
+States refused to Congress the privilege of appending to their laws
+touching these lands, the exclusion of slavery; and Congress obeyed,
+so framing their enactments as to admit and protect slave-owners. This
+proves that the exclusion derived its force from the consent of the
+Sovereign State, and not from the power of Congress.
+
+[Footnote 66: Federalist, No. 38. Letter to Walsh, 1819.]
+
+[Footnote 67: 19th Howard, pp. 40, 41.]
+
+[Footnote 68: 19th Howard, pp. 44, 45.]
+
+The third ground of objection which has been advanced against our main
+proposition, is the doctrine said to have been decided by the Supreme
+Court of the United States, (as in the case of Prigg against the State
+of Pennsylvania,) that according to recognized international laws, a
+nation which does not hold slaves itself is not bound to recognize
+property in slaves in neighbouring nations, when those slaves come
+into its borders; and that if a rendition is claimed, it must be asked
+of comity, or of special stipulation, and not as of international
+right. The answer is clear and facile. The States of the American
+Union were, initially, as independent nations to each other; and then
+they were all slaveholding. Each one of them recognized in its own
+citizens the right of property in slaves; and therefore, if the above
+doctrine be granted, they could not then, by international law, refuse
+to recognize it in nations living at amity with them. Again: When they
+passed out of this condition of absolute independence, into that of
+federal union, their relations, so far as they ceased to be
+international, were regulated exclusively by the constitution; and by
+this constitution the property in slaves was expressly recognized, the
+rendition of fugitive slaves was expressly required of all the States,
+whether themselves holding slaves or not; and all the common territory
+of the Union was originally slave territory until it became free
+territory by sovereign State action. Plainly, in such a case as this,
+the international law of Europe has no application, against historical
+facts and actual constitutional enactments. The sophism of this plea
+in the mouths of anti-slavery men, the uniform assertors of
+consolidation doctrines, would make the States, in the same breath,
+independent nations, in order that the international law of a
+different hemisphere may be applied against them, and also subject
+provinces of an anti-slavery nation, in order that they may be
+stripped of that equality of rights, belonging to sovereign
+constituent parties in a confederation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+HISTORY OF EMANCIPATION.
+
+
+The motive for introducing the historical facts contained in this
+chapter is the following: That the credit of Virginia as a
+slaveholding State is relatively illustrated by the conduct of her
+partners in the confederation touching the same matter. Virginia never
+passed a general act of emancipation; on the contrary, she forbade
+masters to free their slaves within her borders, unless they also
+provided for their removal to new homes. But what was it which the
+Northern States actually did? The general answer to this question
+cannot be better given than in the words of the Hon. A. H. H. Stuart
+of Virginia, in his Report to the General Assembly, as chairman of its
+joint committee on the Harper's Ferry outrages. He says:
+
+"At the date of the declaration of our national independence, slavery
+existed in every colony of the Confederation....
+
+"Shortly after the Declaration of Independence, the Northern States
+adopted prospective measures to relieve themselves of the African
+population. But it is a great mistake to suppose that their policy in
+this particular was prompted by any spirit of philanthropy or tender
+regard for the welfare of the negro race. On the contrary, it was
+dictated by an enlightened self-interest, yielding obedience to
+overruling laws of social economy. Experience had shown that the
+African race were not adapted to high northern latitudes, and that
+slave labour could not compete successfully with free white labour in
+those pursuits to which the industry of the North was directed. This
+discovery having been made, the people of the North, at an early day,
+began to dispose of their slaves by sale to citizens of the Southern
+States, whose soil, climate, and productions were better adapted to
+their habits and capacities; and the legislation of the Northern
+States, following the course of publick opinion, was directed, not to
+emancipation, but to the removal of the slave population beyond their
+limits. To effect this object, they adopted a system of laws which
+provided, prospectively, that all slaves born of female slaves, within
+their jurisdiction, after certain specified dates, should be held free
+when they attained a given age. No law can be found on the
+statute-book of any Northern State, which conferred the boon of
+freedom on a single slave in being. All who were slaves remained
+slaves. Freedom was secured only to the children of slaves, born after
+the days designated in the laws; and it was secured to them only in
+the contingency that the owner of the female slave should retain her
+within the jurisdiction of the State until after the child was born.
+To secure freedom to the afterborn child, therefore, it was necessary
+that the consent of the master, indicated by his permitting the mother
+to remain in the State, should be superadded to the provisions of the
+law. Without such consent, the law would have been inoperative,
+because the mother, before the birth of the child, might, at the will
+of the master, be removed beyond the jurisdiction of the law. There
+was no legal prohibition of such removal, for such a prohibition would
+have been at war with the policy of the law, which was obviously
+removal, and not emancipation. The effect of this legislation was, as
+might have readily been foreseen, to induce the owners of female
+slaves to sell them to the planters of the South, before the time
+arrived when the forfeiture of the offspring would accrue. By these
+laws, a wholesale slave trade was inaugurated, under which a large
+proportion of the slaves of the Northern States were sold to persons
+residing south of Pennsylvania; and it is an unquestionable fact that
+a large number of the slaves of the Southern States are the
+descendants of those sold by Northern men to citizens of the South,
+with covenants of general warranty of title to them and to their
+increase."
+
+Thus wrote Mr. Stuart, after thorough research. A brief recital of the
+enactments of the Northern slaveholding States will show that his
+general representation is correct. We begin with Massachusetts. No law
+against slavery, (which had been long legally established in the
+colony,) was ever passed by her legislature;[69] and in that sense,
+the right to hold slaves may be said to have formally existed, until
+it was extinguished by her adoption of the "constitutional amendment,"
+in 1866! Practically, slavery was gradually removed after 1780, by the
+current of the legal decisions against it, grounded upon a clause in
+the new bill of rights, adopted by the State in that year. This
+clause asserted, nearly in the words of the Declaration of
+Independence, the native equality and liberty of men. In 1781 a slave
+of N. Jennison, of Worcester County, recovered damages of his master
+for beating.[70] This decision, if sustained, of course implied the
+cessation of slavery. Although the Legislature of the State was moved
+in 1783, by this Jennison and others, to declare that slavery did not
+exist legally, so that the doubt might be ended, that body refused to
+act; nor did it ever after abolish slavery.[71] But judicial decisions
+after the example of the Jennison case were made from time to time,
+until, in 1796, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in the case of
+Littleton _v._ Tuttle,[72] gave its countenance to the doctrine, that
+the bill of rights virtually made slavery illegal. That all this was a
+glaring instance of the judicial abuse, _ampliandi jurisdictionem_, is
+manifest from many facts: That the Massachusetts statesmen who adopted
+the same proposition in the Declaration of Independence, never dreamed
+of its possessing any force to abolish slavery in the United States
+which set it forth: That the convention which drew up the bill of
+rights for Massachusetts did not think of such an application; That
+this document declared "no part of any citizen's property could be
+taken from him without his own consent:" That slaves continued to be
+bought and sold, and advertised as before; And that the abolitionists,
+still in the minority, continued after 1780 to remonstrate against
+slavery as a sin still legalized. But such a mode of determining the
+question was well adapted to the meddlesome and crooked temper of that
+people. By this judicial trick the envious non-slaveholders were
+enabled to attack their richer slaveholding neighbours, and render
+them so uneasy as to insure their disposing of their slaves; while
+still there was neither law nor publick opinion prevalent enough to
+procure a legal act of emancipation.
+
+[Footnote 69: Moore, Slavery in Mass., p. 242.]
+
+[Footnote 70: Moore, Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 212.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Ibid., p. 216, etc.]
+
+[Footnote 72: Chief Justice Parsons, Mass. Rep., 4, Winchedon _v._
+Hatfield.]
+
+New Hampshire and Vermont embodied the principle of prospective
+emancipation in their new constitutions. In 1790 there were 158 slaves
+in New Hampshire. In 1840 there was still _one_! Rhode Island passed a
+law in 1784, that no person born after that year should continue a
+slave. Connecticut embodied in the revision of her laws, in 1784, a
+law providing that all children born of slave parents after March 1st
+of that year, should be free at twenty-five years of age. In 1797 the
+term of servitude was reduced to twenty-one years for all born after
+August 1st of that year. Slavery was not actually abolished by law
+until June 12th, 1848; when the census shows there were no fewer than
+seventeen slaves in the State; and how old and worthless they must
+have been, appears from the fact that the youngest of them must have
+been born before March 1st, 1784.[73]
+
+[Footnote 73: Rep. of C. J. Hoadly, State Librarian of Connecticut.]
+
+In New York, the laws for slaves were more severe than in the Southern
+States, and the African slave trade was zealously encouraged during
+the whole colonial period. The slave could not testify, even to
+exculpate a slave. Three justices, with a sort of jury of five
+freeholders, could try capitally, and inflict any sentence, _inclusive
+of burning alive_.[74] It was not until 1799 that the State commenced
+a system of laws for the gradual abolition of slavery. Every slave
+child born after July 4th of that year was to be free, the males after
+twenty-eight, and the females after twenty-five years. In 1810, the
+benefit of freedom was also extended to those born before July 4th,
+1799, to take effect July 4th, 1827, the date at which the earliest
+born of those freed by previous law reached their majority of
+twenty-eight years.[75] Still the census of 1830 found 75 slaves! The
+Revised Statutes of New York, after 1817, provided a penalty for those
+carrying them out of the State for sale; showing that the tendency to
+do so existed.
+
+[Footnote 74: Chancellor Kent.]
+
+[Footnote 75: Idem.]
+
+In New Jersey, the first act looking towards prospective emancipation
+was adopted in 1784. By it all born after 1804 were to be free in
+1820. It was not until 1820 that action was taken to give effect to
+this promise; and then the nature of the law was such as to postpone
+the hopes of the slaves. The first section of the law of February
+24th, 1820, says: "Every child born of a slave within this State since
+the 4th day of July 1804, or which shall hereafter be born as
+aforesaid, shall be free; but shall remain the servant of the owner of
+his or her mother, and the executors, administrators and assigns of
+such owners, in the same manner as if such child had been bound to
+service by the Trustees or Overseers of the poor, and shall continue
+in such service, if a male until the age of twenty-five years, and if
+a female until the age of twenty-one years." It was within the scope
+of possibility that slave women whom this law left slaves for life
+might bear children as late as the year 1848: whence bondage would not
+have been terminated wholly by it until 1873. New Jersey had 236
+slaves for life in 1850. It is stated by one of the best informed of
+her old citizens, that the prospective effect of these enactments was
+to cause a considerable _exodus_ to Southern markets; and that when a
+boy, he heard much talk of the sale of negroes, and the sending of
+them to "the Natchez," and was cognizant of the continual apprehension
+of the negroes concerning the danger.
+
+In Pennsylvania, emancipation was also prospective and gradual. Her
+first act was passed March 1st, 1780. The rate at which it operated
+may be seen from these figures: In 1776 she had about 10,000 slaves;
+in 1790, (ten years after her first act,) she had 3,737; in 1800,
+1,706; in 1810, 795; in 1820, 211; in 1830, 403; and in 1840, 64
+slaves.
+
+Thus, the emancipation legislation of the Northern States has been
+reviewed, and the assertions of the Hon. Mr. Stuart substantially
+sustained. That Northern emancipation was prompted by no consideration
+for the supposed rights of Africans, but by regard to their own
+interests, is evinced by many facts. Of these, perhaps the most
+general and striking is the persistent neglect of the welfare of their
+emancipated slaves; the refusal to give them equal civic rights, until
+they found a motive for doing so in malice against the South; and the
+shocking decadence, vice and misery to which a nominal liberty,
+according to the testimony of Northern writers, has consigned their
+wretched free blacks. Another proof is found in the current language
+of the men of the generation which effected the change. That language,
+as is well remembered by elderly persons still living, was usually
+such as this: that now that the population had filled up the country,
+the question of emancipation was simply one of choice between their
+own children and the negro--whether their sons should emigrate, or the
+negro be gotten rid of, as there was no longer room for both. Another
+conclusive proof is in the fact that while these States were getting
+rid of their own negroes, they were deliberately voting
+(Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, in the Convention of
+1787,) to prolong the introduction of slaves into the Carolinas
+nineteen years more. Still another evidence is found in the repugnance
+of those States to the influx of free blacks, and the stringent laws
+of some of them to prevent it. Thus, Massachusetts, in March, 1788,
+(eight years after the pretended extinction of human bondage,) passed
+a law ordering every black, mulatto or Indian who came into the State
+and remained two months to be publickly whipped; and this punishment
+was to be repeated "if he or she shall not depart _toties
+quoties_."[76] _This law remained in force until 1834!_ as is shown by
+its appearance in the Revised Laws of Massachusetts, 1823. It is also
+to be noted that the scheme of gradual emancipation, upon which the
+whole North acted, obviously recognizes the property of the master in
+his slave as legitimate in itself. It only touches it, (because
+private rights are here required to give place to publick interest,)
+in the case of those born after a certain day. The slavery of the
+others is left as perpetual and legal as ever. And even as to the
+later born, the right of the master receives a certain recognition, in
+that he is allowed twenty-five years' service as a partial
+compensation for the surrender of the remainder.
+
+[Footnote 76: Moore, Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 229.]
+
+But how different is the summary abolition forced upon Virginia and
+the South! Here, the general legislation of the State was steadily
+multiplying, elevating and blessing the black race, which in the North
+was so rapidly dying out under its pretended liberty. And private
+beneficence of Virginians, without any legal compulsion, had actually
+given the boon of freedom to at least one hundred thousand blacks;
+which is more than all the citizens of the New England States, New
+York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania together, ever did, under the force
+of all their laws.[77] In this wise and beneficent career Virginia has
+been violently interrupted, against her recognized and guaranteed
+rights, by instant and violent abolition. The motive of the North, as
+a whole, has manifestly been, not love for the negro, but hatred of
+the white man, and lust of domination. This abolition is purely the
+result of a supposed military necessity, because the North believed
+that otherwise she could not overthrow the South in an unjust war. But
+for this single fact, the Africans would still be in bondage, so far
+as the Yankee was concerned. The proof is, that the Chicago platform
+of the Black Republican party in 1860, expressly repudiated the
+purpose ever to meddle with slavery in the States. Mr. Lincoln, the
+chosen man of the North, solemnly asserted the same thing in his
+letter to A. H. Stephens of Georgia, in his publick inaugural, and in
+his messages. The Congress, after the beginning of the war, solemnly
+declared to the world by a joint resolution, that the purpose of the
+war was only to restore the Union, and not to restrict or change State
+institutions. Mr. Lincoln constantly declared to the Abolitionists,
+that if the perpetuation of slavery tended to restore the Union, it
+should be perpetuated. His standing invitation to the States in arms
+against him was: "If you wish to keep your slaves, come back into the
+Union." Can the North be believed in her own declarations? Then, the
+charge made is true--that abolition in the South was prompted by
+ambition and hatred, not by philanthropy.
+
+[Footnote 77: The negroes freed by Virginians, with their increase in
+Ohio, Pennsylvania, Liberia, etc., are 100,000 at least. The maximum
+number of slaves freed by the above States was, New Hampshire 629,
+Massachusetts 6,000, Rhode Island 4,370, Connecticut 6,000, New York
+20,000, New Jersey 12,422, Pennsylvania 10,000. Total, 59,421. Such
+was the largest number of original freedmen made by those States of
+their own slaves. When we remember that the census has proved that in
+the Northern States their natural increase has almost ceased for
+several decades, and in some there has been an actual diminution, it
+appears very plain that they and their progeny do not now number
+100,000. Meantime, the votes of the New England States assisted to add
+more than 600,000 to the number of slaves in Carolina!]
+
+Nor has this act been less wicked in its effects than in its motive.
+To the white race it was the most violent, convulsive, reckless and
+mischievous act ever perpetrated by a civilized government. As a war
+measure, it was calculated and expected to evoke all the savage
+horrors of servile war, neighbourhood massacre and butchery of
+non-combatants. Only the kindly relations which the benevolence and
+justice of the people of Virginia had established between themselves
+and their slaves, and the good character which we had given to these
+former savages, disappointed this desired result. As an economic
+measure, it was the most violent ever attempted in modern history;
+being a sudden confiscation of half, (and in some of the counties
+two-thirds) the existing property of the country; and a dislocation of
+its whole labour system, just when the people were bowed under the
+burden of a gigantic war, and a collapsed currency. That it did not
+then again result in a total paralysis of industry, in famine and
+anarchy, (which was probably intended), is only to be explained by the
+exercise of an energy, versatility, good sense, and industry in the
+Southern people, which are almost miraculous. By annihilating at one
+blow so much of the property on which the indebtedness of the country
+was based, it insured a financial confusion and general bankruptcy
+which are destined to plunge hundreds of thousands of innocent persons
+(innocent even from Yankee points of view) into destitution and
+domestic distress, which three generations will not heal. It
+confiscated the property of "loyal Union men," of helpless minors and
+lunatics, of venerable and infirm widows, without compensation, just
+as it did the possessions of the Confederate leader most obnoxious to
+the Yankee wrath. And what was the species of possession? Was it some
+foul lucre, like the spoils of an Achan, so unrighteous that it must
+be instantly plucked away, regardless of consequences? No; it was a
+species of property legalized by Moses and Christ, owned for ages by
+the boasted ancestors of the despoilers, now owned by themselves in
+the form of its fruits and increase, guaranteed by the Constitution
+which alone gave them any right to govern us, legalized by all our
+State laws, which were of earlier and superior authority to that
+Constitution, and recognized by the sacred pledges of the North
+itself, even so late as the beginning of this war.
+
+But the step has been far more mischievous and unjust to the poor
+blacks, its pretended beneficiaries. It did not tarry to inquire
+whether they were fit for the change. It has resulted in the outbreak
+of a flood of vice, before repressed; of drunkenness, of illicit lust,
+of infanticide, of theft; and above all, of idleness, the least
+flagrant, but most truly mischievous fault of the African. It has
+suddenly and greatly diminished their share of the material goods they
+before enjoyed. The supplies of clothing and shoes now acquired by
+them do not reach a third of what they received before the war.
+Immediately on their emancipation, all the rural mill-owners testified
+that their grists _fell off one-half_, and have remained at that grade
+since. In those neighbourhoods where the blacks did not emigrate,
+(which was true of many neighbourhoods,) this showed that the
+consumption of bread was reduced one-half; for although the large
+proprietors now had no occasion to send their large grists, yet,
+unless there were less consumed, the aggregate of the little grists of
+the freedmen's families should have made good that decrease. Every
+statesman knows that any burden or disaster imposed upon the
+industrial pursuits of a country, is transmitted down by the property
+classes to the destitute class, and presses there with its whole
+force; just as inevitably as the weight of a statue placed upon the
+top of a column, is ultimately delivered upon the lowest _stratum_ of
+foundation-stones. For the great law of self-preservation prompts each
+man, who has any property, to employ it in evading that pressure for
+himself and his family. Thus the actual _onus_ is handed down, until
+it reaches that class who have no property, and must therefore bear
+it, because they have nothing wherewith to pay for the shifting of it.
+Thus, all the malice of the conqueror, aimed at the hated white man,
+while it crowds us down, also crowds down equally the labourer beneath
+us; and the blow alights ultimately on him.
+
+The famine which is now preying upon some parts of the South
+illustrates the mischief done by the disorganization of labour, and
+the comparative excellence of the old system. Such was its
+beneficence, that it carried the Southern country through all the
+exhausting trials of the war, without actual dearth in any part of the
+Confederacy. Hundreds of thousands of our most vigorous men were
+wholly withdrawn from productive pursuits; our own armies were to be
+sustained; great hosts of enemies were continually tearing the vitals
+of the country; the year 1864 brought a drought so severe that in some
+parts of the country the crops of grain were reduced to one-tenth of
+the usual harvests; and yet, such was the happiness of our system,
+that it endured all these enormous trials, and met the wants of all.
+But after the new _régime_ was well established, there came in 1866
+such a drought as the South had several times experienced before,
+without inconvenience; and although all was peace, there were no
+armies to support, and no labouring man was called from the farm to
+the unproductive toils of the camp and the intrenchment, famine
+immediately resulted. Here is a fair comparison of the system of free
+African labour, with the old one. Indolence is the parent of crime.
+While the smaller misdemeanours are more frequent, there has been an
+alarming increase of felonies. In the orderly little county of Prince
+Edward, the criminal convictions of black persons averaged only one
+per year before the war. The last year they numbered twelve! An
+inquiry into the statistics of crime in our cities would reveal a yet
+larger increase.[78]
+
+[Footnote 78: From April 31st, 1860, to May 31st, 1862, two years and
+one month, there were _two_ criminal convictions of negroes by Prince
+Edward Court. From April 31st, 1865, to April 31st, 1867, a less
+period by one month, there were, in the same court, thirty-five
+criminal indictments of negroes, and fifteen convictions, leaving
+thirteen cases over to be tried at subsequent terms. And this
+aggregate of crime has already accumulated in our once peaceful little
+community, notwithstanding that the jurisdiction of our courts over
+negroes was totally suspended by our conquerors for a number of months
+after April 31st, 1865.]
+
+Last, facts already evince, that the doom of ultimate extermination
+which Southern philanthropists have ever predicted as the result of
+premature emancipation, is already overtaking the negro with giant
+strides. About the end of 1866 the officers of the State revenue made
+their returns, which showed that there were then about 275,650 negro
+males over 21 years within the present limits of Virginia. Repeated
+calculations made from previous returns show that there are usually
+four and a half times as many souls among the blacks of Virginia as
+there are males over 21 years. The entire black population of the
+State then, at the end of the last year, was 340,500. The census of
+1860 returned 531,000 blacks within the present limits of the State.
+The diminution is therefore 190,500; or nearly two-fifths, in less
+than two years. Some may suppose that more negro men have left the
+State since the war than women and children. If this is true, the
+number of males is now relatively smaller, and should be multiplied by
+a larger ratio than 4-1/2 to find the correct total. But, on the other
+hand, it is certain that the neglect and mortality have been much
+larger among the aged and little children than among the robust men.
+This fact, therefore, reduces the ratio of the total to the males over
+21 years, and renders it certain that 340,500 is a large estimate. The
+same officers brought in returns which show that the white population
+of Virginia, although decimated by a terrible war, has actually
+increased since 1860. But we exposed no negro to the dangers of the
+battle. Thus it is made manifest that the philanthropy of Yankees has
+been to the poor negro an infinitely more desolating scourge than a
+tremendous war has been to the race against which the sword was openly
+wielded. And it requires little arithmetic to discover how long it
+will be, at this rate, before the monstrous consummation will be
+reached of the extinction of a whole nation of people by their
+professed friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE OLD TESTAMENT ARGUMENT.
+
+
+§ 1. Let us appeal, then, to the Bible, to learn the moral character
+of Domestic Slavery. It will be well for both writer and readers, if
+they recall the reverence and honesty with which such a book should be
+approached; if the one is cautious to permit no party zeal, pride of
+opinion, or love of hypothesis, to tempt him to warp the sacred text
+to any thing inconsistent with its own truth and purity; and if the
+others are equally careful to receive its teachings with impartiality
+and docility.
+
+That no misunderstanding may attend the discussion, we must define at
+the outset, what we mean by that domestic slavery which we defend. By
+this relation we understand _the obligations of the slave to labour
+for life, without his own consent, for the master_. The thing,
+therefore, in which the master has property or ownership, is the
+involuntary labour of the slave, and not his personality, or his soul.
+A certain right of control over the person of the slave is
+incidentally given to the master by his property in the bondsman's
+labour; that is, so much control as is necessary to enable him to
+secure the labour which belongs to him. But we repeat, it is not the
+person, but the labour of the slave, which is the master's property.
+This is substantially the definition of Paley, an enemy of slavery;
+and it is obviously correct; it expresses the general result of the
+laws of all modern nations which have had slaves, touching that
+relation.
+
+The abolitionists clamorously insist upon a different definition,
+which makes the master claim property in the very personality of the
+slave, in his soul, in the highest capacities which connect him with
+his God, and in his very being. According to this description, slavery
+converts the responsible, rational being, into a mere thing, a
+chattel, a commodity, by converting him into mere property of another
+man. The motive of this preposterous definition is obvious enough. One
+of the most astute of American Abolitionists has been candid enough to
+avow it, saying that if our definition be adopted, there is an end of
+the discussion; for every logician must see that it is absurd to
+declare the mere ownership of one man's labour by another, an
+essential and necessary moral wrong; which is the character it suits
+them to ascribe to slavery. Their object is so to represent it, that
+it shall appear a self-evident injustice, and the apologist shall be
+overwhelmed and silenced by a foregone prejudice. For, if it gave a
+literal ownership in the person and being of the slave, which can
+belong to none but the Creator; if it made not only his labour, but
+his conscience, the property of the master, destroying his moral
+responsibility, it would indeed dehumanize him, and would be an
+iniquity indefensible by any fair mind. The trick of securing the
+victory before the contest begins, by raising a false issue, is not
+very novel. The utter absurdity of applying such a definition to
+African slavery in America, appears from this: that it is contrary to
+the whole tenour of the legislation which establishes and regulates
+the institution among us. These laws, first, legislate for the slave,
+as to his own conduct, as a responsible human being, govern him by
+precepts sanctioned by rewards and punishments, and require of him
+intelligent obedience to the same moral rules which are enforced on
+his master. Second, the laws assign to the master precisely that
+amount of control over his slave's person which they suppose (whether
+correctly or not is no concern to us in this argument) to be
+incidental to his property in the servant's labour; and no more.
+Third, they protect the person, being, and moral responsibility of the
+slave against his own master. If the master kills him, it is murder,
+by the law. The slave's Sabbath is secured to him by the law. If the
+master force him to commit a crime, the former is held by the law
+guilty therefor, as accessory before the fact: and the latter is also
+held to his personal responsibility for it. And last, the law treats
+the slave so fully as a rational and responsible human, that it even
+bestows on him the right of litigation against his own master, in one
+case. Any African setting up a plea of unlawful detention in bondage,
+against his master, is allowed to sue _in forma pauperis_, in the
+courts of law. How could the fact be more clearly defined, that the
+institution of slavery treats the slave as a rational human being, and
+gives the master property in nothing but his labour?
+
+Yet Senator Sumner points triumphantly to the words of the South
+Carolina statute as proving that slavery makes the servant a mere
+thing; and all smaller Abolitionists have caught up his special
+pleading. The cane of Mr. Brooks having given him, as it seems, a
+special taste for things South Carolinian, he hunted up a clause where
+the law of that State declares, that slaves and their children shall
+be held in every respect as "chattels personal." This proves beyond a
+peradventure, he says, that the law reduces the slave to a mere thing,
+as though he were an _ox_ or _bureau_. Yet, a hundred other laws of
+South Carolina treat him as a responsible man! Any honest mind will
+perceive the explanation, at once; which is, that the lawyers of South
+Carolina were not aiming, in this law, to settle the question of the
+moral nature of slavery; but to decide whether property in a slave
+should be regarded as pertaining to the _real_, or to the _personal_
+estate of a citizen; and in deciding it, they very properly had more
+regard to legal perspicuity than to ethical accuracy of definition.
+Let us suppose that among the statutes of the British Parliament,
+there should be one (as there very probably is) declaring that when a
+master mechanic dies, having an indentured apprentice, the unfinished
+term of service of this apprentice should be held as belonging to his
+personal effects, and should be so used for the benefit of his heirs
+or creditors. And let us suppose, farther, that in defining this fact,
+some such words as these should be used: that said apprentice should
+be held in every respect, as pertaining unto the personal estate of
+the deceased. Then, the same logic would prove that the British laws
+reduce an apprentice to a mere chattel! But we have a better
+illustration of its folly. God says, Genesis xxvi. 14: "Isaac had
+_possessions_ of flocks, and herds, and servants." Leviticus, xxv. 45:
+"Of the children of strangers that do sojourn among you, of them
+shall you buy: ... and they shall be your _possession_." Exodus, xxi.
+20, 21: "And if a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he
+die under his hand: he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if
+he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: _for he is his
+money_." Does God's law dehumanize the slave, and reduce him to a mere
+chattel? We repeat, then, that, according to the slave institutions of
+the Southern States, it is only the labour of the servant which
+belongs to the master, and is treated as property.
+
+Let it be understood, then, from the beginning, that we are not
+inquiring into the moral character of that thing which Abolitionists
+paint as domestic slavery; a something horrid with the groans of
+oppressed innocence and the clang of unrighteous stripes; a something
+which aims to reduce a man to a brute, and denies him his natural
+right to serve his Creator and save his soul. We begin by asserting
+that these things, if they ever exist in fact, are not domestic
+slavery, but the abuses of it. We are not the apologists of them: we
+no more defend them than do the Abolitionists. In this discussion we
+have nothing more to do with them, except to express, once for all,
+our strong abhorrence and reprobation of all such unlawful abuses of a
+lawful institution. It has been a favourite trick of our opponents, to
+represent the abuses of the relation so prominently and odiously, that
+the defender of slavery shall be held up to the abhorrence of the
+publick as the defender of the abuses. Especially if he is a
+clergyman, (and necessity has thrown our side of this discussion very
+much into the hands of Southern clergymen,) do they raise a holy
+clamour, representing the unnatural wickedness of a desecrating of the
+sacred office to apologize for such iniquities. Their object is to
+raise a prejudice against us in advance, which will deprive us of a
+dispassionate and just hearing. With all dispassionate and just
+readers, for whom alone we write, it should be enough for us to repeat
+emphatically, that it is only the relation of domestic slavery as
+authorized by God, that we defend; and not the abuses it has received
+at the hands of wicked men. The parental authority, and civil
+government, and the operations of God's own church, are often abused
+also. The intelligent reader, and especially the intelligent
+Englishman, will remember how triumphantly this shallow sophism of
+arguing against a thing from its abuses, is exposed by Burke, in his
+reply to Bolingbroke's posthumous assault on Christianity, the
+ironical "Defence of Natural Society." Such argument from abuses can
+only be just when it is shown that the wrongs pointed out are not
+incidental abuses, but legitimate, and necessary, and uniform
+consequences of the institution itself. But that the incidental evils
+of African slavery among us are not such, is abundantly proved by the
+simple fact, that thousands of masters held slaves among us, and yet
+perpetrated none of these abuses. About the relative frequency of such
+abuses, we shall have something to say at a subsequent place. Enough
+now to point to the fact, that by the vast majority of our servants
+they were unfelt, so that they cannot be necessary parts of the
+system.
+
+We conclude these preliminary definitions by requesting the reader to
+note well what is the moral character which we understand the Bible
+to assign to slavery. We do not admit that it is a thing in itself
+evil, but yet attended with such circumstances, in the eyes of many
+merciful and humane masters who have found themselves by inheritance
+unwilling slaveholders, that a change would be attended with still
+greater mischiefs: so that they are excusable for its continuance for
+a time. This is the view of many moderate and kind anti-slavery men;
+it is not ours. We do not hold that slaveholding is only justified as
+belonging to that class of wrongs, to which the laws of Moses assigned
+polygamy, which ought not to have been done, but which, when done,
+cannot be undone, except by the perpetrating of a greater wrong. We
+assert that _the Bible teaches that the relation of master and slave
+is perfectly lawful and right, provided only its duties be lawfully
+fulfilled_. When we say this, we shall not be understood as saying
+that all men ought to live in this relation, notwithstanding the wide
+diversities of their condition and characters, or that it would be
+politic, or even right, for all. But we say that the relation is not
+sin in itself; but may be perfectly righteous and innocent, and not
+merely excusable. And we are free to confess that unless the Bible
+taught us this truth, we should be obliged to hold with the decided
+Abolitionists. We could never be of the number of those, who attempt
+to transmute the essential traits of moral right and wrong, at the
+demand of expediency, and to excuse the continuance of a radical
+injustice, by the inconvenience of repairing it. Duty belongs to man;
+consequences to God.
+
+
+§ 2. _The Curse upon Canaan._
+
+The student of history perceives that, whatever may be the moral
+character of domestic slavery, it is one of the most hoary
+institutions of the human race. It has prevailed in every age and
+continent, and under patriarchal, monarchical, despotic, aristocratic,
+republican and democratic governments; while secular history gives us
+no account of its origin. But Sacred Writ informs us, and traces it to
+the earlier generations of the human family as refounded after the
+flood. In Genesis, ix. 20 to 27, we have the following brief
+narrative: "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 Japhet 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. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and
+Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japhet and he shall
+dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant."
+
+In explanation of it, the following remarks may be made; on which the
+majority of sound expositors are agreed. In this transaction, Noah
+acts as an inspired prophet, and also as the divinely chosen,
+patriarchal head of church and state, which were then confined to his
+one family. God's approbation attended his verdict, as is proved by
+the fact that the divine Providence has been executing it for many
+ages since Noah's death. Canaan probably concurred in the indecent and
+unnatural sin of Ham. As these early men were extremely ambitious of a
+numerous and prosperous posterity, Ham's punishment, and Canaan's,
+consisted in the mortification of hearing their descendants doomed to
+a degraded lot. These descendants were included in the punishment of
+their wicked progenitors on that well-known principle of God's
+providence, which "visits the sin of the fathers upon the children,"
+and this again is explained by the fact, that depraved parents will
+naturally rear depraved children, unless God interfere by a grace to
+which they have no claim; so that not only punishment, but the
+sinfulness, becomes hereditary. Doubtless God's sentence, here
+pronounced by Noah, was based on his foresight of the fact, that Ham's
+posterity, like their father, would be peculiarly degraded in morals;
+as actual history testifies of them, so far as its voice extends.
+
+Some have been weak enough to draw a justification of slavery from the
+fact, that the bondage of Canaan's posterity is predicted. This logic
+the Abolitionists have, of course, delighted to expose; it was easy to
+show, by sundry biblical instances, like that of the Assyrian employed
+to chastise Israel, and then punished by God for his own rapacity,
+that it is no justification of one's acts to find that God, in his
+inscrutable and holy workings, has overruled them to the effectuation
+of his own righteous, secret purposes. And our opponents, with a
+treachery fully equal to the folly of our unwise advocates, usually
+represent this as nearly the whole amount, and the fair exemplar, of
+our biblical argument. Such is not the use we design to make of this
+important piece of history.
+
+It does in the first place, what all secular history and speculations
+fail to do: it gives us the origin of domestic slavery. And we find
+that it was appointed by God as the punishment of, and remedy for
+(nearly all God's providential chastisements are also remedial) the
+peculiar moral degradation of a part of the race. God here ordains
+that this depravity shall find its necessary restraints, and the
+welfare of the more virtuous its safeguard against the depraved, by
+the bondage of the latter. He introduces that feature of political
+society, for the justice of which we shall have occasion to contend;
+that although men have all this trait of natural equality that they
+are children of a common father, and sharers of a common humanity, and
+subjects of the same law of love; yet, in practice, they shall be
+subject to social inequalities determined by their own characters, and
+their fitness or unfitness to use privileges for their own and their
+neighbours' good.
+
+But second: this narrative gives us more than a prediction. The words
+of Noah are not a mere prophecy; they are a verdict, a moral sentence
+pronounced upon conduct, by competent authority; that verdict
+sanctioned by God. Now if the verdict is righteous, and the execution
+blessed by God, it can hardly be, that the executioners of it are
+guilty for putting it in effect. Can one believe that the descendants
+of Shem and Japhet, with this sentence in their hands, and the divine
+commendation just bestowed on them for acting unlike Ham, could have
+reasonably felt guilty for accepting that control over their guilty
+fellow-men which God himself had assigned? For the vital difference
+between the case of the Assyrians, when their guilty ambition was
+permissively employed by God to punish the back-slidings of his own
+people, and the case of Shem and Japhet, is this: The Assyrians were
+cursed by God for doing their predicted work, in the very sentence;
+Shem and Japhet were blessed by Him in the very verdict which assigns
+Canaan as their servant.
+
+It may be that we should find little difficulty in tracing the lineage
+of the present Africans to Ham. But this inquiry is not essential to
+our argument. If one case is found where God has authorized domestic
+slavery, the principle is settled, that it cannot necessarily be sin
+in itself. It is proper that we should say, in conclusion, that this
+passage of Scripture is not regarded, nor advanced, as of prime force
+and importance in this argument. Others more decisive will follow.
+
+
+§ 3. _Abraham a Slaveholder._
+
+The references to the bondsmen of Abraham and his son Isaac are the
+following: Genesis xiv., 14, "And when Abram heard that his brother,"
+(or relative, viz.: Lot,) "was taken captive, he armed his trained
+servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and
+pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his
+servants, by night," etc. Genesis xvii., 10, etc., "This is my
+covenant which ye shall keep, between me and you, and thy seed after
+thee; every man-child among you shall be circumcised," ... v. 12, "And
+he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every
+man-child in your generations; he that is born in the house, or bought
+with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born
+in thy house and he that is bought with thy money must needs be
+circumcised," and v. 26, 27, "In the self-same day was Abraham
+circumcised, and Ishmael his son; and all the men of his house, born
+in the house and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised
+with him." Genesis xviii. 17 to 19, "And the _Lord_ said, Shall I hide
+from Abraham that thing which I do: seeing that Abraham shall surely
+become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth
+shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his
+children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of
+the _Lord_, to do justice and judgment: that the Lord may bring upon
+Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." Genesis xx. 14, "And
+Abimelech" (seeking reconciliation with Abraham for the wrong intended
+to Sarah his wife, at God's command,) "took sheep and oxen, and
+men-servants and women-servants, and gave them unto Abraham, and
+restored him Sarah his wife." Genesis xxiv. 35, Eliezer, when seeking
+a wife for Isaac, says: "And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly,
+and he is become great; and he hath given him flocks, and herds, and
+silver, and gold, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and camels and
+asses." And Genesis, xxvi. 12, 14, it is said of Isaac: "And the LORD
+blessed him. And the man waxed great and went forward and grew until
+he became very great. For he had possession of flocks, and possession
+of herds, and great store of servants."
+
+It appears then, that Abraham, "the friend of God," and Isaac, the
+most holy and spotless of the Patriarchs, were great slaveholders. But
+before pursuing the argument farther, it may be prudent to remove the
+quibble that these servants were not slaves, in the sense of our
+African slaves, but only humble clansmen, retainers, or hirelings. At
+least one writer would prove this by the fact that Abraham did not
+fear to arm three hundred and eighteen of them. For had they been real
+slaves, says he, they would not have continued so one day after
+getting arms in their hands. The retort most appropriate would be,
+that Abraham was not afraid to arm his slaves, though actual slaves,
+because there were no saucy, meddling, Yankee Abolitionists in those
+days to preach insubordination and make ill blood between masters and
+servants. But, more seriously, what shall we say of the professed
+reasoning which assumes the very point in debate? viz.: that slavery
+is an evil; and thence infers the conclusion that these could not be
+slaves, because they did not seize the power to burst the bonds of
+such an evil when placed in their reach? If their bondage was not
+evil, which is the question _sub judice_ in this debate, then they
+would not necessarily desire to burst from it. And that these were
+actual slaves is clear, because the words for bondsman and bondsmaid
+here used are, in every case, _ebed_ and _shippheh_, which are defined
+by every honest lexicon to mean actual slaves, which are used in that
+sense alone everywhere else in the Hebrew Scriptures, which are
+contrasted in the book of Leviticus with the "hired servant," or
+_sasir_. A part of these servants were bought from foreigners with
+Abraham's money. They are represented along with his very sheep and
+oxen as his property.
+
+Abraham and Isaac then, were all their lives literal slaveholders, on
+a large scale. Now we do not argue that this fact alone, coupled with
+the other, that they were good men, proves that slaveholding is
+innocent. The Abolitionists, fond of an easy victory on a false issue,
+always hasten to represent this as the amount of the argument; and
+then, their reply is obvious--that the example of truly good men is no
+rule of ethics for us, unless supported by the expressed or implied
+approval of God; for good men are imperfect, and many of their errors
+are recorded, by the honesty of the sacred writers, for our
+warning--that Abraham himself was guilty of falsehood to Abimelech,
+King of Gerar, and especially that he was betrayed into the gross sin
+of concubinage. Hence they say, Abraham's example no more proves
+slaveholding innocent than concubinage. We reply, that all these
+remarks, except the last, are perfectly just; but they have no
+application to the case, because God's sanction of Abraham's example
+as a slaveholder is expressly found in the narrative. The cases of
+slaveholding and concubinage are totally different. First, because the
+origin of the latter sin in the accursed lineage of Cain, and the act
+of the murderer Lamech, is impliedly stamped with God's condemnation,
+(Genesis iv. 19,) whereas the origin of domestic slavery is given us
+in the righteous sentence of God for depraved conduct. Second, Abraham
+fell into the sins of falsehood and concubinage but once, under
+violent temptation. There is no evidence that either he or Isaac ever
+practised them again, but both lived and died without one recorded
+qualm of conscience, in the practice of slaveholding, and made it one
+of their last acts, before passing to the judgment-seat of God, to
+bequeath their slaves, as property, to their heirs. Third, in Genesis
+xxiv. 35, and xxvi. 12, 14, it is represented that the bestowal of a
+multitude of slaves on Abraham and Isaac was a mark of the divine
+favour. In the first passage, it is indeed only the pious Eliezer who
+states this; but in the second, it is stated of Isaac by the sacred
+narrative itself. Now to represent God as blessing a favoured saint by
+bestowing providentially gifts which it is a sin to have, implicates
+God in the sin. Fourth, in Genesis xviii. 17 to 19, Jehovah expresses
+his love for Abraham, approbation for his character, and purpose to
+exalt him as a blessing to all nations, because "He knew him that he
+would command his children and his household after him, that they
+shall keep the way of the _Lord_ to do justice and judgment." What was
+this "household," distinct from his children? Hebrew usage and the
+context answer with one voice, his slaves. Then, God's high favour to
+Abraham was explained by the fact that he foresaw the patriarch would
+govern his children and slaves religiously and righteously. Now we ask
+emphatically, does a holy God bless a misguided and sinning man for
+the manner in which he perseveres in the sinful practice, be that
+manner what it may? If the relation of master and slave were sinful,
+would not the virtue of terminating the relation at once, so far
+transcend the questionable credit of using it to make the wronged and
+oppressed victim live piously, that it would be impossible for God to
+bestow his peculiar praise on the latter, where the former was
+lacking? There is no righteous way to perpetuate an unrighteous
+relation. Therefore God's blessing Abraham for his good government of
+his slaves, is proof that it is not a sin to have slaves to govern.
+
+But, last and chiefly, we have a still stronger fact to present. When
+Abraham was directed in Genesis xvii., 10, etc., to circumcise himself
+as a sign of the covenant between God and him, he was also directed to
+circumcise all his male children. The parental relationship was made
+the ground of their inclusion in the same covenant. And God directed
+his slaves also, "born in his house, or bought with his money of any
+foreigner," to be circumcised along with him. The parental tie brought
+his children under the religious rite of circumcision; the bond of
+master and servant brought his servants under it. Here then, we have
+the relationship of domestic slavery sanctioned, along with the
+parental and filial, by God's own injunction, by a participation in
+the holiest sacrament of the ancient church. Would a holy God thus
+baptize an unholy relation? Would he make it the ground of admission
+to a religious ordinance? To see a feeble illustration of the
+absurdity of such a conclusion, consider what would be thought of a
+minister of the New Testament, in which our Saviour has forbidden a
+plurality of wives, if that minister should desecrate the marriage
+ceremonial of his church, knowingly, to sanctify the union of the
+felon in the act of bigamy? Such a desecration would surely be not
+less shocking in the Author, than in a minister of religion.
+
+And here, the favourite plea of the anti-slavery men fails
+entirely--that Abraham lived in the dawn of religious light; that the
+revelation given him was only partial, and that while he possessed the
+rectitude of conscience which would have made him relinquish all
+sinful relations, if enlightened as to their true character, the
+customs of his age misled him to commit things which Christians
+afterwards taught to be sinful, and that therefore, these things,
+excusable in him because of his ignorance, would be wickedness in us.
+There is some truth in these statements, but they have nothing on
+earth to do with this example; because the circumcision of the slaves
+was God's act, and not Abraham's. God knows all things. He is
+perfectly holy and unchangeable. If he had seen that slavery is
+intrinsically wrong, and had intended at some future day to declare it
+so, would he at this time have sanctioned it by making it the ground
+of a solemn ordinance of religion? As we shall see, this cry of the
+imperfection of the Old Testament revelation is of Socinian origin,
+and is essentially false, in the sense in which it is uttered. But be
+it as just as any statement could be, it has no application here;
+because our whole inference is drawn from the acts of God himself, and
+not of an Old Testament Saint.
+
+
+§ 4. _Hagar remanded to Slavery by God._
+
+Sarah, in a season of desperation at her childless condition, seems to
+have been tempted to imitate the corrupt expedient which was prevalent
+among the Canaanites around her, and which still prevails in the East.
+According to this usage, the chief wife, or wife proper, gives to her
+husband a concubine from among her slaves, as a sort of substitute for
+herself; and the offspring of the connexion is regarded as her own
+child. Abram, misled by evil example, and by the solicitations of his
+wife--the person who would have had the best right to complain of his
+act--concurred temporarily in the arrangement, and received his
+Egyptian slave Hagar as an inferior wife. The favour of her master,
+and the prospective honour of being the mother of offspring, which has
+always been exceedingly prized by Oriental women, so inflated the
+servant with impudence, that she no longer treated her mistress with
+decent respect. When Sarah bitterly complained of this, Abram replied
+by reminding her that Hagar was still her slave; and that she was
+entitled, as a mistress, to compel her to observe a suitable
+demeanour. When Sarah proceeded to exert this authority, probably
+administering corporal punishment to Hagar for some instance of
+impertinence, the latter ran away, and pursued the direction which led
+to her native country, Egypt. It was then that the angel of the LORD
+found her "by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar,
+Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she
+said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of the
+LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under
+her hands." Genesis xvi., 7 to 9. He then proceeded to unfold the
+future of her unborn son, and Hagar obeyed his commands. From verses
+10th and 13th, we learn certainly that this angel was a Divine Person.
+For, in the first place, he promises Hagar, "I will multiply thy seed
+exceedingly;" but none but the Almighty could truthfully make such a
+promise in his own name, as it is here made. In the latter place we
+are informed that it was the LORD (in Hebrew, _Jehovah_; the most
+characteristic and incommendable name of God) that spake unto her; and
+Hagar called his name: "Thou God, seest me." We remark again, that
+Hagar was certainly in the relation of domestic slavery, and not of a
+hired servant, to Abraham and Sarai. She is called _Shiphheh_, which
+is the regular word for female slave in the Old Testament. Had she not
+been an actual slave, Sarai would never have presumed, according to
+Oriental usage, to dispose of her person in the manner related. Here,
+then, we have God, himself, the Angel Jehovah, who can be no other
+than the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ, commanding this
+fugitive to return into the relation of domestic slavery, and submit
+to it. Can that relation be in itself sinful? To assert this, would
+make our adorable Saviour _particeps criminis_. He cannot have
+required a soul to return into a sinful state. He never requires of
+his servants more than their duty; so that if Sarai had possessed no
+real and just title to Hagar's services as a slave--if the claim had
+been a mere imposition and injustice, she would not have been required
+to submit to it. Abolitionists attempt to evade this by saying that
+Hagar was instructed to return and submit to bondage on the same
+principle on which Christ instructs us, when wrongfully smitten on one
+cheek to turn the other likewise. This, say they, by no means implies
+that the smiting was just. We reply, that the parallel cannot be
+drawn. Had Hagar been in the hand of an unjust mistress, it would have
+been her duty in Christian forbearance to "take it patiently, though
+buffeted wrongfully." But she was not now in Sarai's hand. She had
+successfully escaped it, and was far advanced in her' journey to her
+native Egypt, where she evidently expected to find friends and
+shelter. Under these circumstances, it is preposterous to say that the
+grace of Christian forbearance required of her to return voluntarily
+whither no claim of right drew her, and subject herself to unjust and
+unauthorized persecution again. We ask, Does Christ so press the duty
+of peaceableness, as to sacrifice to it the whole personal well-being
+and rightful interests of the innocent victim of unjust aggression? Is
+his chief object, in these lessons of forbearance, to gratify and
+pamper the lust of persecution in the aggressor? Is there no right of
+just self-defence left? Surely he teaches us that we owe a duty to our
+own life and well-being, as well as to our fellow-men's. When we are
+wronged, we are to defend this right only in such ways as become a son
+of peace--a man of forgiveness. But the same Saviour who taught his
+disciples to render good for evil when injured, also commanded them:
+"When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another." When a
+peaceable escape can be secured from injustice, it is both the
+privilege and duty of the most forgiving Christian on earth to use it.
+Now Hagar was in such a condition; had her subjection to Sarai been,
+as the Abolitionists say slavery is, a condition of unjust
+persecution, the Saviour's instructions to her would doubtless have
+been: "Now that you have escaped the injustice of her that wronged
+you, flee to another city." His remanding her to Sarai shows that the
+subjection was lawful and right.
+
+It has been objected again, that we cannot argue this, unless we are
+willing to argue the lawfulness of concubinage; because to send Hagar
+back to her bondage was to resign her again to this relation. We
+utterly deny it. The LORD only says to her: "Return to thy mistress
+and submit thyself under her hands;" not "Return to thy master's bed."
+There is not one particle of proof that Abram continued his improper
+connexion with her after these transactions. Nor is there more worth
+in the remark, that subsequently, the same divine Being met Hagar
+wandering in the same wilderness, and did not require her to return,
+but assisted her journey. The answer is, that she was then under no
+obligation to return; because her master had fully manumitted her, and
+bestowed her freedom on her.
+
+
+§ 5. _Slavery in the Laws of Moses._
+
+God, in accordance with his covenant with Abraham, set apart Israel,
+through the ministry of Moses, to be his peculiar and holy people, his
+witness in the midst of an apostate world, to keep alive the services
+and precepts of true morality and true religion, till, in the fulness
+of time, Jesus Christ should come in the flesh, and begin the
+Christianizing of all nations. To effect these objects, He renewed his
+revelation of the eternal and unchangeable moral law, from Sinai, in
+the Decalogue; and he also gave, by the intervention of Moses, various
+religious and civil laws, which were peculiar to the Jews, and were
+never intended to be observed after the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
+The great object of all this legislation, was to set apart the Jewish
+nation as a holy people, peculiarly dedicated to purity of moral
+life, and the maintenance of true religion, amidst corrupt and
+idolatrous generations. To effect this, God found it necessary to
+raise a barrier to familiar social intercourse between the Israelites
+and their corrupting heathen neighbours; and sundry of the expedients
+by which this barrier was raised, were prohibitions of usages which
+would have been, in themselves, neither right nor wrong, but morally
+indifferent, as the eating of pork. Some of those laws having the same
+object in view, required acts in their original nature indifferent;
+such as circumcision and eating the Passover. But it is totally
+inconsistent with the holiness of God, and with his purpose of setting
+Israel apart to a holy life, that any of those peculiar laws should
+require acts in themselves wicked, or forbid things in themselves
+morally binding. It would be impiety to represent God as capable of
+commanding what is wrong; and to enjoin sin in order to make people
+holy, would be a folly and a contradiction. God's revealed will, so
+far as it is revealed for a rule of life, either permanent or
+temporary, can contain nothing but what is right, and pure, and just.
+If it had been a positive moral duty to eat pork, this holy God would
+never have made the prohibition to eat it a part even of the
+temporary, ceremonial laws of his servants. Had it been morally wrong
+to kill, roast, and eat a lamb, God would never have enjoined on them
+the institution of the Passover. These conclusions are as plain as the
+alphabet.
+
+Now then, if we find any particular thing either sanctioned or
+enjoined, in the peculiar ceremonial or civil institutions of Moses,
+it does not prove that thing to be morally binding on us, in this
+century, or necessarily politic and proper for us; but it does prove
+it to be, in its essential moral character, innocent. That thing
+cannot be sin in itself. So, Jno. David Michaelis, in his
+_Commentaries on the Laws of Moses_, Book 1, Art. 1. This is the
+important and just distinction. The fact that animal sacrifices were
+required in the ceremonial laws of Moses, does not prove that it is
+our duty, under the Christian dispensation, to offer sacrifices, or
+that it is appropriate for us to do so; but it does prove that the act
+would be in itself innocent (though useless) for us, and for every
+one, if it had not been forbidden in subsequent revelation. Otherwise,
+a holy God would never have enjoined or sanctioned it at all.
+
+Therefore, the fact that God expressly authorized domestic slavery,
+among the peculiar and temporary civil laws of the Jews, while it does
+not prove that it is our positive duty to hold slaves, does prove that
+it is innocent to hold them, unless it has been subsequently forbidden
+by God. Now then, let us see what God authorized by Moses. Exodus xxi.
+2 to 6: "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, (Ebed,) 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 unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his
+master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him
+forever," (that is, probably, until the year of Jubilee, which came
+once in fifty years. See Leviticus xxv. 41.)
+
+This, cries the anti-slavery man, was only temporary servitude. We
+reply: but it was involuntary servitude, though temporary. It gave to
+the master the right to compel the labour of the servant without his
+consent; and this is a sanction of the principle of our institution.
+What will be said then to the following? Leviticus xxv. 44 to 46:
+"Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of
+the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and
+bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn
+among you, of them shall ye buy and of their families that are with
+you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your
+possession," (your property.) "And ye shall take them as an
+inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a
+possession; they shall be your bondmen forever; but over your
+brethren, the children of Israel, ye shall not rule over one another
+with rigour."
+
+The antithesis in the position of the two laws shows that these
+heathen slaves were not to go free at the year of Jubilee, like Hebrew
+slaves. They are to be bondmen forever. They and their children,
+slaves by birth, are to descend from father to son, as heritable
+property. There was to be "no seventh year freedom here; there is no
+Jubilee liberation." So says the learned divine, Moses Stuart, of
+Andover, himself an anti-slavery man. And so say all respectable
+Hebrew antiquaries. Indeed it would be hard to construct language
+defining more strongly and fully all those features of domestic
+slavery most contradictory to the theory of Abolitionists. They were
+to be bought and sold. They were heritable property: (Mr. Sumner would
+prove hence, "mere chattels.") Here is involuntary slavery for life,
+expressly authorized to God's own peculiar and holy people, in the
+strongest and most careful terms. The relation, then, must be innocent
+in itself. With what show of candour can men say, in the face of a
+sanction so full, so emphatic, so hearty, that Moses, finding the
+hoary institution of domestic slavery so deeply rooted that it would
+be impossible then to abolish it, _tolerated_ it, and limited it by
+all the restrictions which he could apply, calculated to cut off its
+worst horrors? We ask, was Moses the author of these laws, or God?
+Does the Almighty, the Unchangeable, the Holy, connive at moral
+abuses, like a puny human magistrate, and content himself, where he
+dare not denounce a sin, with pruning its growth a little? We ask
+again: Is this gloss borne out by the facts? Was Moses, in fact, timid
+in assailing old and deeply-rooted vices, and in demanding that they
+should be eradicated wholly? Let his uncompromising legislation
+against Idolatry and Adultery answer. The truth is, such writers as
+use the above language know nothing about the true nature of domestic
+slavery, and draw their inferences only from their prejudices. God and
+Moses knew it well. They knew that it was an institution which, when
+not abused, was suitable to the character of the depraved persons for
+whom it was designed, and wholesome and benign. Hence, they prohibit
+all inhuman abuses of it; and then they do not tolerate it merely as
+an unavoidable wrong; but they expressly legalize it, as right. An
+honest mind can make nothing less of their words. But in Numbers xxxi.
+25 to 30, and Joshua ix. 20 to 27, we have instances which are, if
+possible, still stronger. In the former passage the people of Midian
+had been conquered by God's command, and the captives and spoils
+brought home; the captives to be slaves for life according to the law
+of Leviticus, ch. xxv. The book of Numbers then proceeds: "And the
+Lord spake unto Moses saying, Take the sum of prey that was taken both
+of man and of beast, thou and Eleazer the priest and the chief fathers
+of the congregation; and divide the prey into two parts; between them
+that took the war upon them who went out to battle, and between all
+the congregation. And levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war
+which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the
+persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses and of the sheep: Take it
+of their half, and give it unto Eleazer the priest, for an
+heave-offering of the _Lord_. And of the children of Israel's half
+thou shalt take one portion of fifty, of the persons, of the beeves,
+of the asses and of the flocks, of all manner of beasts, and give them
+unto the Levites which keep the charge of the tabernacle of the Lord."
+In verses 40th and 46th, we read farther that the "_Lord's_ tribute of
+the persons" of the first half, "was thirty and two persons," and of
+the second half, "three hundred and twenty." Here God commands a
+portion of these slaves to be set apart to a sacred use, and dedicated
+to himself, that they might become the property of the ministers of
+religion. The second instance is not contained in the books of Moses,
+but in the history of his successor Joshua: we group it with the
+former, for its similarity. In Joshua, ch. ix., we are told that while
+he was triumphantly engaged in the destruction of the condemned
+heathen tribes of Palestine, according to God's command, the people of
+Gibeon, a part of the doomed race, despairing of a successful defence,
+adopted this stratagem to save themselves. Under pretence that they
+were not of Palestine at all, but from a very distant place, their
+ambassadors obtained from the leaders of the Israelites a very
+stringent oath of amity. This pledge the elders incautiously gave,
+without seeking the divine direction. In a very few days they learned
+to their astonishment, that these Gibeonites lived in the very heart
+of Palestine, close to the spot where they were encamped, and that
+they were of the very race which they were appointed to destroy. But
+they had sworn in the name of Jehovah not to destroy them. In this
+state of things, the princes and Joshua determined to punish them for
+their falsehood, and at the same time substantially observe their
+oath, by leaving them unhurt, but reducing them to slavery as the
+serfs of the Tabernacle and its ministers. In verses 23d and 27th,
+Joshua told them: "Now, therefore, ye are cursed, and there shall none
+of you be freed from being bondmen," (Ebed, i. e., slaves,) "and hewers
+of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God." "And Joshua
+made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the
+congregation and for the altar of the _Lord_, even unto this day, in
+that place which he should choose." This compact the Gibeonites seem
+gladly to have accepted. In 2d Samuel, ch. xxi., we find this same
+race of serfs still living among the Israelites, under the same
+compact. King Saul, David's predecessor, having broken it by killing
+many of them, God himself interposed, and required a satisfaction for
+the breach. Here we have evidence that the slaves of heathen origin
+were not freed by the Jubilee, for centuries had now elapsed and they
+were still slaves. We also see evidence that the contract made by
+Joshua was not regarded by God as unlawful. In this case, also, we
+find God accepting a religious offering of slaves for the service of
+his sanctuary. And these, while real slaves, did not belong each to an
+individual master, but were slaves to an institution and a caste, a
+form of bondage always justly regarded as less benevolent than the
+former.
+
+Yet men say slavery is a wicked relation, which God only tolerated and
+curbed in the Old Testament. The _Lord's_ claiming his tythe of slaves
+(as of cattle and wheat) seems to the candid man a strange way of
+expressing bare tolerance! Was it not enough to leave the laity of the
+"holy people" polluted with the sin of slaveholding, without
+proceeding by his own express injunction to introduce the "taint" into
+the still more sacred caste of the priesthood? Did the God of all
+holiness direct a part of the wages of iniquity to be set apart for
+his holy uses? Perhaps it may be said that He regarded the holy use as
+sanctifying the unholy source of the offering. The surmise is
+blasphemous. But see Deuteronomy xxiii. 18: "Thou shalt not bring the
+hire of a whore or the price of a dog into the house of the _Lord_ thy
+God for any vow: for even both these are abomination to the _Lord_ thy
+God." To set apart to God's use property wickedly acquired was an
+insult to his holiness: and to offer Him even what was acquired by
+the sale of an animal ceremonially unclean, was resented as a type of
+the same sin. The consecration of these slaves to sacred uses is
+therefore the strongest possible proof that slaves are lawful
+property. To sum up: The divine permission and sanction of slavery to
+the very people whom God was setting apart to a holy life, the
+consecration of slaves as property to a sacred purpose, the regulating
+by law of the duties flowing from the relation, all prove that it was
+then a lawful and innocent one. Otherwise, we should have the holy God
+teaching sin. If it was innocent once in its intrinsic nature, it is
+innocent now, unless it has been subsequently prohibited by God. But
+no such prohibition can be shown.
+
+
+§ 6. _Slavery in the Decalogue._
+
+Although the Ten Commandments were given along with the civil and
+ceremonial laws of the Hebrews, we do not include them along with the
+latter, because the Decalogue was, unlike them, given for all men and
+all dispensations. It is a solemn repetition of the sum of those
+duties founded on the natures of man and of God, and on their
+relations, enjoined on all ages alike. It contains nothing ceremonial,
+or of merely temporary obligation; (which is binding merely because it
+is commanded;) but all is of perpetual, moral obligation. It claims to
+be, rightly explained, a perfect and complete rule. Our Saviour
+repeatedly adopts it as the eternal sum of all duty, on which hang all
+the law and the prophets, that is, all Scripture. Accordingly, we find
+that the mode of its republication gave to this Decalogue a grandeur
+and weight shared by no secular or ceremonial precepts. Deuteronomy
+v. informs us that it was delivered first, thus receiving the
+precedence, that it was spoken by God himself in articulate words,
+heard by all the quaking multitude, in tones of thunder, from the
+smoking summit of Sinai, with the terrible concomitants of angelic
+hosts, devouring fire, lightnings and earthquakes; that God added no
+more, thus refusing to all the subsequent precepts the honour of such
+a publication, and that He himself then engraved it on stone,
+signifying by the imperishable material, the perpetuity of this law.
+
+Hence, all the principles of right stated or implied in this
+Decalogue, are valid, not for Hebrews only, but for all men and ages.
+They rise wholly above the temporary and positive precepts, which were
+only binding while they were expressly enjoined. They have not been,
+because they cannot be, repealed or modified; they are as immutable as
+God's perfections. In our Saviour's words, "Till heaven and earth
+pass, one jot or one tittle of this law shall not pass away."
+
+Now, our argument is, that in this short summary, the relation of
+master and slave is mentioned twice; and that in modes which are a
+recognition of its lawfulness. It is introduced as a basis of duties
+and rights founded upon it, and those rights are defended, and those
+duties enjoined. But if it were an unlawful relation, what rights
+could grow out of it except the slave's right to have it broken? And
+what duties of the master could be founded on it, except the duties of
+discontinuing, repenting of, and repairing its wrongs? In the 4th
+Commandment, Exod. xx. 10, it is made the master's duty to cause the
+slave to observe the Sabbath day. After the 8th Commandment had
+forbidden injury to our fellow-man's property in act, by overt theft,
+the 10th, (v. 17,) prohibits its injury even in thought by corrupt
+coveting. And in the enumeration of possessions thus carefully covered
+from assault, are men-servants (_ebed_) and maid-servants, along with
+real estate and cattle. If the reader would feel the strength of the
+argument implied in these facts, let him ask himself what would have
+been his amazement, if, after the description which God's word gives
+of the authority, righteousness, purity, and perpetuity of this
+Decalogue, he had read in it, that highwaymen and pirates are
+commanded to enforce Sabbath observance on their injured victims, and
+that we must not covet our neighbour's concubine, or the stolen goods
+in his possession? And this, without hint of the guilt of violence,
+concubinage, and theft. It would be impossible for either
+understanding or conscience to reconcile itself to the anomaly; he
+would feel, inevitably, that God was incapable of such implied
+sanction of sin.
+
+
+§ 7. _Objections to the Old Testament Argument._
+
+To state the arguments from the laws of Moses and the Decalogue has
+not required a large space, because those conclusions are so plain and
+sound, that many words were not needed. But the cavils, objections and
+special pleadings of the Abolitionists teem like the frogs of Egypt,
+engendered in the mire of ignorance and prejudice, so numerous because
+so worthless. And when it is seen that we perhaps expend more space in
+their refutation than we did in the direct argument, the heedless
+reader may possibly be inclined to say to himself, that there must be
+something wrong in an argument to which so much can be objected. We
+beg him to observe then, that we pause to explode these objections,
+not because they are of any weight, but because we purpose to make
+thorough work with our opponents. When we have finished these
+rejoinders, we shall take the impartial reader to witness, that not
+only the weight, but the least appearance of plausibility in these
+cavils has been blown into thin air. And then we shall have the right
+to infer that their number indicates, not the questionable character
+of our positions, but only a fixed and blind prejudice against the
+truth in our adversaries.
+
+It is objected that domestic slavery among the Hebrews was a much
+milder institution than in Virginia, and that, therefore, we have no
+right to argue from the one to the other. If it were true that Hebrew
+slavery was milder, it might show that we were wrong in the way in
+which we treated our slaves; but it could not prove that slaveholding
+was wrong. The principle would still be established, for the
+lawfulness of the relation. But let it be noted that the peculiar
+mitigations of slavery affected only slaves of Hebrew blood, not
+Gentiles. Whatever may have been the leniency of the system, the state
+of the Gentile slaves showed the essential features of slavery among
+us, the right to the slave's labour for life without his consent,
+property in that labour, the right to buy, sell and bequeath it; the
+right to enforce it on the slave by corporal punishments, which might
+have any degree of severity short of death. (See Exod. xxi. 20, 21.)
+Virginians had no interest to contend for any stricter form of
+slavery than this.
+
+Second. It is said that the permission to buy, possess, and bequeath
+slaves of heathen origin, which we have cited, related only to the
+seven condemned tribes of Canaan, and was part of the divinely
+appointed penalty for their wickedness. Even such a man as Dr.
+Wayland, of Brown University, Rhode Island, has adopted this plea,
+thus justifying in a prominent instance the assertion that
+Abolitionism is grounded in a shameful ignorance of facts. The answer
+to the plea is, that it is expressly contrary to fact. The Hebrews
+were positively prohibited to reserve any of the seven condemned
+nations for slaves, and were enjoined to exterminate them all, lest
+the contagion of their vile morals should corrupt Israel. On the other
+hand, they were told that they might buy them slaves of any of the
+other Gentile nations around them, with whom they were to live on
+terms of national amity. (See Deuteronomy, xx. 10 to 18.) After
+directing the policy of the Hebrews towards conquered enemies from
+these nations, and permitting the enslaving of the captives, Moses
+proceeds: (v. 15.) "Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are
+very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
+But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give
+thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save nothing alive that breatheth;
+but thou shalt utterly destroy them, namely, the Hittites and the
+Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the
+Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that they teach
+you not to do after all their abominations," etc. (See also, Josh. vi.
+17 to 21; viii. 26; x. 28 to 32, etc., etc.)
+
+Third. It is objected from these very injunctions, that the examples
+of the commands given to the Israelites are no rules for us; that God
+commanded them to exterminate the seven nations of Canaan; but if we
+should therefore proceed to attack and destroy a neighbouring nation
+which had not assailed us, it would be a horrible wickedness. It is
+asked: Were the fanatics of the English Commonwealth in the 17th
+century correct when they justified their barbarities upon royalists
+by the examples of Joshua's slaughter of the Amorites, and Samuel's of
+Amalek? And we are told that our argument from Hebrew slavery is of
+the same absurd kind.
+
+We reply: We willingly accept the instances. God's command to Joshua
+and Samuel to exterminate the Canaanites and Amalek, does prove that
+killing is not necessarily murder. This very instance gives us an
+unanswerable argument against those who oppose all capital punishments
+as wrong. And just so we employ the other instance, which our
+assailants say is parallel--Hebrew slavery--to prove that slaveholding
+is not necessarily sinful. But the instances are not parallel. The
+sanction of domestic slavery was a statute law for all generations of
+Hebrews; the command to exterminate the seven tribes imposed a
+specific task on certain individuals. It is absurd to confound an
+executive command, given to particular men for the once, under
+particular circumstances, with the sanctions of a permanent
+institution, designed to descend from generation to generation. The
+command to exterminate the seven guilty tribes was the former, the
+permission to hold slaves the latter. True, the example of Joshua in
+blotting these tribes from existence, is no authority for us to do
+likewise, unless we also can show a direct divine commission
+authorizing us for a special case. But neither was that example
+authority to any subsequent generation of Hebrews, after Joshua, to
+exterminate any other pagan tribe. Will any one say that the authority
+given by Moses to his fellow-citizens to hold slaves was not just as
+good to enable subsequent generations of Hebrews to hold slaves?
+Prejudice cannot carry sophistry so far. There is, therefore, no
+analogy between the two cases, in the point necessary for grounding
+the objection to our argument.
+
+Fourth. It is said that Moses himself commanded that a runaway slave
+should not be surrendered to his master; thereby plainly teaching that
+slaves had a right to their liberty, if they could escape. This, it is
+urged, proves that there must be some mistake in our conclusions. Of
+course, this passage is quoted triumphantly as settling the question
+against the fugitive slave-law, required by the late Constitution of
+the United States. It is found in Deuteronomy xxiii. 15, 16: "Thou
+shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from
+his master unto thee: he shall dwell with thee, even among you, in
+that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh
+him best; thou shalt not oppress him."
+
+We need no better answer to this citation, than that given by a
+Northern divine already named, who is no friend to slavery, Rev. Moses
+Stuart. He says: "The first inquiry of course is: Where does his
+master live? Among the Hebrews or among foreigners? The language of
+the passage fully developes this, and answers the question. He has
+'escaped from his master unto the Hebrews.' (The text says, unto
+_thee_, i. e., Israel.) 'He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in
+one of thy gates.' Of course then, he is an immigrant, and did not
+dwell among them before his flight. If he had been a Hebrew servant,
+belonging to a Hebrew, the whole face of the thing would be changed.
+Restoration or restitution, if we may judge by the tenour of other
+property laws among the Hebrews, would have surely been enjoined. But,
+be that as it may, the language of the text puts it beyond a doubt,
+that the servant is a foreigner and has fled from a heathen master."
+Mr. Stuart then proceeds to assign obvious reasons why a foreign
+servant escaping from a heathen master was not to be restored: that
+the bondage from which he escaped was inordinately cruel, including
+the power of murder for any caprice; and that to force him back was to
+remand him to the darkness of heathenism, and to rob him of the light
+of true religion, which shone in the land of the Hebrews alone. He
+adds: "But if we put now the other case, viz.: that of escape from a
+Hebrew master, who claimed and enjoyed Hebrew rights, is not the case
+greatly changed? Who could take from him the property which the Mosaic
+law gave him a right to hold? Neither the bondsman himself, nor the
+neighbours of the master to whom the fugitive might come. Reclamation
+of him could be lawfully made, and therefore must be enforced." This
+explanation forces itself upon our common sense. To suppose that Moses
+could so formally authorize and define slavery among the Hebrews, and
+then enact that every slave might gain his liberty by merely stepping
+over the brook or imaginary line which separated the little cantons
+of the tribes from each other, or even by going to the next house of
+his master's neighbours, and claiming protection, whenever petulance,
+or caprice, or laziness should move him thereto; this is absurd; it is
+trivial child's play. It takes away with one hand what it professed to
+give with the other. The fact that slavery continued to exist from age
+to age, is proof enough that the Hebrews did not put the Abolitionist
+construction on the law. To this agree the respectable Hebrew
+antiquarians, as Horne, etc.
+
+Fifth. It is urged that Revelation was in its plan progressive, like
+the morning twilight; that the Mosaic code was the early dawn; that
+God, for wise reasons, left many points in darkness, which the full
+daylight of the Gospel has since shown to be sin. And, therefore,
+several practices, which we are now taught to be sinful, may have been
+ignorantly followed by good men, and tolerated by this imperfect
+legislation of God's law. Yet if we, who enjoy a fuller revelation,
+should indulge in these practices, we should be guilty and
+disobedient.
+
+Grant this, for the present. Grant, for argument's sake, that it may
+have been consistent with the plan of revelation to make known at
+first only a partial rule of duty, leaving some sins unmentioned. Yet
+surely it was not consistent with the truth and holiness of God, to
+throw a false light in that partial revelation, on those parts of
+man's duty which he professed to reveal! So far as any revelation from
+God goes, it must be a true and righteous one. If it undertook to fix
+a point of duty, it must fix it correctly, whatever else it might
+omit. Otherwise; we should have a holy, true, and good Creator, while
+professing to guide man to duty and life, misleading him to sin and
+death. Let now the reader note that the lawfulness of slavery was not
+one of the points omitted. God spake expressly upon it; and what he
+said was to authorize it.
+
+But we do not admit that Moses' was an incomplete revelation in the
+sense of the Abolitionists. They are fond of representing the New
+Testament revelation as completing, amending, and correcting that of
+the Old. Its details the New Testament does complete; but if it were
+amended or corrected by any subsequent standard of infallible truth,
+this would prove it not truly inspired. Indeed, the history of
+theological opinion shows plainly enough that this anti-slavery view
+of Old Testament revelation is Socinian and Rationalistic. Modern
+Abolitionism in America had, in fact, a Socinian birth, in the great
+apostasy of the Puritans of New England to that benumbing heresy, and
+in the pharisaism, shallow scholarship, affectation, conceit and
+infidelity of the Unitarian clique in the self-styled American Athens,
+Boston. It is lamentable to see how men professing to be evangelical
+are driven by blind prejudices against Southern men and things, to
+adopt this skeptical tone towards God's own word. The ruinous issue
+has been seen in the case of a minister of the Gospel, who, after
+floundering through a volume of confused and impotent sophisms,
+roundly declares that if compelled to admit that the Bible treated
+slavery as not a sin in itself, he would repudiate the Bible rather
+than his opinions.
+
+But we point these objectors to that Saviour who said, in the full
+meridian of revealed light of this Old Testament law: "Whosoever
+shall keep these commandments shall enter into eternal life;" and to
+the fact that the Decalogue itself twice recognizes the right of the
+master. Will they say that this too was an old, partial, and imperfect
+revelation? Not so says the sweet Psalmist of Israel: "The law of the
+Lord is perfect." Psalms, xix. 7. Whatever Abolitionists may cavil,
+Jesus Christ acknowledged no more perfect rule of morals than the Ten
+Commandments, as expounded by the "law and the prophets."
+
+Sixth. An objection has been raised against the Old Testament
+argument, from the supposed permission of, or connivance at, polygamy
+and causeless divorce in the laws of Moses. This objection has been
+urged by Dr. Channing, the celebrated Unitarian, and since, in a more
+exact form, by Dr. Wayland. In substance it is this: That polygamy was
+allowed by the Old Testament law, and divorce for a less cause than
+conjugal infidelity was expressly permitted by Moses. But both these
+are as expressly forbidden as sinful by our Saviour. Matthew xix. 3 to
+9. Therefore the main assertion in defence of slavery, on which the
+argument rested, does not hold: for these two instances show that a
+thing is not intrinsically innocent because it was permitted for a
+time to the Jews.
+
+Our reply is, that both the premises of the objection are absolutely
+false. Polygamy and capricious divorce never were authorized by Old
+Testament law, in the sense in which domestic slavery was; and,
+second, the latter was never prohibited in the New Testament, as
+polygamy and such divorces expressly are. Either of these facts,
+without the other, makes the objection invalid, as we shall show; but
+we shall establish both. Before doing this, however, we would ask:
+Suppose these assertions of Drs. Wayland and Channing proved that God
+expressly permitted polygamy and causeless divorce to his own chosen
+and holy people, and that Jesus Christ yet denounced these things as
+sins; what is gained? Not only is this part of our defence of slavery
+overthrown, but the holiness of God is also overthrown; or else the
+inspiration of the Scriptures. (The latter would be a result evidently
+not very repugnant to Socinians and their sympathizers.) For then
+these Scriptures would make Him the teacher of sin to the very persons
+whom he was setting apart to peculiar holiness. If God did indeed
+authorize polygamy and causeless divorce in the Old Testament law,
+then the only inference for the devout mind is, that those things were
+then innocent, and would still be so, had not Christ afterwards
+forbidden them. Now, when we pass into the New Testament, and find
+that domestic slavery (which these objectors would make the parallel
+of polygamy and divorce without just cause) is not forbidden there, as
+the latter two were, but is again permitted, authorized and regulated,
+we must conclude that it is still innocent, as it must have been when
+a holy God allowed it to his holy people.
+
+But the first part of the objectors' premise is also false; polygamy
+and causeless divorce never were sanctioned by Moses as domestic
+slavery was. Even admitting the more ignorant rendering of the matter,
+how wide is the difference in God's treatment of the two subjects!
+Slaves are mentioned as lawful property, not only in the biographies
+of God's erring and fallible servants, but in his own legislation;
+the acquisition of them is a blessing from him; their connexion with
+their masters is made the basis of religious sacraments; property in
+slaves is protected by laws of divine enactment; and the rights and
+duties of them and their masters defined. But when we pass to the
+subjects of plurality and change of wives, while we see the lives of
+imperfect, though good men, candidly disclosing these abuses, no
+legislative act recognizes them, except in the single case of divorce.
+In all God's laws and precepts, He always says _wife_, not _wives_, so
+carefully does He avoid a seeming allowance of a plurality. The
+Decalogue throws no protection around concubines, against the coveting
+of others. The rights and duties of polygamists are never defined by
+divine law, save in seeming exceptions which will be explained. How
+unlike is all this to the legislation upon slavery!
+
+What has been already said leaves our argument impregnable. But so
+much misapprehension exists about the two cases, that the general
+interests of truth prompt a little farther separate discussion of
+each. The two enactments touching divorce which present the supposed
+contradiction in the strongest form, are those of Moses in Deuteronomy
+xxiv. 1 to 4, and Matthew xix. 3 to 9. These the reader is requested
+to have under his eye. The form of the Pharisees' question to Christ,
+("Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife _for every cause_?")
+concurs with the testimony of Josephus, in teaching us that a
+monstrous perversion of Moses' statute then prevailed. The licentious,
+and yet self-righteous Pharisee claimed, as one of his most
+unquestioned privileges, the right to repudiate a wife, after the
+lapse of years, and birth of children, for any caprice whatsoever.
+The trap which they now laid for Christ was designed to compel him
+either to incur the _odium_ of attacking this usage, guarded by a
+jealous anger, or to connive at their interpretation of the statute.
+Manifestly Christ does not concede that they interpreted Moses
+rightly; but indignantly clears the legislation of that holy man from
+their licentious perversions, and then, because of their abuse of it,
+repeals it by his plenary authority. He refers to that constitution of
+the marriage tie which was original, which preceded Moses, and was
+therefore binding when Moses wrote, to show that it was impossible he
+could have enacted what they claimed. What then did Moses enact? Let
+us explain it. In the ancient society of the East, females being
+reared in comparative seclusion, and marriages negotiated by
+intermediaries, the bridegroom had little opportunity for a familiar
+acquaintance even with the person of the bride. When she was brought
+to him at the nuptials, if he found her disfigured with some personal
+deformity or disease, (the undoubted meaning of the phrase "some
+uncleanness,") which effectually changed desire into disgust, he was
+likely to regard himself as swindled in the treaty, and to send the
+rejected bride back with indignity to her father's house. There she
+was reluctantly received, and in the anomalous position of one in name
+a wife, yet without a husband, she dragged out a wretched existence,
+incapable of marriage, and regarded by her parents and brothers as a
+disgraceful incumbrance. It was to relieve the wretched fate of such a
+woman, that Moses' law was framed. She was empowered to exact of her
+proposed husband a formal annulment of the unconsummated contract,
+and to resume the _status_ of a single woman, eligible for another
+marriage. It is plain that Moses' law contemplates the case, only, in
+which no consummation of marriage takes place. She finds _no favour_
+in the eyes "of the bridegroom." He is so indignant and disgusted,
+that desire is put to flight by repugnance. The same fact appears from
+the condition of the law, that she shall in no case return to this
+man, "after she is defiled," i. e., after actual cohabitation with
+another man had made her unapproachable (without moral defilement) by
+the first. Such was the narrow extent of this law. The act for which
+it provided was divorce only in name, where that _consensus, qui
+matrimonium facit_, (in the words of the law maxim,) had never been
+perfected. The state of social usages among the Hebrews, with parental
+and fraternal severity towards the unfortunate daughter and sister,
+rendered the legislation of Moses necessary, and righteous at the
+time; but "a greater than Moses" was now here; and he, after defending
+the inspired law-giver from their vile misrepresentation, proceeded to
+repeal the law, because it had been so perverted, and because the
+social changes of the age had removed its righteous grounds. Let the
+Abolitionists show us a similar change in the law of domestic slavery,
+made by Christ, and we will admit that the moral conditions of the
+relation have changed since Moses' day.
+
+The case of the polygamist is still clearer; for we assert that the
+whole legislation of the Pentateuch and of all the Old Testament is
+only adverse to polygamy. As some Christian divines have taught
+otherwise, we must ask the reader's attention and patience for a
+brief statement. Polygamy is recorded of Abraham, Jacob, Gideon,
+Elkanah, David, Solomon; but so are other sins of several of these;
+and, as every intelligent reader knows, the truthful narrative of holy
+writ as often discloses the sins of good men--for our warning, as
+their virtues for our imitation. And he who notes how, in every Bible
+instance, polygamy appears as the cause of domestic feuds, sin, and
+disaster, will have little doubt that the Holy Spirit tacitly holds
+all these cases up for our caution, and not our approval. But, then,
+God made Adam one wife only, and taught him the great law of the
+perpetual unity of the twain, just as it is now expounded by Jesus
+Christ. (Genesis ii. 23, 24, with Matthew xix. 4 to 6.) God preserved
+but one wife each to Noah and his sons. In every statute and
+preceptive word of the Holy Spirit, it is always _wife_, and not
+_wives_. The prophets everywhere teach how to treat a _wife_, and not
+_wives_. Moses, Leviticus xviii. 18, in the code regulating marriage,
+expressly prohibits the marriage of a second wife in the life of the
+first, thus enjoining monogamy in terms as clear as Christ's. Our
+English version hath it: "Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister
+to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, besides the other, in her
+lifetime." Some have been preposterous enough to take the word
+_sister_ here in its literal sense, and thus to force on the law the
+meaning that the man desiring to practise polygamy may do so provided
+he does not marry two daughters of the same parents; for if he did
+this, the two sisters sharing his bed would, like Rachel and Leah,
+quarrel more fiercely than two strangers. But the word "_sister_"
+must undoubtedly be taken in the sense of _mates_, _fellows_, (which
+it bears in a multitude of places,) and this for two controlling
+reasons. The other sense makes Moses talk nonsense and folly, in the
+supposed reason for his prohibition; in that it makes him argue that
+two sisters sharing one man's bed will quarrel, but two women having
+no kindred blood will not. It is false to fact and to nature. Did Leah
+and Rachel show more jealousy than Sarah and Hagar, Hannah and
+Peninnah? But when we understand the law in its obvious sense, that
+the husband shall not divide his bed with a second mate, the first
+still living, because such a wrong ever harrows and outrages the great
+instincts placed in woman's heart by her Creator, we make Moses talk
+truth and logick worthy of a profound legislator. The other reason for
+this construction is, that the other sense places the 18th verse in
+irreconcilable contradiction to the 16th verse. This forbids the
+marriage of a woman to the husband of her deceased sister; while the
+18th verse, with this false reading, would authorize it.
+
+Once more: Malachi, (chapter ii. 14, 15.) rebuking the various
+corruptions of the Jews, evidently includes polygamy; for he argues in
+favour of monogamy, (and also against causeless divorce,) from the
+fact that God, "who had the residue of the Spirit," and could as
+easily have created a thousand women for each man as a single one,
+made the numbers of the sexes equal from the beginning. He states this
+as the motive, "that he might seek a godly seed;" that is to say, that
+the object of God in the marriage relation was the right rearing of
+children, which polygamy notoriously hinders. Now the commission of an
+Old Testament prophet was not to legislate a new dispensation; for
+the laws of Moses were in full force; the prophets' business was to
+expound them. Hence, we infer that the laws of the Mosaic dispensation
+on the subject of polygamy had always been such as Malachi declared
+them. He was but applying Moses' principles.
+
+To the assertion that the law of the Old Testament discountenanced
+polygamy as really as the New Testament, it has been objected that the
+practice was maintained by men too pious towards God to be capable of
+continuing in it against express precept; as, for instance, by the
+"king after God's own heart," David. Did not he also commit murder and
+adultery? Surely there is no question whether Moses forbids these! The
+history of good men, alas, shows us too plainly the power of general
+evil example, custom, temptation, and self-love, in blinding the
+honest conscience. It has been objected that polygamy was so
+universally practised, and so prized, that Moses would never have
+dared to attempt its extinction. When will men learn that the author
+of the Old Testament law was not Moses, but God? Is God timid? Does he
+fear to deal firmly with his creatures? But it is denied that there is
+any evidence that polygamy was greatly prevalent among the Hebrews.
+And nothing is easier than to show, that if it had been, Moses was a
+legislator bold enough to grapple with it. What more hardy than his
+dealing with the sabbatical year, with idolatry? It is objected that
+the marriage of the widow who was childless to the brother of the
+deceased, to raise up seed to the dead, presents a case of polygamy
+actually commanded. We reply, no one can show that the next of kin
+was permitted or required to form such marriage when he already had a
+wife. The celebrated J. D. Michaelis, a witness learned and not too
+favourable, says, in his Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, of this
+law, "Nor did it affect a brother having already a wife of his own."
+Book III., ch. vi., § 98. It is objected that polygamy is recognized
+as a permitted relation in Deuteronomy xxi. 15-17, where the husband
+of a polygamous marriage is forbidden to transfer the birthright from
+the eldest son to a younger, the child of a more favoured wife; and in
+Exodus xxi. 9, 10, where the husband is forbidden to deprive a less
+favoured wife of her marital rights and maintenance. Both these cases
+are explained by the admitted principle, that there may be relations
+which it was sin to form, and which yet it is sinful to break when
+formed. No one doubts whether the New Testament makes polygamy
+unlawful; yet it seems very clear that the apostles gave the same
+instructions to the husbands of a plurality of wives entering the
+Christian church. There appears, then, no evidence that polygamy was
+allowed in the laws of Moses.
+
+We have thus shown that the objection of Dr. Channing to our Old
+Testament argument for the lawfulness of domestic slavery, is false in
+both its premises. First, it is not true that Moses sanctioned
+polygamy and causeless divorce in the sense in which he sanctioned
+slavery. And second, if he did, it would prove that those practices
+were lawful until they were prohibited by our Redeemer; but domestic
+slavery has met no such prohibition from him, and is therefore lawful
+still. If not, why did the divine Reformer strike down the two
+"sister sins," and leave the third, the giant evil, untouched? There
+is but one answer: He did not regard it as a sin.
+
+If too much space has been devoted to this objection, the apology is,
+that it is a subject much misunderstood by Christian divines. The
+explanation is, that the study of Hebrew antiquities has, in our day,
+been left so much to German rationalists and secret Socinians; the
+late essays of British and Yankee scholars being to so great a degree
+servile imitations of theirs. But these skeptical _literati_ of
+Germany, while wearing the clergyman's frock for the sake of the
+emoluments of an established church, have usually been unsanctified
+men, harbouring the most contemptuous views of Old Testament
+inspiration. The reader will bear in mind that, whether he is
+convinced, with us, that Moses actually prohibited polygamy, or not,
+the refutation of the Abolitionist objection is still perfectly valid.
+
+The seventh and last objection against our Old Testament argument
+consists of various passages from the Hebrew prophets, which denounce
+the oppression of the poor, and the withholding of the labouring man's
+wages. Every phrase which sounds at all like their purpose is
+violently seized by the Abolitionists, and pressed incontinently into
+the service of condemning slavery, without regard to the sacred
+writer's intention or meaning. Were all the texts thus wrested
+discussed here, this section would be swelled into a book. A few
+passages which our opponents regard as their strongest will be cited,
+therefore; and the reply to these will be an answer to all. One such
+is Isaiah, lviii. 6: "Is not this the fast which I have chosen, to
+loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let
+the oppressed go free; and that ye break every yoke?" Another is
+found in Jeremiah xx. 13: "Woe unto him that buildeth his house by
+unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's
+services without wages, and giveth him not for his work." Another is
+in Jeremiah xxxiv. 17: "Therefore, thus saith the Lord: Ye have not
+hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty every man to his brother, and
+every man to his neighbour." And to find a scriptural stone to pelt
+the fugitive slave-law, they quote Isaiah xvi. 3: "Hide the outcasts;
+betray not him that wandereth."
+
+Now, one would think that it should have given some pause to these
+perversions of Scripture, to remember that these same prophets were
+undoubtedly slaveholders. Witness, for instance, Elisha, who was so
+large a slaveholder as to have eleven ploughmen at once, and who,
+after he devoted himself exclusively to his prophetic ministry, still
+had his servants, Gehazi and others. (2 Kings, v. 20, and vi. 15.) How
+could they have aimed such denunciations at slave-owners, and escaped
+the sarcasm, "Physician, heal thyself?" It should have been remembered
+again, that Moses' laws, in which slaveholding was expressly
+sanctioned, were enacted by authority just as divine as that by which
+Isaiah and Jeremiah preached; that Moses was more a prophet than even
+they--"the greatest of the prophets;" that his laws were still in full
+force; that they bore to these prophets' instructions the relation of
+text to exposition; and that always the great burden of their
+accusations against their guilty countrymen was, that they had
+forsaken Moses' statutes. Were the guardians and expounders of the
+Constitution armed with power not only to repeal, but to vilify, the
+very law which they were appointed to expound? May the sermon
+contradict its own text?
+
+Before these rebukes of oppression can be applied, then, as God's
+condemnation of domestic slavery, it must be proved that in His view
+slavery is oppression. To take this for granted is a begging of the
+whole question in debate. But not only is it not proved by any such
+texts; it is obvious from the above remarks, that it cannot be proved
+by them, unless God can be made to contradict himself. But when we
+examine a little the connected words of these prophets themselves, we
+learn from them what they do mean; and we see an instance, ludicrous
+if it were not too painful, of the heedless folly with which the Word
+of God is abused. Thus, in Isaiah, lviii. 6, 7, we proceed to the very
+next words, and learn that the duty in hand consists in "bringing to
+their homes the poor that are cast out," and being charitable to
+"their own flesh." Were the Gentile slaves of the Hebrews "their own
+flesh" in the sense of the Old Testament, i. e., their kindred by
+blood? Manifestly, the phrase intends their fellow-citizens of Hebrew
+blood in distress. Are slaveholders in danger of sinning by driving
+away from their houses their domestic slaves; and do they need
+objurgation to make them receive them back? Such is the "infinite
+nonsense" forced upon Isaiah's words by Abolitionists. There is, then,
+no reference here to the emancipation of Gentile slaves; but to the
+duties of charity, justice and hospitality towards the oppressed of
+their fellow-citizens. And if the passage has any reference to
+servants, it is only to the sin of detaining Hebrew servants beyond
+the Sabbatical year's release.
+
+When we turn to Jeremiah xxii. 13, a glance at the connexion shows us
+that the woe against using a neighbour's services without wages, is
+denounced against Shallum, the wicked king of Judah, who built his
+palaces, not by his domestic servants, but by unlawfully impressing
+his political subjects. Such is the marvellous accuracy of
+Abolitionist exposition! So in Jeremiah xxxiv. 17, which rebukes the
+Jews for not "proclaiming every man liberty to his brother," one
+little question should have staggered our zealous accusers: Were
+Gentile slaves "brethren" to Jews, in the sense of the prophet? And we
+have only to carry the eye back to verse 14, to see him explaining
+himself, that they did not comply with the Mosaic law, "at the end of
+seven years to let go every man his brother a Hebrew, which hath been
+sold unto thee." From the obligation of that law, the masters of
+Gentiles were expressly excepted.
+
+But the illustration of crowning folly is Isaiah xvi. 3, which is so
+boldly wrested to countenance the harbouring of runaway slaves. The
+words are not the language of the prophet at all! The chapter is a
+dramatic picture of the distress of the pagan nations near Judea, and
+especially of Moab, one among them, in a time of invasion which Isaiah
+denounces upon them in punishment for their sin; and this verse
+represents the fugitive Moabites as entreating Jews for concealment
+and protection when pursued by their enemies. So that there is no
+slave nor slave-owner in the case at all; nor does the prophet's
+language contain any thing to imply whether it was righteous or not
+for the Jews to grant the request of these affrighted sinners in the
+hour of their retribution.
+
+We have now reviewed, perhaps at too much length, the various impotent
+attempts made to escape from the meshes of our inexorable Old
+Testament argument. It is an argument short, plain, convincing.
+Although every thing enjoined on the Hebrews is not necessarily
+enjoined on us, (because it may have been of temporary obligation,)
+yet every such thing must be innocent in its nature, because a holy
+God would not sanction sin to his holy people, in the very act of
+separating them to holiness. But slaveholding was expressly sanctioned
+as a permanent institution; the duties of masters and slaves are
+defined; the rights of masters protected, not only in the civic but
+the eternal moral law of God; and He himself became a slave-owner, by
+claiming an oblation of slaves for his sanctuary and priests. Hence,
+while we do not say that modern Christian nations are bound to hold
+slaves, we do assert that no people sin by merely holding slaves,
+unless the place can be shown where God has uttered a subsequent
+prohibition. But there is no such place, as the next chapter will
+show. While we well know that to secret infidels and rationalists, as
+all Abolitionists are, this has no weight, to every mind which
+reverences the inspiration of the Old Testament it is conclusive. And
+let every Christian note, that with the inspiration of the Old
+Testament stands or falls that of Christ and the apostles, because
+they commit themselves irretrievably to the support of the former.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE NEW TESTAMENT ARGUMENT.
+
+
+Inspiration always represents the New Testament as its final teaching.
+Revelation is there completed; and all the instruction concerning
+right and wrong which man is ever to ask from God, must be sought in
+this book. We have done, then, with all sophistical pleas concerning
+the twilight of revelation: for we have come now to the meridian
+splendour. If slaveholding was allowed to the Old World for the
+hardness of its heart, here we may expect to see it repealed. Wherever
+the New Testament leaves the moral character of slavery, there it must
+stand. What, then, is its position here?
+
+
+§ 1. _Definition of_ Δουλος.
+
+The word commonly translated servant in the authorized version of the
+New Testament is Δουλος, (_doulos_,) which is most probably derived
+from the verb δεω, (_deo_,) 'I bind.' Hence the most direct meaning of
+the noun is 'bondsman.' Many Abolitionists, with a reckless violence
+of criticism which cannot be too sternly reprobated, have endeavoured
+to evade the crushing testimony of the New Testament against their
+dogma, by denying that this word there means slave. Some of them
+would make it mean son, some _hired servant_, and some _subject_, or
+dependent citizen. Even Mr. Albert Barnes, in his Commentaries on the
+Epistles, denies that the Word carries any evidence that a servile
+relation, proper, is intended by the sacred Writers. Every honest and
+well-informed biblical scholar feels that it would be an insult to his
+intelligence to suppose that a discussion of this preposterous
+assertion was needed for him: but as our aim is the general reader, we
+will briefly state the evidence that δουλος, when not metaphorical,
+means in the mouth of Christ and his apostles a literal, domestic
+slave.
+
+Judea and the Roman Empire in their day were full of domestic slaves,
+so that in many places they were more numerous than the free citizens.
+Δουλος is confessedly the Word used for slave by secular writers of
+antiquity, in histories, statutes, works on political science, such as
+Aristotle's, in the allusions of Greeks to the Roman civil law, where
+they make it uniformly their translation for _Servus_, so clearly and
+harshly defined in that law as a literal slave. Did apostles and
+evangelists use the Greek language of their day correctly and
+honestly? And if δουλος in them does not mean slave, there is no
+stronger word within the lids of the New Testament that does; (nor in
+the Greek language;) so that there is in all the apostolic histories
+and epistles, no allusion to this world-wide institution which
+surrounded them! Who believes this? Again: The current Greek
+translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, whose idioms are
+more imitated in the New Testament than any other book, uses δουλος,
+as in Leviticus xxv. 44, for translation of the _Ebed_, bought with
+money from the Gentiles. The places where the New Testament writers
+use δουλος metaphorically imply the meaning of _slave_ as the literal
+one, because the aptness of the trope depends on that sense. Thus,
+Acts iv. 29, xvi. 17, Romans i. 1, apostles are called God's δουλοι,
+servants, to express God's purchase, ownership and authority over
+them, and their strict obedience. Make the literal sense any thing
+less than slave proper, and the strength and beauty of the trope are
+gone. Again, the word is often used in contrast with _son_, and
+_political subject_, so as to prove a different meaning. Thus, John
+viii. 34, 35: "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant (δουλος) of
+sin. And the δουλος abideth not in the house forever: but the son
+abideth ever." Luke xix. 13, 14: "He called his ten δουλοι, and
+delivered them ten pounds, etc.; but his citizens (πολιται =
+political subjects) hated him," etc. Galatians iv. 1: "Now the heir, as
+long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a δουλος, though he be
+lord of all, but is under tutors and governors," etc. In conclusion: all
+well-informed and candid expositors tell us, that by δουλος, the New
+Testament means slave. We may mention Drs. Bloomfield, Hodge, and
+Trench. The classical authorities of the Greek language give this as
+the most proper meaning; and the biblical lexicons of the New
+Testament Greek testify the same. Of the latter, we may cite Dr.
+Edward Robinson, of New York, no friend to slavery. He says:
+
+"Δουλος ου.δ = (subst. fr. δεω,) a bondsman, a slave, servant,
+properly by birth, diff. from ανδροποδον, 'one enslaved in war.'
+Compare Xen. Anab. iv. 1, 12, αιχμαλωτα αυδραποδα. Hell. i. 6,
+15; Thuc. viii. 28, τα ανδραποδα παντα, και δουλα και ελευθερα.
+But such a captive is sometimes called δουλος, Xen. Cyr. 3, 1, 11,
+19, ib., 4, 4, 12. Different also from ὁ διακονος, see that art. No.
+1. In a family, the δουλος was one _bound to serve_, a slave, the
+property of his master, a 'living possession,' as Aristotle calls him,
+Pol. 1, 4. ὁ δουλος κτημα τι εμψυχον. Compare Gen. xvii. 12, 27;
+Exod. xii. 44. According to the same writer, a complete household
+consisted of slaves and freemen, Polit. 1, 3. οικια δε τελειος εκ
+δουλων και ελευθερον. The δουλος, therefore, was never a _hired_
+servant, the latter being called μισθιος, μισθωτος, q. v. Dr.
+Robinson then proceeds to define δουλος in detail as meaning, "1,
+Properly of involuntary service, a _slave_, servant, as opposed to
+ελευθερος. 2, Tropically, of voluntary service, a _servant_, implying
+obligation, obedience, devotedness. 3, Tropically, a _minister_,
+attendant, spoken of the officers and attendants of an Oriental court,
+who are often strictly slaves."
+
+
+§ 2. _Slavery often mentioned; yet not condemned._
+
+The mere absence of a condemnation of slaveholding in the New
+Testament is proof that it is not unlawful. In showing that there is
+no such condemnation, we are doing more than we could be held bound to
+do by any logical obligation: we might very properly throw the burden
+of proof here upon our accusers, and claim to be held innocent until
+we can be proved to be guilty by some positive testimony of holy writ.
+But our cause is so strong, that we can afford to argue ex
+_abundantia_; to assert more than we are bound to show. We claim then
+the significant fact, that there is nowhere any rebuke of
+slaveholding, in express terms, in the New Testament. Of the truth of
+this assertion it is sufficient proof, that Abolitionists, with all
+their malignant zeal, have been unable to find a single instance, and
+are compelled to assail us only with inferences. The express
+permission to hold slaves given by Moses to God's people, is nowhere
+repealed by the 'greater than Moses,' the Divine Prophet of the new
+dispensation. Let the reader consider how this fact is strengthened by
+the attendant circumstances. Christ and his apostles preached in the
+midst of slaves and slaveholders. The institution was exceedingly
+prevalent in many parts of the world. Potter tells us that in Athens,
+(a place where Paul preached,) the freemen citizens, possessed of
+franchises, were twenty-one thousand, and the slaves four hundred
+thousand. The congregations to which Christ and his apostles preached,
+were composed of masters and their slaves. The slavery of that day, as
+defined by the Roman civil law, was harsh and oppressive, treating the
+slave as a legal nonentity, without property, rights, or legal remedy;
+without marriage, subject, even as to his life, to the caprice of his
+master, and in every respect a human beast of burden. Again: to this
+institution Christ and his apostles make many allusions, for
+illustration of other subjects; and upon the institution itself they
+often speak didactically. Yet, while often condemning the abuses and
+oppressions incident to it, they never condemn the relation. Several
+times the apostles give formal enumerations of the prevalent sins of
+their times; as in Romans i. 29, 31; Galatians v. 19 to 21; Matthew
+xv. 19; Colossians iii. 8, 9; 2 Timothy iii. 2 to 4. These catalogues
+of sins are often full and minute; but the owning of slaves never
+appears among them.
+
+Now, we are entitled to claim, that this silence of the later and
+final revelation leaves the lawfulness of slaveholding in full force,
+as expressly established in the earlier. On that allowance we plant
+ourselves, and defy our accusers to bring the evidence of its repeal.
+On them lies the burden of proof. And we have indicated by the
+circumstances detailed above, how crushing that burden will be to
+them.
+
+This is the most appropriate place to notice the evasion attempted
+from the above demonstration. They plead that slavery is not specially
+forbidden in the New Testament, because the plan of the Bible is to
+give us a rule of morals, not by special enactments for every case,
+but by general principles of right, which we must apply to special
+cases as they arise. "Inspiration has not," say they, "specially
+condemned every possible sin which may occur in the boundless
+varieties of human affairs, because then the whole world would not
+contain the books that should be written; and the voluminous character
+of the rule of duty would disappoint its whole utility; and if any sin
+were omitted in order to abridge it, this would be taken as a
+sanction. Hence, God gives us a set of plain general principles, of
+obvious application under the law of love." Therefore, it is argued,
+we are not to expect that the sin of slaveholding should be singled
+out. Enough that general principles given exclude it.
+
+There is a portion of truth in this statement of the matter, and in
+the grounds assigned for it. But waiving for the present the exposure
+of the groundless assertion that there are any general principles in
+the New Testament condemnatory of slaveholding, we deny that this book
+teaches morals only by general rules. It also does it, in a multitude
+of cases, by special precepts. A multitude of special sins prevalent
+in that and all ages are singled out. This being so--the lists of
+particular sins being so full and specific as they are--we assert it
+would have been an unaccountable anomaly to pass over a thing so
+important, open, prevalent, had it been intrinsically wrong. But why
+does Revelation omit a number of particulars, and state general
+principles? For the lack of room, it is said. The other plan would
+have made the Bible too large. Now we ask, as the case actually stands
+in the New Testament, would not a good deal of room have been saved as
+to slavery, by simply specifying it as wrong? It is a queer way to
+economize space, thus to take up a subject, define it at large, limit,
+modify it, retrench its abuses, lay down in considerable detail a part
+of its duties and relations; and then provide by some general
+principle for its utter prohibition! Would not the obvious way have
+been, to say in three plain words, what was the only fundamental
+thing, after all, which, on this supposition, needed to be taught,
+"Slavery is sinful?" This would have settled the matter, and also have
+saved space and ambiguity, and made an end of definitions,
+limitations, abuses, inferences and all, in the only honest way. But
+farther, we admit that the Bible has left a multitude of new
+questions, emerging in novel cases, to be settled by the fair
+application of general principles, (which are usually illustrated in
+Scripture by application to some specific case.) Now must not an
+honest mind argue, that since the human understanding is so fallible
+in inferential reasonings, especially on social ethics, where the
+premises are so numerous and vague, and prejudices and interests so
+blinding, a special precept, where one is found applicable, is better
+than an inference probably doubtful? Will it not follow a 'thus saith
+the Lord,' if it has one, rather than its own deduction which may be a
+blunder? Well, then, if God intended us to understand that he had
+implicitly condemned slavery in some general principles given, it was
+most unlucky that He said any thing specific about it, which was not a
+specific condemnation. For what He has specifically said about it must
+lead His most honest servants to conclude that He did not intend to
+leave it to be settled by general inference, that He exempted it from
+that class of subjects. Had God not alluded to it by name, then we
+should have been more free to apply general principles to settle its
+moral character, as we do to the modern duel, not mentioned in
+Scripture, because it is wholly a modern usage. But since God has
+particularized so much about slaveholding, therefore, honesty,
+humility, piety, require us to study his specific teachings in
+preference to our supposed inferences, and even in opposition to them.
+Here, then, we stand: Inspiration has once expressly authorized
+slaveholding. Until a repeal is found equally express, it must be
+innocent.
+
+
+§ 3. _Christ applauds a Slaveholder._
+
+Our Lord has thrown at least a probable light upon his estimation of
+slaveholders by his treatment of the Centurion of Capernaum, and his
+slave. The story may be found in Matthew viii. 5 to 13, and Luke vii.
+2 to 10. This person, though a Gentile and an officer of the Roman
+army, was, according to the testimony of his Jewish neighbours, a
+sincere convert to the religion of the Old Testament, and a truly good
+man. He had a valued slave very sick, called in Matthew his "boy,"
+(παις,) a common term for slave in New Testament times; but Luke calls
+him again and again his "slave," (δουλος.) Hearing of Christ's
+approach, he sent some of his Hebrew neighbours, (rulers of the
+synagogue,) to beseech our Lord to apply his miraculous power for the
+healing of his sick slave. A little later he appears himself, and
+explains to Jesus, that it was not arrogance, but humility, which
+prevented his meeting him at first, with his full confidence. For as
+he, though a poor mortal, was enabled, by the authority of an officer
+and master, to make others come and go at his bidding, so he knew that
+Christ could yet more easily bid away his servant's disease. And
+therefore he had not deemed it necessary to demand (what he was
+unworthy to receive) an actual visit to his house. Hereupon Christ
+declares with delight, that he "had not found so great faith, no, not
+in Israel." This was high praise indeed, after the faith of a
+Nathanael, a John, a James, a Mary Magdalene, a Martha, and a Lazarus.
+Yet this much-applauded man was a slaveholder! But our Lord comes yet
+nearer to the point in dispute. He speaks the word, and heals the
+slave, thus restoring him to the master's possession and use. Had the
+relation been wrong, here, now, was an excellent opportunity to set
+things right, when he had before him a subject so docile, so humble,
+so grateful and trustful. Should not Christ have said: "Honest
+Centurion, you owe one thing more to your sick fellow-creature: his
+liberty. You have humanely sought the preservation of his being, which
+I have now granted; but it therefore becomes my duty to tell you, lest
+silence in such a case should confirm a sinful error, that your
+possession of him as a slave outrages the laws of his being. I cannot
+become accomplice to wrong. The life which I have rescued, I claim for
+liberty, for righteousness. I expect it of your faith and gratitude,
+that instead of begrudging the surrender, you will thank me for
+enlightening you as to your error." But no; Christ says nothing like
+this, but goes his way and leaves the master and all the people
+blinded by his extraordinary commendation of the slave-owner, and his
+own act in restoring the slave to him, to blunder on in the belief
+that slavery was all right. Certain we are, that had Dr. Channing, or
+Dr. Wayland, or the most moderate Abolitionist, been the
+miracle-worker, he would have made a very different use of the
+occasion. However he might have hesitated as to immediate and
+universal emancipation, he would have felt that the opportunity was
+too fair to be lost, for setting up a good strong precedent against
+slavery. Hence we feel sure that Christ and they are not agreed in the
+moral estimate of the relation.
+
+
+§ 4. _The Apostles separate Slavery and its Abuses._
+
+We find the apostles everywhere treating slavery, in one particular,
+as the Abolitionists refuse to treat it; that is to say,
+distinguishing between the relation and its incidental abuses. Our
+accusers now claim a license from the well-known logical rule, that it
+is not fair to argue from the abuses of a thing to the thing itself.
+Hence they insist that in estimating slavery, we must take it in the
+concrete, as it is in these Southern States, with all that bad men or
+bad legislation may at any time have attached to it. And if any
+feature attaching to an aggravated case of oppression should be proved
+wrong, then the very relation of master and slave must be held wrong
+in itself. The bald and insolent sophistry of this claim has been
+already alluded to. By this way it could be proved that marriage,
+civil government and church government, as well as the parental
+relation, are intrinsically immoral; for all have been and are abused,
+not only by the illegal license of individual bad men, but by bad
+legislation. Just as reasonably might a monk say to all Mohammedans,
+that marriage is a sin, for the character of the institution must be
+tried in the concrete, with all the accessaries which usually attend
+it in Mohammedan lands, and most certainly with such as are
+established by law; and among these is polygamy, which is sinful;
+wherefore the marriage relation is wrong. And this preposterous logick
+has been urged, although it has been proved that, in the vast majority
+of cases in these States, masters did preserve the relation to their
+slaves, without connecting with it a single one of the incidents,
+whether allowed by law or not, which are indefensible in a moral view.
+To say that the relation was sinful, in all these virtuous citizens,
+because some of the occasional incidents were sinful, is just as
+outrageous as to tell the Christian mother that her authority over her
+child is a wicked tyranny, because some drunken wretch near by has
+been guilty of child-murder. But our chief purpose here is to show,
+that the apostles were never guilty of this absurdity; and that, on
+the contrary, they separated between the relation and its abuses, just
+as Christian masters now claim to do.
+
+Let the reader note then, that the type of slavery prevailing where
+the apostles preached, was, compared with ours, barbarous, cruel, and
+wicked in many of its customary incidents, as established both by
+usage and law. Slaves were regarded as having neither rights nor legal
+remedies. No law protected their life itself against the master. There
+was no recognized marriage for them, and no established parental or
+filial relations. The chastity of the female slave was unprotected by
+law against her master. And the temper of society sanctioned the not
+infrequent use of these powers, in the ruthless separation of
+families, inhuman punishments, hard labour, coarse food, maiming, and
+even murder. Such were the iniquities which history assures us
+connected themselves only too often with this relation in the
+apostles' days, and were sanctioned by human laws.
+
+But did they provoke these inspired law-givers to condemn the whole
+institution? By no means. As we have seen, they nowhere pronounce the
+relation of master and slave an inherent wrong. They everywhere act as
+though it might be, and when not abused, was, perfectly innocent. And
+that it might be innocent, they forbade to the members of the
+Christian church all these abuses of it. Thus they separated between
+the relation and its abuses. Doubtless, the standard which they had
+in view, in commanding masters to "render to their servants those
+things which are just and equal," _was the Mosaic law_. We have seen
+how far this was in advance of the brutalities permitted by pagan
+laws, and how it protected the life, limbs, and chastity of servants
+among the Hebrews. This law, being founded in righteousness, was in
+its general spirit the rule of the New Testament church also. When
+this separation is made by the apostles between the relation and its
+abuses, we find that the former includes, as its essentials, just
+these elements: a right to the slave's labour for life, coupled with
+the obligation on the master to use it with justice and clemency, and
+to recompense the slave with a suitable maintenance; and on the
+slave's part, the obligation to render this labour with all good
+fidelity, and with a respectful obedience. Is not this just the
+definition of slavery with which we set out?
+
+
+§ 5. _Slavery no Essential Religious Evil._
+
+The Apostle Paul teaches that the condition of a slave, although not
+desirable for its own sake, has no essential bearing on the Christian
+life and progress; and therefore, when speaking as a Christian
+minister, and with exclusive reference to man's religious interests,
+he treats it as unimportant. The proof of this statement may be found
+in such passages as the following: 1 Cor. xii. 13, "For by one Spirit
+we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles,
+whether we be bond or free: and have all been made to drink into one
+Spirit." Galat. iii. 28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is
+neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female; for we are
+all one in Jesus Christ." So, substantially, says Colos. iii. 11. But
+the most decisive passage is 1 Cor. vii. 20, 21: "Let every man abide
+in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a
+servant? care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it
+rather." (Paul had just defined his meaning in the phrase "calling in
+which he was called," as being circumcised or uncircumcised, bond or
+free.)
+
+The drift of all these passages is to teach that a man's reception by
+Christ and by the Church does not depend in any manner on his class or
+condition in secular life; because Christianity places all classes on
+the same footing as to the things of the soul, and offers to all the
+same salvation. When, therefore, men come to the throne of grace, the
+baptismal water, the communion table, distinctions of class are left
+behind them for the time. Hence, these distinctions are not essential,
+as to the soul's salvation. The last passage quoted brings out the
+latter truth more distinctly. Is any Christian, at his conversion, a
+Jew? That circumstance is unimportant to his religious life. Was he a
+Gentile? That also is unimportant. Was he a slave when converted to
+Christ? Let not this concern him, for it cannot essentially affect his
+religious welfare: the road to heaven is as open to him as to the
+freeman. But if a convenient and lawful opportunity to acquire his
+freedom, with the consent of his master, occurs, then freedom is to be
+preferred. Such is the meaning found in the words by all sober
+expositors, including those of countries where slavery does not exist.
+Who can believe that the apostle would have taught thus, if slavery
+had been an iniquitous relation?
+
+But when he tells the Christian servant that freedom is to be
+preferred by him to bondage, if it may be rightfully acquired, we must
+remember the circumstances of the age, in order to do justice to his
+meaning. The same apostle, speaking of marriage, says, "Art thou
+loosed from a wife? seek not to be bound." Does he mean to set himself
+against the holy estate of matrimony, and to contradict the divine
+wisdom which said that "it is not good for man to be alone?" By no
+means. He explains himself as advising thus "because of the present
+distress." Exposure to persecution, banishment, death, made it a step
+of questionable prudence at that time, to assume the responsibilities
+of a husband and father. Now the laws and usages of the age as to
+slaves were, as we have seen, harsh and oppressive. But worse than
+this, many masters among the heathen were accustomed to require of
+their slaves offices vile, and even guilty; and scruples of conscience
+on the slave's part were treated as an absurdity or rebellion. In such
+a state of society, although the relation of servitude was not in
+itself adverse to a holy life, the prudent man would prefer to be
+secured against the possibility of such a wrong, by securing his
+liberty if he lawfully could. Moreover, society offered a grade, and a
+career of advancement, to the "freedman" and his children. Master and
+slave were of the same colour; and a generation or two would
+obliterate by its unions the memory of the servile condition. But in
+these States, where the servant's rights were so much better protected
+by law and usage, and where the freed servant, being a black, finds
+himself only deprived of his master's patronage, and still debarred as
+much as ever from social equality by his colour and caste, the case
+may be very different. Freedom to the Christian slave here, may prove
+a loss.
+
+Now who can believe that the Apostle Paul would have spoken thus of
+slavery, if he had thought it an injurious and iniquitous relation, as
+hostile to religion, as degrading to the victim's immortal nature, and
+as converting him from a rational person into a chattel, a human
+brute? He treats the condition of bondage, in its religious aspects,
+precisely as he does accidents of birth, being born circumcised or
+uncircumcised, a citizen of the Empire or a subject foreigner, male or
+female. We have a practical evidence how incompatible such language is
+with the Abolitionist first principle, in their very different
+conduct. Do they ever say to the Christian slave: "Art thou called
+being a servant? care not for it." We trow not. They glory in teaching
+every slave they can to break away from his bondage, even at the cost
+of robbery and murder. And Mr. Albert Barnes informs his readers, that
+in his interviews with runaway slaves, he long ago ceased to instruct
+them that it was their duty to return to their masters. It is evident,
+therefore, that this abolitionist and St. Paul were not agreed.
+
+
+§ 6. _Slaveholders fully Admitted to Church-membership._
+
+We now proceed, in the sixth place, to a fact of still greater force:
+that slaveholders were admitted by Christ to full communion and good
+standing in the Christian church. Let us first establish the fact. In
+Acts X. 5-17, we learn that the pious Cornelius had at least two
+household servants, (οικετων, one of the Septuagint words for
+domestic slave.) There is no hint of his liberating them; but the
+Apostle Peter tells his brethren, Acts xi. 15-17, that he was obliged to
+admit him by baptism to the church, by the act of God himself. Says he:
+"Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us,"
+(power of miracles,) "who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was
+I, that I could withstand God?" So he baptized him and his servants
+together. Again we find the Epistle to the Ephesians addressed in the
+first verse, "to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful
+brethren in Christ Jesus," with a blessing in the second verse
+appropriate to none but God's children. When, therefore, in subsequent
+parts of the Epistle, we find any persons addressed in detail with
+apostolic precepts, we conclude of course that they are included in
+"the saints and faithful." But all expositors say these terms mean
+church members in good standing. If we find here any persons commanded
+to any duty, we know that they are church members. This thought
+confirms it, that St. Paul knew well that his office gave him no
+jurisdiction over the external world. He had himself said to the
+church authorities at Corinth, "What have I to do, to judge them that
+are without?" 1 Cor. v. 12. Now, in the sixth chapter and ninth verse
+of Ephesians, we find him, after commanding Christian husbands,
+Christian wives, Christian parents, Christian children, and Christian
+slaves, how to demean themselves, addressing Christian masters: "And
+ye, masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening,
+knowing that your Master also is in heaven," &c. Here, therefore, must
+have been slaveholders in good standing in this favourite church,
+which was organized under St. Paul's own eye. The Epistle to the
+Colossians is also addressed "to the saints and faithful brethren in
+Christ which are at Colosse:" and in ch. iv. 1, Christian slaveholders
+are addressed: "Masters, give unto your servants that which is just
+and equal," &c. There were, therefore, slaveholders in full communion
+at Colosse. Again: Mr. Albert Barnes (whom we cite here for a
+particular reason which will appear in the sequel) says correctly,
+that Timothy received his first Epistle from St. Paul at Ephesus,
+three or four years after that church was planted, having been left in
+charge there. But in Ephes. vi. 2, St. Paul Writes: "And they" (i. e.
+these Christian slaves) "that have believing masters, let them not
+despise them because they are brethren, but rather do them service
+because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit," (i.
+e. of the blessings of redemption.) "These things teach and exhort."
+There were still slaveholders then, in this church, three or four
+years after its organization; and Timothy is commanded to have them
+treated as brethren faithful and beloved, partakers of the favour of
+God. The Epistle to the Ephesians, according to the same Mr. Barnes,
+was written from four to seven years after the founding of the church,
+and that to the Colossians from ten to thirteen. So that this
+membership of slaveholders had continued for these periods.
+
+But we have a stronger case still. St. Paul, during his imprisonment
+at Rome, addresses Philemon of Colosse thus: "Paul, a prisoner of
+Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto our dearly beloved and
+fellow-labourer, (συνεργος) and to our beloved Apphia and
+Archippus, our fellow-soldier, and to the church in thy house."
+Philemon, then, was a church member; his house was a place of meeting
+for the church; he was beloved of Paul; and last, he was himself a
+Christian minister. (Such is the only meaning of συνεργος
+here, according to the agreement of all expositors, of whom may be
+mentioned Bloomfield, Doddridge, and Dr. Edward Robinson of New York.)
+But Philemon was a slaveholder: the very purpose of this affectionate
+epistle was to send back to him a runaway slave. Here, then, we have a
+slaveholder, not only in the membership, but ministry of the Church.
+
+Now when we consider how jealously the apostles guarded the purity of
+the church, it will appear to be incredible that they should receive
+slaveholders thus, if the relation were unrighteous. The terms of
+admission (for adults) were the renunciation of all known sin, and a
+credible repentance leading to reparation, where ever practicable.
+Even the Baptist, who was unworthy to loose the shoe-latchet of
+Christ, could say: "Bring forth therefore the fruits meet for
+repentance." From all the prevalent and popular sins of Pagan society,
+the church members were inexorably required to turn away; else
+excommunication soon rid the church of their scandal. Thus, 1 Cor. v.
+11, says: "But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any
+man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an
+idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an
+one no not to eat." Christ separated his church out of the world, to
+secure sanctity and holy living. To suppose that he, or his apostles,
+could avowedly admit and tolerate the membership of men who persisted
+in criminal conduct, betrays the very purpose of the church, and
+impugns the purity of the Saviour himself. And here, all the evasions
+of Abolitionists are worthless; as when they say that Christ's mission
+was not to meddle with secular relations, or to interfere in politics;
+for the communion of the church was his own peculiar domain; and to
+meddle with every form of sin there was precisely his mission.
+Entrance to the church was voluntary. The terms of membership were
+candidly published; the penalty for violating them was purely
+spiritual, (mere exclusion from the society,) and interfered with no
+man's political rights or franchises. So that within this spiritual
+society, Christ had things his own way; there was no difficulty from
+without that could possibly restrain his action; and if he tolerated
+deliberate sin here, his own character is tarnished.
+
+So cogent is this, that Mr. Albert Barnes, in his 'Notes' on 1 Tim.
+vi. 2, seeks to evade it thus: "Nor is it fairly to be inferred from
+this passage that he (Paul) meant to teach that they (masters) might
+continue this (i. e. slaveholding) and be entitled to all the respect
+and confidence due to the Christian name, or be regarded as
+maintaining a good standing in the church. Whatever may be true on
+these points, the passage before us only proves, that Paul considered
+that a man who was a slaveholder _might_ be converted, and be spoken
+of as a 'believer' or a Christian. Many have been converted in similar
+circumstances, as many have in the practice of all other kinds of
+iniquity. What was their duty _after_ their conversion was another
+question."
+
+That is, as a murderer or adulterer _might_ become a subject of
+Almighty grace, so might a slaveholder; but all three alike must cease
+these crimes, when converted, in order to continue credible church
+members! To him who has weighed the Scripture facts, this statement
+will appear (as we shall find sundry others of this writer) so
+obviously uncandid, that it is mere affectation to refrain from
+calling it by its proper name, dishonesty. The simple refutation is in
+the fact, by which Mr. Barnes has convicted himself, that the
+slaveholders were still in the churches from three to thirteen years
+after they were organized, with no hint from the apostle that they
+were living in a criminal relation; that they were still beloved,
+approved, yea applauded, by Paul; and that one of them was even
+promoted to the ministry. The last case is particularly ruinous to Mr.
+Barnes. For when did Philemon first acquire his slave Onesimus? Before
+the former first joined the Church? Then Paul permitted him to remain
+all these years a member, and promoted him to the ministry, with the
+'sin of slavery' unforsaken! Was it after he joined the church? Then a
+thing occurred which, on Mr. Barnes' theory, is impossible: because
+buying a slave, being criminal, must have terminated his church
+membership.
+
+We thank God that it is true that some sinners of every class are
+converted. But their conversion must be followed by a prompt
+repentance and forsaking of their sins. Thus, it is said to the
+Corinthians, 1 Cor. vi. 9 to 11: "Be not deceived; neither
+fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor
+abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
+drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom
+of God. And such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are
+sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by
+the Spirit of our God." According to the Abolitionists, another class
+of criminals fully deserving to be ranked in the above black
+list--slaveholders--enter the church under Paul's administration,
+without being washed or sanctified. If slaveholding is wrong, it was
+their duty on entering the Church to repent of, forsake and repair
+this wrong; to liberate their slaves, and to repay them for past
+exactions so far as possible. If this was their duty, it was the duty
+of the apostle to teach it to them. But he has not taught it: he has
+taken up the subject, and merely taught these masters that they would
+discharge their whole duty by treating their slaves, as slaves, with
+clemency and equity; and then he has continued them in the Church. It
+remains true, therefore, that this allowed membership of slaveholders
+in the apostolic churches, proves it no sin to own slaves.
+
+
+§ 7. _Relative Duties of Masters and Slaves recognized._
+
+Another fact equally decisive is, that the apostles frequently enjoin
+on masters and slaves their relative duties, just as they do upon
+husbands and wives, parents and children. And these duties they
+enforce, both on master and servant, by Christian motives. Pursuing
+the same method as under the last head, we will first establish the
+fact, and then indicate the use to be made of it.
+
+In Ephesians vi. 5 to 9, having addressed the other classes, the
+Apostle Paul says: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your
+masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness
+of your heart as unto Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers;
+but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;
+with good-will doing service as to the Lord and not unto men; knowing
+that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of
+the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And ye masters, do the same
+things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master
+also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."
+
+In Colos. iii. 22 to iv. 1, inclusive, almost the same precepts occur
+in the same words, with small exceptions, and standing in the same
+connexion with recognized relations. Let the reader compare for
+himself. In 1 Tim. vi, 1, 2, we read: "Let as many servants as are
+under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the
+name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have
+believing masters, let them not despise them because they are
+brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and
+beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort." So,
+in the Epistle to Titus, having directed him how to instruct sundry
+other classes in their relative duties, he says, ch. ii. 9 to 12:
+"Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please
+them well in all things: not answering again; not purloining, but
+showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our
+Saviour in all things. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation
+hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and
+worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this
+present world," etc. So, the Apostle Peter, 1 Ep. ii. 18, 19:
+"Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the
+good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if
+a man for conscience towards God endure grief, suffering wrongfully."
+
+The word for _servant_ in all these passages is δουλος, except the
+last, where the Apostle Peter uses οικετια. But this is also proved
+to mean here, domestic slaves proper, by the current Septuagint and New
+Testament usage, by its relation to δεσποταις, (masters,) which
+always means in this connexion the proprietor of a slave, and by the
+reference in the subsequent verse to being buffeted for a fault; an
+incident of the slave's condition, rather than of the hired freeman's.
+Now the drift of all these precepts is too plain to be mistaken.
+Slaves who are church-members are here instructed that it is their
+religious duty to obey their masters, to treat them with deferential
+respect, and with Christian love where the masters are Christian, and
+to render the service due from a servant with fidelity and integrity,
+without requiring to be watched or threatened. The motives urged for
+all this are not carnal, but evangelical, a sense of duty, love for
+Christ and his doctrine, the credit of which was implicated in their
+Christian conduct here, and the expectation of a rich reward from
+Jesus Christ hereafter.
+
+But the apostles are not partial. In like manner they positively
+enjoin on masters who are church-members, the faithful performance of
+their reciprocal duties to their slaves. They must avoid a harsh and
+minatory government: they must allot to the slave an equitable
+maintenance and humane treatment, and in every respect must act
+towards him so as to be able to meet that judgment, where master and
+slave will stand as equals before the bar of Jesus Christ, at which
+social rank has no weight. These precepts imply, of course, that both
+master and servant are church-members; otherwise they would not have
+been under the ecclesiastical authority of the apostles. They imply
+with equal clearness, that the continuance of the relation was
+contemplated as legitimate: for if this is terminated as sinful, the
+duties of the relation are at an end, and such precepts are so much
+breath thrown away. Does any sophist insist that the "rendering of
+that which is just and equal" must not be less than emancipation? The
+very words refute him; for then he would no longer be his servant, and
+the master no longer master; so that he could owe no duties as such.
+Further, the same passage proceeds to enjoin on the slave the duties
+of a continued state of servitude. We repeat: all these passages
+contemplate the continuance of the relation among church-members, as
+legitimate. What would men say of the Christian minister who should
+instruct the penitent gambler how to continue the stated practice of
+his nefarious art in a Christian manner: and the penitent adulterer
+how to continue his guilty connexion exemplarily? When such a
+law-giver as Christ legislates concerning such a thing, there is but
+one thing he can consistently enjoin: and that is its instant
+termination. If slaveholding is a moral wrong, the chief guilt, of
+course, attaches to the master, because on his side is the power. When
+the apostles pass, then, from the duties of servants to those of
+masters, it is unavoidable that they must declare the imperative duty
+of emancipation. But they say not one word about it: they seek to
+continue the relation rightfully. Therefore, either slaveholding is
+not wrong, or the apostles were unfaithful. The explanation of these
+passages, which we have given, is that of all respectable expositors,
+especially the British, no friends of slavery.
+
+The attempt is made to argue, that if this were correct, then the holy
+apostles would be implicated in a connivance at the excesses and
+barbarities which, the history of the times tells us, often attached
+to the servile condition. The answer is: that they condemn and
+prohibit all the wrongs, as criminal, and leave the relation itself as
+lawful. No other defence can be set up for their treatment of the
+conjugal and parental relations. Antiquarians tell us they also were
+then deformed by great abuses. The wife and child were no better than
+slaves. Over the latter the father had the power of life and death,
+and of selling into bondage. From the former he divorced himself at
+pleasure, and often visited her with corporal punishment. How do the
+apostles treat these facts? They recognize the relation and forbid its
+abuses. Shall any one say that because these abuses were current,
+therefore they should have denounced the domestic relations, and
+invented some new-fangled communism? Or shall it be said that, because
+they have not done this, they wink at the wife-beatings, the
+child-murders, and the other barbarities so common in Greek and
+Oriental families? We trow not. Why then should these absurd
+inferences be attached to their treatment of domestic slavery?
+
+But the favourite evasion of these Scriptures is that of Dr. Wayland:
+"The scope of these instructions to servants is only to teach
+patience, fidelity, meekness, and charity, duties which Christians owe
+to all men, even their enemies." In like strain, Mr. Albert Barnes, in
+his 'Notes on Ephesians,' vi. 7, writes: "But let not a master think,
+because a pious slave shows this spirit, that therefore the slave
+feels the master is right in withholding his freedom; nor let him
+suppose, because religion requires the slave to be submissive and
+obedient, that therefore it approves of what the master does. It does
+this no more than it sanctions the conduct of Mary and Nero, because
+religion required the martyrs to be unresisting, and to allow
+themselves to be led to the stake. A conscientious slave may find
+happiness in submitting to God, and doing His will, just as a
+conscientious martyr may. But this does not sanction the wrong, either
+of the slave-owner or of the persecutor." It is difficult to restrain
+the expression of natural indignation at so shameless a sophism as
+this, which outrages at once the understanding of the reader and the
+honour of Christ. It represents the pure and benign genius of
+Christianity as walking abroad, and finding oppressor and oppressed
+together, the oppressor avowedly within her reach, as well as his
+victim, as a subject of her spiritual jurisdiction and instruction. To
+the one she is represented as saying: "Oh, injured slave! glorify thy
+meek and lowly Saviour under this unrighteous oppression, by imitating
+His patience." Turning then to the other, who is present, and equally
+subject to her authority, must she not, of course, give the
+correlative injunction: "Oh, master! since thy yoke is wicked, cease
+instantly to persecute Christ in the person of his follower." But no:
+abolitionism represents her as saying nothing at all on this point;
+but merely dismissing his side of the case with the injunction to
+oppress equitably! The honest mind meets such a statement, not only
+with the '_Incredulus sum_,' but with the '_Incredulus odi_,' of the
+Latin satirist. And the suffering victim of oppression could not but
+feel, while he recognized the duty of patience, that the counterpart
+treatment of his oppressor by Christianity was a foul injustice. The
+fact that Christ and apostles admitted these masters, with these
+slaves, to the same communion, proves that the comment of Mr. Barnes
+is preposterous. The fact that these Christian slaves are commanded to
+treat these pretended oppressors as "brethren, faithful and beloved,
+partakers of the benefit," proves it. Do the apostles, while enjoining
+patience under the persecutions of a bloody Nero, admit that Nero,
+with his brutality, to the same Christian communion with the peaceful
+and holy victims, address him as "saint and faithful in Christ Jesus,"
+and instruct him to burn and tear the Christians for their faith, in a
+godly manner? The comment is disproved by Peter, when he says that
+there were slave-owners who were "good and gentle," as well as others
+who were "froward." Does truth or common sense distinguish "good and
+gentle" persecutors? It is disproved farther, by the fact that the
+apostles do not enjoin patience only, on these servants, as on
+Christians forbearing under an injury; but they enjoin duty,
+obedience, and fidelity also, as upon Christians paying reciprocal
+obligations. It is not patience under ruthless force, which they
+require, as a tribute to Christ's honour; but it is obedience due to
+the master's legitimate authority, and that, a tribute due to the
+master also. Servants must "show all good fidelity." This implies an
+obligation to which to be faithful. Fidelity does not exist where
+there is no debt. To unrighteous exaction we may be submissive; but
+fidelity has no place. But the crowning refutation is, that St. Paul
+sent back an escaped slave to his master Philemon, from Rome to
+Colosse, hundreds of miles away. Will any one say that the duty of
+Christian submission and patience under wrongs extends so far as to
+require an injured Christian to go back several hundred miles, and
+hunt up his oppressor in order to be maltreated again, after
+Providence had enabled him to escape from his injuries? If Mr. Barnes
+is correct, Onesimus should have claimed that he had now availed
+himself of Christ's own command: "When they persecute you in one city,
+flee ye into another;" and was rightfully concealed in the midst of
+the vast metropolis. This was requiring him to "turn the other cheek"
+with a vengeance: to waive the right of peaceable escape which his
+Divine Lord had given him, and go all the way to Asia to be unjustly
+smitten again! There is this farther absurdity: the pious servant is
+required to stretch his forbearance to so Quixotic a degree, as to
+waive, not only the claim of forcible self-defence, but that of legal
+protection. (Oh that the holy Abolitionists had practised towards the
+injured South a little tythe of this forbearance which their learned
+scribe so consistently inculcates!) Is it Christ's requirement, that
+the Christian under oppression must refuse the shield of legal
+protection? Did Paul think thus, when, prosecuted at the bar of
+Porcius Festus by unscrupulous enemies, he claimed the rights of his
+citizenship with so admirable a union of forbearance and courage? Now,
+if Messrs. Wayland and Barnes are right, these oppressed slaves
+possessed a tribunal in common with their oppressors, to which they
+could lawfully, peacefully, forgivingly, yet righteously summon them:
+_the church court_. They could have demanded of these authorities,
+with the strictest Christian propriety, to use all their spiritual
+powers, so far as they went, to induce the masters, their
+fellow-members, to give them that liberty which was their due. But, so
+exceedingly forbearing are they, that they not only forego forcible
+resistance, but the peaceable claim of their ecclesiastical right, for
+fear they might be thought to act in an impatient manner! A highwayman
+meets me in a wood, and begins to beat me and rob me: I have a weapon,
+but I forbear to use violence against him. Meantime, the legal
+authorities pass by, and I also forbear to claim their protection
+under the law, lest it should scandalize the amiable highwayman, and
+make him think less favourably of my religion!
+
+It may be well, in concluding this point, to notice the plea that
+Christians were required by the apostles to render not only patience
+and submission to the Emperor Nero, but also allegiance and hearty
+obedience. Yet none will say that Nero was a righteous ruler. We
+reply, the case is precisely in our favour: for it proves the
+proposition exactly parallel to ours, that civil government is a
+lawful institution, notwithstanding it is abused. The government of
+the Cæsars was providentially the _de facto_ one, and Nero, bad as he
+was, its recognized head. As such, all his magisterial acts which were
+not specifically contrary to God's law, were legitimate, and were the
+proper objects of the civic obedience of the Christian subject.
+Otherwise, the apostles would never have exacted it for him. The
+instance does imply, therefore, that civil government is a lawful
+relation; and this is precisely what we infer from the parallel
+instances of obedience enjoined on servants to masters. If
+Abolitionists are not willing to argue that the relation of ruler and
+subject is sin _per se_, notwithstanding the obedience required to
+Nero, they cannot argue from their proposed analogy between Nero's
+cruelties and slaveholding. But an equally conclusive reply is, that
+apostles never admitted a Nero, with his barbarities in full sway, to
+the same communion-table with his patient Christian victims,
+commanding the latter to forbear as towards a wrongdoer, and yet
+failing to give him the correlative command, to cease the wrong-doing.
+
+
+§ 8. _Philemon and Onesimus._
+
+The Epistle to Philemon is peculiarly instructive and convincing as to
+the moral character of slavery. This Abolitionists betray, by the
+distressing wrigglings and contortions of logic, to which they resort,
+in the vain attempt to evade its inferences. The whole Epistle need
+not be recited. The apostle, after saluting Philemon as a brother and
+fellow-minister, and commending him in terms of peculiar beauty,
+warmth, and affection, for his eminent piety, and his hospitalities
+and charities to Christians, proceeds thus, v. 8 to 19: "Though I
+might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient,
+yet, for love's sake, I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul
+the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I beseech thee for
+my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds; which in time past
+was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me; whom I
+have sent again: thou, therefore, receive him, that is, mine own
+bowels: Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might
+have ministered unto me in the bonds of the Gospel. But without thy
+mind would I do nothing: that thy benefit should not be as it were of
+necessity, but willingly. For perhaps he therefore departed for a
+season, that thou shouldst receive him forever; not now as a servant,
+but above a servant, a brother beloved, especially to me, but how much
+more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord. If thou count me
+therefore, a partner, receive him as myself. If he hath wronged thee,
+or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account; I Paul have written it
+with mine own hand, I will repay it," &c. That it may not be supposed
+we give an explanation of these words warped to suit our own views, we
+will copy the very words of the judicious Dr. Thomas Scott, one of the
+most fair and reasonable of expositors, and a declared enemy of
+slavery. In his introduction to the Epistle, he says: "Philemon seems
+to have been a Christian of some eminence, residing at Colosse, (Col.
+iv. 9, or 17,) who had been converted under St. Paul's ministry, (19,)
+perhaps during his abode at Ephesus, (Acts xix. 10.) When the apostle
+was imprisoned at Rome, Onesimus, a slave of Philemon, having, as it
+is generally thought, been guilty of some dishonesty, left his master
+and fled to that city, though at the distance of several hundred
+miles. When he came thither, curiosity or some such motive induced him
+to attend on St. Paul's ministry, which it pleased God to bless for
+his conversion. After he had given satisfactory proof of a real
+change, and manifested an excellent disposition, by suitable
+behaviour, which had greatly endeared him to Paul, he judged it proper
+to send him back to his master, to whom he wrote this epistle, that he
+might procure Onesimus a more favourable reception than he could
+otherwise have expected." Notes on v. 12 to 16: "Onesimus was
+Philemon's legal property, and St. Paul had required, and prevailed
+with him, to return to him, having made sufficient trial of his
+sincerity: and he requested Philemon to receive him with the same
+kindness as he would the aged apostle's own son according to the
+flesh, being equally dear to him, as his spiritual child. He would
+gladly have kept him at Rome, to minister to him in his confinement,
+which Onesimus would willingly have done in the bonds of the Gospel,
+being attached to him from Christian love and gratitude; and as he
+knew that Philemon would gladly have done him any service in person,
+if he had been at Rome, so he would have considered Onesimus as
+ministering to him in his master's stead. But he would not do any
+thing of this kind without his consent, lest he should seem to extort
+the benefit, and Philemon should appear to act from necessity, rather
+than from a willing mind. And though he had hopes of deriving benefit
+from Onesimus' faithful service, at some future period, by Philemon's
+free consent, yet he was not sure that this was the Lord's purpose
+concerning him; for perhaps he permitted him to leave his master for
+a season in so improper a manner, in order that, being converted, he
+might be received on his return with such affection, and might abide
+with Philemon with such faithfulness and diligence, that they should
+choose to live together the rest of their lives as fellow-heirs of
+eternal felicity. In this case he knew that Philemon would no longer
+consider Onesimus merely as a slave, but view him as 'above a slave,
+even a brother beloved.' This he was become to Paul in an especial
+manner, who had before been entirely a stranger to him; how much more,
+then, might it be supposed that he would be endeared to Philemon, when
+he became well acquainted with his excellency! seeing he would be near
+to him both in the flesh as one of his domestics, and in the Lord, as
+one with him in Christ by faith."
+
+Thus far Dr. Scott. These are substantially the views given of this
+epistle by Calvin, Whitby, Henry, Doddridge, McKnight, Hodge, and
+others: none of whom were slaveholders, or friends of the institution.
+Now, our purpose is not to vindicate the intrinsic innocence of
+slaveholding here, by dwelling again upon the just arguments, which
+have been already stated: that a slaveholder here receives from an
+inspired apostle the highest Christian commendations; and that he is
+addressed as a brother minister in the church. The Epistle presents
+still more emphatic evidence: First, if the relation is unrighteous,
+and the master's authority unfounded, then the only ground upon which
+the duty of the slave's submission rests, is that of Christian
+forbearance. When the wicked bonds were once happily evaded, and the
+oppressed person in safety, that ground of obligation was wholly at
+an end. A captive has been unlawfully detained by a gang of
+highwaymen, for the purpose of exacting ransom. He has given them the
+slip, and is secure. Is there any obligation to go back, because,
+while there, there was an obligation to refrain from useless violence
+and bloodshed? Let us even suppose that the means of the captive's
+escape were in some point immoral: does this fact make it his duty to
+go back and submit himself to the freebooters? By no means. To God he
+ought to repent of whatever was immoral in the manner of his escape:
+but he is bound to make no reparation for it to the robbers, because
+they had no right to detain him at all. But we see St. Paul here
+enjoining on the newly-awakened conscience of Onesimus, the duty of
+returning to his master. That the apostle sent him, and that he went
+back under a sense of moral obligation, is proved by two facts: St.
+Paul had a strong desire to retain him, being greatly in need of an
+affectionate domestic, in his infirm, aged, and imprisoned condition,
+but he felt that he must not. (Verse 13.) Paul had no power, except
+moral power, to make Onesimus go back, being himself a helpless
+captive; so that the latter must have been carried back by a sense of
+duty. Hence this instance proves, beyond a cavil, that the relation of
+master and servant was moral; it lies above the level of all those
+quibbles which we have been compelled to rebut.
+
+Second: the transaction clearly implies a moral propriety or ownership
+in Onesimus' labour, as pertaining to Philemon; of which the latter
+could not be rightfully deprived without his consent. For proof, see
+the fact that Paul says, (v. 14,) "Without thy mind I would do
+nothing, that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but
+willingly." The attendance of Onesimus on Paul, _i. e._, the bestowal
+of his labour, would have been, if given, Philemon's "benefit" to
+Paul. If, as Abolitionists say, Onesimus belonged to himself, how
+could it be Philemon's benefit, or benefaction? See also the fact that
+St. Paul (v. 18) explicitly recognizes the justice of Philemon's claim
+to indemnity for Onesimus' bad conduct. In order to smoothe the way
+for his pardon by his justly offended master, he proposes to pay this
+himself, whatever it may be, and (v. 19) gives the force of a
+pecuniary bond to his promise, by writing and signing it with his own
+hand: (the rest of the Epistle, as the most of Paul's, being evidently
+written by an amanuensis.) Some expositors, indeed, explain the 18th
+verse by supposing that Onesimus, when running away, had stolen
+something from Philemon. There is not a particle of evidence for this
+in the narrative; and it is a most unsafe method of explaining the
+Scriptures, to do it by bringing in gratuitous surmises. But be this
+as it may, Paul's language covers both suppositions, of debt for his
+delinquent services, and retention of his master's property: ("If he
+hath wronged thee, or oweth thee any thing.") Is it objected that St.
+Paul suggests, v. 19th, that gratitude ought to cause Philemon to
+forego the exaction of such a vicarious payment from him? The reply
+is, that the very nature of this plea implies most strongly the legal
+completeness of Philemon's title to the compensation. A poor man is
+sued for a debt. His only answer is, that he thinks the suitor ought
+to be _generous_ enough to remit this debt to him, inasmuch as he had
+once saved that suitor's life. Surely this plea is itself an admission
+that the debt is legal; and if the claimant chooses to be ungracious
+enough to press it under the circumstances, it must be paid. Moreover,
+Philemon's debt of gratitude was, thus far, to Paul, and not to
+Onesimus. Paul's stepping under the burden of his debt was an act of
+voluntary generosity only. The apostle makes no claim of any
+obligation, even of courtesy, from Philemon to his delinquent slave.
+
+But if Onesimus' labour was Philemon's property, of which he could not
+be rightfully deprived without his own consent, and for the loss of
+which he was entitled to an equivalent, slaveholding cannot be in
+itself unlawful. We have here a recognition of the very essence of the
+relation.
+
+This case is so fatal to the theory of all Abolitionists who admit the
+canonical authority of the Epistle, that desperate efforts are made to
+pervert its meaning. Mr. Albert Barnes, Coryphæus of these expository
+sophists, says in one of his comments, that it does not appear from
+the Epistle that Paul really sent Onesimus back to his master at all!
+"There is not the slightest evidence that he _compelled_, or even
+urged him to go. The language is just such as would have been used on
+the supposition, either that he _suggested_ to him to go and bear a
+letter to Colosse, or that Onesimus desired to go, and that Paul sent
+him agreeably to his request. Compare Philip. ii. 25, Col. iv. 7, 8.
+But Epaphroditus and Tychicus were not sent against their own will;
+nor is there any more reason to think that Onesimus was." Mr. Barnes
+then adds the notable reason, that Paul had no sheriff or constable
+to send Onesimus by; so that if he did not choose to return, he could
+not compel him. But the stubborn fact is, that Onesimus went; and it
+must be accounted for. This author's account is, that he probably
+found he had not mended his condition by running away, and so, desired
+to return to regain his comfortable home; whereupon Paul availed
+himself of the occasion to write to his friend. This solution is not
+particularly honourable to the religious character of either party: we
+shall neither insult the apostle by adopting, nor the understanding of
+readers by refuting it. As to Paul's 'sending' of Epaphroditus to
+Phillippi, and Tychicus to Colosse, we note that the word is not the
+same with the one used of Onesimus. This is ανεπεμψα; and it is
+expressly defined by Robinson's Lexicon as an authoritative sending
+up, or remitting to a higher tribunal, such as the sending of Paul by
+Festus to Cæsar, Acts xxv. 21. Further, Paul did 'send' these two
+brethren, not indeed as slaves are sent, but by his apostolic
+authority, to which they doubtless cheerfully responded. Paul had no
+physical force by which to drive Onesimus all the way from Rome to
+Colosse; but there is such a thing as moral power, and the fact that
+the conscience of the sent freely seconds the righteous authority of
+the sender, surely does not prove this authority to be naught. How
+perverse must he be, who can see in the words, "whom I (Paul) have
+sent," nothing but that Onesimus sent himself! Is not this the state
+of facts, plain to any honest mind: that Paul instructed him it was
+his duty to return to his lawful master, and as his spiritual teacher
+told him to do so? And this injunction the converted Onesimus
+cheerfully obeyed.
+
+Mr. Barnes also says, it is not proved that Onesimus was a literal
+slave at all; he may have been a hired servant or apprentice. Here, as
+will appear more fully, he expressly contradicts himself. But as to
+the assumption, we reply, that Onesimus is called, v. 16, δουλος, a
+name never given to the hired servant: that he is sent back to his
+rightful owner, a thing which necessarily implies his slavery: that
+St. Paul intercedes for him; and that he recognizes his master's
+property in his labour. The whole company of expositors, ancient and
+modern, until Mr. Barnes, have declared that Onesimus was Philemon's
+slave.
+
+But others again, following the same notable guide, learn that he was
+manumitted by the letter of Paul; so that they find here, not a
+justification of the slaveholder, but an implied rebuke of slavery.
+Thus contradictory is error! Just now he was not a slave at all: now
+he is a slave manumitted; and that by one who had no power to do it.
+The ground claimed for the latter position is, v. 16, "Not now as a
+servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved." Now, the obvious
+sense of these words is, that Philemon should now receive Onesimus
+back, not as a slave only, but as both a slave and Christian brother.
+For proof: By what law could Paul manumit another man's servant? And
+he had admitted Philemon's rightful authority, v. 10, by saying: "I
+beseech thee for my son Onesimus." Why beseech, if he might have
+commanded? If Paul had a right to emancipate, why did he send him back
+at all, when every other motive prompted to keep him? He again
+disclaims such right, v. 14, "But without thy mind I would do
+nothing." Still another proof appears, v. 18, 19, where St. Paul
+fully recognizes Onesimus' continued servitude by undertaking to pay
+for his delinquencies. The Epistle then adds, that Philemon was "to
+receive him back forever," v. 15, _i. e._, for life. The residence of
+a free denizen or dependent could not be defined as for life; because
+he would go away whenever he pleased. And last, St. Paul expressly
+declares that this life-long relation was to be political as well as
+spiritual, both that of a servant and fellow-Christian--"How much more
+(beloved) now unto thee both in the flesh and in the Lord."
+
+Such are the wretched quibblings by which abolitionism seeks to
+pervert the plain meaning of God's Word, as clearly apprehended by the
+great current of Christian expositors, both ancient and modern, Greek,
+Latin, and English. We almost feel that an apology is due to the
+enlightened reader, for detaining him with the formal exposure of
+these miserable follies; but our promise was to display the thorough
+emptiness of our opponents.
+
+
+§ 8. _St. Paul reprobates Abolitionists._
+
+One passage of the New Testament remains to be noticed. It is that
+which commands the exclusion of Abolitionist teachers from church
+communion, 1 Tim. vi. 3-5. St. Paul had just enjoined on this young
+minister the giving of proper moral instruction to servants. The
+pulpit was to teach them the duty of subordination to masters, as to
+rightful authority; and if those masters were also Christians, then
+the obligation was only the stronger. See v. 1, 2. The apostle then
+proceeds, v. 3, "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to
+wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the
+doctrine which is according to godliness," (the opposite teaching of
+abolitionism contradicts Christ's own word,) "he is proud, knowing
+nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof
+cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of
+men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain
+is godliness: from such withdraw thyself."
+
+The more carefully these words of the Holy Ghost are considered, the
+more exceedingly remarkable will they appear. Doubtless, every reader
+of previous ages has felt a slight trace of wonder, that the apostle
+should have left on record a rebuke of such particularity, sternness,
+and emphasis, when there appeared nothing in the opinions or abuses of
+the Christian world, of sufficient importance quite to justify it. We
+have no evidence that, either in the primitive or mediæval church, any
+marked disposition prevailed to assail the rights of masters over
+their slaves, to such extent as to threaten the disorganization of
+civil society or the dishonouring of Christianity thereby. This
+denunciation of the apostle seems to have been sufficient to give the
+_quietus_ to the spirit of abolition, so long as any reverence for
+inspiration remained. Even while the policy of the Roman Church and
+clergy was steadily directed to the extinction of feudal slavery in
+Western Europe, it does not appear that the doctors of that church
+assailed the master's rights or preached insubordination to the
+slaves. Why then did St. Paul judge it necessary to leave on record so
+startling a denunciation? The question is answered by the events of
+our age: these words were written for us on whom these ends of the
+world have come. And we have here a striking proof that his pen was
+guided by omniscient foreknowledge. The God who told Paul what to
+write, foresaw that though the primitive church stood in comparatively
+slight need of such admonitions, the century would come, after the
+lapse of eighteen ages, when the church would be invaded and defiled
+by the deadly spirit of modern abolitionism, a spirit perverse, blind,
+divisive and disorganizing, which would become the giant scourge and
+opprobrium of Christianity. Therefore has this stern warning been
+recorded here, and left standing until events should make men
+understand both its wisdom and the lineaments of the monster which it
+foreshadowed. The learned Calvin, and the amiable Henry, in explaining
+the Epistle to Philemon, allude to the question: Why should this short
+letter, which directly touches no publick concernment of the churches,
+written on a personal topick from Paul to his friend, be preserved
+among the canonical Scriptures by God's Spirit and providence? They
+answer, that it was placed there because, although short and of
+private concernment, it teaches us many pleasing lessons of Paul's
+condescension and courtesy, and above all, of the adaptation of
+Christianity to visit, purify, and elevate the lowest and vilest of
+the ranks of men. This is true, so far as it goes; but another part of
+God's purpose is now developed. He left this little Epistle among his
+authoritative words, because he foresaw that the day would come when
+the Church would need just the instructions against insubordination,
+which are here presented in a concrete case.
+
+Those who have seen and suffered by modern abolitionism best know,
+how astonishingly true is the picture here drawn of it by the Divine
+limner. God here declares that the principles of the lawfulness of
+slavery, the rights of masters, and the duty of obedience in slaves,
+are wholesome, and according to godliness. In addition, the sacred
+authority of our Lord Jesus Christ is claimed for them. The
+Abolitionist who assails these teachings is described as a man proud,
+yet ignorant. This combined arrogance and vindictiveness, with
+ignorance of the true facts and merits of the case upon which they
+presume to dictate, are proverbial in modern abolitionism, according
+to the testimony of neutral parties, and even of some of their own
+clique. With a stupid superciliousness, equally ludicrous and
+offensive, they revile men wiser and better than themselves, and pass
+an oracular verdict upon questions of which they know nothing. They
+are doting about questions and strifes of words: that is, as the
+original word means, their minds are morbid with logomachies, and idle
+debates, and corrupted by prejudice and the spirit of disputation.
+("Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds.") Those who have read
+thus far in this discussion have seen, in the prejudiced sophisms
+which we have been compelled to quote for refutation, sufficient
+evidence of the perverse, erroneous, and disputatious spirit of
+abolitionism. Their dogmas are not supported by the testimony of
+Scripture, nor the lights of practical experience, nor sound political
+philosophy; but by vain and Utopian theories of human rights, and
+philosophy falsely so called. The fruit of their discussions has been
+naught but "envy, strife, railings, and evil surmisings." The fact
+betrays itself in a thousand ways, that envy of the slaveholder and
+his supposed advantages and power, is the root of much of their zeal.
+Hence the epithets of "aristocrat," "lordly slaveholder," "Southern
+nabob," as ridiculously false to fact as envious, which form so large
+a part of the staple of their abuse. They hate us because they suppose
+we possessed a privilege of which they were deprived. The angry and
+divisive tendencies of abolitionism have manifested themselves but too
+familiarly in the rending of churches, in the awakening of fierce
+contention wherever it has appeared, in the destruction of the union
+both of law and of love between the American States, and in a gigantic
+war which has filled a continent with woe and crime. And the remaining
+trait of "railings" is verified by the fact that these professed
+friends of humanity have exhausted the most inhuman stores of
+vituperation upon a class of Christian people whom none can know
+without loving for their purity and benevolence. There is no sect that
+knows how to scold so virulently as the Abolitionists. The apostle
+adds that they are "men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth."
+Now it is notoriously the fact that this sect, although claiming to be
+the special advocates of righteousness, have ever prosecuted their
+ends by unprincipled and false means. Their party action has been
+hypocritical and unscrupulous. Their main weapons have been slanders.
+And the tendency to mendacity has since been illustrated on a scale so
+grand in the recent War, by falsifications of fact, diplomatic
+treacheries, and wholesale breaches of covenant, that the accuracy of
+the apostle's description becomes startling. It would seem that when
+once a man is swayed by this spirit fully, he is under a fatality to
+speak untruth, whether he be prime-minister, historian, official of
+government, or divine.
+
+The last trait of abolitionism which the apostle draws, is one which,
+at the first glance, strikes the observer with surprise, but which is
+fully verified by the reality. This is the intensely mercenary spirit
+of the sect. "Supposing that gain is godliness." Without due
+reflection, one would suppose that a party animated as much as this is
+by an intense and sincere fanaticism, and that, a fanaticism of
+pretended humanity, whatever violences it might commit, would at least
+be free from the vice of a calculated avarice. But the suppleness of
+fanaticism in affiliating with every other vice, is not duly
+appreciated; it is a fact, true, if unexpected, that genuine
+fanaticism can tolerate any thing except the peculiar object of its
+hate, and that it is compatible with supreme selfishness. For what is
+fanaticism but selfishness acting under the forms of pride with its
+offspring censoriousness, the lust of power, envy, and dogmatism?
+Modern events verify the apostle's picture: the religion and
+humanitarianism of abolition are only a covert avarice. The people of
+the American States are notorious for their worship of wealth, just in
+proportion as they are swayed by the anti-slavery furor. No party has
+ever appeared on the stage of Federal politics, whose ends were so
+avowedly selfish and mercenary. The wrongs of the slave have been the
+pretext, sectional and personal aggrandizement the true ends. That
+party, under the phase of "free-soil," has thrown off the mask, and
+avowed the declaration that the true meaning of their opposition to
+the rights of Southern masters in the territories is, that "the soil
+of America belongs to the white man;" and the poor negro, though now a
+native of it, is begrudged a home and a living upon it. There is no
+class of people in America which has expended so little of its money
+for the actual advantage of the black race, as the abolitionists.
+Usually, the history of the case has been, that they would give of
+their money, neither to ransom a slave from bondage, nor to aid the
+cause of African colonization, nor to assist a distressed free negro
+of their own section: the only use to which they can be induced to
+apply it is the printing of vituperations against the masters. It was
+the testimony of the fugitive slaves themselves, that the philanthropy
+of the Abolitionists extended only to seducing them from their homes;
+thenceforth their whole thought was to make gain of their godliness.
+The crowning evidence, however, of the mercenary spirit of this party
+is in this fact, that their advent to power in the Federal government
+of the United States has been, according to the testimony of their
+mutual recriminations, the epoch of an unprecedented reign of
+peculation and official corruption. Such is the picture of
+abolitionism as drawn by the Apostle Paul, and verified in America in
+our day. It is our privilege and our wisdom to obey his closing
+injunction, "From such withdraw thyself," that we may not become
+partakers of their sins. From this stern and just denunciation, it may
+be learned how utterly the New Testament is opposed to the whole
+doctrine and spirit of the party.
+
+We have now passed in review every passage in the New Testament, in
+which domestic slavery is directly treated, and we have seen that
+they every one imply the innocency of the institution. We have
+discussed many of the evasions by which Abolitionists attempt to
+escape these testimonies, and have found them utterly unsound. There
+remain two pleas, of more general application to the New Testament
+argument, to which the ablest of their advocates seem to attach prime
+importance. To these we will now attend.
+
+
+§ 9. _The Golden Rule Compatible with Slavery._
+
+One of these general objections to our New Testament argument is the
+following. They say, Christ could not have intended to authorize
+slavery, because the tenour and spirit of His moral teachings are
+opposed to it. The temper He currently enjoins is one of fraternity,
+equality, love, and disinterestedness. But holding a fellow-being in
+bondage is inconsistent with all these. Especially is the great
+"Golden Rule" incompatible with slavery. This enjoins us to do unto
+our neighbour as we would that he should do unto us. Now, as no
+slaveholder would like to be himself enslaved, this is a clear proof
+that we should not hold others in slavery. Hence, the interpretations
+which seem to find authority for slavery in certain passages of the
+New Testament, must be erroneous, and we are entitled to reject them
+without examination. Abolitionists usually advance this with a
+disdainful confidence, as though he who does not admit its justice
+were profoundly stupid. But it is exceedingly easy to show that it is
+a bald instance of _petitio principii_, and it is founded on a
+preposterous interpretation of the Golden Rule, which every sensible
+Sabbath-school boy knows how to explode. Its whole plausibility rests
+on the _à priori_ assumption of prejudice, that slaveholding cannot
+but be wicked, and on a determination not to see it otherwise. Our
+refutation, which is demonstrative, reveals the Socinian origin and
+Rationalistic character of these opinions. Socinianism harbours loose
+views of the authority of inspiration, and especially of that of the
+Old Testament. It scruples not to declare, that these venerable
+documents contain many admixtures of human error, and wherever it
+finds in them any thing it does not like, it boldly rejects and
+repudiates it. Moreover, Socinianism having denied the divinity of our
+Redeemer Christ, finds itself compelled to attempt an answer to the
+hard question: Wherein, then, is He greater than Moses, David, or
+Isaiah? And in what respect does He fulfil those transcendent
+representations which the Scriptures correctly give of His superiority
+of person and mission? The answer which orthodoxy makes is plain and
+good: That it is because He is God as well as man, while they were but
+sinful men, redeemed and inspired; and that His mission is to
+regenerate and atone, while theirs was only to teach. But the answer
+which Socinianism has devised is in part this: Christ was commissioned
+to reform the moral system of the Old Testament, and to teach a new
+law of far superior beauty, purity, and benevolence. Thus, they have a
+corrupt polemical motive to misrepresent and degrade the Old Testament
+law, in order to make a _Nodus vindice dignus_, for their imaginary
+Christ, who does nothing but teach. To effect this, they seize on all
+such passages as those in the "Sermon on the Mount," which refute
+Pharisaic glosses, and evolve the true law of love. This is the mint
+from which abolitionists have borrowed their objections against our
+Old Testament defence of slaveholding; such as this, that however it
+may have been allowed to the Hebrews, by their older and ruder law,
+"because of the hardness of their hearts," it is condemned by the new
+law of love, taught by Jesus. Now, our refutation (and it is perfect)
+is, that this law of love was just as fully announced by slaveholding
+Moses as it is by Jesus; in terms just as full of sweetness,
+benevolence, and universal fraternity. Yea more, the very words of
+Jesus cited by them and their Socinian allies, as the most striking
+instances of the superior mildness and love of His teachings, are in
+most cases quoted from Moses himself! The authority by which Christ
+enforced them upon His Jewish auditors was Moses' own! Such is the
+shameful ignorance of these fanatics concerning the real contents of
+that Old Testament which they depreciate. Thus, Christ's epitome of
+the whole law into the two commands to love God and our neighbour, is
+_avowedly quoted_ from "the law," _i. e._, the Pentateuch. See Matthew
+xxii. 36 to 39, and Mark xii. 28 to 33. It may be found in Deut. vi. 4
+and 5, and in Levit. xix. 18. Even the scribe of Mark, xii. 32,
+Pharisee as he was, understood better than these modern Pharisees of
+abolitionism, that Christ's ethics were but a reproduction of Moses'.
+He avows the correctness of Christ's rendering of the Pentateuch law,
+and very intelligently adduces additional evidence of it by evident
+allusion to 1 Samuel xv. 22, and Hosea vi. 6. Again: does Christ
+inculcate forgiveness of injuries, benefactions towards enemies, and
+the embracing of aliens in our philanthropy as well as kindred and
+fellow-citizens? He does but cite them to the authority of Moses in
+Levit. xix. 18, Exod. xxiii. 4, 5, Levit. xxiv. 22, Exod. xxii. 21,
+xxxiii. 9. For here their great prophet himself had taught them that
+revenge must be left to God, that an embarrassed or distressed enemy
+must be kindly assisted, and that the alien must be treated in all
+humane respects as a fellow-citizen, under a lively and sympathetic
+sense of their own sufferings when they were oppressed aliens in
+Egypt. The Golden Rule, as stated by our Saviour, is but a practical
+application of the Mosaic precept "to love our neighbours as
+ourselves," borrowed from Moses. In Matt. vii. 12, Christ, after
+giving the Golden Rule, adds, "for this is the law and the prophets."
+That is, the Golden Rule is the summary of the morality of the
+Pentateuch and Old Testament prophets. We repeat that there is not one
+trait of love, of benevolence, of sweet expansive fraternity, of
+amiable equity, contained in any of Christ's precepts or parables,
+that is not also found in the Laws of Moses. Their moral teachings are
+absolutely at one, in principle; and so they must be, if both are from
+the unchangeable God. To say otherwise is a denial of inspiration; it
+is infidelity; and indeed abolitionism is infidelity. Our reply, then,
+is, _that Christ's giving the law of love cannot be inconsistent with
+his authorizing slaveholding; because Moses gave the same law of love,
+and yet indisputably authorized slaveholding_. We defy all the
+sophisms of the whole crew of the perverse and destitute of the truth,
+to obscure, much less to rebut this answer, without denying the
+inspiration and even the common truthfulness of Moses. But that they
+will not stickle to do: for what do they care for Moses, or Christ
+either, in comparison of their fanatical idol?
+
+But a more special word should be devoted to the argument from the
+Golden Rule. The sophism is so bald, and the clear evolution of it has
+been given so often, even in the humblest manuals of ethics prepared
+for school-boys, that it is tiresome to repeat its exposure. But as
+leading Abolitionists continue to advance the oft-torn and tattered
+folly, the friends of truth must continue to tear it to shreds. The
+whole reasoning of the Abolitionists proceeds on the absurd idea, that
+any caprice or vain desire we might entertain towards our fellow-man,
+if we were in his place, and he in ours, must be the rule of our
+conduct towards him, whether the desire would be in itself right or
+not. This absurdity has been illustrated by a thousand instances. On
+this rule, a parent who, were he a child again, would be wayward and
+self-indulgent, commits a clear sin in restraining or punishing the
+waywardness of his child, for this is doing the opposite of what he
+would wish were he again the child. Judge and sheriff commit a
+criminal murder in condemning and executing the most atrocious felon;
+for were they on the gallows themselves, the overmastering love of
+life would very surely prompt them to desire release. In a word,
+whatever ill-regulated desire we are conscious of having, or of being
+likely to have, in reversed circumstances, that desire we are bound to
+make the rule of our action in granting the parallel caprice of any
+other man, be he bore, beggar, highwayman, or what not. On this
+understanding, the Golden Rule would become any thing but golden; it
+would be a rule of iniquity; for instead of making impartial equity
+our regulating principle, it would make the accidents of man's
+criminal caprice the law of his acts. It would become every man's duty
+to enable all other men to do whatever his own sinful heart, _mutatis
+mutandis_, might prompt.
+
+The absurdity of the abolitionist argument may be shown, again, by
+"carrying the war into Africa." We prove from it, by a process
+precisely as logical as theirs, that emancipation is a sin. Surely the
+principle of the Golden Rule binds the slave just as much as the
+master. If the desire which one would feel (_mutatis mutandis_) must
+govern each man's conduct, then the slave may be very sure that, were
+he the master, he would naturally desire to retain the services of the
+slaves who were his lawful property. Therefore, according to this
+abolition rule, he is morally bound to decline his own liberty;
+_i. e._, to act towards his master as he, were he the master, would
+desire his slave to act.
+
+It is clear, then, that our Saviour, by His Golden Rule, never
+intended to establish so absurd a law. The rule of our conduct to our
+neighbour is not any desire which we might have, were we to change
+places; but it is _that desire which we should, in that case, be
+morally entitled to have_. To whatsoever treatment we should
+conscientiously think ourselves morally entitled, were we slaves
+instead of masters, all that treatment we as masters are morally bound
+to give our servants, so far as ability and a just regard for other
+duties enables us. Whether that treatment should include emancipation,
+depends on another question, whether the desire which we, if slaves,
+should very naturally feel to be emancipated, is a righteous desire
+or not; or, in other words, whether the obligation to service is
+rightful. Hence, before the Golden Rule can be cited as enjoining
+emancipation, it must first be settled whether the master's title is
+unrighteous. The Apostle Paul gives precisely the true application of
+this rule when he says: "Masters, give unto your servants that which
+is just and equal." And this means, not emancipation from servitude,
+but good treatment as servants; which is proven by the fact that the
+precept contemplates the relation of masters and servants as still
+subsisting. All this is so clear, that it would be an insult to the
+intelligence of the reader to tarry longer upon the sophism. We only
+add, that the obvious meaning above put upon the Golden Rule is that
+given to it by all sensible expositors, such as Whitby, Scott, Henry,
+before it received an application to this controversy. Yet, though
+this obvious answer has been a hundred times offered, abolitionists
+still obtrude the miserable cheat, in speeches, in pamphlets, in
+tracts, as though it were the all-sufficient demonstration of the
+anti-Christian character of slavery. They will doubtless continue a
+hundred times more to offer it, to gull none, however, except the
+wilfully blind.
+
+
+§ 10. _Was Christ Afraid to Condemn Slavery?_
+
+The other general evasion of the New Testament argument for the
+lawfulness of slavery, is to say: That Jesus Christ and his apostles
+did not indeed explicitly condemn slavery; but that they forbore from
+doing so for prudential reasons. They saw, say these abolitionists,
+that it was a sin universally prevalent, entwined with the whole
+fabrick of human society, and sustained by a tremendous weight of
+sinful prejudice and self-interest. To denounce it categorically would
+have been to plunge the infant church, at its feeble beginning, into
+all the oppositions, slanders, and strifes of a great social
+revolution, thus jeopardizing all its usefulness to the souls of men.
+For this reason, Christ and his apostles wisely refrained from direct
+attack, and contented themselves with spreading through the world
+principles of love and equity, before which slavery would surely melt
+away in due time. So say all the abolitionists. So says Dr. Wayland,
+in substance, not only in his discussion of slavery, but in his more
+responsible and deliberate work, the "Moral Science." In that essay,
+Bk. II., Pt. II., Chap. I., § 1, he says: "The Gospel was designed,
+not for one race, or for one time, but for all races, 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 lodgement in every part of the known
+world: so that by its universal diffusion among all classes of
+society, it might quietly and peacefully modify and subdue the evil
+passions of men; and thus, without violence, work a revolution in the
+whole mass of mankind. In this manner alone could its object, a
+universal moral revolution, have been accomplished. For if it had
+forbidden the evil instead of subverting 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 servile war, and the very
+name of the Christian religion would have been forgotten amidst the
+agitations of universal bloodshed. The fact that, under these
+circumstances, 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."
+
+Such is the Jesuitry which is gravely charged, by a professed minister
+of the Christian religion, and prominent instructor of youth, upon our
+Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles! Such is the cowardly prudence
+which it imputes to men who, every one, died martyrs for their moral
+courage and unvarying fidelity to truth. And thus is the divine origin
+and agency by which, the Bible declares, and by which alone
+Christianity is to succeed in a hostile world, quietly left out of
+view; and American youth are taught to apprehend it as a creed which
+has no Divine king ruling the universe for its propagation, no
+Almighty providence engaged for its protection, no Holy Ghost working
+irresistibly in the hearts of such as God shall call, to subdue their
+enmity to the obedience of Christ: but Christianity is merely a human
+system of moral reform, liable to total extinction, unless it is a
+little sly in keeping back its unpopular points, until an adroit
+occasion offers, (such, for instance, as the power and support of a
+resistless Yankee majority in some confederation of slaveholders,) to
+make the unpopular doctrine go down, or at least, to choke off those
+who dare to make wry faces! Christ and the twelve went out, forsooth,
+into a sinful and perishing world, professing to teach men the way of
+salvation; and yet, although they knew that any sin persevered in must
+damn the soul, they were totally silent as to one great and universal
+crime! They came avowedly to "reprove the world of sin, of
+righteousness, and of judgment;" and yet uttered no rebuke for this
+"sum of all villainies." They went preaching the Gospel of repentance
+from all known sin, as the sole condition of eternal life: and yet
+never notified their hearers of the sin of one universal practice
+prevalent among them, lest, forsooth, they should raise a storm of
+prejudice against their system! Nay, far worse than this: they are not
+satisfied with a _suppressio veri_, but as though to insure the fatal
+misleading of the consciences which they undertook to guide to life,
+their policy of pusillanimity leads them to a positive _suggestio
+falsi_. Had they been simply and wholly silent about the great sin,
+this had been bad enough. But this is not what they did. It is a
+glozing deceit to attempt to cover up the case under the pretended
+admission that "the Gospel does not forbid slavery," as though this
+were the whole of it. Christ and his apostles allude to slavery: they
+say a multitude of things about it: they travel all around it: they
+limit its rights and define its duties: they retrench its abuses: they
+admit the perpetrators of its wrong, (if it be a wrong,) unrepenting,
+into the bosom of the church, and to its highest offices. They do
+almost every thing which is calculated to justify in masters the
+inference that it is lawful. And then they finally dismiss the whole
+matter, without one explicit warning of its sinfulness and danger.
+According to this theory, the apostles find their trusting pupils on
+the brink of the precipice, surrounded with much darkness; and having
+added almost every circumstance adapted farther to obfuscate their
+consciences, they coolly leave them there, with no other guidance than
+a reference to those general principles of equity which, beautifully
+taught by Moses, had already signally failed to enlighten them.
+
+Dr. Wayland's hypothesis is also deceitful and erroneous, in
+representing Christ as having no alternatives save the one which he
+imputes to him, or else of so denouncing slavery as to "teach slaves
+to _resist_ the oppression of their masters," and thus lighting the
+flames of servile war. Is this so? When a given claim is condemned by
+the Bible as not grounded in right, does it necessarily follow on
+Gospel principles that those on whom it is made must resist it by
+force? Surely not. The uniform teaching of our Saviour to the wronged
+individual is, "that he resist not evil." Christ, if he had regarded
+slaveholding as sinful, would not indeed have incited slaves to
+resistance, any more than he did the victims of polygamy which he
+condemned. But he would have taught his disciples the sinfulness of
+the relation, and within the pale of his own spiritual commonwealth,
+the Church, he would have enforced reformation by refusing to admit or
+retain any who persevered in the wrong. Less than this he could not
+have done.
+
+The hypothesis is also false to facts and to the actual method of his
+mission towards deeply rooted sins, as declared both by his words and
+conduct. He expressly repudiates this very theory of action. He
+declares that he came "not to send peace on earth, but a sword:" and
+announces himself as the grand incendiary of the world. How degrading
+to the almighty king of Zion is this imputation of politic cowardice!
+And how different from the real picture where we see him boldly
+exposing the hypocrisy of the Jewish rulers, and assailing their most
+cherished deceptions, though he knew that the price of his
+truthfulness would be his blood! And can this paltry theory be true of
+that Paul, who took his hearers to record, in full view of his dread
+account, that he was "clear from the blood of all men, because he had
+not shunned to declare to them all the counsel of God?" (Acts, xx.
+27.) This of the man who everywhere assailed and explicitly denounced
+the idolatry of Greece and Rome, established by law, entwined with
+every feeling, and defended by imperial might? This of men who,
+sternly reprobating the universal libertinism of the heathen world,
+attacked what every one, countenanced by sages and statesmen, regarded
+as a lawful indulgence? This of men who boldly roused every prejudice
+of the Jewish heart, by declaring their darling system of rites and
+types effete, their ceremonial righteousness a cheat, and the middle
+wall of partition between them and the Gentiles, the bulwark of their
+proud spiritual aristocracy, broken down? It is slander.
+
+Finally, this hypothesis represents that Saviour who claimed
+omniscience, as adopting a policy which was as futile as dishonest. He
+forbore the utterance of any express testimony against the sin of
+slaveholding, say they, leaving the church to find it out by deduction
+from general principles of equity. But in point of fact, the church
+never began to make such deduction, until near the close of the 18th
+century. Neither primitive, nor reformed, nor Romanist, nor modern
+divines taught the doctrine of the intrinsic sinfulness of
+slaveholding. The church as a body never dreamed it. Slavery remained
+almost universal. It remained for the political agitators of
+atheistic, Jacobin France, almost eighteen hundred years after
+Christ's birth, to give active currency to this new doctrine, and thus
+to infuse energy into the fanaticism of the few erratic Christian
+teachers, such as Wesley, who had hitherto asserted this novelty. Now,
+did Christ foresee this? If he did not, he is not divine. If he did,
+then Dr. Wayland believes that he deliberately chose a plan which
+consigned seventeen centuries of Christians to a sin, and as many of
+slaves to a wrong, which he all along abhorred. _Credat Judoeus
+Apella!_
+
+The book from which we have extracted these words of Dr. Wayland, was
+put forth by him as a text-book for the instruction of young persons
+in academies and colleges, in the _science of morals_. We are informed
+that it is extensively used for this purpose. What can be expected of
+that people which suffers the very springs of its morality to be thus
+corrupted, by inculcating these ethics of expediency? Not satisfied
+with teaching to mortals that species of morality, so called, which
+makes convenience the measure of obligation, this scribe of their
+Israel imputes the same degrading principle to the Redeemer of men,
+and Author of religion, in thus suppressing the truth, and intimating
+error to whole generations of his own followers, in order to avoid the
+inconveniences of candour. So that unsuspecting youth are thus taught
+to approve and imitate this corrupt expediency, in the very person of
+the Redeemer God, whom they are commanded to adore. Will the Yankee
+give an actual _apotheosis_ to his crooked principles, in the person
+of an imaginary New England Christ? We thank God that this is not the
+Christ of the Bible, nor our Redeemer, but only the hideous invention
+of "men of perverse minds and destitute of the truth." But since we
+are taught (Psalm cxv. 8) that they who worship false Gods are like
+unto them, that is to say, that idolaters always reproduce in
+themselves all the abominations which they adore in their idols, we
+need no longer wonder at any thing which the Yankee people may do.
+Hence that state of publick morals blazoned to the world by the
+effrontery of their own corrupt press, charged upon each other in
+their mutual recriminations, and betrayed in their crimes against the
+general weal.
+
+In concluding the biblical part of this discussion, it may be expected
+that we should indicate more exactly the influence which we suppose
+Christianity ought to have exerted upon slavery, and its ultimate
+destiny under pure Bible teachings. It may be asked: "When you claim
+that slavery is literally and simply a righteous relation, in itself,
+if it be not perverted and abused; do you mean that this is the normal
+and perfect relation for the labouring man; that this is to be the
+fullest and most blessed social development of Christianity: that it
+ought to subsist in the best states of Christian society, and will
+endure even in the millennium?" We reply, that one uniform effect of
+Christianity on slavery, has been to ameliorate it, to remove its
+perversions and abuses, just as it does those of the other lawful
+relations among men; to make better masters and better servants, and
+thus to promote the welfare of both. Domestic slavery has been
+violently and mischievously ended in the South; and it is doubtless
+ended here in this form, finally. And it has long been manifest that
+the radical and anti-Christian tendency of the age is likely speedily
+to break up this form of servitude in other places where it still
+prevails. But true slavery, that is, the involuntary subjection of one
+man to the will of another, is not thereby any more abolished than sin
+and death are abolished. And least of all will real bondage of man to
+man be abolished in countries governed by radical democracy. The
+Scriptural, the milder and more benign form of servitude is swept
+away, in the arrogance of false political philosophy, to be replaced
+by more pretentious but more grinding forms of society. But, it may be
+asked: Will not the diffusion of the pure and blessed principles of
+the Gospel ultimately extinguish all forms of slavery? We answer: Yes,
+we devoutly trust it will, not by making masters too righteous to hold
+slaves, but by so correcting the ignorance, thriftlessness, indolence,
+and vice of labouring people, that the institution of slavery will be
+no longer needed. Just so, we hope that the spread of Christianity
+will some day abolish penitentiaries and jails: but this does not
+imply that to put rogues into penitentiaries is not now, and will not
+continue, so long as rogues shall continue to deserve imprisonment, an
+act which an angel might perform without sullying his morality. So
+likewise, we hope that our ransomed world will see the day when
+defensive war and military establishments will be superseded:
+superseded not because defensive war and the calling of the Christian
+soldier are immoral when one's country is wrongfully invaded; but
+because there will be none immoral enough to commit the aggressions
+which now justify these costly, though righteous expedients of
+defence. There appears, in many minds, a strange impotency to
+comprehend the truth, that the strict righteousness of the relation
+maintained, and the treatment observed towards a person, may depend on
+that person's character. They will not see that, as it may be strictly
+moral to punish one who is guilty because of his guilt, and yet
+suffering is not intrinsic good in itself; so it may be perfectly
+righteous to hold a class in bondage, which is incapable of freedom,
+and yet it may be true still that bondage is not a good in itself.
+Because they cannot accept the extreme dogma, that domestic slavery is
+the _beau ideal_ of the proper relation of labour to capital, they
+seem to imagine that they are bound in consistency to hold that it is
+somehow an evil. Yet they have too much reverence for God's word to
+assert, with the abolitionists, in the teeth of its fair meaning, that
+slavery is sin _per se_. So, they attempt to stand on an intermediate
+ground of invisible and infinitesimal breadth. The plain solution of
+the matter is, that slavery may not be the _beau ideal_ of the social
+organization; that there is a true evil in the necessity for it, but
+that this evil is not slavery, but the ignorance and vice in the
+labouring classes, of which slavery is the useful and righteous
+remedy; righteous so long as the condition of its utility exists.
+Others pass to another extreme, and seeing that the Bible undoubtedly
+teaches that slaveholding is righteous, they liken the relation to
+those of the husband and father. There is, however, this obvious
+difference: These relations were established in paradise before man
+fell. Their righteousness and usefulness are not dependent on the
+fact that man is a sinner, and they would be appropriately continued
+as long as men are in the body, though all were perfectly wise and
+holy. But the propriety of slavery, like that of the restraints and
+punishments of civil government, rests on the fact that man is
+depraved and fallen. Such is his character, that the rights of the
+whole, and the greatest welfare of the whole, may, in many cases,
+demand the subjection of one part of society to another, even as man's
+sinfulness demands the subjection of all to civil government. Slavery
+is, indeed, but one form of the institution, _government_. Government
+is controul. Some controul over all is necessary, righteous, and
+beneficent: the degree of it depends on the character of those to be
+controuled. As that character rises in the scale of true virtue, and
+self-command, the degree of outward controul may be properly made
+lighter. If the lack of those properties in any class is so great as
+to demand, for the good and safety of the whole, that extensive
+controul which amounts to slavery, then slavery is righteous,
+righteous by precisely the same reason that other government is
+righteous. And this is the Scriptural account of the origin of
+slavery, as justly incurred by the sin and depravity of man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE ETHICAL ARGUMENT.
+
+
+§ 1. The flimsy character of the arguments based by the abolitionists
+on the Scriptures, betrays another than a biblical origin for their
+doctrines. They come primarily not from God's word, but from
+"philosophy falsely so called;" the abolitionists, having determined
+on them in advance, are only concerned with the sacred records, to
+thrust them aside by quibbles and evasions. But the only sure and
+perfect rule of right is the Bible. This, we have seen, condemns
+domestic slavery neither expressly nor by implication. It shows us the
+institution in the family of the "Father of the faithful," the "friend
+of God," and there recognized by God himself in the solemn sacrament
+of the Old Testament circumcision: We have found it expressly
+authorized to God's chosen people, Israel, and defended in the
+Decalogue itself: We see it existing throughout the ages of that
+dispensation, while inspired men, so far from condemning, practised
+it: We see that it is not removed by the fuller light of the New
+Testament; but on the contrary, its duties are defined, and
+slaveholders admitted to all the privileges of the Church: We learn,
+in a word, that domestic slavery existed throughout the ages of
+revelation, was practised continually by multitudes of God's own
+people, was never once rebuked, but often recognized and authorized.
+We assert then, that, according to that infallible standard, it is
+lawful.
+
+Yet, it is condemned in unmeasured terms by most of the people of
+Christendom, is said to be abhorrent to the political ethicks of the
+age, and has been reprobated by some of the fathers of our own
+commonwealth. What then? In the emphatic language of the book whose
+protection we claim: "Let God be true, but every man a liar." Nor are
+we much concerned to explain away this collision between human
+speculation and God's word. When we consider the weakness of human
+reason, and the mortifying history of its vagaries; when we remember
+how many dogmas once held for axioms are now exploded, and what
+monstrous crimes and follies have been upheld by the unanimous consent
+of philosophers, we are not afraid to adopt the teachings of the
+All-Wise, in preference to the deductions of blundering and purblind
+mortals. When the political experience of the world shall have matured
+and corrected the opinions of men, we have no fear but that all the
+truly wise, and good, and philosophical, will justify us, and will
+acknowledge that this simple, this decried, this abhorred expedient of
+inspired law-givers was, after all, best conformed to the true wants
+and welfare of those to whom it was applied, and wiser than any of the
+conceited _nostrums_ of political quackery; that, in short, "the
+foolishness of God was wiser than men." Here, then, we place our feet;
+and our answer to reviling abolitionists and a frowning world is: Your
+reproach is not against us, but God. Go and convict the All-Wise of
+folly, the Infinite Holiness of injustice. Amidst the cruel
+sufferings of the war which was thrust upon us for this institution,
+and of the violent and disastrous overthrow of our liberties; amidst
+the floods of obloquy which our interested persecutors have belched
+forth upon us, and the contemptuous neglect of the nations, our
+confidence is in God's countenance. He permits us to be sorely
+chastened for our sins; but he will not finally suffer his own honour
+to be reproached. He will surely rebuke in the end, the folly and
+impiety of our slanderers, and "bring forth our righteousness as the
+noonday."
+
+The Socinian and skeptical type of all the evasions of our Scriptural
+argument has been already intimated. If the most profane and reckless
+wresting of God's word will not serve their turn, to make it speak
+abolitionism, then they not seldom repudiate its authority. One of
+their leaders, long a professed minister of the Gospel, declares, at
+the close of a train of tortuous sophisms, that if he were compelled
+to believe the Bible countenances slavery, he should be compelled to
+give up the Bible: thereby virtually confessing that he had never been
+convinced of the infallibility of that which, for thirty years, he had
+been pretending to preach to men as infallible. Others, more blatant
+and blasphemous, when compelled to admit that both the Bible and the
+American constitution recognized slavery, exclaimed: "Give me, then,
+an anti-slavery constitution, an anti-slavery Bible, and an
+anti-slavery God!"
+
+Orthodox Christians have always held it as a rule perfectly settled,
+that a revelation which was made to yield to any and every supposed
+deduction of reason, would be no authoritative rule of faith at all.
+It is only when the express word of Scripture clearly contradicts a
+proposition which appears to be a primary intuition of the reason,
+that it constitutes any difficulty in the reception of God's word. But
+can this prejudice against slavery claim to be such? The tests of such
+truths are, that they shall be seen in their own light to be true;
+that they shall be necessary; and that all sane human beings shall
+inevitably believe them, if they comprehend the terms of the
+statements. Obviously, abolitionism can claim none of these traits.
+Instead of being self-evident, we shall show that it is a mere
+deduction from a deceitful and baseless theory. To the mind of all
+former ages, it has failed to commend itself as true. All ancient
+nations, and most moderns, have believed the contrary. All ancient
+philosophers, and all Bible saints, the latter at least as
+conscientious and clear-headed as modern fanatics, believed slavery to
+be lawful. The great philosophers of the middle ages, surpassed by
+none in acumen, and guided by the uninspired lights of a Plato,
+Aristotle and Cicero, thought and wrote without suspecting the
+sinfulness of slavery. Thousands of Christians in the Southern States,
+of as enlightened and honest consciences as any in the world, lived
+and died masters, with no other self-reproach than that they did not
+more faithfully fulfil the master's duties. Since it is not a
+self-evident, not a necessary, not a universally received truth, that
+slavery is sinful, we therefore claim the authority of the Scriptures
+as conclusive, and boldly repudiate all logical obligation to
+reconcile them with the vain conclusions of human speculation. "He
+that reproveth God, let him answer it."
+
+Yet we acknowledge the obligation of those who undertake to expound
+God's word, "to commend it to every man's conscience in the sight of
+God," so far as the self-confidence and petulance of the depraved
+reason will permit. To show, therefore, that we have no fear of any
+legitimate human speculation, and to do what in us lies "to justify
+the ways of God to men," we propose in this chapter to examine the
+ethical argument against slavery with some care.
+
+
+§ 2. _Misrepresentations Cleared._
+
+But abolitionists, by their audacious assumptions, endeavour to throw
+the question out of the pale of discussion: they exclaim that it needs
+no wire-drawn inference, it is self-evident, that a system which
+dehumanizes a human being, and makes his very person like a brute's
+body, the property of another creature; which necessitates the
+entailing of ignorance and vice; which ignores the marital and
+parental rights; which subjects the chastity of the female to the
+brute will of her master, and which fills Southern homes with the
+constant outcry of oppression, is an iniquity: and that he who
+attempts to cite the testimony of reason and Scripture in defence of
+such wrongs, offers an insult to their minds and consciences which
+self-respect requires them to repel at once. The malignant industry of
+our enemies in propagating these monstrous slanders, compels us,
+therefore, to pause at the outset of the discussion, to rebut them,
+and disabuse the minds of readers. And it is here asserted, once for
+all, that the popular apprehension of the slave's condition and
+treatment, spread throughout Europe and the North, _is utterly false_:
+that it is the result of nothing less than persistent, wilful, and
+almost incredible lying on the part of interested accusers; and that
+this is recognized by every intelligent European and Northern man who
+has resided among us long enough truly to know the institution of
+slavery. The character disclosed by the Yankees in the war lately
+closed, has effectually taught the rest of the world to recognize the
+probability of our charge.
+
+The reader is first, then, requested to recall the definition of
+American slavery admitted by us in the beginning of the fifth chapter.
+It is not an ownership of the servant's moral personality, soul,
+religious destinies, or conscience; but a property in his involuntary
+labour. And this right to his labour implies just so much controul
+over his person as enables his master to possess his labour. Our
+doctrine "hath this extent, no more." This we established beyond cavil
+by a reference to our laws and usages. Now, the abolitionist argues
+that the master's claim over the servant, if just, must imply a right
+to employ any means necessary to perpetuate it, such as to keep the
+mind of his slaves stupid and dark, because this is necessary to
+prevent his aspiring to his liberty. We reply that such means are not
+necessary in the nature of the case. To assert their necessity
+audaciously begs the question. If the master's claim were so
+essentially unrighteous, that any intelligent reflection in the slave
+would justify his indignation and resistance, then it might be more
+convenient for the master to make him an unreflecting animal. But the
+very subject in debate is, whether the claim is unrighteous. Suppose
+that the relation can be demonstrated to be right, reasonable, and
+beneficent for the servant, (which is what we assert,) then the only
+effect of intelligent reflection and of knowledge and virtue combined
+in the slave's character, will be to render him better satisfied with
+his condition. So that to degrade his soul is not a necessary means
+for perpetuating the master's authority, and not a part of the rights
+of masters. And now, it is emphatically asserted that Southern
+masters, as a class, did not seek or desire to repress either the
+mental or religious culture of their servants' souls; but the
+contrary. It is our solemn and truthful testimony, that the nearly
+universal temper of masters was to promote and not to hinder it; and
+the intellectual and religious culture of our slaves met no other
+general obstacle, save that which operates among the labouring poor of
+all countries, their own indifference to it, and the necessities of
+nearly constant manual labour. If there was any exception, it was
+caused by the mischievous meddling of abolitionists themselves,
+obtruding on the servants that false doctrine so sternly condemned by
+St. Paul. Southern masters desired the intelligence and morality of
+their servants. As a class, masters and their families performed a
+large amount of gratuitous labour for that end; and universally met
+all judicious efforts for it from others with cordial approval. An
+intelligent Christian servant was universally recognized as being, in
+a pecuniary view, a better servant. Is it asserted that there is still
+much degrading ignorance among Southern negroes? True: but it exists
+not because of our system, but in spite of it. There is more besotted
+ignorance in the peasantry of all other countries. It is the
+dispassionate conviction of intelligent Southerners, that our male
+slaves presented a better average of virtue and intelligence than the
+rank and file of the Federal armies by which we were overrun: and even
+the negro troops of our conquerors, although mostly recruited from the
+more idle and vicious slaves, were better than the white! The Africans
+of these States, three generations ago, were the most debased among
+pagan savages. A nation is not educated in a day. How long have the
+British people been in reaching their present civilization under God's
+providential tutelage? The South has advanced the Africans, as a
+whole, more rapidly than any other low savage race has ever been
+educated. Hence we boldly claim, that our system, instead of
+necessitating the ignorance and vice of its subjects, deserves the
+credit of a most beneficent culture.
+
+We may here refer to the charge, that Virginian slavery condemned the
+Africans to mental and religious darkness, by forbidding them all
+access to letters; because the laws of the commonwealth forbade the
+teaching of them to read. Will not even the intelligent reader, after
+the currency of this charge, be surprised to learn that _there has
+never been such a law upon the statute books of Virginia_? To assert
+that there has been such a law, is an unmitigated falsehood. The only
+enactment which touches the subject is the following sentence, in the
+statute defining what were "unlawful assemblages" of negroes. "And
+every assemblage of negroes for the purpose of instruction in reading
+and writing, or in the night time for any purpose, shall be an
+unlawful assembly." Stat. 1830-31, p. 107. The previous section,
+commencing the definition of these unlawful assemblies, expressly
+states that they are unlawful if held _without the master's consent_.
+Our courts and lawyers uniformly held that, without this feature, no
+assemblage of negroes, to do any thing not criminal _per se_, can be
+unlawful; because the whole spirit of Virginian laws recognized the
+master's authority. His slaves were subject to his government. His
+authorization legalized everything not intrinsically criminal.
+Accordingly, the uniform interpretation given to the above words was,
+that it was the assembling of slaves for instruction in letters by
+others than their master or his authorized agents, which constituted
+the unlawful assembly. The whole extent of the law was, to arm masters
+with the power to prevent the impertinent interference of others with
+his servants, under the pretext of literary instruction; a power which
+the meddlesomeness of abolitionists pointed out as most wholesome and
+necessary. There was no more law to prevent the master from teaching
+his slaves than his children; either by himself, or his authorized
+agent; and thousands of slaves in Virginia were taught to read by
+their masters, or their children and teachers. As many Virginian
+slaves were able to read their Bibles, and had Bibles to read, as
+could probably be found among the labouring poor of boasted Britain.
+Here let another unmitigated falsehood be exposed. Since the
+ill-starred overthrow of our system, the most noted religious
+newspaper of the North, mentioning an appropriation of Bibles by the
+American Bible Society for gifts to negroes of the South, applauded
+the measure, because, as it asserted, "the Southern States had
+hitherto forbidden the circulation of the Scriptures among their
+slaves." It would be mere puling in us, to affect the belief that this
+amazing statement was made in ignorance; when the officials of the
+Society whose organ this slanderer professed to be, well know that,
+ever since the institution of the Bible Society, they were scarcely
+more familiar with any species of applications, than those of
+Christian masters and mistresses, and of Southern ministers, for
+Scriptures suitable for their servants. There has never been a law in
+Virginia preventing the gratuitous circulation of the Bible among
+slaves, or the possession or reading of it by slaves: and it is
+confidently believed that there has never been a single man in
+Virginia who desired such a law, or who would have executed it, had it
+defiled our statute book; unless, perchance, it was some infidel of
+that French school which invented abolitionism.
+
+It is charged again, that slavery impiously and inhumanly sacrificed
+the immortal soul of the slave, to secure the master's pecuniary
+interest in him. This slander is already in part answered. We farther
+declare that neither our laws, nor the current temper and usage of
+masters, interfered with the slave's religious rights. On the
+contrary, they all protected and established them. The law protected
+the legal right of the slave to his Sabbath, forbidding the master to
+employ him on that day in secular labours, other than those of
+necessity and mercy. Instances in which slaves were prevented by their
+masters from attending the publick worship of God, were fully as rare
+among us, and as much reprobated, as similar abuses are in any other
+Christian country. On the contrary, the masters were almost
+universally more anxious that their servants should attend publick
+worship, than the servants were to avail themselves of the privilege.
+There was scarcely a Christian church in the South, which had not its
+black communicants sitting amicably at the table beside their masters;
+and the whole number of these adult communicants was reported by the
+statistics of the churches, as not less than a half million. We can
+emphatically declare, that we never saw or heard of a house of worship
+in the South, where sittings were not provided for the blacks at the
+expense of the whites: and it is believed that if there was such a
+case, it was in a neighbourhood containing no negro population. And in
+nearly every case, these sittings were more ample than the blacks
+could be induced to fill. Nor was there any expenditure of money on
+ecclesiastical objects, which was more cheerfully and liberally made,
+than that for the religious culture of the slaves. Further, with a few
+exceptions they enjoyed the fullest religious liberty in the selection
+of their religious communions and places of worship. Masters refused
+them liberty to join the churches of their choice more rarely than
+parents in New England and Old England perpetrated that act of
+spiritual tyranny upon their wives and daughters. So punctilious was
+this respect for the spiritual liberty of the servants, that masters
+universally yielded to it their own denominational preferences and
+animosities, allowing their servants to join the sects most repugnant
+to their own, even in cases as extreme as that of the Protestant and
+Romanist. The white people of the South may consider themselves truly
+fortunate, if they preserve, under the despotism which now rules them,
+as much religious liberty as our negroes received at our hands.
+
+Our system is represented as oppressive and cruel, appointing
+different penalties for crimes to the black man and the white man;
+depriving the slave of the privilege of testifying against a white in
+a court of justice; subjecting him to frequent and inhuman corporal
+punishments, and making it a crime for him to exercise the natural
+right of self-defence, when violently assailed by a white man. The
+reply is, that the penal code of Virginia was properly made different
+in the case of the whites and the blacks, because of the lower moral
+tone of the latter. Many things, which are severe penalties to the
+white man, would be no punishment to the negro. And the penal code for
+the latter was greatly milder, both in its provisions, and in the
+temper of its administration, than that which obtained in England over
+her white citizens, far into this century. The slave was not permitted
+to testify against a white man, and this was a restriction made proper
+by his low grade of truthfulness, his difference of race, and the fact
+that he was to so great a degree subject to the will of another. But
+the seeming severity of this restriction was almost wholly removed,
+among us, by the fact that he always had, in his master, an interested
+and zealous patron and guardian, in all collisions with other white
+men. From oppression by his own master he found his sufficient
+protection, usually, in affection and self-interest. But in most of
+the abolition States, the wretched free black was equally disqualified
+to testify against his white oppressor; and the vast difference
+against him was, that he had no white master, the legal equal of his
+assailant, eagerly engaged by self-interest, affection, and honourable
+pride, to protect him. The black "citizen" was the helpless victim of
+the white swindler or bully. And such was usually the hypocrisy of
+abolitionism.
+
+It is true again, that our law gave the master the power of corporal
+punishment, and required the slave to submit. So does the law of
+England give it to parents over children, to masters over apprentices,
+and to husbands over wives. Now, while we freely admit that there were
+in the South, instances of criminal barbarity in corporal punishments,
+they were very infrequent, and were sternly reprobated by publick
+opinion. So far were Southern plantations from being "lash-resounding
+dens," the whipping of adult men and women had become the rare
+exception. It was far less frequent and severe than the whipping of
+white men was, a few years ago, in the British army and navy, not
+probably more frequent than the whipping of wives is in the Northern
+States of America, and not nearly so frequent as the whipping of white
+young ladies now is in their State schools. The girls and boys of the
+plantations received the lash from masters and agents more frequently
+than the adults, as was necessary and right for the heedless children
+of mothers semi-civilized and neglectful; but universally, this
+punishment by their owners was far less frequent and severe than the
+black parents themselves inflicted. We may be permitted to state our
+own experience as a fair specimen of the average. The writer was for
+eighteen years a householder and master of slaves, having the
+government of a number of different slaves; and in that time he found
+it necessary to administer the lash to adults in four cases; and two
+of these were for a flagrant adultery--(resulting in the permanent
+reform of at least one of the delinquents.) His government was
+regarded by his slaveholding neighbours as by no means relaxed.
+Indeed, Europeans and Yankees are always surprised at the leniency and
+tolerance of Southern masters. But to the vain modern notion, that
+corporal punishments are in any case barbarous and degrading, we give
+place not for an instant. God enjoined them, in appropriate cases, on
+Hebrew citizens. Solomon inculcates the rod as the most wholesome
+correction for children. The degradation is in the offence, and not in
+the punishment. This pretended exclusion of whipping is a part of that
+Godless humanitarianism, born of conceit and pride, which always shows
+itself as full of real ferocity as of affected mildness.
+
+It is also an outrageous misrepresentation to say that our laws
+imposed no check upon the master's brutality in punishing, and took
+away the slave's natural right of self-defence. The slave whose life
+was assailed might exercise the natural right of self-defence, even
+against his own master. He did it, of course, under the same
+responsibility to the law, and the same risque of guilt, if it should
+appear that he had shed blood gratuitously in a moment of
+ill-justified passion, under which the white man acts. Cases actually
+adjudicated have clearly ascertained this principle. In the county
+of----,[79] a slave, in the year 1861, turned upon his master during
+harvest, and with his scythe inflicted a mortal wound. He was arrested
+by his own fellow-slaves, and when questioned, replied to one, "I
+intended to kill him;" and to another, "I tried to cut him in two." It
+was proved by the defence, at his trial, (through the exclusive
+testimony of blacks,) that his master had, on previous days, and also
+on the morning of the same day, two hours previously, harassed him
+with barbarous and unusual punishments, by which, although none of
+them even in appearance assailed life, a just sense of outrage and
+high indignation must have been produced. The grave defect of this
+defence was, that the assaults of the master, although barbarous,
+never had implicated life, and that two or more hours had intervened,
+for the cooling of passion. The only immediate provocation at the time
+of killing was the repetition of some words of rebuke, with a
+comparatively slight chastisement. Such was the case. The court
+decided that, on the one hand, a verdict of justifiable homicide could
+not be given in the slave's favour, because the lawful present
+provocation was absent; but on the other, that it was not murder,
+because the barbarities which had preceded the act justified
+resentment. The crime was therefore ascertained as a mitigated
+homicide, with a milder punishment.
+
+[Footnote 79: Names and places are suppressed in this publick
+statement, for obvious reasons of regard for meritorious survivors.
+But the official records are at hand, and will be furnished any
+gainsayer.]
+
+The laws of Virginia protected not only the life, but the limb of the
+slave against white persons, and even his own master. The statute
+against wounding, stabbing and maiming is in the following words:[80]
+"If any free person maliciously shoot, stab, cut or wound _any
+person_, or by any means cause him bodily injury with intent to maim,
+disfigure, disable or kill, he shall, except where it is otherwise
+provided, be punished by confinement in the penitentiary not less
+than one, nor more than ten years. If such act be done unlawfully, but
+not maliciously, with the intent aforesaid, the offender shall, at the
+discretion of the jury if the accused be white, or of the court if he
+be a negro, either be confined in the penitentiary not less than one
+nor more than five years, or be confined in jail not exceeding twelve
+months, and fined not exceeding five hundred dollars." And in the
+chapter on trials it is added: [81] "And on any indictment for
+maliciously shooting, stabbing, cutting or wounding a person, or by
+any means causing him bodily injury with intent to kill him, the jury
+may find the accused not guilty of the offence charged, but guilty of
+maliciously doing such act with intent to maim, disfigure or disable,
+or of unlawfully doing it, with intent to maim, disfigure, disable or
+kill, such person." These are but digests of repeated older statutes
+of Virginia, of date 1803, 1815, and 1819. Now the General Court, the
+highest tribunal of appeal in criminal cases, [82]decided that the
+"_any person_," protected by these laws, included the slave; and that
+an indictment for the malicious stabbing of a slave could be supported
+under these acts. Thus, while the slave was required to accept the
+chastisement of his master, his life and limb were as fully protected
+as those of the white man.
+
+[Footnote 80: Code of 1849, Ch. 191, § 9. Edit. 1860, p. 784.]
+
+[Footnote 81: Code of 1849, Ch. 208, § 30.]
+
+[Footnote 82: Chapple's case, I. Virginia cases, 184. Carver's case,
+5th Randolph's Rep., 660.]
+
+The General Court,[83] in 1851, decided the appeal of Simeon Souther,
+convicted in the County of Hanover of murder in the second degree,
+because his slave Sam had, according to evidence, died under an
+excessive and barbarous whipping, with other punishments, the whole
+evidently not intended to kill. Souther's counsel appealed from this
+sentence to the General Court, asking that the grade of the offence be
+reduced to manslaughter only, because it appeared in evidence that the
+punishments were not inflicted with intent to kill. The court, after
+reprobating Souther's conduct as a "case of atrocious and wicked
+cruelty," instead of reducing the grade of the sentence already
+ascertained, decided that it was already too low; and that it should
+have been declared murder in the first degree. This tribunal granted
+that it is lawful for the master to chastise his slave; and that the
+law, as expounded by the same authority, (5th Randolph, 678,) did not
+sustain an indictment of the master on the mere allegation of excess
+in chastisement, where it was not charged that any unlawful maiming or
+other injury ensued. Because "it is the policy of the law in respect
+to the relation of master and slave, and for the sake of securing
+proper subordination and obedience on the part of the slave, to
+protect the master from prosecution in all such cases." ... "But in so
+inflicting punishment for the sake of punishment, the owner of the
+slave acts at his peril; and if death ensues in consequence of such
+punishment, the relation of master and slave affords no ground of
+excuse or palliation. The principles of the common law in relation to
+homicide apply to his case, without qualification or exception; and
+according to those principles, the act of the prisoner, in the case
+under consideration, amounted to murder. Upon this point we are
+unanimous." And Souther, although a man of property, and supported by
+the most active and able counsel, was committed to the penitentiary,
+(in pursuance of the original sentence, of murder in the second
+degree,) where he died. Such was the law and its administration in
+Virginia.
+
+[Footnote 83: 7th Grattan, 673, etc.]
+
+It may further be asserted that the laws were at least as well
+administered among us, against the murderers and oppressors of slaves,
+as against those who killed their equals. Our people had unfortunately
+imbibed, to some degree, the infidel and fanatical notions prevalent
+at the North against capital punishments; so that crimes of bloodshed
+met with more tolerance from publick sentiment than was proper. But
+when a master took the life of his servant, especially if it were done
+by cruel punishments, the publick scorn for his meanness and tyranny,
+and the general feeling of kindliness for our dependent
+fellow-creatures, were apt to secure a far more faithful execution of
+the law against him, than if he had slain his white peer for any
+insult or wrong.
+
+The laws of Virginia were equally just and careful in protecting the
+liberty of every person not justly held to bondage. The stealing or
+kidnapping of any human being with the purpose of selling him into
+slavery, is a felony, punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary
+not less than three, nor more than ten years.[84]
+
+[Footnote 84: Code of Va., 1849, Chap. 191, § 17. The same may be
+found at its appropriate place in the Code of 1860, which is little
+more than a reprint of the Code of 1849.]
+
+Any coloured person whatsoever, conceiving himself to be unlawfully
+detained in bondage, may apply to any justice of the peace, or county
+or circuit superior court, to enter a suit for his freedom. There is
+not, within the lids of the Virginian code, another statute, so
+generous, so careful, so tender, so watchful, in protecting every
+possible right of a plaintiff, as this law enabling the slave,
+unjustly detained, to sue out his freedom. First, it compels every
+magistrate, of every grade, and every court, of every grade, to
+hearken to the cry of the supposed oppressed man, and to take
+effectual steps to secure him release, if just. Next, it instantly
+takes the claimant out of the hand of his nominal master, and assigns
+him protection and maintenance, during the pendency of his claim.
+Next, it provides counsel, and all costs of suit for the oppressed
+man, at publick expense. Next, it orders that his case shall have
+precedence of all other cases, before whatever court he may select, at
+its first sessions, irrespective of its place on the docket. And last,
+if the claim to freedom be found just, the court is empowered to give
+him damages for his detention pending the suit.[85]
+
+[Footnote 85: Code of Va., 1849, Chap. 106.]
+
+Another charge against us is, that our laws abrogated the rights of
+marriage among slaves, authorized their capricious separation by
+masters, and thus consigned them to promiscuous concubinage, like that
+of beasts. Now, first, admitting defect in our legislation here, let
+us ask, how much of the blame of the continuance of this defect is
+chargeable upon the frantic attacks of abolitionists upon us? Every
+sensible man can understand, that a people so fiercely assailed in
+their vital rights should be occupied solely by righteous defence,
+and should feel the time unsuited for the discussion of innovations,
+however needful. And next, let it be understood what the South has
+really done, and has not done, herein, and it will appear that an
+amazing misrepresentation is made of the whole case. The form of the
+charge usually is, that our laws deprived the slaves of all marital
+rights. This is, first, a monstrous perversion of the facts, in that
+the Africans never had any marital rights or domestic institutions to
+be deprived of. Have men forgotten, that in their native country there
+was no marriage, and no marriage law, but the negroes either lived in
+vagrant concubinage, or held their plurality of wives as slaves, to be
+either sold or slain at will? They have, at least, lost nothing, then;
+and the utmost that could be charged upon our legislation is, that it
+did not undertake to innovate upon their own native usages; that it
+did not force upon them marital restraints, and penalties for their
+breach, which the Africans were disqualified either to understand or
+value, which they would have regarded as a more cruel burden than
+their bondage. Next, our laws did not, as many seem to represent,
+prohibit, or delegalize the marriage of slaves; but were simply silent
+about them. The meaning of this silence was, to leave the whole matter
+to the controul of the master. It appears almost impossible for
+anti-slavery men to be made to apprehend the nature of the
+institution, as described in the words, '_domestic_ slavery.' Their
+minds, perverted with vain dreams of the powers and perfectibility of
+the State, cannot be made to apprehend that God has made other parties
+than the commonwealth and the civil magistrate, depositories of ruling
+power; and that this arrangement is right and benevolent. Now, it is
+the genius of slavery, to make the family the slave's commonwealth.
+The family is his State. The master is his magistrate and legislator,
+in all save certain of the graver criminal relations, in which the
+commonwealth deals directly and personally with him. He is a member of
+municipal society only through his master, who represents him. The
+commonwealth knows him as only a life-long minor under the master's
+tutelage. The integers of which the commonwealth aggregate is made up,
+are not single human beings, but single families, authoritatively
+represented in the father and master. And this is the fundamental
+difference between the theory of the Bible, and that of radical
+democracy. The silence of our laws, then, concerning the marriage of
+slaves, means precisely this: that the whole subject is remitted to
+the master, the chief magistrate of the little integral commonwealth,
+the family. Obviously, therefore, the question whether our laws were
+defective therein, is in no sense a question between the living of the
+slaves in marriage or in beastly license; it is only a question
+whether, in the distribution of ruling functions, those of the master
+were not made too large and responsible, herein. And if error be
+admitted in this respect, it cannot be one which makes the relation of
+servitude sinful; for then the same crime must be fixed on all the
+patriarchs, notwithstanding their care in rightly ordering and
+preserving, as family heads, the marital relations of their children
+and slaves, because, forsooth, there happened to be no commonwealth
+law above them, as patriarchs, regulative of these marriages. This is
+nonsense. Where the modern patriarch, the Southern master, rightly
+ordered and protected the marriage relations of his slaves, the
+silence of the commonwealth no more made their connexions concubinage,
+than were those of Isaac, and of Abraham's steward, Eliezer of
+Damascus. What magistrate or legislature, other than Abraham, issued
+their marriage license? Who else enforced their marriage law or
+defined its rights? What civic agent solemnized the ceremonial for
+them? And this leads to another remark: that that ceremonial is wholly
+unessential to the validity of marriage. Of course, where the laws
+enjoin it for any class, every good citizen will observe it. But the
+absence of such ordained ceremonial does not make lawful marriage
+impossible. In this sense, _consensus facit nuptias_. It was thus that
+the holiest wedlock ever seen on earth was instituted, that of Adam
+and Eve; thus Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, were united. The
+fact that our laws pronounce the unions of Quakers and of Jews,
+legitimate marriage, although announced with different forms, and
+indeed almost without form, evinces this truth.
+
+Now, then, for the facts. These facts are, that marriage in its
+substance was as much recognized among our servants as among any other
+peasantry; that the union was uniformly instituted upon a formal
+written license of the two masters; that it was almost always
+sanctioned by a religious ceremonial conducted by a minister; that the
+regularity of the connexion was uniformly recognized by the master's
+assigning the husband and wife their own dwelling; that the moral
+opinion of both whites and blacks made precisely the same distinction
+between this connexion and the illicit ones, and between the fruits
+of it as legitimate, and the fruits of concubinage as illegitimate,
+which publick opinion establishes for white persons: and that even the
+criminal law recognized it as a regular connexion, by extending to the
+black man who slew the violator of his bed in heat of blood, the same
+forbearance which it extends to the outraged husband. How can it be
+said, in the face of these facts, that marriage did not exist among
+them?
+
+But, it is asked, did not the master possess power to separate this
+union at his will; and was not this power often exercised? They did.
+The power, relatively, was not often exercised; and when the
+separation was not justified by the crimes of the parties, it met the
+steady and increasing reprobation of publick opinion. The instances of
+tyrannical separation were, at most, far fewer than the harsh tyranny
+of destitution imposes on poor whites in all other countries; and the
+pretended philanthropy of the Yankees has, in five years, torn asunder
+more families than all the slave dealers of the South did in a
+hundred. But the power of separating was sometimes abused by masters;
+and the room for this abuse was just the defect in our laws, which
+nearly all Southern Christians deplored, and which they desired to
+repair. Justice requires the testimony, on the other hand, that the
+relaxed morals which prevailed among the Africans was not the result
+of their marital relations, as arranged among us, but the heritage of
+their paganism; that under our system the evil was decreasing; and
+that since their emancipation and nominal subjection to the marriage
+law of the whites, a flood of licentiousness, vagrant concubinage,
+and infanticide, has broken out again among them. Clear proof this,
+that our abused system was better adapted to their character than the
+present.
+
+Anti-slavery men often talk as though the right of slave parents to
+the controul and education of their children, were so indefeasible and
+native, that it is a natural wrong to permit the authority of the
+master over them to override that of the parents. This we utterly
+deny. We have the authority of Locke himself for saying that the
+parental authority is correlative to the parental obligation to
+preserve and train the child; that it is, therefore, not indefeasible;
+that if the father is clearly incompetent to or unwilling for his
+duty, his authority often is, and of right ought to be, transferred by
+society to another. When, therefore, the civilized master uses his
+authority against and over that of the semi-civilized, or savage
+parent, to train the slave child to habits of decency, industry,
+intelligence, and virtue, which his degraded natural guardians are
+unable or unwilling to inculcate, he does no crime against nature, but
+an act just and beneficent.
+
+The most odious part of this charge is, that slavery made the chastity
+of the female slave the property of her master. We meet this with an
+emphatic denial. It is false. The laws of Virginia protect the virtue
+of the female slave by the very same statute which shields that of the
+white lady, even against her own master. The law of rape, until 1849,
+used these words:[86] "If any man do ravish _a woman_," &c. The act of
+1849 used the words:[87] "If any white person do carnally know _a
+female_ of the age of twelve years or more, against her will, by
+force, or carnally know _a female child_, under that age," &c. (If the
+ravisher were a negro the penalty was different.) The question is,
+whether the words "_a woman_," and "_a female_," were intended to
+include coloured persons and slaves. The answer uniformly given by
+Virginian lawyers to this question is affirmative. They say that the
+terms are the most general in our statutory vocabulary. The law of
+1849, just quoted, clearly implies that the terms "a female," in § 15,
+are inclusive of coloured females, by expressly introducing the word
+"white," "a white female," in § 16, when its purpose was to enact a
+special penalty for the forcible abduction of that class. The General
+Court has held that _female_ is synonymous with _woman_,[88] and may
+be substituted for it even in an indictment. Is it asked, why the
+appeal is not made to judicial decisions, as conclusive authority of
+the true intent of the statute? We have caused a thorough search to be
+made by the most competent authority in Richmond; and while many
+indictments are found against black men for rape of white women, none
+exist, in the history of our jurisprudence, against white men for rape
+of black women. And this, not because there would have been any
+difficulty in making the indictment lie: _but because_, as the most
+experienced lawyers testify, _the crime is unheard of on the part of
+white men amongst us_.
+
+[Footnote 86: Code, 1819, p. 585, Ch. 158.]
+
+[Footnote 87: Code, 1849, p. 725, Ch. 191, § 15.]
+
+[Footnote 88: Burnett's case, 2 Va. cases, 235. And this was an
+indictment for rape.]
+
+It is undoubtedly true, that the moral sense of the Africans on this
+subject is low: that many voluntary breaches of chastity occur among
+themselves, and some between them and whites. But the latter are far
+less frequent than similar sins in Philadelphia, in Boston, in London.
+Notwithstanding the sad inheritance of vice drawn by the Africans from
+their pagan ancestors, Southern slavery had elevated them so far, that
+illegitimate births among them had become far fewer than among the
+boasted white peasantry of Protestant Scotland, with all its Bibles
+and churches, and parochial schools. This fact can be proved by Scotch
+statistics. The odious and filthy charge which the abolitionists make
+against the Southern people and against slavery, as a system of lust,
+also receives a terrible reply from the returns of the American
+census. When illicit cohabitation takes place between the whites and
+the blacks, nature tells the secret with infallible accuracy, in the
+yellow skin of the offspring. The census of 1850 distinguished the
+full blacks from the mulattoes, both among the slave and free. Of the
+slaves, one in twelve was mulatto, taking the whole United States
+together. Of the slaves in Virginia the ratio of mulattoes to blacks
+was about the same. In South Carolina there was only one mulatto to
+thirty-one black slaves! The explanation is, that the latter State,
+being less commercial and manufacturing than Virginia, and having a
+system of more perfect agricultural slavery, exposed her slaves less
+to intercourse with immigrant and transient whites. But taking the
+United States as a whole, the free mulattoes were more than half as
+numerous as the free blacks! In several of the slave States they are
+more numerous; and in Ohio, the stronghold of Black Republicanism,
+there were fourteen thousand mulattoes to eleven thousand blacks.
+Since the regular marriage of free blacks to the whites was as unknown
+at the North as at the South, these figures tell a tale as to the
+comparative prevalence of this infamous and unnatural form of
+uncleanness among the Yankees, which should forever seal their lips
+from reproaches of us. They also show that at the South the state of
+slavery has been far more favourable to chastity among the coloured
+people than that of freedom.
+
+The reader probably feels by this time, that if we speak truth, then
+was slavery a very different thing practically from its usual picture
+abroad. He will perhaps feel with a shade of skepticism, that it is
+strange the world should have been so much mistaken. The chief
+explanation we offer of so strange a fact, is that trait of
+abolitionists, our interested and unscrupulous accusers, predicted by
+St. Paul: ("men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth.") The
+world will find them out in due time: the statements made of the
+events of the late war have done much to unmask them. Still another
+cause is that Europeans, and even Yankees, are so ignorant of Southern
+society. Still another explanation is, that slavery in the British
+colonies, from which the people of that Empire have chiefly derived
+their conceptions, actually was far more harsh and barbarous than in
+this country. The reader is emphatically cautioned that he must not
+judge slavery in Virginia by slavery in Jamaica or Guiana. Whether the
+charge of the great Paley is correct, who accounts for this difference
+by the greater harshness of British character,[89] politeness may
+forbid us to decide. But the comparative fates of the Africans in the
+British colonies, and those in our States, tell the contrast between
+the humanity of our system, and the barbarity of theirs, in terms of
+indisputable clearness. If political science has ascertained any law,
+it is that the well or ill-being of a people powerfully affects their
+increase or decrease of numbers. The climate of the British Indies is
+salubrious for blacks. Yet, of the one million seven hundred thousand
+Africans imported into the British colonies, and their increase, only
+six hundred and sixty thousand remained to be emancipated in 1832. The
+three hundred and seventy-five thousand (the total) imported into the
+Southern States, had multiplied to four millions. Such is the
+contrast! How grinding and ruthless must have been that oppression
+which in the one case reduced this prolific race, in the most fertile
+and genial spots of earth, in the ratio of five to two! And how
+generous and beneficent that government which, in the Southern States,
+nursed them to a more than ten-fold increase, in a less hospitable and
+fruitful clime! Well may we demur to have the world take its
+conceptions of our slavery from the British.
+
+[Footnote 89: Moral Philosophy, Bk. 3, p. 2, Ch. 3: "The inordinate
+authority which the plantation laws confer upon the slaveholder, is
+exercised by the _English_ slaveholder, especially, with rigour and
+brutality."]
+
+We trust that we shall proceed, then, to the remaining discussion of
+the moral character of slavery, with a just understanding of what is
+to be defended. It is simply that system which makes the involuntary
+labour of the servant the property of the master, and gives the latter
+such controul over the former's person, as will secure his possession
+of the labour. We conclude this section with a few words touching the
+admitted abuses of the system. That such existed among us, both
+legislative and individual, is fully admitted. There were cruel
+masters. Slaves were sometimes refused that which the apostle enjoined
+masters to give them, as "just and equal." Some cruel punishments were
+inflicted. A few slaves have been tortured to death. Some wives and
+children were wickedly torn from their husbands and parents. And our
+laws in some points failed to secure to the slaves that to which their
+humanity entitled them. But we repeat, these things prove only the
+sinfulness of the individual agent, and not of the system of which
+they are incidents. Fathers have been known to maltreat, scourge, maim
+and murder their children; and husbands their wives; but no one dreams
+that these things evince the unrighteousness of the family relations.
+Wife-murder is doubtless more frequent in the State of New York, than
+slave-murder was in Virginia. The laws of the State of Indiana
+concerning divorce are, in some particulars, glaring violations of
+God's laws. Yet no one dreams of arguing thence, that to have a wife
+in those States is a sin. Unless the abuse can be shown to be an
+essential part of the system, it proves nothing against the lawfulness
+of the system itself. But that none of these crimes against slaves are
+essential parts of slavery, is proved by the fact, which we fearlessly
+declare, that the vast majority of slaves in our country never
+experienced any of them. The unfairness of this mode of arguing cannot
+be better stated than in the words of Dr. Van Dyke, of New York:
+
+"Their mode of arguing the question of slaveholding, by a pretended
+appeal to facts, is a tissue of misrepresentation from beginning to
+end. Let me illustrate my meaning by a parallel case. Suppose I
+undertake to prove the wickedness of marriage, as it exists in the
+city of New York. In this discussion suppose the Bible is excluded,
+or, at least, that it is not recognized as having exclusive
+jurisdiction in the decision of the question. My first appeal is to
+the statute law of the State.
+
+"I show there enactments which nullify the law of God, and make
+divorce a marketable and cheap commodity. I collect the advertisements
+of your daily papers, in which lawyers offer to procure the legal
+separation of man and wife for a stipulated price, to say nothing, in
+this sacred place, of other advertisements which decency forbids me to
+quote. Then I turn to the records of our criminal courts, and find
+that every day some cruel husband beats his wife, or some unnatural
+parent murders his child, or some discontented wife or husband seeks
+the dissolution of the marriage bond. In the next place, I turn to the
+orphan asylums and hospitals, and show there the miserable wrecks of
+domestic tyranny in wives deserted and children maimed by drunken
+parents. In the last place, I go through our streets, and into our
+tenement houses, and count the thousands of ragged children, who, amid
+ignorance and filth, are training for the prison and gallows.
+
+"Summing all these facts together, I put them forth as the fruits of
+marriage in the city of New York, and a proof that the relation itself
+is sinful. If I were a novelist, and had written a book to illustrate
+this same doctrine, I would call this array of facts a 'Key.' In this
+key I say nothing about the sweet charities and affections that
+flourish in ten thousand homes, not a word about the multitude of
+loving-kindnesses that characterize the daily life of honest people,
+about the instruction and discipline that are training children at ten
+thousand firesides for usefulness here and glory hereafter;--all this
+I ignore, and quote only the statute book, the newspapers, the records
+of criminal courts, and the miseries of the abodes of poverty. Now,
+what have I done? I have not misstated or exaggerated a single fact.
+And yet am I not a falsifier and a slanderer of the deepest dye? Is
+there a virtuous woman or an honest man in this city whose cheeks
+would not burn with indignation at my one-sided and injurious
+statements? But this is just what abolitionism has done in regard to
+slaveholding. It has undertaken to illustrate its cardinal doctrine in
+works of fiction; and then, to sustain the creation of its fancy, has
+attempted to underpin it with an accumulation of facts. These facts
+are collected in precisely the way I have described. The statute books
+of slaveholding States are searched, and every wrong enactment
+collated, newspaper reports of cruelty and crime on the part of wicked
+masters are treasured up and classified, all the outrages that have
+been perpetrated 'by lewd fellows of the baser sort'--of whom there
+are plenty, both North and South--are eagerly seized and recorded; and
+this mass of vileness and filth, collected from the kennels and sewers
+of society, is put forth as a faithful exhibition of slaveholding.
+Senators in the forum, and ministers in the pulpit, distil this raw
+material into the more reined slander 'that Southern society is
+essentially barbarous, and that slaveholding had its origin in hell.'"
+
+Such are the words of one who is himself no advocate of slavery, but
+who is moved to utter them solely by his regard for truth. His
+reprobation is just. To take the exceptional abuses of any
+institution, and exhibit them as giving the ordinary state of society
+under it, is the very essence of slander.
+
+But the enemies of the South say, that still the system of slavery is
+unrighteous, even though the generosity of a majority of masters
+prevents its oppressions from being felt, because it confers a power
+which is irresponsible. We reply, that this is true, although to a
+vastly less degree than has been charged; but it is also true of every
+form of authority under heaven; and it is simply impossible to place
+authority in any human hands at all, without some degree of this
+risque of irresponsible abuse. The authority of the master is no more
+irresponsible than that of the husband, father, or mechanic, over his
+wife, child, or apprentice. The father, in order to have authority,
+must have discretion: and he may abuse it: for he is imperfect; and
+against this abuse the child has no legal remedy. For this
+imperfection in the family law there is no help, save by abolishing
+all family government; a remedy fraught with ten thousand times the
+mischief and misery which all the occasional severities of unnatural
+parents have caused. All human government must have this defect, for
+man, who administers it, is a sinner. So that the objection of the
+abolitionist amounts to this: that the institution of slavery is
+unlawful, because it is not perfect; which nothing human can be. It is
+so true that any grant of power whatsoever confers some
+irresponsibility; that the fact remains even where the rights of free
+citizens are most carefully guarded under republican governments. See,
+for example, the courts of law, which judge concerning our lives and
+property. We attempt to limit the abuse of power of the lower courts,
+by passing their decisions in review before a higher; but there must
+be some highest, beyond which no appeal can go. Yet the judges of that
+highest court are also capable of wrong and error; and if they commit
+them, the victim has no human help; he must submit. All that just and
+humane legislation can do, then, is so to adjust and limit powers,
+that the chances of uncompensated wrong may be as small as possible.
+Now we shall see that in this case of employer and labourer, such as
+they are in Virginia, the chances of unredressed wrong were reduced to
+their _minimum_ by our system of domestic slavery. For we thereby
+raised the most efficient motives, those of self-interest and
+affection, in the stronger party, to treat the weaker equitably. If
+the irresponsibility of a part of the master's power proved the
+relation sinful, all government would be wrong.
+
+
+§ 3. _The Rights of Man and Slavery._
+
+The radical objection to the righteousness of slavery in most minds
+is, that it violates the natural liberty and equality of man. To clear
+this matter, it is our purpose to test the common theory held as to
+the rights of nature, and to show that this ground of opposition to
+slavery rests upon a radical and disorganizing scheme of human rights,
+is but Jacobinism in disguise, and involves a denial of all authority
+whatsoever. The popular theory of man's natural rights, of the origin
+of governments, and of the moral obligation of allegiance, is that
+which traces them to a _social contract_. The true origin of this
+theory may be found with Hobbes of Malmesbury. It owes its
+respectability among Englishmen, chiefly to the pious John Locke, a
+sort of baptized image of that atheistic philosopher;[90] and it was
+ardently held by the infidel democrats of the first French revolution.
+According to this scheme, each person is by nature an independent
+_integer_, wholly _sui juris_, absolutely equal to every other man,
+and naturally entitled, as a "Lord of Creation," to exercise his whole
+will. Man's natural liberty was accordingly defined as _privilege to
+do whatever he wished_. True, Locke attempts to limit this monstrous
+postulate by defining man's native liberty as privilege to do whatever
+he wished within the limits of the law of nature. But this virtually
+returns to the same; because he teaches that man is by nature
+absolutely independent, so that he must be himself the supreme,
+original judge, what this law of nature is. According to the doctrine
+of the social contract, man's natural rights are confounded with this
+so-called natural liberty. Each man's natural right is to protect his
+own existence, and to possess himself of whatever will render it more
+happy, (Locke again adds, within the limits of natural law.) And this
+scheme most essentially ignored the originality of moral distinctions.
+Hobbes explains them as the conventional results of the rules which
+man's experience and convenience have dictated to him. For, the
+experience of the mutual violences and collisions of so many
+independent wills, in this supposed "state of nature," induced men, in
+time, to consent to the surrender of a part of this native
+independence, in order to secure the remainder of their rights. To do
+this, they are supposed to have conferred together, and to have formed
+a compact with each other, binding themselves to each other to submit
+to certain stipulated rules, which restrained a part of their natural
+liberty, and to obey certain men selected to govern. The power thus
+delegated to these hands was to be used to protect the remaining
+rights of all. The terms of this compact form the organic law, or
+constitution. Subsequent citizens entering the commonwealth by birth
+or immigration, are assumed to have given an assent, express or
+implied, to this compact. And if the question be asked, why men are
+morally bound to obey magistrates, who naturally are their equals and
+fellows, the answer of this school is: because they have voluntarily
+bargained to do so in entering the social compact; and they receive a
+_quid pro quo_ for their accession to it. Such is the theory of the
+origin of government, from which the natural injustice of slavery is
+deduced. For, obviously, if man's obligation to civil society
+originates in the voluntary social contract of independent integers,
+none can be rightfully held to a compulsory obedience, which enters
+into all servitude, both domestic and political.
+
+[Footnote 90: Notwithstanding Locke's amiable and pious spirit, the
+history of philosophic opinion has shown that he is but a disguised
+follower of the philosopher of Malmesbury. His psychology is but a
+system of sensationalism, and his ethics lead to the denial of
+original moral distinctions. Locke is chargeable with the germs of all
+the mischievous and atheistical doctrines developed by Hume in Great
+Britain, and Cordillac in France.]
+
+Some liberal writers, as Blackstone, and the great Swiss publicist,
+_Burlemaqui_, are too sensible not to see that this scheme is false to
+the facts of the case. But they still hold, that although individual
+men never, in fact, existed in the independent insulation supposed,
+and did not actually pass into a state of society by a formal social
+contract, yet such a transaction must be assumed as the implied and
+virtual source of political power and civic obligation. To us it
+appears, that if the contracting never occurred in fact, but is only a
+theoretical fiction, it is no basis for any thing, and no source of
+practical rights and duties. Civil society is a universal fact; and
+its existence must be grounded in something actual. We object, then,
+to this dream of a social contract preceded by a native state of
+individual independence, that it is false to the facts of the case.
+Human beings never rightfully existed, for one moment, in this state,
+out of which they are supposed to have passed by their own option. God
+never gave them such independency. Their responsibility to him, and to
+the civil society under which He has placed them, is as _native_ as
+they are, being ordained by God to exist from the first. Men do not
+choose civic obligation, but are born to it, just as the child to his
+filial obligation. And the simple, conclusive proof is, that if any
+man were to claim this native option to assume or to decline civic
+obligations, (in the latter case relinquishing also their advantages,)
+there is not a government on earth, not the most liberal, that would
+not laugh his claim to scorn, and at once compel his allegiance. The
+very assumption of what this theory calls man's normal state, and the
+very attempt to exercise the option which, as it babbles, originated
+civil society, would constitute a man an outlaw, the radical enemy of
+civic society, and would give it a natural right, that of
+self-preservation, to destroy him. The scheme is not only fictitious,
+but absurd.
+
+Second: We object that it is atheistic, utterly ignoring the existence
+of a Creator, and his relations to, and proprietorship in, man. It
+affects to treat men as though their existence were underived, and
+independent of any Supreme Being. It boldly discards God's right to
+determine under what obligations man shall live, and quietly contemns
+the great Scriptural fact that He has determined man shall live under
+social law.
+
+Third: This scheme is thoroughly unphilosophical, in that whereas the
+science of government should be an inductive one, this theory is, and
+in its nature must be, purely hypothetical. No body, no history
+pretends to relate in a single instance, any such facts as it
+professes to rest upon. This Locke admits, and even claims, absurdly
+seeking in this mode to evade this vital objection. Hence we assert
+that it has no claims to be entertained _in foro scientiæ_, even for
+discussion.
+
+Fourth: If man at first possessed that natural liberty, and passed
+from it under the obligation of constitutions and laws by a social
+contract, then sundry most inconvenient and preposterous consequences
+must logically follow. One of these is, that when once men had
+established their constitution, (in other words, their compact,) so
+long as its terms were observed by the magistrates and the minority,
+the majority could never righteously change it, no matter how
+inconvenient, or even ruinous, new circumstances might have made it,
+against the will of the minority or of the rulers. For when one has
+made a voluntary bargain, subsequent inconveniences of it do not
+justify its breach. The just man is one who changeth not, though he
+"sweareth to his own hurt." Another consequence would be, that it
+could never be settled what were the terms agreed upon in the original
+compact, and what part of existing laws were the accretions of
+unwarranted power, except in the case of written constitutions. Few
+nations have such. But a far worse consequence would be, that if the
+duty of allegiance originated in such compact, then any one
+unconstitutional act of the rulers or majority would dissolve it. For
+it is a covenant; but a covenant broken by one party is broken for
+both. Now, who believes that a single unconstitutional act of the
+ruler voids the whole allegiance of the aggrieved citizen? Where would
+be the government which would not be plunged into anarchy?
+
+Last, all commonwealths have found it necessary to arm the magistrate
+with some powers, which individuals could not have conferred by a
+social compact, because they never possessed them. One of these is the
+power of life and death. No man's life is his own: it belongs to God
+alone. One cannot bargain away what is not his own. Besides, it is
+absurd to represent men as bargaining away this tremendous power for
+some smaller advantages and securities; because life is the most
+precious of all. "What shall a man accept in exchange for his life?"
+It is of no avail to say that the community is entitled, by the law of
+self-preservation, to assume this power; because, on this theory,
+there is no community as yet. There is only a number of independent
+integers, sovereignly treating with each other. The community cannot
+assume powers before it exists! It is, if possible, still more
+difficult to explain, on this theory, how political societies came by
+the power of capital punishment, against aliens who assail their
+members. But all governments hold aliens living among them, and
+invading enemies, subject to their capital penalties. How is this? The
+foreigner certainly has not assented to the social compact of this
+society; for he claims to be alien, and to owe no allegiance. His
+consent, the supposed fountain of all right over him, is utterly
+lacking. Once more, this theory draws a broad distinction between
+man's civil liberty as a subject of government, and his natural
+liberty. The latter it defines as _privilege to do whatever the man
+pleases_, within the limits of natural law as interpreted by himself.
+And his natural rights are just the same. Some of these he voluntarily
+surrenders to society, to secure the rest. All government, therefore,
+is not only of the nature of restraint; it is essentially _restraint
+upon one's rights_. The advocates of the theory distinctly represent
+government as of the nature of a natural evil and wrong, but adopted
+as an expedient against the worse evil, anarchy; and therefore the
+obligation to obey it has no higher source than expediency. But worse
+yet; if there is any such thing as intrinsic morality, government is
+an immoral restraint, for it is a _restraint upon rights_. Whatever
+good government may bring us, it is of that species which St. Paul
+reprobates, as "doing evil that good may come." The great Hobbes was
+therefore perfectly consistent, in teaching that there is no original
+morality in acts, and that there was at first no such thing as right,
+distinct from might. Morals are factitious distinctions invented under
+civil society for expediency. Let the thoughtful reader consider how
+this monstrous conclusion uproots all obligation, and order, and
+allegiance. No man can hold the theory of the origin of government in
+the social contract, unless he either holds, with Hobbes, this
+damnable error, or with some abolitionists, (who are thoroughly
+consistent here,) that _all government is immoral_.
+
+But its advocates urge that it does give the correct origin of
+government, because they can point to specific rights, which must have
+been natural in the individual, but which we now find vested in the
+government. The instance they most cite, is that of self-defence. We
+accept it, and assert that it confirms our view. For, if the right of
+self-defence means privilege of forcible resistance to violence at the
+time it is offered, we utterly deny that it has been surrendered by
+the individual, or can be justly limited one iota by government. If it
+means the savage privilege of retaliation after the collision has
+passed away, which claims to make the angry defendant accuser, judge,
+jury, and executioner in his own case, we utterly deny that nature
+ever gave such right to any man. "Vengeance is mine: I will repay,
+saith the Lord." Another instance alleged, is when the citizen is
+restrained by society from certain acts, moral _per se_: as selling
+his corn out of the country when there is dearth. Yet the good citizen
+obeys. The answer is, that if the restriction is not unjust, it is
+because there exists among the citizens such danger of suffering for
+corn, that the sending it out of the country would be a breach of the
+natural law of love and equity. Natural rights may change with
+circumstances, a simple truth often strangely forgotten on this
+subject.
+
+Now, it is from this vicious theory of human rights, that abolitionism
+sucks its whole life. The whole argument is but this: no restraint of
+government on man's will can be righteous, which is forcible and
+involuntary, because the obligation of all just government originates
+in the option of the individuals governed, who are by nature
+sovereign. Before we indicate the relationship of this conclusion with
+its disorganizing brood of kindred, we must pause to meet a question
+which arises. It is this: if this pet hypothesis is relinquished, on
+what basis shall we defend free government? Let us see if a better
+foundation for its blessings cannot be found.
+
+Political and ethical philosophers have been perpetually victims to
+the notion, that because theirs are natural sciences, as distinguished
+from revealed or theological, therefore they must banish from them all
+reference to God, his nature, his acts, and his will, and our
+relations to it. The true inference should be, only, that they must
+abstain from the introduction of those peculiar revealed facts, which
+belong to man as an object of redemption and subject of the Church of
+Christ. If we are not atheists, the facts that God is, that our being
+proceeds from his act, that we are his property, are as truly
+_natural_ as man and his attributes are. They should therefore be
+embraced as a part of the facts of the case, to be treated just as
+all other natural facts, save that these are the most rudimental of
+all. For, how can that treatment be truly scientific, which proceeds
+upon a partial induction of the facts of the case, leaving out the
+most primary? It is this illusion which has led so many moralists to
+attempt the discussion of the nature and origin of moral distinctions,
+without introducing a Creator, or a divine will. Whereas, a true
+science accepts God as the first fact in ethics; his attributes as the
+primary standard of the moral distinction; his will as the fountain of
+moral obligation. What wretched impotency and confusion has not this
+omission caused in ethical discussions!
+
+In like manner, this impotent and infidel theory of government sets
+out, (as was consistent with its atheistic inventors,) without
+reference to the fact that man's existence, nature, and rights
+originated in the personal will of a Creator, without reference to
+original moral distinctions, or to original responsibilities to God,
+or to the moral quality of God's will towards man. It quietly ignores
+the fact that man's will, if he is the creature of an intelligent and
+moral personal Creator, never could, by any possibility, be his proper
+rule of acting. It passes over, in the insane pride of human
+perfectionism, the great fact that man is also a naturally depraved
+creature. It falsely supposes a state of nature, in which man's will
+made his right: whereas no being, save an eternal and self-existent
+God, has a right to exist in that state for one instant. But all these
+are _facts of nature_, belonging to the case, ascertainable by
+experience and reason. If, then, we would have a correct theory of
+natural rights, all of them must be embraced in our view. And the
+proper account of the matter is simply this: Inasmuch as man did not
+make himself, _he enters existence the subject of God_. This
+subjection is not only of force, but also of moral right. Moral
+distinctions are original, being eternally expressed in God's
+perfections, and sovereignly revealed to the creature in his
+preceptive will; which is, to man, the practical source and rule of
+obligation. This moral obligation is therefore as _native_ as man is.
+The rudimental relations to his God and his fellows imposed on man are
+binding on him _ab initio_; not at all by force of any assent of his
+will, but merely by the rightful force of God's will: man's virtue is
+to conform his will freely to God's. This will also defines his
+rights; by which we mean those things which other creatures are
+morally obliged to allow him to have and to do. Man, we repeat, enters
+existence with these moral relations resting upon him. And among them,
+are his social relations to his fellows; as is shown by the fact that
+he has a social nature. Now civil government is nothing more than the
+organization of a part of these social relations. God's will and
+providence, then, as truly as his word, has placed man naturally under
+civil government. It is as natural as man is. Again: the rule of
+action imposed by just government is _the moral rule_. That is to say,
+an equitable government enjoins on its members or subjects the doing
+of those things which are morally right, and the refraining from those
+things which are morally wrong.
+
+We trace civil government, then, not to any social contract, or other
+human expediency, but to the will and providence of God, and to
+original moral obligation. If asked, whence the obligation to obey the
+civil magistrate who, personally, is but our fellow, we answer, from
+God's will, which is the source and measure of duty. Man's will is
+wayward and depraved. Hence practical authority to enforce this rule
+of right upon him must be lodged in some hands; and since God does not
+rule statedly by miracle, it must be in human hands. Civil government
+is God's ordinance, and its obligations are those of original moral
+right. The advantage and convenience resulting illustrate and confirm,
+but do not originate, the obligation. This is the theory of government
+plainly taught by St. Paul (Rom. xiii. 1 to 7) and St. Peter (1 Ep.
+ii. 13 to 18.) For we are here told that the civil magistrate is God's
+minister, to uphold right and repress wrong; that obedience to him in
+this is not only of moral, but religious obligation; and that he who
+resists this function disobeys God.
+
+What, then, is man's natural liberty? We answer, that it is only
+_privilege to do whatever he has a moral right to do_. Freedom to do
+whatever a man wills, is not a liberty, either natural or civil, but
+an unnatural license, a natural iniquity; man's will being naturally
+depraved. What then is man's civil liberty? We reply, that under an
+equitable government, it is the same--the privilege to do whatever he
+has a moral right to do. No government is perfectly equitable: none
+are wholly unjust. Some withhold more, some fewer, of the citizen's
+moral rights. None withhold them all. Hence, under the most despotic
+government there are some rights left, and so, some liberty. A
+perfectly just government would be one which would allot to each
+citizen freedom to do all the things which he had a moral right to do,
+and nothing else. Such a government would not restrain the natural
+liberty of any citizen in any respect; each man's civil liberty would
+be identical with his natural. Government does not originate rights,
+neither can it justly take them away. But practically, it confirms,
+instead of impairing, our natural liberty; because it secures us in
+the exercise of it.
+
+But the friends of liberal government may feel a lurking suspicion of
+this plain statement; because it is on a theory of pretended 'divine
+right' that the arguments for legitimacy, passive obedience, and
+despotism repose. Let us, then, pause to inquire whether the true
+scheme looks in that direction. And we ask first: Whether it is not
+much more likely that tyrannical conclusions will be drawn from those
+principles which ignore God, the great standard of right, and original
+moral distinctions, which are the basis of all rights, and so of all
+liberty--from principles which make man's might his natural right;
+rather than from our principles, which solidly found man's rights in
+eternal moral distinctions, and in the will of a just and benevolent
+God, the common Father, before whom rulers and ruled are equal? And
+when we turn to the history of opinion, we see that while Locke
+illogically deduced from this theory of the social contract a scheme
+of liberal government, his greater master, Hobbes, inferred that the
+most complete despotism was the most consistent. And both the French
+and the Yankee Jacobins, deriving from it an impious deification of
+the will of the mob which happens to be the larger, as the supreme
+law, have reduced their theory to practice in the most violent,
+ruthless, and mischievous oppressions ever perpetrated on civilized
+communities. Let the tree be judged by its fruits.
+
+We repeat, that the glory and strength of the Christian theory of
+human government and liberty is this: that _it founds man's rights on
+eternal moral distinctions_. The liberty it grants each man is
+privilege of doing all those things which he, with his particular
+character and relations, is morally entitled to do. Privilege of doing
+all other things it retrenches; for what would this be but sin? Now
+the epitome of moral distinctions is, 'Love thy neighbour as thyself.'
+It is the same law expressed in the "Golden Rule." The meaning of
+this, as we saw, is, not that we must do to our fellow all that our
+caprice might desire, if our positions were inverted; but what we
+should believe ourselves morally entitled to require of him, in that
+case. Here, then, is the true basis of human equality. Men are all
+children of a common Father, brethren of the same race, each one
+entitled by the same right to his own appropriate share of well-being.
+Hence, by a single and conclusive step, as the foundation of civil
+government is moral, its proper object is the good of all, governors
+and governed. Government is not for the behoof of rulers, but of the
+ruled also. Subjects were not made for kings, but kings for subjects.
+Indeed, rulers are themselves subjects, owing allegiance to the
+universal law of right, and members of the brotherhood for whose
+common good this law reigns. In the sublime Words of Samuel
+Rutherford, _Rex, Lex_. Neither Scriptures nor providence give to
+rulers any of that paternal right over the people, of which the
+legitimatists prate. They neither have for their subjects the father's
+instinctive love, nor the father's natural superiority in virtue,
+experience, or powers. The Scriptural governments over Israel were
+none of them legitimatist; and that to which Paul, Peter, and Christ
+owned conscientious allegiance, the Empire of the Cæsars, was not
+hereditary, and was a recent novelty. Again: while it is God's
+ordinance that men shall live under governments, no one form of
+government is ordained. "The powers that be are ordained of God." The
+one which, in His providence, actually subsists, is the legitimate one
+to the individual conscience. Still less has God indicated the
+individuals who shall govern as His agents. There is no divine
+nomination of the particular person. Hence, as government is for the
+common good of all, the selection of these agents belongs to the
+common wisdom and rectitude of the whole. And it is in this sense,
+(and only this,) that the Christian holds that the power of rulers is
+delegated from the ruled. In the higher sense, it is delegated from
+God, who is our true, rightful, and literal despot. The despotism of
+perfect, infinite rectitude is the most perfect freedom.
+
+Now it is clear, that the several rights of different individuals in
+the same society must differ exceedingly, because the persons differ
+indefinitely in powers, knowledge, virtue, and natural relations to
+each other. From that very law of love and equity, whence the moral
+equality of men was inferred, it must also follow, that one man is not
+morally entitled to pursue his natural well-being at the expense of
+that of other men, or of the society. Each one's right must be so
+pursued, as not to infringe others' rights. The well-being of all is
+inter-connected. Hence equity, yea, a true equality itself, demands a
+varied distribution of social privilege among the members, according
+to their different characters and relations. In other words, an equal
+government must confer very different degrees of power, and impose
+very different degrees of restraint, upon different classes of
+members. To attempt an identical and mechanical equality; to confer on
+those who are incompetent to use them, the same privileges granted to
+others who can and will use them rightfully, would be essential
+inequality; for it would clothe the incompetent and undeserving with
+power to injure the deserving and capable, without real benefit to
+themselves. Hence, the civic liberties of all classes in the same
+society ought not to be the same. Thus, of the adult members, half are
+females, inexorably separated by sex, strength, social relations, and
+natural duties. Hence different civic rights are properly given to the
+male, in some respects; not because it is right to empower him to
+consume upon the promotion of his natural well-being that of his
+sister, but because, on the whole, the well-being of both sexes is
+thus most promoted. Whether this result does follow, must be a
+question of fact, to be decided by experience, if not settled in
+advance by God's Word. There is in the society another class of
+members, the children, who are not only different from, but inferior
+to, the adults, in knowledge, strength, experience, and self-controul.
+Hence, it is equitable to withhold from them still other privileges of
+the full citizenship. Again: the amount of privileges properly
+conceded to the body of citizens of the first class, should vary in
+different commonwealths with their average character. If intelligence
+and virtue are, in the average, more developed, the restraints of
+government should be fewer; if less cultivated, more numerous.
+Different frames of government may be best for different communities.
+
+Once more: If the society contains a class of adult members, so
+deficient in virtue and intelligence that they would only abuse the
+fuller privileges of other citizens to their own and others'
+detriment, it is just to withhold so many of these privileges, and to
+impose so much restraint, as may be necessary for the highest equity
+to the whole body, inclusive of this subject class. And how much
+restraint is just, must be determined by facts and experience. Any
+degree of it is righteous, which is necessary to the righteous end.
+This is so obvious, that even abolitionists admit it, when they lose
+sight for the moment of their hobby. Of this Dr. Francis Wayland, a
+prominent abolitionist, gives us a striking instance in his "Moral
+Science." (Boston, 1838, p. 351.) He says: "Whatever concessions on
+the part of the individual, and whatever powers on the part of
+society, are _necessary_ to the existence of society, must, by the
+very fact of the existence of society, be taken for granted." On p.
+356, he adds: "If it be asked which of these" (hereditary, mixed, or
+republican) "is the preferable form of government, the answer, I
+think, must be conditional. The best form of government for any
+people, _is the best that its present social and moral condition
+renders practicable_. A people may be _so entirely surrendered to the
+influence of passion_, and so feebly _influenced by moral restraints_,
+that a government which relied upon moral restraints could not exist
+for a day. In this case a subordinate and inferior principle yet
+remains,--_the principle of fear_: and the only resort is to a
+government of force, or a military despotism."
+
+If then the necessities of order justify the subjection of a whole
+nation, with their labour, property, and lives, to one man, will not
+the same reasons justify the far milder and more benevolent authority
+of masters over their servants? If it appear that the Africans in
+these States were by recent descent pagans and barbarians, men in
+bodily strength and appetite, with the reason and morals of children,
+constitutionally prone to improvidence, so that their possession of
+all the franchises of a free white citizen would make them a nuisance
+to society and early victims to their own degradation; and if sound
+experience teaches that this ruin cannot be prevented without a degree
+of restraint approaching that proper for children; that is, by giving
+to a guardian the controul of their involuntary labour, and the
+expenditure of the fruits for the joint benefit of the parties; how
+can we be condemned for it? And that social welfare and order, and the
+happiness of the African himself, do call imperiously for this degree
+of controul, is confessed by all who have a practical knowledge of his
+character, as it is proved by the disasters resulting from his
+emancipation.
+
+Every government in the world acknowledges this necessity, and
+applies, in some form, this remedy. The abolition government of the
+United States, for instance, imposed compulsory restraints and labour
+upon multitudes of fugitive slaves, during the war. The only
+difference was, that whereas our system of domestic slavery placed
+this power in hands most powerfully interested to employ it humanely
+and wisely, the anti-slavery authorities placed it in hands which had
+every selfish inducement to abuse it to the misery of the slave, and
+the detriment of the publick interest. And the same government is
+to-day avouching every word of the above argument, by justifying
+itself, from a pretended political necessity, for placing the white
+race of the South under a much stricter bondage than that formerly
+borne by the negroes; a bondage which places not only labour and
+property, but life, at the irresponsible will of the masters. If
+slavery is wrong, then the abolitionists are the greatest sinners; for
+they have turned their own brethren into a nation of slaves.
+
+Domestic servitude, as we define and defend it, is but civil
+government in one of its forms. All government is restraint; and this
+is but one form of restraint. As long as man is a sinner, and his will
+perverted, restraint is righteous. We are sick of that arrogant and
+profane cant, which asserts man's 'capacity for self-government' as a
+universal proposition; which represents human nature as so good, and
+democratic government as so potent, that it is a sort of miraculous
+_panacea_, sufficient to repair all the disorders of man's condition.
+All this ignores the great truths, that man is fallen; that his will
+is disordered, and therefore ought not to be his rule; that God, his
+owner and master, has ordained that he shall live under authority.
+What fruit has radical democracy ever borne, except factious
+oppression, anarchy, and the stern necessity for despotism?
+
+It has been stated that each man's civil liberty, which, under a just
+government, is the same with his natural liberty, consists in the
+privilege of doing and having those things to which he is morally
+entitled. It has been shown, that as different persons in the same
+society differ widely in character, powers, and relations, their
+specific natural rights differ also. But under all forms of
+government, all still have some liberty. And under a perfectly
+equitable form, the different classes of persons would properly have
+different grades of liberty. So that, even in the relation of
+involuntary servitude for life, if it be not abused, there is an
+appropriate liberty. Such a servant has privilege to do those things
+which he is morally entitled to do. If there are certain things which
+he is restrained by authority from doing, which the superior grades
+may do, these things are not rights to him. His inferior character,
+ignorance, and moral irresponsibility, have extinguished his right to
+do them. And this properly, because his privilege of doing them would
+injure others and himself, and thus violate the law of equity. If his
+slavery restrains him from doing more things than these, then the laws
+do him injustice, and mar his rightful liberty.
+
+This degree of domestic servitude supposes that the end of the
+restraints it imposes is, to secure, on the whole, the best well-being
+of both parties to the relation, servant as well as master. Here we
+may notice a forensic trick practised by Dr. Wayland and the
+abolitionists. It is that of giving to the proposition which they wish
+to overthrow, such an exposition as makes it absurd in itself. Says
+this professed moralist, in his chapter on slavery: "Domestic slavery
+proceeds upon the principle that the master has a right to controul
+the actions, physical and intellectual, of the slave, for his own,
+that is, the master's individual benefit; and of course, that the
+happiness of the master, when it comes in competition with the
+happiness of the slave, extinguishes in the latter the right to pursue
+it." If this were true, it would need no argument to show that slavery
+is a natural injustice. But slavery proceeds on no such principles.
+All men ought to know that our slave laws proved the contrary, in that
+they protected the slave, in many particulars, against the master's
+will, when it became unrighteous. All know that the publick sentiment
+of our people proved the contrary; in that the vast majority laboured
+and gave heartily for the welfare of their servants. And all men who
+have informed themselves know, that the grand result stamps the
+definition as a misrepresentation; in that domestic slavery here has
+conferred on the unfortunate black race more true well-being than any
+other form of society has ever given them. But it may be asked: Do not
+many masters selfishly use their slaves according to that definition?
+We reply: Do not many parents selfishly use their children according
+to that definition, neglecting their culture and true well-being,
+temporal and eternal, for the sake of gain? And is it not in the
+"thrifty" North that most of these instances of greedy, grinding
+parents are found? Yet who dreams of accusing the parental relation as
+therefore unrighteous and mischievous? This selfish tyranny is not the
+parental relation, but the abuse of it. So, every intelligent master
+defends his slaveholding, because it was, in the main, as preferable
+for the slave's interest as for his own.
+
+
+§ 4. _Abolitionism is Jacobinism._
+
+The promise was made above, to unmask some of the hideous affinities
+of the anti-slavery theory. This is now easy. If men are by nature
+sovereign and independent, and mechanically equal in rights, and if
+allegiance is founded solely on expressed or implied consent, then not
+only slavery, but every involuntary restraint imposed on a person or a
+class not convicted of crime, and every difference of franchise among
+the members of civil society, is a glaring wrong. Such are the
+premises of abolition. Obviously, then, the only just or free
+government is one where all franchises are absolutely equal to all
+sexes and conditions, where every office is directly elective, and
+where no magistrate has any power not expressly assented to by the
+popular will. For if inequalities of franchise may be justified by
+differences of character and condition, of course a still wider
+difference of these might justify so wide an inequality of rights as
+that between the master and servant. Your true abolitionist is then,
+of course, a Red-Republican, a Jacobin. Is not this strikingly
+illustrated by the fact, that the first wholesale abolition in the
+World was that enacted for the French colonies by the frantic
+democrats of the 'Reign of Terror?' And this hint may serve to explain
+to the aristocracy of Great Britain the popularity of the authoress of
+'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and of her slanderous book, among the masses
+there. It was not because Britain was so exempt from cases of social
+hardship and oppression at home, that its people had all its virtuous
+sympathies at leisure and unoccupied, to pour forth upon the
+imaginary wrongs of Uncle Tom: but it was because the Jacobinism of
+the abolitionist theory awakened an echo in the hearts of the lower
+classes, still seething with the recent upheaval of 1848. The
+community of agrarian sympathies made itself felt. The noble Lords and
+Ladies, who patronized the authoress and her book, were industriously
+fanning the very fires which are destined to consume their vested
+privileges.
+
+Again, it follows of course from the premises of abolitionism, that
+hereditary monarchy, no matter how limited, is a standing injustice. A
+hereditary branch of the legislature is, if possible, still worse. Any
+such thing as a privileged class in the State is a fraud upon the
+others; for "all men are equal." The limitation of the right of
+suffrage, by property or sex, is a crime against human right; for the
+non-voting classes are ruled without their own consent; but consent
+is, according to them, the source of rightful authority. Thus are
+condemned at once the three branches of the hoary and honoured British
+constitution, kings, lords, and commons; under which men have enjoyed
+regulated liberty longer, and to a greater degree, than under any
+government on earth. And here it may be remarked that abolitionist
+ideas, so current in Great Britain, should have been as alien to the
+prevalent turns of thought of that people, as they certainly are to
+their welfare and the genius of their institutions. That a fantastic
+sciolist, intoxicated with vanity and dazzled by some glittering
+sophisms, should be an abolitionist, is natural. But Englishmen have
+ever been esteemed a solid and practical race. Their political
+conclusions have usually been, to the credit of their good sense,
+historical rather than theoretical. Their temper has been rather to
+guard the franchises inherited from their fathers, and approved by the
+national experience, than to gape after visionary and abstract rights
+of man. But despite all this, Great Britain has also been leavened
+with this fell spirit. Her political managers imagined that they found
+in abolitionism the convenient 'apple of discord' to destroy the peace
+of a great rival, and they therefore fostered it. To this great
+injustice they have added the condemnation of the South unheard, upon
+the testimony of our interested accusers. And the majority of
+Englishmen, with a dogmatism as unjust as senseless, have refused to
+permit either explanation or defence, proudly wrapped in impenetrable
+prejudice, while an innocent and noble people were condemned and
+overwhelmed by baseless obloquy. But it requires no spirit of prophecy
+to see that Divine Providence is speedily preparing a retribution by
+means of their own sin, which will be tremendous enough to satisfy the
+resentment of any injured Southerner. Abolitionized America is
+manifestly to be the Nemesis of Britain, through her Jacobin ideas, or
+arms, or both. The principles of abolition are, as we have proved,
+destructive of the foundations of the British constitution. Her own
+statesmen have insanely taught them to her people. The masses do not,
+indeed, reason very continuously or consistently; yet principles once
+fixed in their minds always work themselves out, in time, to their
+logical results. The so-called "Liberal Party" of Great Britain, which
+draws its inspirations from the abolition democracy of America, is
+unveiling itself more and more, as a party of true Jacobinism; and
+other parties have now paltered and dallied so long, that it will
+speedily show itself irresistible. And when the policy of England is
+swayed by moneyless votes, instead of capital and land, the caution
+and forbearance, bred by financial interests, which has thus far
+scarcely kept the peace between her and the United States, will
+speedily be changed. The two Jacobinisms, now so sweetly fraternizing
+over the ruin of the South, will disclose their innate and uniform
+aggressiveness, and will rush at each other's throats. This the
+immemorial rivalries and opposition of dearest interests will insure.
+Then will England feel, in the disintegration of her whole social
+fabrick by radical American ideas, and the Yankee invasions of Canada
+and Ireland, the folly of her own policy.
+
+But other consequences follow from the abolitionist dogmas. "All
+involuntary restraint is a sin against natural rights," therefore laws
+which give to husbands more power over the persons and property of
+wives than to wives over husbands, are iniquitous, and should be
+abolished. The same decision must be made upon the exclusion of women,
+whether married or single, from suffrage, office, and the full
+franchises of men. There must be an end of the wife's obedience to her
+husband. Is it said that these subordinations are consistent, because
+women assent to them voluntarily, in consenting to become wives? This
+plea is insufficient, because the female sex is impelled to marriage
+by irresistible laws of their nature and condition. How tyrannous is
+this legislation which shuts woman up to the alternative of foregoing
+the satisfaction of the prime instincts of her existence; or else of
+submitting to a code of natural injustice! As to the disabilities of
+single women, this plea has no pretended application. Thus the
+abolitionists will reason, yea, are reasoning. What was the strange
+prediction of prophetic wisdom, a few years ago, is now already
+familiar fact. Female suffrage is already introduced in one State, and
+will doubtless prevail as widely as abolitionism. But when God's
+ordinance of the family is thus uprooted, and all the appointed
+influences of education thus inverted; when America has had a
+generation of women who were _politicians_, instead of _mothers_, how
+fundamental must be the destruction of society, and how distant and
+difficult must be the remedy!
+
+Once more: The same principles have consistently led some
+abolitionists to assail the parental relation itself. For although
+none can deny that, in helpless infancy, subjection should be the
+correlative of protection and maintenance, when once the young citizen
+has passed from the age of childhood, by what reason can the
+abolitionist justify his compulsory government by the father? Are not
+all men by nature equal?
+
+It has been currently asserted that the premises of the abolitionists
+were embraced in the Declaration of Independence; so that the United
+States have been committed to them from the beginning. The words
+usually referred to are the following: "That all men are created
+equal: that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
+rights: that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
+happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted
+among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
+governed," etc. If by these celebrated propositions it was meant that
+there ever was, or could be, a government where all men enjoyed the
+same measure of privilege, then it is false. If it was meant that
+there ever was, or could be, a state of society in which all men could
+indulge their volitions to the same extent, and that, in every case,
+the full extent, it is false; for natural and unavoidable differences
+of persons must ever prevent this. If it were meant that all men are
+naturally equal, then it would be false; for men are born with
+different bodily and mental powers, different moral qualities, and
+different inheritances of rights. If it was meant that every person
+enters life free from just controul, it is false; for we all begin our
+existence rightfully subject, irrespective of our consent, to
+authority in family and State. Neither God nor nature makes it
+optional with us whether we will be subject to government. But if it
+be meant that all men are created equal in this sense, that all are
+children of a common heavenly Father, all common subjects of the law
+of equity expressed in the "Golden Rule," each one as truly entitled
+to possess the set of rights justly appropriate to him, (and by the
+same reason,) as any other is entitled to his set of rights; this is
+true, and a glorious truth. This is man's moral equality. It means
+that, under God, the servant is as much entitled to the rights and
+privileges of a justly-treated servant, as the master is to the rights
+of a master; that the commoner is as much entitled to the just
+privileges of a commoner, as a peer to those of a peer. It is the
+truthful boast of Englishmen, that in their land every man is equal
+before the law. What does this mean? Does it mean that Lord Derby has
+no other franchises and privileges than the day-labourer? By no
+means. But the privileges allotted to the day-labourer by the laws are
+defended by the same institutions, and adjudicated by the same free
+principles, and made legally as inviolable, as the very different and
+larger privileges of Earl Derby. It is in this sense that a just and
+liberal government holds all men by nature equal. And if, when the
+Declaration of Independence says that the right of all men to their
+liberty is "inalienable," the proper definition of civil liberty is
+accepted, (that it only means privilege to do what each man, in his
+peculiar circumstances, has a moral right to do,) this also is
+universally true. But all this is perfectly consistent with
+differences of social condition, and station, and privilege; where
+characters and relations are different. As we have seen, the servant
+for life, who as a slave receives "those things which are just and
+equal," has his true liberty, though it is different from that of the
+free citizen; and the servant can no more be justly stripped of this
+his _modicum_ of liberty, than the master of his. Last, when it is
+declared that "governments derive their just powers from the consent
+of the governed," there is a sense in which it is true, and one in
+which it is false. In one sense, they derive their just powers from
+God, his law, and providence. In the other sense, that the people are
+not for their rulers, but the rulers for their people, the selection
+of particular forms of constitution and of the individuals to execute
+the functions, belongs to the aggregate rectitude and intelligence of
+the commonwealth, expressed in some way practically fair. But by "the
+consent of the governed," our wise fathers never intended the consent
+of each particular human being, competent and incompetent. They
+intended the representative commonwealth as a body, the "_populus_,"
+or aggregate corporation of that part of the human beings properly
+wielding the franchises of full citizens. Their proposition is
+general, and not particular. The men of 1776 were not vain
+_Ideologues_; they were sagacious, practical Englishmen. Thus
+understood, as every correct thinker does, they teach nothing against
+difference of privilege among the subjects of government; and
+consequently, nothing inconsistent with the servitude of those who are
+found incapable of beneficially possessing a fuller liberty.
+
+Now, the evidence that this only was their meaning is absolutely
+complete. Had their proposition been that of the Jacobin abolitionist,
+(that just claim on men's obedience to authority is founded on the
+individual's consent,) they must have ordered every thing differently
+from their actual legislation. They could not have countenanced
+limited suffrage, of which nearly all of them were advocates. They
+must have taught female suffrage, which the most democratic of them
+would have pronounced madness. Not only did they retain the African
+race in slavery, in the face of this declaration, but they refused to
+adopt full democratic equality, in reconstructing their constitutions.
+Were these men fools? Were they ignorant of the plain meaning of their
+own propositions? Did they, like modern Radicals, disdain the plainest
+obligations of consistency? Some attempt to evade their retention of
+slavery, by saying that they did not defend its consistency, nor
+contemplate it as a permanent relation; but the other facts are
+unanswerable. It may be true that Jefferson, the draughtsman of the
+Declaration, did heartily adopt his propositions in the sense of the
+advocates of the social contract; for it is well known that he was
+properly a Democrat, and not, like the other great Whigs of Virginia,
+only a Republican; that he had drank deeply into the spirit of Locke's
+political writings; and that he had already contracted a fondness for
+the atheistical philosophy of the French political reformers. But who
+can believe that George Mason, of Gunston, could fail to see the
+glaring inconsistency between these propositions, taken in the
+extravagant and radical sense now forced upon them by the
+abolitionists, and the constitution which he gave to the State of
+Virginia? According to that immortal instrument, our commonwealth was
+as distinctly contrasted with a levelling democracy, as any monarchy
+regulated by laws could possibly be. It was, indeed, a liberal,
+aristocratic republic. None could vote save the owners of land in
+fee-simple; and these were permitted to exercise their elective powers
+directly, only in one sole instance, the election of the General
+Assembly. This Assembly then exercised, without farther reference to
+the freeholders, all the powers of the commonwealth. The Assembly
+elected the Governor of the State. The Assembly appointed all judges
+of law, and executive officers of State. The county courts, to whom
+belonged the whole power of police, of local taxation, and of
+administration of local justice in cases beneath the grade of a
+felony, formed a proper aristocracy, serving for life, appointing
+their own clerks and sheriffs, and filling vacancies in their own
+numbers by a nomination to the Governor, which was always virtually
+imperative. Such was the government which the statesmen of Virginia
+deliberately adopted, after signing the Declaration of Independence;
+than which none could have been devised by human wit, so well adapted
+to the character and wants of their people, and under which they
+exhibited the highest political stability and purity which our
+commonwealth has ever known. Any one who knows the British
+Constitution will see at a glance, that our Virginian frame of
+government was not the work of men led by the Utopian dream of
+"liberty, fraternity, and equality," but of practical statesmen,
+establishing for their posterity the historical rights of British
+freemen.
+
+But were the language of the Declaration of Independence as decisive
+as anti-slavery men suppose, it would concern us exceedingly little.
+We regard it as no political revelation. When we formed a part of the
+United States, it was no article of our constitution; and still less
+are we responsible for it now. If it should be even convicted of
+embodying some error, this would be neither very surprising, nor very
+disgraceful to its authors. For what more probable than that men
+inflamed by the spirit of resistance to tyranny, and surrounded by the
+excitements of a revolution, in the indiscreet effort to propound a
+set of abstract generalities as the basis of their action, should mix
+the plausible errors of the advocates of freedom with the precious
+truth?
+
+
+§ 5. _Labour of another may be Property._
+
+By confounding the master's right to the slave's labour with a
+pretended property in his conscience, soul, and whole personality,
+abolitionists have attempted to represent "property in man" as a
+self-evident wrong. But we shall show that, in the only sense in which
+we hold it, property in man is recognized by the laws of every
+commonwealth. The father has property in his child, the master in his
+apprentice, the husband in his wife, the wife in her husband, and the
+employer in his hireling. In every one of these cases, this property
+is recoverable by suits at law, and admits of being transmuted for
+money, just as any other possession. When the husband is killed by the
+culpable negligence of a railroad company which had engaged to
+transport him for hire, the wife sues and recovers money damages. When
+the daughter is seduced from her father's house, he may sue for
+compensation, and the court will assess the value of her remaining
+services until her majority, at such a sum as they judge proper. How
+is this to be explained, save by regarding the wife as having lawful
+property in the industry of her husband, and the father as having
+property in the labour of his daughter? The labour of a minor son is
+often sold by the father, and thus becomes the property of the
+purchaser. It is of no avail to say that this labour is voluntary, and
+that the property originates in the virtual compact between the
+parties; for this is not true of the parental relation. Still another
+striking instance of lawful property in the involuntary labour of a
+fellow-man, appears in the apprenticeship of the children of paupers.
+Pauperism is not a crime; yet these children are, with undisputed
+moral propriety, indentured to householders, during their minority;
+and the labour thus conveyed is hired, sold, bequeathed, just as any
+other property. Dr. Wayland argues that there cannot be ownership in
+man, because ownership as he defines it, consists in our "_right to
+use the property as we please!_" This definition was made to suit
+abolitionism, and is not the truth. May we, because we have property
+in our horses, use them living as we would our logs of wood, for fuel?
+The ethics of common sense, as that of all true science, (what Dr. W.
+should have known, if he had been fit to do what he assumed, teach
+science,) define ownership to be _a right to use our property
+according to its nature_. Thus defined, property in man presents no
+solecism whatever, inconsistent with righteousness.
+
+
+§ 6. _The Slave Received due Wages._
+
+But it is charged that the injustice of our system is apparent in
+this, that it takes the slave's labour without compensation. It is
+simply untrue. Southern slaves received, on the average, better and
+more certain compensation than any labouring people of their capacity
+in the world. It came to them in the form of that maintenance, which
+the master was bound by the laws,[91] as well as his own interests, to
+bestow upon them. During childhood, they were reared at his expense;
+in sickness they received maintenance, nursing, and the same medical
+advice which he provided for his own children; all at his expense.
+When they married and had children, (which all did, single-blessedness
+was unknown among them,) their families were provided for by the
+masters without one additional toil or anxiety on their part. When
+they died, their orphans had, in the master's estate, an unfailing
+provision against destitution; and if old age overtook them, they
+received, without labour, the same supplies and comforts which were
+allotted to them in their prime. How many of the sons of toil in
+nominally free countries would seize with rapture the offer of such
+wages for their labour, if the name of slavery were detached from
+them? To be able to secure, by the moderate labours of their active
+years, a certain and liberal provision for their daily wants, for
+their families, however large, and for sickness and old age, would be
+a contract so advantageous, in comparison with the hardships and
+uncertainties of the peasant's usual life, that few thoughtful persons
+of that class would hesitate, from love of novelty or dim hope of a
+more lucky career, to embrace it. But this is just what our laws and
+customs gave to our slaves, as wages of their easy labour.
+
+[Footnote 91: See Code of Va., 1849, Chap. 10 § 6.]
+
+But the anti-slavery man objects, that the adjustment of this
+compensation is made at the will of the master alone, while the slave
+has no power to influence it. This is precisely the same objection, in
+effect, with the one that the labour is involuntary. We have already
+shown that this circumstance alone does not make the claim on the
+labour unjust. And if the system makes for the slave, on the average,
+a better bargain than he could make for himself, where is his
+hardship? Is he injured by being restrained of the liberty of injuring
+himself? Surely, the fairness of any system should be judged by the
+fairness of its average results. If some masters withhold a part of
+the due wages, by failing to "render to their servants that which is
+just and equal," this is their individual fault, not that of the
+system. St. Paul, in the passage quoted, manifestly thought that we
+might hold the involuntary labour of our slaves, and yet be no
+robbers.
+
+But our enemies return to the charge, urging that we robbed our
+slaves, because we engrossed to ourselves the lion's share of the
+bondsman's labour. The master and his family, say they, who did no
+work, rolled in luxury, while the poor slaves, who did all, got only
+such a pittance as was needed to preserve their capacity for toil.
+This is false in every part. Masters and their families were not
+idlers. Their life was not relatively luxurious. The slave's share was
+not a pittance, but much more like the lion's share. But, they
+exclaim: "Let the masters stand aside and allow the slaves to enjoy
+the whole fruits of the estates they cultivate: then only will the
+former cease to be robbers." This astonishing folly is exposed by
+simply asking, whether capital and superintending skill are not
+entitled to wages, as well as labour? The crops of the Southern
+plantation were the joint fruit of the master's capital, the master's
+labour and skill of oversight, and the slaves' labour. If capital be
+denied all remuneration, the wheels of productive industry would stop
+everywhere, to the especial ruin of the labouring classes. Does the
+anti-slavery manufacturer of Lowell or Manchester think it fair, after
+investing his thousands in fixtures and material, and bestowing his
+anxious superintendence, that his operatives should claim the whole
+profits of the factory, leaving him not a penny, because, forsooth, he
+never spun or wove a thread? Away with the nonsense! Southern slaves
+enjoyed a larger share of the proceeds of conjoined capital,
+superintending skill, and labour, than any operatives in the world.
+This is not only allowed, but virtually asserted, by anti-slavery men,
+when they reason that slavery is an economical evil, because the
+maintenance of slaves is more costly, in proportion to the value of
+their labour, than that of free labourers. Thus, in one place, they
+object that slaves receive too much compensation, and in another, that
+they receive too little. Nor is it true that Southern masters usually
+make no contribution of labour to the products of their farms. There
+is nowhere a population of equal wealth, more industrious than
+slaveholders. The master usually contributes far more to the common
+production than the strongest labourer on his estate; and the mistress
+more than the most industrious female servant, partly in the labours
+of superintendence, but also in actual toil.
+
+
+§ 7. _Effects of Slavery on Moral Character._
+
+It is argued by abolitionists, that slavery regularly exerts many
+influences tending to degrade the moral character of both masters and
+servants. Their charge cannot be better stated than in the Words of
+Dr. Wayland. ["Moral Science," Personal Liberty, Ch. I., § 2.]
+
+"Its effects must be disastrous upon the morals of both parties. By
+presenting objects on whom passion may be satiated without resistance,
+and without redress, it tends to cultivate in the master, pride,
+anger, cruelty, selfishness, and licentiousness. By accustoming the
+slave to subject his moral principles to the will of another, it
+tends to abolish in him all moral distinctions, and thus fosters in
+him, lying, deceit, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and a willingness to yield
+himself up to minister to the appetites of his master. That in all
+slaveholding countries there are exceptions to this remark, and that
+there are principles in human nature which, in many cases, limit the
+effect of these tendencies, may be gladly admitted. Yet that such is
+the tendency of slavery as slavery, we think no reflecting person can
+for a moment hesitate to allow."
+
+This is a flattering picture of us, truly! By good fortune, it is
+drawn by one who knows nothing of us. Just such are the current
+representations which Yankees have made of Southern morals, down to
+the notable instance of Senator Sumner's speech on the "Barbarism of
+Slavery." The question whether the system of slave labour deteriorates
+the morals of master and servant, as compared with that of free
+labour, may be treated as one of deduction and reasoning, or one of
+fact. The latter is the more trustworthy way to decide it. Dr. Wayland
+undertakes to settle it solely by the former. And it is manifest to
+the first glance, that his whole reasoning begs the question. If the
+very relation is wicked, if every act of authority on the master's
+part is a wrong, and of submission on the servant's part is a
+surrender of his right, then the reasoning is plausible. But let us
+suppose, for argument's sake, (what may be true, as it is the very
+point undecided,) that the relation may be right, the authority
+exercised lawful, and the things our servants are usually enjoined to
+do, innocent acts. Then, the fact that there is authority on one side
+and obedience on the other, cannot tend, of itself, to degrade ruler
+and ruled: for if this were so, the parental relation itself (ordained
+by God as His school of morals for young human beings) would be a
+school of vice. But the argument is a sophism, in a yet more audacious
+and insulting sense. Its author argues the degradation of the slave,
+chiefly because his wicked master compels him by fear to do so many
+wicked things. But suppose the master to be a gentleman, and not a
+brute, so that the things he customarily compels the slave to do, are
+right things; where, then, is the argument? Which of the two
+characters masters usually bear, is the question to be solved at the
+conclusion of the reasoning, and, yet more, to be decided by the surer
+testimony of fact. But Dr. Wayland chooses to begin by presuming, _à
+priori_, that masters are generally rascals.
+
+Wisdom would infer, on the contrary, that the habitual exercise of
+authority, approved as righteous by the ruler's conscience, tends to
+elevate his character. He who would govern others must first govern
+himself. Hence, we should expect to find him who is compelled to
+exercise a hereditary and rightful authority, a man more
+self-governed, thoughtful, considerate, firm, and dignified, than
+other men. The habit of providing constantly for a number of persons,
+whom he is impelled by the strongest self-interest to care for
+efficiently, should render a man considerate of others, and
+benevolent. Experience will soon teach the head of such an estate,
+that his relation with his dependents must be any thing else than a
+carnival of self-indulgence, violence, and tyranny; for such a life
+will speedily leave him no servants to abuse. On the contrary, the
+very necessities of his position compel him to be, to a certain
+extent, provident, methodical, and equitable. Without these virtues,
+his estate slips rapidly away. And who, that knows human nature, can
+fail to see the powerful effects of the institution in developing, in
+the ruling caste, a higher sentiment of personal honour, chivalry, and
+love of liberty? This was asserted of the slaveholders of Virginia and
+the Carolinas by the sagacious Burke. It is very true, that if every
+man in the country were under the vital influence of Christian
+sanctification, he would not need these more human influences to
+elevate his character. But the wise statesman takes men as they are,
+not as they should be. Until the _millennium_, the elevating
+influences of social position will continue to be of great practical
+value. Yankeedom, at least, continues thus far to exhibit a great want
+of them.
+
+But now, in considering the actual influences of slavery on the morals
+of the Africans, let the reader remember what they actually were
+before they were placed under this tutelage. He may be sure they were
+not what abolitionism loves to picture them, a sort of Ebony
+Arcadians, full of simple, pastoral purity, and of what infidels
+vainly prate as the dignity of native virtue. It is not slavery which
+has degraded them from that imaginary elevation. On the contrary, they
+were what God's word declares human depravity to be under the
+degrading effects of paganism. Let the reader see the actual and true
+picture, in the first chapter of Romans, and in authentic descriptions
+of the negro in his own jungles, such as the invaluable work of Dr.
+John Leighton Wilson, on the tribes of the Guinea coast. And here,
+moreover, he will find proof, that the type of savage life brought to
+America originally by the slave trade, was far below that witnessed in
+Africa among the more noticeable tribes; because the great bulk of the
+slaves were either the Pariahs of that barbarous society, or the
+kidnapped members of the feeble fragments of bush tribes, who had
+nearly perished before the comparative civilization of the Mandingoes
+and Greboes, living but one remove above the apes around them. Now
+cannot common sense see the moral advantage to such a people, of
+subjection to the will of a race elevated above them, in morals and
+intelligence, to an almost measureless degree? Is it no moral
+advantage to be compelled to wear decent clothing, and to observe at
+least the outward proprieties which should obtain between the sexes?
+None to be taught industry, in place of pagan laziness; and methodical
+habits, in place of childish waste and unthrift? The destructive
+effects of the savage's common vices, lying, theft, drunkenness,
+laziness, waste, upon business and pecuniary interests, will of course
+prompt masters to repress those vices, if no higher motive does. Is
+this no gain for the poor pagan? Especially does the matter of
+drunkenness illustrate, in a splendid manner, the benign effects of
+our system on African character and happiness. Place any savage race
+beside a civilized and commercial people, and leave them free; and the
+speedy result is, that the "fire-water" consumes and depopulates them.
+Witness the North American Indians. But here was just such a race, in
+the midst of the temptation and opportunity, and yet preserved from
+all appreciable evil from this source, and advancing in physical
+comfort, manners, and numbers, more rapidly than any white race in
+Christendom. While numbers of Africans exhibited just that weakness
+for ardent spirits, which is to be expected in people lately
+barbarians, yet so wholesome were the restraints of that regular and
+constant occupation enforced upon them, it was the rarest thing in the
+world that a farm-servant filled a drunkard's grave among us. But now
+the flood-gates are opened. Was not Dr. Wayland a temperance man?
+Southern slavery was the most efficient temperance society in the
+world.
+
+Once more, was it nothing, that this race, morally inferior, should be
+brought into close relations to a nobler race, so that the propensity
+to imitation should be stimulated by constant and intimate
+observation, by domestic affection, by the powerful sentiment of
+allegiance and dependence? And above all, was it nothing that they
+should be brought, by the relation of servitude, under the consciences
+and Christian zeal of a Christian people, in circumstances which most
+powerfully enlisted their sense of responsibility, and gave free scope
+to their labour of love? Let the blessed results answer, of a nation
+of four millions lifted, in four generations, out of idolatrous
+debasement, "sitting clothed, and in their right mind;" of more than
+half a million adult communicants in Christian churches! And all this
+glorious work has been done exclusively by Southern masters; for never
+did foreign or Yankee abolitionist find leisure from the more
+congenial work of slandering the white, to teach or bless the black
+man in any practical way. This much-abused system has thus
+accomplished for the Africans, amidst universal opposition and
+obloquy, more than all the rest of the Christian world together has
+accomplished for the rest of the heathen.
+
+It is the delight of abolitionists to impute to slavery a result
+peculiarly corrupting as to sins of unchastity. Witness the
+repetitions charges by Dr. Wayland, of these sins, as contaminating
+both masters and slaves, in consequence of slavery. The evidence of
+facts has been already given as to the comparative justice of this
+charge. But reason itself would suggest to the least reflection, that
+Southern households are not the only ones where young men and female
+domestics are thrown together, amidst all the temptations and
+opportunities of privacy and domestic intimacy; that the power of
+corporal punishment, unlawful here for this end, is not the only power
+which a superior may apply to an inferior to overcome her chastity,
+nor the most effective. But, on the other hand, reason would suggest
+that the employment of free persons of the same colour and race would
+greatly enhance the force of those temptations; while among us, the
+differences of colour, race, and personal attractions, would greatly
+diminish them; while the very sentiment of superior caste would render
+the intercourse more repulsive and unnatural.
+
+The testimony of facts, however, is the conclusive evidence on the
+question, whether our system is relatively more corrupting than that
+of free labour. In this department of the discussion, Providence has
+given us a refutation against the Yankees so terribly biting, as fully
+to satisfy any indignation which their arrogant railings may have
+excited in our bosoms. We were placed together at the beginning of
+our national existence, under the same Federal government, and under
+similar religious and State institutions. Our union presented a common
+field for constant meeting and comparison. And what were the results
+disclosed? It has been shown that while the South, as a great section
+of the Union, never, in one single instance, made any general or
+united movement to pervert Federal laws and powers for unfair local
+purposes; while the South ever manifested a chivalrous patriotism
+against any assaults upon the common rights; the North has never
+failed, from the first year of the government, to use it as a machine
+for legislative extortion and local advantage; and the North has
+usually played the traitor to the common cause when assailed from
+without, even when, as in the second war with England, the interests
+assailed by the foreign enemy, and generously defended by the South,
+were more peculiarly her own. It has appeared that when at last
+legislative peculation grew so foul that the publick demanded inquiry,
+every member of the Congress convicted of that disgraceful iniquity,
+was from the North, and not one from the South. If we pass to personal
+comparisons, the publick men of the South have shown themselves, on
+the federal _arena_, superior, in general, in the talent of command,
+in personal honour, in dignity, in the amenities of life, in
+forbearance and self-controul; while that very petulance, wilfulness,
+and love of arbitrary power, which, abolition philosophers infer, must
+be the peculiar fruits of slaveholding, were exhibited in marked
+contrast, by the few Northern Presidents who had the fortune to reach
+that high position. Compare, for instance, the benign Washington, a
+great slaveholder, with that petty tyrant, the elder Adams; or
+Jefferson, Madison and Monroe with his son, (worthy son of such a
+sire,) John Quincy Adams; or Jefferson Davis with Abraham Lincoln; or
+our Lee, Johnstons, Jackson and Beauregard, with a McNeill and a
+Butler! So well proved are the superior courtesy, liberality, and
+humanity of the Southern gentleman, that the very porters on the
+wharves, and waiters in the hotels, of Northern cities, recognize them
+by these traits. It has been the fashion of a certain type of
+poltroons among the Yankees, who wish to indulge the anger and
+malignity of the bully, along with the safety and impunity of the
+Quaker, to represent the resort of Southerners to the code of honour,
+as a peculiar proof of their uncivilized condition. They exclaim
+triumphantly that we fight duels, while Yankees do not. Now the code
+of honour is certainly irrational, unchristian, and wicked. But there
+is another thing that is greatly more wicked; and this is the
+disposition to inflict upon a fellow-man the injuries and insults
+which that code proposes to prevent; and then cloak one's self under
+the cowardly pretence of a conscience which forbids to fight. The
+duellist sins by anger and revenge: these sneaking hypocrites sin by
+anger and revenge, and cowardice and lying, at once. The truly good
+man is forbidden by his conscience from seeking retaliation; but the
+same conscience equally forbids him to inflict on others the injuries
+which provoke retaliation. The man who wilfully injures his fellow,
+has therefore no right to plead conscience, for refusing satisfaction.
+It is not conscience, but cowardice. While, then, we mourn the crimes
+of violent retaliation which sometimes occur at the South, the
+citizens of the North have occasion for a deeper blush, at the crimes
+of malignant slander and vituperation which their people are
+accustomed to launch at us from the vile hiding-place of their
+hypocritical puritanism.
+
+It will be seen by every one, that the females of the ruling class
+must be very intimately concerned in the duties of the relation of
+master and servant. It is properly termed _domestic_ slavery; and
+woman's functions are wholly domestic. If then, slavery is morally
+corrupting, Southern ladies should show the sad result very plainly.
+But what says fact? Its testimony is one which fills the heart of
+every Southern man with grateful pride; that the Southern lady is
+proverbially eminent for all that adorns female character, for grace,
+for purity and refinement, for benevolence, for generous charity, for
+dignified kindness and forbearance to inferiours, for chivalrous moral
+courage, and for devout piety.
+
+We might safely submit the comparative soundness of Southern society
+to this test: that it has never generated any of those loathsome
+_isms_, which Northern soil breeds, as rankly as the slime of Egypt
+its spawn of frogs. While the North has her Mormons, her various sects
+of Communists, her Free Lovers, her Spiritualists, and a multitude of
+corrupt visionaries whose names and crimes are not even known among
+us, our soil has never proved congenial to the birth or introduction
+of a single one of these inventions.
+
+But the crowning refutation of this slander against Southern morals,
+is presented by the great war lately concluded--a refutation whose
+glory repays us for long years of reproach. Dispassionate spectators
+abroad have passed their verdict of disgust upon the combination of
+feebleness in the field, boasting and falsehood at home, venality and
+peculation towards their own treasury and the property of private
+citizens, with ruthless violation of all the laws of humanity.
+Dispassionate spectators! No; there were none such: but from ignorant
+and prejudiced minds stuffed with misconceptions by our interested
+assailants, the splendid disclosure of civic and military genius,
+bravery, fortitude under incredible hardships, magnanimity under
+unspeakable provocations, and dignity under defeat, which appeared at
+the South, drew a general acclaim of admiration from the whole
+civilized world. This war, among its many evils, has done us this
+good, that it has settled for this century the charge of the
+"barbarism of Southern slavery."
+
+But it may not be amiss to reveal those vices which are peculiarly
+opposed to the Yankees' own boasts, as the inhabitants of "the land of
+steady habits." Our soldiers who have been prisoners of war among
+them, all report that their camps were _Pandemoniums_, for their
+resounding blasphemies and profanities. Nothing was more common than
+the capture from them of prisoners of war, too drunk to walk steadily.
+The mass of the letters found upon their slain, and about their
+captured camps, disclosed a shocking prevalence of prurient and
+licentious thought, both in their armies and at home. And our
+unfortunate servants seduced away by their armies, usually found, to
+their bitter cost, that lust for the African women was a far more
+prevalent motive, than their pretended humanity, for their liberating
+zeal. Such was the monstrous abuse to which these poor creatures were
+subjected, that decent slave fathers often hid their daughters in the
+woods, from their pretended liberators, as from beasts of prey.
+
+We freely avow that the line of argument which occupies this section
+is not to our taste; nor, as was intimated in the introduction, do we
+regard it as the safest means of ascertaining the moral influences of
+the two systems. But it has not been by our choice that it has been
+introduced. The slanders of our accusers have thrust it upon us. We
+now gladly dismiss it with this general concluding remark; that the
+comparative general virtue of Southern masters, and the purity of
+Southern Christianity, are a strong evidence that we were not living
+in a criminal relation, as to the African race. For sins are always
+gregarious. One sin, permanently established in the heart and life,
+always introduces its foul kindred. Sin is contagious. An unsound spot
+in the character ultimately taints the whole. The misguided gentleman
+who first yields to the passion of gaming, solely for its amusement
+and excitement, cannot continue a habitual gamester and a gentleman.
+The ingenuous youth who harbours the habit of intoxication, in due
+time ceases to be even ingenuous. These unhallowed passions, once
+established, introduce fraud, selfishness, meanness, falsehood. So, we
+argue, if slaveholding were a sin, its practice would surely tell upon
+the honour and integrity of those who continue in it. But Southern
+character exhibits no such general effect.
+
+
+§ 8. _Slavery and the African Slave Trade._
+
+It is a plausible ground of opposition to slavery, to charge it with
+the guilt of the slave trade. It is argued that unless we are willing
+to justify the capture of free and innocent men, on their own soil,
+and their reduction from freedom to slavery, with all the enormous
+injustice and cruelty of the African slave trade, we must acknowledge
+that the title of the Southern master to his slave at this day is
+unrighteous; that a system which had its origin in wrong cannot become
+right by the lapse of time; that, if the title of the piratical slave
+catcher on the coast of Africa was unrighteous, he cannot sell to the
+purchaser any better title than he has; and that an unsound title
+cannot become sound by the passage of time. It need hardly be said
+that we abhor the injustice, cruelty, and guilt of the African slave
+trade. It is justly condemned by the public law of Christendom--a law
+which not Wilberforce, nor the British Parliament, nor British, nor
+Yankee Abolitionists, have the honour of originating, but the
+slaveholding Commonwealth of Virginia. It is condemned by the law of
+God. Moses placed this among the judicial statutes of the Jews: "And
+he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand,
+he shall surely be put to death." We fully admit, then, that the title
+of the original slave catcher to the captured African was most
+unrighteous. But few can be ignorant of the principle, that a title,
+originally bad, may be replaced by a good one, by transmission from
+hand to hand, and by lapse of time. When the property has been
+acquired, by the latest holder, fairly and honestly; when, in the
+later transfers, a fair equivalent was paid for it, and the last
+possessor is innocent of fraud in intention and in the actual mode of
+his acquisition of it, more wrong would be effected by destroying his
+title, than by leaving the original wrong unredressed. Common sense
+says, that whatever may have been the original title, a new and valid
+one has arisen out of the circumstances of the case. If this principle
+be denied, half the property of the civilized world will be divorced
+from its present owners. All now agree that the pretext which gave
+ground for the conquest of William of Normandy was wicked; and however
+just it might have been, by the laws of nations, the conquest of the
+government of a country ought not to disturb the rights of individuals
+in private property. The Norman Conquest resulted in a complete
+transfer of almost all the land in England to the hands of new
+proprietors; and nearly all the land titles of England, at the present
+day, are the legal progeny of that iniquitous robbery, which
+transferred the territory of the kingdom from the Saxon to the Norman
+barons. If lapse of time, and change of hands, cannot make a bad title
+good, then few of the present landlords of England have any right to
+their estates. Upon the same principles, the tenants leasing from them
+have no right to their leases, and consequently they have no right to
+the productions of the farms they hold. If they have no right to those
+productions, then they cannot communicate any right to those who
+purchase from them; so that no man eating a loaf of English bread, or
+wearing a coat of English wool, could be certain that he was not
+consuming what was not his own. Thus extravagant and absurd are the
+results of such a principle. Let us apply to the abolitionists their
+own argument, and we shall unseat the most of them from the snug homes
+whence they hurl denunciations at us. It is well known that their
+forefathers obtained the most of that territory from the poor Indians,
+either by fraud or violence. If lapse of time and subsequent transfers
+cannot make a sound title in place of an unsound one, then few of the
+people of the North have any right to the lands they hold; and, as
+honest men, they are bound to vacate them. To this even as great a man
+as Dr. Wayland, the philosopher of abolitionism, has attempted an
+answer, by saying that this right, arising from possession, only holds
+so long as the true, original owner, or the inheritor of his right,
+does not appear; and that, when he appears, the right of possession
+perishes at once. But he argues, the original and true claimant to the
+ownership of the slave is always present, in the person of the slave
+himself; so that the right originating in possession cannot exist for
+a moment. Without staying to inquire whether the presence of the
+inheritor of the original right necessarily puts an end to this right
+of possession--a proposition worse than questionable--I would simply
+remark, that, to represent the slave himself as the possessor of the
+original right, is a complete begging of the question. It assumes the
+very point in dispute, whether the right of the master is sound or
+not. And we would add, what would the courts of New England, what
+would Dr. Wayland say, should the feeble remnants of the New England
+Indians, who are yet lingering in those States, claim all the fair
+domains of their tribe? And what would be said in England, if the
+people of Saxon descent should rise upon all those noble houses who
+boast a Norman origin, and claim their princely estates?
+
+But we carry this just _argumentum ad hominem_ nearer home. If the
+Virginian slaveholder derived from the New England or British
+slave-trader, no valid title to the African, then the trader had no
+valid title to the planter's money. What can be clearer than this? And
+if continued possession, with lapse of time, and transmission from
+hand to hand, cannot convert an unsound title into a sound one, all
+the wealth acquired by the African slave trade, together with all its
+increase, is wrongfully held by the heirs of those slave dealers: it
+belongs to the heirs of the planters from whom it was unjustly taken.
+Now it is well known that the New England States, and especially the
+little State of Dr. Wayland, Rhode Island, drew immense sums from the
+slave trade; and it was said of the merchants of Liverpool and
+Bristol, that the very bricks of their houses were cemented with the
+blood of the slave. Who can tell how much of the wealth which now
+freights the ships, and drives the looms of these anti-slavery marts,
+is the fruit of slave profits? Let the pretended owners disgorge their
+spoils, and restore them to the Virginian planters, to indemnify them
+for the worthless and fictitious title to the slaves whom they have
+been called upon to emancipate; in order that means may be provided to
+make their new liberty a real blessing to them. Thus we should have a
+scheme for emancipation, or colonization, which would be just in both
+its aspects. But will abolitionism assent to this? About as soon as
+death will surrender its prey. Let them cease, then, for shame's sake,
+to urge this sophism.
+
+If this principle of a right originated by possession can be sound
+anywhere, it is sound in its application to our slaves. The title by
+which the original slave catchers held them may have been iniquitous.
+But these slave catchers were not citizens of the Southern colonies;
+these slaves were not brought to our shores by our ships. They were
+presented by the inhuman captors, dragged in chains from the filthy
+holds of the slave ships; and the alternative before the planter was,
+either to purchase them from him who possibly had no right to sell
+them, or re-consign them to fetters, disease, and death. The slaves
+themselves hailed the conclusion of a sale with joy, and begged the
+planters to become their masters, as a means of rescue from their
+floating prison. The planters, so far as they were concerned, paid a
+fair commercial equivalent for the labour of the slaves; and the right
+so acquired passed legally through generations from father to son, or
+seller to purchaser. The relation, so iniquitously begun in those
+cases where the persons imported were not slaves already in Africa,
+has been fairly and justly transferred to subsequent owners, and has
+resulted in blessings to the slaves. Its dissolution is more
+mischievous to them than to the masters. Must it not be admitted that
+the injustice in which the relation originated no longer attaches to
+it? The difference between the title of the original slave catcher,
+and that of the late Virginian slave owner, is as great as between the
+ruffian Norman freebooter, who conquered his fief at Hastings, and his
+law-abiding descendant, the Christian gentleman of England.
+
+
+§ 9. _The Morality of Slavery Vindicated by its Results._
+
+To deny the mischievous effects of emancipation upon the Africans
+themselves, requires an amount of impudence which even abolitionists
+seldom possess. The experience of Britain has demonstrated, to the
+satisfaction of all her practical statesmen, that freedom among the
+whites is ruinous to the blacks. They tell us of the vast decline in
+the productiveness of their finest colonies, of the lapsing of
+fruitful plantations into the bush, of the return of the slaves,
+lately an industrious and useful peasantry, to savage life, and of the
+imperative necessity for Asiatic labour, to rescue their lands from a
+return to the wilderness. A comparison between the slaves of the
+South, and the freed negroes of the North, gives the same results.
+While the former were cheerful, healthy, progressive, industrious, and
+multiplying rapidly in numbers, the latter are declared by their white
+neighbours to be a social nuisance, depressed by indolence and
+poverty, decimated by hereditary diseases, and tending rapidly to
+extinction.
+
+We argue hereupon, that it cannot be a moral duty to bestow upon the
+slave that which is nothing but an injury. It cannot be a sin to do to
+him that which uniformly and generally is found essential to his
+well-being in his present condition. We certainly are not required by
+a benevolent God to ruin him in order to do him justice! No sober and
+practical mind can hold such an absurdity. Hence we may know, even in
+advance of examination, that the ethical premises, the theory of human
+rights, which lead to such preposterous conclusions, must be false.
+To illustrate this argument, the humane effects of slavery upon the
+slave should be more fully exhibited. This we propose to attempt in
+another chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ECONOMICAL EFFECTS OF SLAVERY.
+
+
+We are not propagandists of slavery. The highest wish of Virginia with
+reference to it was, that now it had been fastened on her against her
+remonstrances by others, she should be let alone to manage it as she
+judged the best: a right which had been solemnly pledged to her by her
+present aggressors. We had no desire to force it on others, or to
+predict its universal prevalence, as the best organization of society.
+But having claimed that the Word of God and publick justice authorize
+it, we admit that it is reasonable we should meet those who assert
+economical and social results of it so evil, as to render it in
+credible that a wise and benevolent God should sanction such a
+mischief. We hope to show that slavery, instead of being wasteful,
+impoverishing, and mischievous, is so far useful and benevolent as to
+vindicate the divine wisdom in ordaining it, and to show that we were
+wisely content with our condition so far as this relation of labour
+and capital was concerned.
+
+We would also urge this preliminary remark: that the economical
+effects of American slavery have usually been argued from an amazingly
+unreasonable point of view. Our enemies persist in discussing it as an
+election to be made between a system of labour by christianized,
+enlightened, free yeomen of the same race, on one hand; and a system
+of labour by African slaves on the other; as though the South had any
+such election in its power! It was not a thing for us to decide,
+whether we should have these Africans, or civilized, free, white
+labour; the former were here; here, not by the choice of our
+forefathers, but forced upon us by the unprincipled cupidity of the
+slave-trading ancestors of the Abolitionists of Old and New England
+who now revile us; forced upon us against the earnest protest of
+Virginia. Did Abolitionists ever propose a practical mode of removing
+them, and supplying their places, which would not inflict on both
+parties more mischief than slavery occasion? They should have showed
+us some way to charm the four millions of Africans among us, away to
+some happy Utopia, where they might be more comfortable than we made
+them; and to repair the shock caused by the abstraction of all this
+productive labour. Until they did this, the question was not whether
+it would be wisest for a legislator creating a totally new community,
+to form it like Scotland or New England; or like Virginia. The true
+question was, these Africans being here, and there being no humane or
+practicable way to remove them, what shall be done with them? If the
+social condition of Virginia exhibited points of inferiority in its
+system of labour, to that of its rivals, the true cause of the evil
+was to be sought in the _presence_ of the Africans among us, not in
+his _enslavement_. We shall indeed assert, and prove, that these
+points of inferiority were vastly fewer and smaller than our enemies
+represent. But, we emphatically repeat, the source of the evils
+apparent in our industrial system was the presence among us of four
+millions of heterogeneous pagan, uncivilized, indolent, and immoral
+people; and for that gigantic evil, slavery was, in part at least, the
+lawful, the potent, the beneficent remedy. Without this, who cannot
+see that such an _incubus_ must have oppressed and blighted every
+interest of the country? Such an infusion must have tainted the
+sources of our prosperity. It would have been a curse sufficient to
+paralyze the industry, to corrupt the morals, and to crush the
+development of any people on earth, to have such a race spread abroad
+among them like the frogs of Egypt. And that the South not only
+delivered itself from this fate, but civilized and christianized this
+people, making them the most prosperous and comfortable peasantry in
+the world, developed a magnificent agriculture, and kept pace with the
+progress of its gigantic rival, attests at once the energy of our
+people, and the wisdom and righteousness of the expedient by which all
+this has been accomplished.
+
+
+§ 1. _Slavery and Republican Government._
+
+Intelligent men at the South found something to reconcile them to
+their condition, in the wholesome influence of their form of labour,
+upon their republican institutions. The effect of slavery to make the
+temper of the ruling caste more honourable, self-governed, reflective,
+courteous, and chivalrous, and to foster in them an intense love of,
+and pride in, their free institutions, has been already asserted, and
+substantiated by resistless facts. The testimony of these facts is
+concurrent with that of all history. But those qualities are just the
+ones which fit a people for beneficent self-government. Again: our
+system disposed, at one potent touch, of that great difficulty which
+has beset all free governments: the difficulty of either entrusting
+the full franchises of the ruling caste to, or refusing them to, the
+moneyless class. The Word of God tells us that the poor shall always
+be with us. Natural differences of capacity, energy, and thrift, will
+always cause one part to distance the other part of the society, in
+the race of acquisition; and the older and denser any population
+becomes, the larger will be the penniless class, and the more complete
+their destitution as compared with the moneyed class. Shall they be
+refused all participation in the suffrage and powers of government?
+Then, by what means shall the constitution make them secure against
+the iniquities of class-legislation, which wickedly and selfishly
+sacrifices their interests and rights to the ruling class? And yet
+more: by what argument can they be rendered content in their political
+disfranchisement, when they are of the same race, colour, and class,
+with their unauthorized oppressors, save as money makes an artificial
+distinction? The perpetual throes and reluctations of the oppressed
+class against the oppressors, will agitate and endanger any free
+government; as witness the strifes of the conservative and radical
+parties in England, and the slumbering eruptions which the ideas of
+the democrats of 1848 have kindled under every throne in Western
+Europe. But on the other hand, if the full franchises of the ruling
+class be conceded to the moneyless citizens, they seize the balance of
+power, and virtually hold the reins over the rights, property, and
+lives of the moneyed classes. But the qualities which have made them
+continue penniless in a liberal government, together with the pressure
+of immediate hardship, destitution, ignorance and passion, will ever
+render them most unsafe hands to hold this power. The man who has "the
+wolf at his door," who knows not where to-morrow's dinner for his wife
+and babes is to be obtained, is no safe man to be entrusted with power
+over others' property, and submitted to all the arts and fiery
+passions of the demagogue. The inevitable result will be, that his
+passions will drive him, under the pressure of his destitution, to
+some of those forms of agrarianism or legislative plunder, by which
+order and economical prosperity are blighted; and society is
+compelled, like democratic France and New England, to take refuge from
+returning anarchy and barbarism, in the despotism of a single will.
+This truth cannot be more justly stated than in the language of Lord
+Macaulay, himself once an ardent advocate of British Reform. If the
+democratic States of America seemed, for a time, to offer an exception
+to these tendencies, it proves nothing; for in those States, the
+intense demand for labour, the cheapness of a virgin soil, and the
+rapid growth of a new and sparse population, rendered the working of
+the law, for a time, imperceptible. But even there, it had begun to
+work with a portentous power. Witness the violence and frightful
+mutations of their parties, the loathsome prevalence of demagogueism,
+and the great party of free-soil, which is but a form of agrarianism
+reaching out its plundering hand against the property class across
+Mason's and Dixon's lines, instead of the property class at home. So
+completely had the danger we have described been verified, even in
+these new and prosperous communities, that the moment a serious strain
+came upon their institutions, the will of the mob burst over
+constitutions and publick ethics like a deluge, and the pretended
+republicks rushed into a centralized despotism, with a speed and force
+which astounded the world. All the pleas of _universal suffrage_ have
+received a damning and final refutation, from the events of this
+revolution.
+
+But the solution which Southern institutions gave to this great
+_dilemma_ of republicks was happy and potent. The moneyless labouring
+class was wholly disfranchised of political powers, and thus disarmed
+of its powers of mischief. Yet this was effected without injustice to
+them, or cruelty; because they were at the same time made _parts of
+the families_ of the ruling class; and ensured an active protection
+and competent maintenance, by law, and by motives of affection and
+self-interest in the masters; which experience proved to be more
+beneficent in practice to the labouring class, than any political
+expedient of free countries. The tendency of our African slavery was
+to diminish, at the same time, the numbers and destitution of the
+class of white moneyless men, so as to render them a harmless element
+in the State. It did this by making for them a wider variety of
+lucrative industrial pursuits; by making acquisition easier for white
+people; by increasing the total of property, that is to say, of values
+held as property, vastly, through the addition of the labour of the
+Africans, and by diffusing a general plenty and prosperity. We very
+well know that anti-slavery men are accustomed to assert the contrary
+of all this: but we know also, that they affirm that whereof they
+know nothing. The census returns of the anti-slavery government of the
+United States itself stubbornly refute them; showing that the number
+and average wealth of the property classes at the South were
+relatively larger, and that white pauperism and destitution were
+relatively vastly smaller, than at the North. But the violent
+abolition of slavery here has exploded into thin air every sophism by
+which it has been argued that it was adverse to the interests of the
+non-slaveholding whites. The latter have been taught by a hard
+experience, to know, with a painful completeness of conviction before
+which the old anti-slavery arguments appear insolent and mocking
+madness, that they are more injured than the slaveholders. They see,
+that while the late masters are reduced from country gentlemen to
+yeomen landholders, they are reduced from a thrifty, reputable middle
+class, to starving competitors for day labour with still more starving
+free negroes. The honest abolitionist (if there is such a thing) needs
+only to take the bitter testimony of the non-slaveholding whites of
+the South, to unlearn forever this part of his theory. Thus did
+African slavery among us solve this hard problem; and place before us
+a hopeful prospect of a long career of freedom and stability.
+
+The comparative history of the free and slaveholding commonwealths of
+the late United States substantiates every word of the above. The
+South, as a section, has never, from the foundation of the government,
+committed itself to any project of unrighteous class legislation, such
+as tariffs, sectional bounties, or agrarian plunderings of the public
+domain. The North has been perpetually studying such attempts. The
+South has ever been remarked, (and strange to say, often twitted,)
+for the stability and consistency of its political parties. The
+Northern States have been "all things by turns, and nothing long,"
+save that they have been ever steady in their devotion to their plans
+of legislative plunder. The South has been a stranger to mobs,
+rebellions, and fanaticism. When, for instance, the wicked crotchet of
+Know-nothingism was invented, it seized the brains of the North like
+an infection. It carried all before it until it came to Virginia, the
+first of the Southern States which it essayed to enter, when the old
+Commonwealth quietly arose and placed her foot upon its neck, and the
+monster expired at once. From the day Virginia cast her vote against
+it, it never gained another victory, either North or South. But the
+crowning evidence of the superior stability of our freedom was
+presented during the recent war. While its stress upon Northern
+institutions crushed them at once into a pure despotism, the South
+sustained the tremendous ordeal with the combined energy of a monarchy
+and the equity of a liberal republick. There was no mob law; no
+terrorizing of dissentients, no intimidations at elections, nor
+meddling with their purity and freedom, no infringement of rights by
+class legislation, no riots nor mobs, save one or two small essays
+generated by foreigners, and no general suspension of the _Habeas
+Corpus_, until the pressure of the war had virtually converted the
+whole country into a camp: and this, even then, was only enacted by
+the constitutional authority of the Congress. The liberty of the press
+and of religion was untouched during the whole struggle. Let the
+contrast be now drawn. Shall the tree be known by its fruits?
+
+We believe, therefore, that we have no cause, in this respect, to
+lament the condition which Providence had assigned us, in placing this
+African Race among us. We do not envy the political condition of our
+detractors, Yankee and British radicals; of the former with their
+_colluvies gentium_, the off-scouring of all the ignorance and
+discontent of Europe, and their frantic agrarianism, which will turn,
+so soon as it has exhausted its expected prey from the homesteads of
+Southern planters, to ravage at home; and of the latter, with their
+disorganizing theories of human right, subversive of every bulwark of
+the time-honored British Constitution, and their increasing mass of
+turbulent pauperism.
+
+
+§ 2. _Slavery and Malthusianism._
+
+Taking mankind as they are, and not as we may desire them to be,
+domestic slavery offered the best relation which has yet been found,
+between labour and capital. It is not asserted that it would be best
+for a _Utopia_, where we might imagine the humblest citizen virtuous,
+intelligent, and provident. But there are no such societies on earth.
+The business of the legislator, whether human or divine, is with
+mankind as they are; and while he adapts his institutions to their
+defects, so as to avoid making them impracticable or mischievous, he
+should also shape them to elevate and reform as far as possible. The
+legislator, therefore, in devising a frame of society, should adapt it
+to a state in which the rich are selfish and the poor indolent and
+improvident. For, after all that has been boasted of human
+improvement, this is usually man's condition. Now, in adjusting social
+institutions, it is all-important to secure physical comfort; because
+in a state of physical misery and degradation, moral and intellectual
+improvement are hopeless; and the business of the legislator is more
+especially to take care of the weak: the strong will take care of
+themselves. Property is the chief element of political strength; it is
+this which gives to individuals power in society; for "money answereth
+all things;" it commands for its possessor whatever he needs for his
+physical comfort and safety. The great _desideratum_ in all benign
+legislation is to sustain the class which has no property, against the
+social depression and physical suffering to which they always tend.
+That there will always be such a class, at least till the
+_millennium_, is certain, for reasons already stated. Now all
+civilized communities exhibit a natural law which tends to depress the
+physical condition of those who have no property, who are, usually,
+the laboring classes. That law is the tendency of population to
+increase. The area of a country grows no larger, while the number of
+people in it is perpetually increasing, unless that tendency is
+already arrested by extreme physical evils. The same acres have,
+therefore, more and more mouths to feed, and backs to clothe.
+Consequently, each person must receive a smaller and smaller share of
+the total proceeds of the earth. The demand perpetually increases in
+proportion to the supply; and therefore the price of those productions
+rises, as compared with the price of labour. Hence in every
+flourishing community, the relative proportion between the price of
+land, its rents, and the food and clothing which it produces, on the
+one hand, and the price of manual labour on the other, is perpetually,
+though slowly, changing. The former rises, the latter sinks.
+Improvements in agriculture and the arts, extensive conquests,
+emigrations, or some other cause, may for a time arrest, or even
+reverse, this process; but such is the general law, and the constant
+tendency. The very prosperity and growth of the community work this
+result. The owners of land become richer: those who live by labour
+become poorer. Physical depression works moral depression, and these
+overcrowded and under-fed labourers, becoming more reckless, are
+familiarized with a lower standard of comfort, and continue to
+increase. This law has wrought in every growing nation on the globe
+which is without domestic slavery. It is felt in Great Britain, in
+spite of her vast colonies, where she has disgorged her superfluous
+mouths and hands, to occupy and feed them on virgin soils: in spite of
+her conquests, which have centred in her lap the wealth of continents.
+It has begun to work in the Northern States of America,
+notwithstanding the development of the arts, and the proximity of the
+Great West. Every where it reduces the quantity or quality of food and
+raiment which a day's labour will earn, and perpetually tends to
+approximate that lowest grade at which the labouring classes can
+vegetate, multiply, and toil.
+
+What, now, is the remedy? Not agrarianism: this could only aggravate
+the evil by taking away the incentive to effort, in making its rewards
+insecure. Not conquest of new territory: the world is now all
+occupied; and conquest from our neighbours is unjust. We found the
+remedy in the much-abused institution of domestic slavery. It simply
+ended this natural, this universal strife between capital and labour,
+by making labour the property of capital, and thus investing it with
+an unfailing claim upon its fair share in the joint products of the
+two. The manner in which slavery effects this is plain. Where labour
+is free, competition reduces its price to whatever grade the laws of
+trade may fix; for labour is then a mere commodity in the market,
+unprotected, and subject to all the laws of demand and supply. The
+owner of land or capital pays for the labour he needs, in the shape of
+wages, just the price fixed by the relation of supply and demand; and
+if that price implies the severest privation for the labourer or his
+family, it is no concern of his. Should they perish by the inadequacy
+of the remuneration, it is not his loss: he has but to hire others
+from the anxious and competing multitude. Moreover, the ties of
+compassion and charity are vastly weaker than under our system; for
+that suffering labourer and his family are no more to that capitalist,
+than any other among the sons of want. But when we make the labour the
+property of the same persons to whom the land and capital belong,
+self-interest inevitably impels them to share with the labourer
+liberally enough to preserve his life and efficiency, because the
+labour is also, in the language of Moses, "their money," and if it
+suffers, they are the losers. By this arrangement also, a special tie
+and bond of sympathy are established between the capitalist and his
+labourers. They are members of his family. They not only work, but
+live, on his premises. A disregard of their wants and destitution is
+ten-fold more glaring, more difficult to perpetrate, and more promptly
+avenged by his own conscience and public opinion. The bond of
+domestic affection ensures to the labourer a comfortable share of the
+fruits of that capital which his labour fecundates. And the law is
+enabled to make the employer directly responsible for the welfare of
+the employed. Thus, by this simple and potent expedient, slavery
+solved the difficulty, and answered the question raised by the gloomy
+speculations of Malthus, at whom all anti-slavery philosophers have
+only been able to rail, while equally impotent to overthrow his
+premises, or to arrest the evils he predicts.
+
+Slavery also presented us with a simple and perfectly efficient
+preventive of pauperism. The law, public opinion, and natural
+affection, all joined in compelling each master to support his own
+sick and superannuated. And the elevation of the free white labourers,
+which results from slavery, by placing another labouring class below
+them, by assigning to them higher and more remunerative kinds of
+labour, and by diffusing a more general prosperity, reduced white
+pauperism to the smallest possible amount amongst us. In a Virginian
+slaveholding county, the financial burden of white pauperism was
+almost inappreciable. Thus, at one touch, our system solved happily,
+mercifully, justly, the Gordian knot of pauperism, a subject which has
+completely baffled British wisdom.
+
+The attempt may be made to evade these considerations, by saying that
+the same law of increase in population will at length operate, in
+spite of slavery; and that its depressing effects will reveal
+themselves in this form: that the labouring class will become so
+numerous, the same alteration between demand and supply of labour will
+appear, and the slave's labour will be worth no more than his
+maintenance, when he will cease to sell for any thing. At this stage,
+it may be urged, self-interest will surely prompt emancipation, and
+the whole slave system will fall before the evil which it was expected
+to counteract.
+
+To this there are several answers. The argument implies that the
+slaves will be, at that stage, relatively very numerous. Then, the
+political difficulties of emancipation would be proportionably great.
+The political necessity would overrule the economical tendency, and
+compel the continuance of the beneficent institution. And while it
+subsisted, the tie of domestic affection, and the force of law and
+public opinion, would still secure for slaves a better share in the
+joint profits of labour and capital, than would be granted to
+depressed free labour. This was the case in the Roman Empire, where
+the population of Italy and Sicily was for several centuries as dense
+as in those modern States where the Malthusian law has worked most
+deplorably: and yet slavery did not yield, and emancipation did not
+follow.
+
+But the more complete answer is as follows. We will attempt now to
+point out an influence which enabled domestic slavery to resist and
+repair the evils of over-population, vastly better than any other form
+of labour. As population increases, the size of fortunes which are
+accumulated increases. Instances of accumulation are more numerous and
+far more excessive. Density of population, facility of large
+industrial operations, concentration of number of labourers, with
+other causes, ensure that rich men will be vastly richer than while
+population was sparse; and that there will be many more rich men.
+While a few of these will be misers, as a general rule they will seek
+to expend their overflowing incomes. But as man's real wants lie
+within very narrow limits, and the actual necessaries and comforts of
+life are cheap, the larger part of these overgrown incomes must be
+spent in superfluities. The money of the many excessively rich men is
+profusely spent in expensive jewelry, clothing, equipage, ostentatious
+architecture, useless menials, fine arts, and a thousand similar
+luxuries. Now the production of all these superfluities absorbs a vast
+amount of the national labour, and thus diminishes greatly the
+production of those values which satisfy real wants. A multitude of
+the labourers are seduced from the production of those more essential
+values, by the higher prices which luxury and pride are enabled to pay
+for their objects. Now, although the manufacturers of these
+superfluities may, individually, secure a better livelihood than those
+laborers who produce the necessaries of life, yet the result of the
+withdrawal of so many producing hands is, that the total amount of
+necessaries produced in the nation is much smaller. There is, then, a
+less mass of the necessaries of life to divide among the whole number
+of the citizens; and some people must draw a smaller share from the
+common stock. Every sensible man knows that these will be the
+landless, labouring men. The wealth of the rich will, of course,
+enable them to engross a liberal supply for their own wants, however
+scant may be that left for the poor. The ability to expend in
+superfluities is, therefore, a _misdirection_ of just so much of the
+productive labour of the country, from the creation of essential
+values, to the producing of that which fills no hungry stomach,
+clothes no naked back, and relieves no actual, bodily want. And here,
+after all, is the chief cause why the Malthusian law is found a true
+and efficient one in civilized communities. For, were the increasing
+labour of a growing nation wisely and beneficiently directed to draw
+from the soil and from nature all that they can be made to yield,
+their fecundity would be found to be practically so unlimited, that
+the means of existence would keep pace with the increase of
+population, to almost any extent. The operative cause of the growing
+depression of the poor is, not that the same acres are compelled to
+feed more mouths, and clothe more backs, so much as this: that the
+inducements which excessive wealth gives to the production of
+superfluities, misdirects so much precious labour, that the
+fruitfulness of those acres is not made to increase with the increase
+of mouths. This is proved by the simple fact, that in all the old
+countries the misery of the lowest classes tends to keep pace with the
+luxury of the highest. It is proved emphatically by the industrial
+condition of Great Britain. There is no country in which production is
+so active; none in which agriculture and the arts are more stimulated
+by science and intelligence; and yet there is a growing mass of
+destitution, yearly approaching more frightful dimensions, and testing
+the endurance of human nature by lower grades of physical discomfort.
+The reason is not to be sought in her limited territory or crowded
+population; for if the British Islands have not acres enough to grow
+their own bread for so many, why is it that so productive a people are
+not able to pay for abundance of imported bread? It is to be found in
+the existence of their vast incomes, and the excessive luxury
+practised by the numerous rich. True, these magnates excuse their vast
+expenditures in superfluities by the plea, that one of the motives is
+the "encouragement of industry." But they effect, as we have seen, not
+an encouragement, but a misdirection of industry. The reason why so
+many British poor have a scanty share of physical comforts is, that
+there are so many British rich men who, by their lavish expenditure,
+tempt and seduce so large a multitude of producing hands from the
+creation of actual comforts to the creation of superfluities.
+
+What safe remedy can the legislator propose for this evil? Not a
+violent, agrarian leveling of the larger estates. That, as we have
+shown, would be wicked and foolish. Nor can it be found in sumptuary
+laws. The world has tried them to its heart's content, and found them
+impracticable. It is true, that their adoption showed how clear a
+perception the ancients had of one truth, which modern political
+science pretends to ignore. That truth is, that luxury is a social
+evil. We have shown that it is as wasteful of social wealth as it is
+of morals. The ancients thought thus, and they were right. Legislators
+now-a-days, in exploding their remedy as no remedy, seem to desire to
+cheat themselves into the belief that the disease is no disease. But
+the ancients were not as stupid as men imagine.
+
+Now, we do not boast that we can offer a perfect remedy. But our
+system of labour certainly gave us a partial one of inestimable value.
+Where the rich man is a citizen of a hireling State, his accumulated
+wealth and profuse income are all spent in superfluities, except the
+small portion needed for the comforts of life for his own family. But
+when he is a citizen of a slave State, they are first taxed with the
+comfortable support of his slaves. The law, public opinion, affection
+for them, and self-interest, all compel him to make the first
+appropriation out of that profuse income, to feeding and clothing his
+slaves, before he proceeds to superfluities. Thus, the proceeds of the
+accumulations which dense population and social prosperity cause, are
+rescued from a useless and mischievous expenditure in those luxuries,
+the purchase of which misdirects public industry, and tempts to a
+deficient production of the necessaries of life; and are directed
+where benevolence, mercy, and the public good indicate, to the
+comfortable maintenance of the labouring people. That this is the
+effect of domestic slavery on the incomes of the rich, is proved by
+one familiar fact. It is well known at the South how slaveholders
+usually murmured when comparing their style of living with that of
+capitalists in the hireling States of equal nominal wealth. The
+planter who owned fifty thousand dollars worth of fertile lands, and a
+hundred slaves, while he lived in far more substantial comfort and
+plenty, displayed in Virginia far less ostentation and luxury than the
+merchant or manufacturer of the North who owns the same amount of
+capital. His house was plainly furnished with the old-fashioned goods
+of his fathers; his family rode in a plain carriage, drawn by a pair
+of stout nags which, probably, either did a fair share of ploughing
+also, or drew a large part of the fuel for the household. He himself
+was dressed partly in "jeans," woven under the superintendence of his
+wife; and his boys were at school in a log house, with homespun
+clothing, and, in summer, bare feet. It was not unusual to hear the
+slaveholder, when he considered this contrast, complain of slavery as
+a bad institution for the master. But this was its merciful feature,
+that it in some measure arrested superfluous luxury, and taxed
+superfluous income with the more comfortable support of the labourers.
+In a hireling State, these might be left half-starved on the
+inadequate compensation which the hard law of supply and demand in the
+labour-market would compel them to accept, while the capitalist was
+rioting in a mischievous waste of the overgrown profits of his
+capital.
+
+The question of the productiveness of slave labour may be anticipated,
+so far as to point out the fact, that this benevolent diversion of the
+large incomes from luxurious expenditures to the comfortable
+maintenance of the slaves, was a diversion from unproductive to
+productive consumption. The slaves were a productive class; and the
+increased comfort of their living added greatly to their increase, and
+their ability to labour. No student of political economy need be told
+how powerfully national wealth is promoted by any cause which
+substitutes productive consumption for unproductive.
+
+The truth of these views is confirmed by this fact, which is attested
+by all experienced slaveholders: that the slaves throughout the South
+lived in far more comfort than they did a generation ago. And this is
+truest of those Southern communities where population is densest, and
+the price and rents of land are highest. As these influences,
+elsewhere so depressing to the poor, advanced, the standard of comfort
+for our slaves rose rapidly, instead of falling. How can a more
+splendid vindication of the benevolence of our system be imagined? Our
+slaves generally ate more meat, wore more and better clothing, and
+lived in better houses, than their fathers did.
+
+That a palpable view may be given, to those who are not personally
+acquainted with our system, of its true working, the reader's
+indulgence will be asked for the statement of a few homely details. In
+Virginia, all slaves, without exception, had their own private funds,
+derived from their poultry, gardens, "patches," or the prosecution of
+some mechanic art, in what is termed "their own time." These funds
+they expended as they pleased, in Sunday-clothing, or in such
+additions to their diet and comfort as they liked. The allowances
+which we proceed to state, are strictly those which the master usually
+made out of his funds. The allowances fixed by usage in this State
+were generally these: for clothing of adults, one complete suit of
+stout woolens, two pair pantaloons of cotton or flax, two shirts, two
+pair of worsted half-hose, and a hat and a blanket, each year. For
+shoes, the old rule was, one pair each winter, of the quality of best
+army shoes or boots, to be replaced at harvest with new ones, in the
+case of ploughmen and reapers, while the "less able-bodied hands" only
+got their old shoes repaired. But in latter years, the prevalent
+custom had come to be, to issue shoes to all adults, as often as is
+required, to keep them shod throughout the year; while the children
+were universally shod during the winter only.
+
+For diet, the slaves shared jointly the garden-stuff, fruits and milk
+of the master's plantation and garden. But their essential and
+preferred food was a certain daily or weekly allowance of corn meal
+and bacon, issued in addition to the above. The common rule in
+Virginia, where these were given in the form of rations, was to allow
+each adult a half-pound of bacon, and two quarts of meal per day. The
+meal of Indian corn, when uninjured by the mustiness of a sea-voyage,
+and properly baked at a bright wood-fire, is an excellent and
+nutritious food, as is shown by the fact that it fills more than an
+equal place with bread of wheat, on the tables of the richest
+planters. In many other families, the allowance of meal was unlimited;
+and the bacon was not issued in formal rations, the servants living at
+a common board. The supply laid in was then usually according to the
+following rule: one hundred and fifty pounds of pork per year, for
+every soul, white and black. When it is remembered that the sucklings
+and the white females used almost none of this supply, a simple
+calculation will show that it is equivalent to at least a half-pound
+per day for each adult. Such were the customary usages in Virginia.
+There were probably as many cases where the above rules were exceeded,
+as where the allowances fell below them. In the new States of the
+South West, where agriculture is still more profitable, it is said
+that the allowances were more liberal than in the old slave States.
+
+It happens that the census returns of the United States for 1860,
+published by our enemies themselves, more than confirm this view of
+the abundant and comfortable living of our labouring population.
+According to those returns the free States had in 1860, not quite
+nineteen millions of people, and the slave States twelve and a
+quarter millions. Of the cereals used by Americans for human food, the
+free States raised five hundred and sixty-one millions bushels; and
+the slave States four hundred and ninety-four millions bushels. That
+is, while the people of the free States had about _thirty_ bushels
+each of these cereals, those of the slave States had _forty-one_
+bushels per head. Moreover, the North boasts that breadstuffs are her
+great export crops, while cotton and tobacco were ours. Our people,
+including our slaves, must therefore have used more than four bushels
+each, to their three. In neither country does each person eat either
+thirty or forty-one bushels per year; because horses and other live
+stock eat a part, which it is impossible accurately to estimate.
+Again: of the animals used for human food, (horned cattle, sheep, and
+swine,) then free States had about _forty_ millions, or a little more
+than _two_ per head to each inhabitant; while the slave States had
+forty and a half millions, or about _three and a half_ to each
+inhabitant. But as bacon or pork is the flesh most commonly consumed
+by Americans, and especially by farm labourers, the proportion of
+swine is still more significant. The free States had not quite twelve
+millions of swine, and the slave States twenty millions six hundred
+thousand. This gives a little more than _six-tenths of one_ swine to
+each inhabitant of the North, and _one and seven-tenths_ to each
+inhabitant of the South. But this is not all,--for the North
+(especially the prairie States) exported vast quantities of the flesh
+of swine to the South, while the slave States exported none to the
+North. It should in justice be said, that the disparity is not so
+enormous as would thus appear, because the swine reared in the South
+are usually smaller than those of the North.
+
+
+§ 3. _Comparative productiveness of Slave Labour._
+
+From the days of Adam Smith, anti-slavery men have been pleased to
+consider it as a point perfectly settled, that slave labour is
+comparatively unfavourable to production, and thus, to publick wealth.
+So settled is this conviction among the enemies, and so often has it
+been admitted by the apologists of our system, it will probably be
+hard to secure even a hearing, while we review the grounds on which
+the common opinion is based. One would think that the fact that those
+grounds have usually been urged by men who, like Adam Smith, knew
+nothing of slavery themselves, should bespeak for us at least a little
+patience and candour.
+
+One of those grounds is, that slavery, by making manual labour the
+peculiar lot of a servile class, renders it disreputable. This, they
+suppose, together with the exemption from the law of necessity,
+fosters indolence in the masters. But, we reply, is manual labour the
+peculiar lot of the servile class alone, in slave States? Is not this
+the very question to be settled? Yet it is assumed as the premise from
+which to settle it. So that the reasoning amounts to no more than this
+ridiculous _petitio principii_: "Because the slaves do all the work,
+therefore the masters do none of the work." This should be made a
+question of fact. And we emphatically deny that Southern masters were
+an indolent class, as compared with the moneyed classes elsewhere. In
+fact, the general rule is that rich men do not work, the world over.
+It was less true, probably, in Virginia, than in any other
+commonwealth. The wealthy man of the North, with his grown sons, is
+more indolent, and more a fine gentleman, than the wealthy
+slaveholder. If it be said that, in free States, a multitude of small
+farmers cultivate their lands with their own hands, it is equally true
+that a multitude of small planters in the South, who owned one, three
+or five slaves, laboured along with them. That the land shall be owned
+by the very persons who cultivate it, is an exceptional condition of
+things, resulting, to some extent in New England, from a very peculiar
+history, origin and condition of society, and not destined to continue
+general even there. It is as true of hireling as of slave States, that
+the tendency of civilized institutions is, and ever has been, and ever
+will be, generally, to collect the lands in larger properties, in the
+hands of a richer class than that which actually tills them. Nor is
+there one syllable of truth in the idea, that labour was among us more
+disreputable, because usually done by slaves. In all countries, there
+is foolish pride, and importance is attached, by the silly, to empty
+badges of station. But it was less so among slaveholders than among
+the rich, or the would-be rich, of other countries. The reason is
+obvious. In free States there is just as truly a servile class,
+bearing the servile inferiority of social station, as among us. That
+class being white, and nominally free, its addiction to manual labour
+is the only badge of its social condition. Hence whites of the
+superior class have a far stronger motive, in their pride, to shun
+labour. But the white master could freely labour among his black
+servants, without danger of being mistaken by the transient observer
+for one of the class, because his skin distinguished him: just as the
+man of unquestioned wealth and fashion can wear a plain coat, which
+would be shunned as the plague, by the doubtful aspirant to _ton_. We
+repeat: the planters of Virginia were more often seen performing, not
+only the labours of superintendence, but actual manual labour, than
+any wealthy class in America. They were proverbial for perseverance
+and energy. There is a fact which bears a peculiar testimony to this.
+While Yankee adventurers and immigrants have intruded themselves into
+every other calling among us, like the frogs into the Egyptian houses
+and their very chambers and kneading-troughs, those of them who have
+attempted to act the tobacco planter have, in almost every case,
+failed utterly. They lack the requisite energy for the calling.
+
+Another reason of the anti-slavery man is, that the free labourer,
+stimulated by personal interest in his own success, must be more
+thrifty, industrious, and economical than the slave, who is stimulated
+only by fear. We reply: both the premises are absolutely false. Slaves
+were not stimulated only by fear. They felt at least as much affection
+as the Red Republican or Chartist hireling. They comprehended their
+own interest in their master's prosperity as fully as hired labourers
+do. But, in the second place, the labour of free States is not usually
+performed by men who have a personal interest in their own success: it
+is performed, in the main, by a landless class, who are as very
+hirelings as our slaves were slaves; who need just as much the eye of
+an overseer, and who must be pricked on in their labour, at least as
+often, by the threat, not of the birch, but of the more cruel penalty
+of discharge; which they know is their dismissal to starvation or the
+work-house. This delusive reasoning proceeds by comparing the yeoman
+landholder in fee-simple, tilling his own soil with his own hands,
+with the slave tilling the land of his wealthy master. But are the
+lands of hireling States prevalently tilled by their yeomen owners? Is
+this the system to which free society tends? The Englishman will not
+dare to say so, when he looks around him, and sees how rapidly the
+small holdings have been swallowed up into larger farms, which are now
+worked by capitalists with organized gangs of hirelings; nor the
+Scotchman, with the sight of an old tenant peasantry swept away before
+the ruthless Bothy-system of his country. And, as we have asserted,
+the class of yeomen landholders, labouring personally among their few
+slaves, was at least as large, and as permanent in the South, as in
+any civilized country.
+
+Here again, the actual experiment of abolition has ridiculously
+exploded all these baseless reasonings for the superior zeal of the
+white free labourer, and the thriftless eye-service of the slave. All
+intelligent men knew before that they were precisely contrary to fact;
+for they saw all hireling labour at the North obviously required a
+supervision much more constant and stringent, to prevent the hirelings
+from bringing the employers to bankruptcy by their worthless
+eye-service, than the labour of our own merry and affectionate
+servants. If the white hireling labour was aggregated in masses, we
+uniformly saw it distributed in gangs, to sturdy "bosses," who stood
+with their formidable bludgeons in their hands, from morning to night,
+with just fourfold the persistency of any Southern "head-man" or
+"overseer," and actually indicted blows on his free white
+fellow-citizens, as frequently as our overseers on the servant
+children. If the white hireling labour was employed on their little
+farms, in small numbers, then the proprietors always informed us, that
+they must be present in the field all the time, to shame and encourage
+them by their example, or else their "help" would cheat them to their
+ruin. But in the South, nothing was more common than to see estates
+farmed by the faithful slaves, for widows, orphans, professional men,
+or non-resident proprietors, without any other superintendence than an
+occasional visit. Now, all this is at an end. The labourers are free
+hirelings, who, according to the anti-slavery argument, should be so
+superior in enlightened zeal and fidelity. But lo, the Southern people
+have found that eye-service has thereby increased ten-fold; and if
+there is any lesson which the South has effectually learned in these
+two years, it is, that perpetual and jealous supervision is the sole
+condition on which a meagre profit can be extracted from this wretched
+and grinding system; and that else, the impositions of the hired
+labourers inevitably result in speedy bankruptcy. Hard fact has
+demonstrated that the truth is precisely opposite to the pretty
+postulates of the anti-slavery philosophers, so called.
+
+It was currently asserted that one free white labourer did as much
+work as two or three slaves; and Southern gentlemen used often to be
+heard assenting to it. But here the reader should be reminded of what
+has been already shown; that if this industrial evil existed among us,
+that evil was not slavery, but the presence among us of four millions
+of recent pagans, characterized by all the listlessness, laziness, and
+unthrift of savages. Slavery did not make the intelligent and
+industrious worthless; nor does freedom turn the lazy barbarian into a
+civilized and diligent citizen. If there ever was any truth in this
+comparison of the efficiency of the African labourer with the free
+white, it doubtless existed when the former were newly brought into
+our country. The estimate then formed became traditionary, and
+prevailed after the partial training and civilization of the blacks
+had wholly removed its grounds. Several facts prove that no white
+agricultural labour was so efficient (especially under our ardent sun)
+as the Africans, had become. Of this, the crowning proof is, again,
+given us by the unfortunate experiences of actual abolition. Many
+Virginian proprietors, having still retained the old, but false
+prejudice, that the negro slave was a less efficient labourer than the
+white hireling, and being well assured that the labour of the slaves
+would be deteriorated by emancipation, procured white labour from the
+North. What was the result? An almost universal conviction that the
+freed negro, deteriorated as he was, proved still a better labourer
+than the white hireling! Consequently, the importation of white labour
+is totally relinquished. Another of these facts is, that in Middle
+Virginia, where the best free labour in America exists, and was once
+almost exclusively used, the slave population was, up to the war,
+steadily supplanting it in agriculture; and was more and more
+preferred by the most enlightened agriculturists. Another is, that the
+great contractors on our public works, many of them Northern men, who
+came to us provided with white labour, gradually convinced themselves
+that their works could be executed more cheaply, quickly, and quietly,
+by slaves. The third fact is, that along the line which separates
+Virginia and Pennsylvania, or Kentucky and Ohio, the lands immediately
+south of the line were more valuable than those immediately north of
+it. This is so well known that Senator Sumner, in his notorious libel
+on the South, admits its existence, and endeavours to evade its force
+by the following preposterous solution. He says: freedom, by its
+proximity, infuses something of its own vigour, virtue, and life, into
+the adjoining Southern community; so as to stimulate its prosperity;
+whereas, the blighting slave-power contaminates and palsies freedom
+along the line of its contact, so as to make it exhibit less than its
+usual happy effects. That is, we are invited to believe that the
+indirect influence of free labour is so potent that it can go across
+Mason's and Dixon's line, or the Ohio River, into the midst of the
+very blight and curse of slavery, and act so happily as to raise the
+price of slave-tilled lands to eighty dollars per acre; while its
+direct influences at home, on a soil uncursed with slavery, cannot
+sustain the price of exactly similar land at sixty dollars! And we are
+required to believe that while the mere shadow of slavery, falling
+across the border, sinks the price of land, otherwise blessed with the
+most profitable system, to sixty dollars, the actual incubus of the
+horrid monster on a soil unredeemed by the better system, raises it to
+eighty dollars! Common sense shows us the true solution. Two farms
+divided only by the imaginary line of the surveyor, of course differ
+nothing in the natural advantages of soil, climate and productions.
+Why, then, did the Virginian farm sell for twenty dollars more per
+acre? Because the owner could combine all the economy and efficiency
+of a system of slave labour, with the partial advantages of the system
+of free labour near him; and thus make his farm more profitable than
+his Pennsylvanian neighbour.
+
+But we are told that actual inspection showed the labour of the South
+to be wasteful, shiftless, and expensive, as compared with the free
+labour of the North. We reply, if it seemed so in any case, it is
+because the comparison is unfairly made. On the Northern side, the
+specimen is selected near some great city, in some "crack farming
+district," where the labour is stimulated by abundant capital,
+supplied with costly implements, and directed by the best skill of
+that section. On the Southern side, the specimen was taken from some
+ill-informed population, or some soil originally thin, and in a
+community depressed and depleted by the iniquitous taxation of Yankee
+tariffs. But let the best of each be compared; or the _medium_
+specimens of each; or the worst of each; and we fearlessly abide the
+test. Where slave labour was directed by equal skill and capital, it
+is shown to be as efficient as any in America. There was nowhere on
+our continent, more beautiful, more economical, or more remunerative
+farming, than in our densest slaveholding communities.
+
+A third argument against the economy of slave labour, is thus stated
+by Dr. Wayland: "It removes from both parties, the disposition and the
+motives to _frugality_. Neither the master learns frugality from the
+necessity of labour, nor the slave from the benefits which it
+confers," etc.
+
+Now we emphatically and proudly admit that Southern society has not
+learned the frugality of New England; which is, among the middle
+classes, a mean, inhospitable, grinding penuriousness, sacrificing the
+very comfort of children, and the kindly cheer of the domestic board,
+to the Yankee _penates_, Mammon and Lucre; and among the upper classes
+a union of domestic scantiness and stinginess with external
+ostentation and profusion; a frugality which is "_rich in the parlour,
+and poor in the kitchen_." The idea of the Southern planter is the
+rational and prudent use of wealth to procure the solid comfort of
+himself, his children, and his servants at home, coupled with a simple
+and unostentatious equipage abroad, and a generous hospitality to rich
+and poor. But we fearlessly assert, and will easily prove to every
+sensible reader, that slavery was peculiarly favourable to the
+economical application of labour, and of domestic supplies and income.
+The attempt to carry the freehold tenure of land down to the yeomanry,
+subdivides land too much for economical farming. The holdings are too
+small, and the means of the proprietors too scanty, to enable them to
+use labour-saving machines, or to avail themselves of the vast
+advantages of combined labour. How can the present proprietor of a
+farm of five or ten acres in France or Belgium, afford a reaper, a
+threshing-machine, a three-horse plough, or even any plough at all?
+The spade, the wheel-barrow, the donkey, and the flail, must do his
+work, at a wasteful cost of time and toil. But the Southern system, by
+placing the labour of many at the direction of one more cultivated
+mind, and that furnished with more abundant capital, secured the most
+liberal and enlightened employment of machines, and the most
+convenient "division of labour." Moreover, the administration of the
+means of living for the whole plantation, by the master and mistress,
+secured a great economy of supplies. The mistress of Southern
+households learns far more providence, judgment and method in
+administering her stores, than are possessed by free labourers or by
+blacks. The world over, those who have property are more provident
+than those who have none. For, this providence is the chief reason why
+they have property; and the improvidence of the poor is the cause of
+their being poor. But even if the slaveholders had no more of these
+qualities, all can see that an immense saving is made by having one
+housekeeper for ten families, with one kitchen, store-house, and
+laundry, instead of ten kitchens, ten store-houses, and ten varying
+administrations of stores. A smaller supply of provisions secures a
+greater amount of comfort to all, and a great saving of labour is
+effected in preparation of food, and housekeeping cares. A system of
+slave labour is, therefore, more productive, because it is more
+economical.
+
+In all this argument, the anti-slavery men keep out of view a simple
+fact which is decisive of the absurdity of their position. They shall
+now be made to look it in the face. That fact is, that in free States,
+a large portion of all those who, from their moneyless condition,
+ought to pursue manual labour, are too lazy to do so voluntarily. But
+they must live, and they do it by some expedient which is a virtual
+preying on the means of the more industrious, by stealing, by begging,
+by some form of swindling, by perambulating the streets with a
+barrel-organ and monkey, or by vending toys or superfluities. Their
+labour is lost to the community; and their maintenance, together with
+their dishonest arts and crimes, is a perpetual drain from the public
+wealth. But slavery made the lazy do their part with the industrious,
+by the wholesome fear of the birch. Slavery allowed no loafers, no
+swindlers, no "b'hoys," no "plug-uglies," no grinders of
+hurdy-gurdies, among her labouring class. Who does not see that, even
+if the average slave in Virginia did only two-thirds of the day's work
+accomplished by the industrious free labourer in New York, yet, if all
+the idle classes in that great commonwealth, together with those now
+industrious, were compelled to do just the tasks of the average
+Virginia slave, there would be, on the whole, a vast and manifold gain
+to the public?
+
+Another potent source of the economy of the slave system in its
+influences upon publick wealth, is found in a fact which Northern men
+not only admit, but assert with a foolish pride. It is the far greater
+development of the local traffic of merchants among them. When your
+down-East commercial traveller, whose only conception of productive
+industry was of some arts of "living by his wits," saw this contrast
+between Northern and Southern villages and country neighbourhoods, he
+pointed to it with undoubting elation, as proof of the vastly superior
+wealth and productive activity of the North. But in fact, he was a
+fool; he mistook what was a villainous, eating ulcer upon the public
+wealth of the North, and on the true prosperity of the people, for a
+spring of profits. In a farming neighbourhood of the hireling States,
+he saw at every hamlet and cross-road, pretentious shingle-palaces,
+occupied as large stores, where great accumulations of farm produce
+were paraded; sacks of meal, barrels of flour, bins of corn, packs of
+wool, garners of wheat, tubs of eggs, cans of butter, hogsheads of
+bacon, and even kegs of home-made soap, together with no little show
+of cheap finery. In the farming districts of the South, he rode along
+a quiet, shady road, with the country-seats of the planters reposing
+at a distance, in the bosoms of their estates; and found at long
+intervals a little country store, where a few groceries, medicines,
+and cloths were exposed for sale to sparse customers. Now this narrow
+trafficker, whose only heaven was buying and selling, very naturally
+jumped to the conclusion, that the South was so much poorer than the
+North, as she exhibited less local trade. Whereas in fact, she was
+just so much richer. And this unpopular assertion is, still, perfectly
+easy to demonstrate. The necessary labour of distributing commodities
+from producers to consumers, is a legitimate element of that fair
+market value, which they have when they finally reach the hand which
+consumes them. But political economists well know, and uniformly
+teach, that if any unnecessary middle-men interpose themselves between
+first producer and ultimate consumer, whose labour is not truly
+promotive of the economical distribution of commodities, then their
+industry is misdirected, the wages they draw for it in the shape of
+increased price of commodities passed through their hands is
+unproductive consumption, and they are a useless, a mischievous drain
+upon the common wealth. For instance, if a class of middle-men,
+retailers, or forwarding merchants, juggle themselves unnecessarily
+into the importing dry-goods trade of the country; if they place
+themselves between the manufacturer in England, and the consumer in
+rural New York, grasping wages for their intervention, in the shape of
+an additional profit which falls ultimately upon the retail purchaser;
+while yet they really contribute nothing to the economical
+distribution of the dry-goods; every one sees that they are a
+nuisance; they grasp something for nothing; and are preying upon the
+publick wealth, instead of promoting it like the legitimate merchant.
+Honest men will speedily require legislation, to expel them and abate
+the nuisance. Apply now this well-known principle to the case in hand.
+The simple system of slaveholding distributed that part of the
+products of farms, which properly went to the labourers' subsistence,
+direct to the consumers, without taxing it unnecessarily with the
+profits of the local merchant. The master was himself the retail
+merchant; and he distributed his commodities to the proper consumers,
+at wholesale prices, without profit. The consumers were his own
+servants. He remarked, in the language of the country, that, for this
+part of his products, he "had his market at home." Now, is it not
+obvious that the consumer, the slave, got more for his labour, and
+that the system of hireling labour, by invoking this local
+storekeeper, instead of the master, to do this work of distribution to
+consumers, which the master did better without him, and without
+charge, has brought in a useless middle-man? And his industry being
+useless and unproductive, its wages are a dead loss to the publick
+wealth. This coarse fellow behind the counter, retailing the meal and
+bacon and soap, at extortionate retail prices, to labourers, should
+be compelled to labour himself, at some really productive task; and
+the labourers should have gotten these supplies, untaxed with his
+extortion, on the farms where their own labour produced them, and at
+the farmer's prices. Is not this true science, and true common sense?
+But this is just the old Virginian system.
+
+The justice of this view may be seen by a familiar case. A given
+landholder was, under our beneficent system, a slaveholder. He
+employed ten labourers; and for them and their families he reserved
+four hundred bushels of grain in his garners, which their labour and
+his capital jointly had produced. This grain is worth to him wholesale
+prices; and it is distributed by him to his servants, throughout the
+year, without charge. It is, in fact, a part of the virtual wages of
+their labour; and they get it at the wholesale price. But now,
+abolition comes: these ten labourers become freemen and householders.
+They now work the same lands, for the same proprietor; and instead of
+drawing their wages in the form of a generous subsistence at wholesale
+prices, they draw money. Out of that money they and their families
+must be maintained. One result is, that the landholder now has a
+surplus of four hundred bushels more than before. Of course it goes to
+the corn-merchant. And there must these labourers go, with their money
+wages, to buy this same corn, at the enhanced retail price. They get
+less for their labour. The local merchant, thus unnecessarily invited
+in, sucks a greedy profit; a vain show of trading activity is made in
+the community; and all the really producing classes are made actually
+poorer; while this unproductive consumer, the unnecessary retail
+trader, congratulates himself on his mischievous prosperity. It is
+most obvious, that when the advocate of the hireling system attempts
+to reply to this, by saying that his system has opened a place for an
+additional branch of industry, that of enlarged traffic, he is
+preposterous. The answer is, that the additional industry is a loss:
+it is unproductive. As reasonably might one argue that crime is
+promotive of publick prosperity, by opening up a new branch of
+remunerative industry,--that of police and jailors, (a well-paid
+class!)
+
+But sensible men ever prefer facts to speculations--the language of
+experience to that of theoretical assertion. Let us then appeal to the
+fact, as revealed by the statistics furnished of us, by the
+anti-slavery government of the United States. By the census of 1860,
+while the population of the Free States was not quite nineteen
+millions, their total of assessed values, real and personal, was
+$6,541,000,000: being three hundred and forty-six ($346) dollars to
+each soul. The free white population of the South was a little more
+than eight and a quarter millions, and our total of assessed values
+was $5,465,808,000: being six hundred and sixty ($660) dollars to each
+soul; nearly double the wealth of the North. But if the four millions
+of Africans in the South be added, our people still have four hundred
+and forty-seven ($447) dollars of value for each soul, black and
+white.
+
+
+§ 4. _Effects of Slavery in the South, compared with those of Free
+Labour in the North._
+
+The citations just made introduce a topic upon which anti-slavery men
+have usually abounded in sweeping assertion; the actual effects of our
+system on our industrial concerns. A fair example of these assertions
+may be seen in Dr. Wayland, Moral Science, p. 210, (Boston, 1838:) "No
+country, not of great fertility, can long sustain a large slave
+population. Soils of more than ordinary fertility cannot sustain it
+long, after the first richness of the soils has been exhausted. Hence,
+slavery in this country is acknowledged to have impoverished many
+valuable districts; and hence it is continually migrating from the
+older settlements to those new and untilled regions, where the
+accumulated manure of centuries of vegetation has formed a soil, whose
+productiveness may, for a while, sustain a system at variance with the
+laws of nature. Many of our free, and of our slaveholding States, were
+peopled about the same time. The slaveholding States had every
+advantage, both in soil and climate, over their neighbours; and yet
+the accumulation of capital has been greatly in favour of the latter,"
+etc.
+
+The points asserted here are, that Northern men have grown rich faster
+than Southern men; that slavery has so starved itself out by its
+wasteful nature, as to be compelled to migrate from "many valuable
+districts," to virgin soils; and that it is slavery which exhausts
+those virgin soils. Each of these statements is absolutely false. That
+the first and most important of the three is so, we have just shown,
+by the overwhelming testimony of fact. Southern citizens have
+accumulated capital faster than Northern, in the ratio of six hundred
+and sixty to three hundred and forty-six. And the manner in which
+these thrice refuted lies are obtruded, may fairly illustrate the
+morality with which anti-slavery men have usually conducted their
+argument against us That a conceited, pragmatical Yankee parson
+should be misled by rancourous prejudice around him, and by the
+concessions of foolish Southerners, to publish such statements thirty
+years ago, on a subject of which he knew nothing, is not very
+surprising. But surely Dr. Wayland, President of Brown University,
+Christian Divine, Instructor of youth, and _Teacher of Ethicks_,(_!_)
+would hardly have been expected to continue to print the falsehoods in
+successive editions of his work, after three successive _census
+returns_ had utterly exploded them.
+
+The second statement we contradict by the _census_ as categorically as
+the first. It is not true that slavery was compelled to emigrate, by
+its own exhaustion, to virgin soils in the South West. For, in fact,
+slavery has not emigrated at all. Slaves have emigrated, in large
+numbers; [as we presume, Yankees have.] But the institution has not
+receded, and, at the beginning of our war, was not receding from its
+old ground in Virginia and the Carolinas. The slave population of the
+old States has shown a steady increase at each decennial period, and
+except where the _penchant_ of the Yankees for stealing them had
+rendered them insecure, they occupied substantially all the old
+counties, and spread into new ones, as they were settled.
+
+But we shall be asked: can it be possible that the representations so
+uniformly made by travellers, of the ragged, impoverished, and forlorn
+appearance of many districts of Eastern Virginia and the Carolinas,
+and of their poor and slovenly agriculture, are all mistaken? That
+there is much exhausted, and still more poor land, in these sections;
+that through extensive districts the soil and crops are now very thin,
+and the tillage rude, we explicitly admit. But this is by no means
+the same as admitting that it is slavery which has impoverished those
+regions. In the first place, of the larger part it is utterly false to
+say that they have ever been _impoverished_, by any cause; for they
+never had any fertility to lose. The statement usually made, as to the
+most of these old lands, is monstrously false. It has been usually
+represented that the Atlantic slope of Virginia was originally
+excessively rich, and has been brought to its present condition by
+slavery and tobacco. But in truth, this region, with the exception of
+limited spots, was naturally poor and thin; as every sensible person
+who has examined it knows. A vast proportion of it would scarcely have
+been judged susceptible of settlement at all, but for the attraction
+of its healthy climate, and the one or two crops of tobacco which its
+thin mould would produce. And it is only the thrifty industry of its
+inhabitants, together with the value of their staple, tobacco, which
+enabled them to live as plentifully as they did on so poor a soil.
+
+In the next place, the exhaustion is really far less than it appears
+to the Englishman or New Englander, and the tillage far more judicious
+and thorough. The agriculture of planting regions is, necessarily,
+very different from that of farming regions; and especially is the
+culture of the grasses to a very large extent precluded by the nature
+of the crops, the soil, and the climate. Hence, excellent lands in the
+South, especially during fall and winter, often lack that appearance
+of verdancy, which to the English eye is the chief measure of
+fertility. But to suppose those lands as exhausted as fields equally
+bare or brown would be correctly judged in grass regions, would be an
+amazing mistake. Nor is the management always indolent where it seems
+slovenly. The Southern planter is proverbially disinclined to consult
+mere appearances at the cost of substantial advantage. Though the
+fencing seem rough, and the farm ill kept in many respects, the
+accurate observer will find his cultivation of the valuable staples,
+cotton and tobacco, thorough and skillful. There is no neater culture
+than that of the tobacco fields of Virginia.
+
+Again: wherever the soil was originally fertile, in the Atlantic
+slope, as in the red lands of the Piedmont region, and the alluvial
+valleys of the great rivers, there the supposed decline of agriculture
+is unknown. All those lands which by nature were really fine, are now
+finer. The tillage was better, the yield per acre larger, the culture
+more remunerative, at the opening of the war, than at any date since
+the virgin forests were cleared away.
+
+But so far as there has been an actual exhaustion of Southern soil,
+[and that there has been is admitted,] it can be proved to be due to
+other causes than slavery. For an exhaustion precisely similar can be
+pointed out in many of the free States. In both regions, it has arisen
+from two causes: the proximity of new and cheap lands, to which the
+exhausting farmer could easily resort, and the possession of a
+valuable staple crop, whose profits powerfully stimulated large
+operations. Those free States which lay under the same circumstances,
+have undergone the same exhaustion, except in so far as a natural
+depth of soil has made the process slower. If any parts of our country
+have escaped the "skinning process" after their first settlement, it
+has been simply because they were not so fortunate as to possess any
+valuable staple, or else were too remote from a market. Western
+Vermont, sixty years ago, was resorted to as a fertile wheat growing
+district. Long ago it was so exhausted that the culture of wheat was
+nearly relinquished, and its inhabitants emigrated to the new lands of
+Western New York to raise wheat; while the wheat fields of Vermont are
+now sheep-walks, and her farmers buy their flour. But Western New
+York, in its turn, has declined, till its average crop per acre is
+only one-half the original; and its farmers have sought the fertile
+plains of Illinois and Michigan, to subject them in turn to the same
+exhaustion. Even Ohio, fertile Ohio, the boast of abolitionists, whose
+black loam seemed able to defy human mismanagement, is proved by the
+stubborn census tables to have declined one-half, already, in its
+yield per acre. And her own children acknowledge, that if the
+appearance of the older parts be compared with that of twenty years
+ago, the signs of exhaustion are manifest. This vicious system, then,
+is not traceable to slave labour, seeing it prevails just as often
+where no slave labour exists; but to the cheapness of new lands, and
+facility of emigration.
+
+Virginia presents other facts demonstrating the economy and efficiency
+of slave labour. The great Valley of Virginia (between the Blue Ridge
+and North Mountain Ranges,) is a farming and grazing region, of
+fertile soil and prosperous agriculture. In its great extent, some
+counties are occupied almost exclusively by free labour, and some have
+a large slave population. Now it is perfectly well known to all
+intelligent persons here, that precisely in those counties of this
+beautiful valley where there are most slaves, is the land highest in
+price, the agriculture most profitable and skillful, the farm
+buildings most elegant, and the community most prosperous and wealthy.
+Virginia east of the Blue Ridge is partly a farming and partly a
+planting region, having a mixed agriculture. Its soil is exceedingly
+different from that of the great valley, even where as fertile; and
+consequently the tillage is unlike. But there too, the neatest, most
+thorough and most profitable agriculture, and the highest priced
+lands, the finest farm stock, and the most prosperous landholders, are
+to be found precisely where the slave labour is most prevalent. And
+there is no agriculture in America superior to that of these favoured
+regions.
+
+But, in conclusion, even if the industrial pursuits of the South were
+in the unfavourable condition which the Yankees love to assert, the
+sufficient cause would be found, not in slavery, but in the exactions
+and swindlings of their own section, through sectional federal
+legislation. Let a sober statement of these exactions be weighed, and
+the wonder will be, not that the South should be depleted, but that
+she is not bled to death. In the first place, the Federal Government,
+at its foundation, adopted the policy of giving a fishing bounty, (to
+encourage, as it said, a school of sailors for the national marine,)
+which went wholly into the pockets of New Englanders. It is said that
+the bounties paid are yearly about one and a half millions. Supposing
+that half only of the sum thus taken from the Federal Treasury was
+paid in by the South, (which we shall see is less than the truth,)
+this bounty, with that part of its increase which has accrued by
+simple interest alone, amounts now to one hundred and seventy-one
+millions, transferred by this unfair legislation from the South to the
+North. Next are to be mentioned the tonnage duties on foreign ships
+carrying between American ports, which, as the South had few ships,
+constituted a perpetual tax on us for the benefit of the North. Its
+amount cannot possibly be estimated with exactness, but it must have
+amounted to millions annually. Next came the oppression of a
+protective tariff, raising upon imports as high a revenue as sixty or
+seventy millions annually, in the last years of the government. As the
+South had few manufactures, and the North many, and as these duties,
+even where laid for revenue, were discriminating against the cheaper
+and better foreign manufactures which the South desired, in every case
+where discrimination was possible; it is manifest that the system
+constituted a simple robbery of the South of annual millions, for the
+benefit of the North. But we lost far more than the actual tariff on
+that portion of the national imports which were consumed at the South;
+because the restrictive policy, by throwing the balance of trade
+against the nations which took our grand staples of tobacco and
+cotton, deprived them of the ability to buy so freely, and at so large
+prices, as they would have done under a policy of free trade. Thus,
+the Southern planter not only paid the Northern manufacturer a profit
+on his goods equal to the protective tariff, but in the process of
+that robbery, lost several times as much more, in the prices which he
+should have received for his cotton or tobacco, had he been permitted
+to go with it to a free European market. This method of legislative
+plunder was so wasteful, that the Yankee, in stealing one dollar from
+us, annihilated several other dollars of our values. Next may be
+mentioned the advantage which the North gained in the funding of the
+Federal debt incurred at the Revolutionary war. This was so juggled by
+the Hamilton party, as to give the avails of it chiefly to the North.
+The enjoyment of that fund, with its increase since, has made a
+difference of untold millions in favour of the North. Last: the North
+twice enjoyed the advantage of having the National Bank situated in
+its midst, and wielding for purposes of traffic a large part of the
+funds of the Government. This superior command of ready money,
+acquired in these various ways, enabled the North to develope
+commercial centres, and to fix the great markets in her territory,
+thus ensuring to her the countless profits of commissions, freights,
+etc., on Southern trade.
+
+Is it wonderful that the industry of a people thus swindled and
+plundered should languish? Who does not know the power of abundant
+capital, and especially of ready money, in stimulating enterprise and
+facilitating industry? Yet, under all this _incubus_ the South has
+more than kept pace with its rapacious partner. When, therefore, the
+Yankee abolitionist points to any unfavourable contrasts in our
+condition, as evidence of the evil of slavery, he adds insult to
+falsehood: his own injustice has created the misfortune with which he
+taunts us, so far as that misfortune exists at all.
+
+
+§ 5. _Effects of Slavery on Population, Disease, and Crime._
+
+But our enemies argue that slavery must be an obstacle to national
+growth and strength; for this is evinced by the very fact that they
+are nearly nineteen millions, and we only twelve and a quarter; when,
+at the beginning, the two sections were nearly equal in strength. Let
+us, therefore, look into this question. The increase of population is
+usually a sure test of the physical well-being of a people. Hardship
+and destitution repress population, by obstructing marriages, by
+breeding diseases, and by increasing the mortality of infants. If the
+population of the South be found to have a rapid natural increase, it
+will prove, therefore, the general prosperity of the people; and if
+the black race be found to multiply rapidly, it will be an evidence
+that their physical condition is happy, or in other words, that the
+institution of slavery is a humane one for them. Sufficient access
+being denied us to the statistics collected in 1860, our remarks must
+be based in part on the returns of 1850, and previous periods. These
+returns show that between 1840 and 1850, the whites of the free States
+increased thirty-nine and a half _per cent._, (39.42,) and the whites
+of the slave States increased thirty-four and a fourth _per cent._,
+(34.26.) The climate, the occupations, and the African labour of the
+South, repel almost the whole of that teeming immigration from Europe
+which has been rushing to our shores; so that making allowance for
+this source of population, it will be seen that the natural increase
+of Southern whites is as rapid as that of Northern.
+
+In 1860, the whites in the free States had increased to about eighteen
+and a half millions; and in the slave States, to about eight and a
+quarter millions. The increase for the free States was, therefore,
+forty-two (42) _per cent._, and for the slave States thirty-three _per
+cent._, (33.) The census showed that in the decade between 1840 and
+1850, four-fifths of the foreign immigration, for the reasons
+mentioned, went into the free States. If we suppose the same ratio to
+have prevailed in the last decade, then the fact that the North has
+received four-fifths of the immense rush of Europeans who resorted to
+our shores in the last ten years, will abundantly account for this
+difference of increase. The South has grown as fast in white
+population, as the North would have done, left to itself.
+
+But the increase of the slave population of the South is obscured by
+no such disturbing cause. The South having magnanimously concurred,
+and even gone before, in suppressing the foreign slave trade, from a
+conviction of its immorality, the African race has received no
+accession whatever, in our day, from immigration. Between 1840 and
+1850, the increase of the slave population solely from the excess of
+births over deaths, was twenty-eight and eight-tenths _per cent._,
+(28.8,) and between 1850 and 1860, it was twenty-three and
+three-tenths (23.3) _per cent._ One cause for the diminished rate of
+increase in the latter decade, was doubtless the growing passion of
+the Yankees for the abduction of our slaves; which, towards the last,
+carried off thousands annually. But either rate of increase is more
+rapid than the whites, either North or South, ever attained without
+the aid of immigration. The _native increase_ of the free States in
+ten years has probably been between eleven and fifteen _per cent._ So
+that tried by this well-established test, the physical well-being of
+the slaves is higher than of any race in the world. Meantime, the
+miserable free blacks of New England, in the midst of the boasted
+philanthropy of abolitionism, only increase at the rate of _one and
+seven-tenths_ of one _per cent._ in ten years! Such is the stern and
+impartial testimony of fact. How calamitous must be that load of
+social oppression, of disease and destitution, which thus nearly
+annihilates the increase of this fruitful race! Yet this is the
+condition to which the benevolent abolitionist would reduce the
+prosperous servants of the South.
+
+This seems the suitable place to notice the most insulting and
+preposterous of the abolitionists' slanders. It is that expressed by
+calling Virginia the "slave-breeding commonwealth." What do these
+insolent asses mean? Do they intend to revile Virginia, because she
+did not suppress the natural increase of this peaceful and happy class
+of her people, by wholesale infanticide? Or because she did not, like
+the North, subject them to social evils so cruel and murderous, as to
+kill off that increase by the slow torture of vice, oppression, and
+destitution? It was the honour of Virginia, that she _was a
+man-breeding commonwealth_; that her benignant government made
+existence a blessing, both to the black man and the white, and,
+consequently, conferred it on many of both. If it has been proved,
+which we claim, that servitude was the best condition for the blacks,
+and that it promoted their multiplication, then this is a praise and
+not a reproach to Virginia. How perverse and absurd is the charge,
+that Virginia was actuated by a motive beastly and avaricious, in
+bestowing existence on many black men, and making it a blessing to
+them; because, forsooth, her wise government of them made them useful
+to the State and to themselves! By the same reason, the Christian
+parents who rejoice in children as a gift of the Lord, and a blessing
+to him "who hath his quiver full of them," are "slave-breeders,"
+because they make their children useful, and hope to find them
+supports to their old age.
+
+But medical statistics have revealed the fact, that another sure test
+of the physical well-being and progress of a people may be found, in
+the _per-centage_ of hereditary disease, idiocy, and lunacy among
+them. The hardships, destitution, and immoralities of a bad state of
+society have a powerful influence to propagate blindness, deafness,
+idiocy, scrofula, _cretinism_, and to harass the feebler minds into
+derangement; while the blessings of good government, abundant food and
+raiment, and social happiness, strengthen and elevate the "human
+breed." The returns of the census of 1850 were collected by authority
+of Congress, on these points, and they show that of whites, North and
+South, about _one person in every thousand_ is either deaf, dumb,
+blind, insane, or idiotic. Of free blacks in the North, _one person in
+every five hundred and six_ was in one or the other of these sad
+conditions! Of the black people of the South, _one person among every
+one thousand four hundred and forty-six_, was thus afflicted. So that,
+by this test, Southern slaves are three times as prosperous,
+contented, happy, and moral as Northern free blacks, and once and a
+half times as much so as the whites themselves. The frightful
+proportion which these elemental maladies have reached among the
+wretched free blacks of abolitiondom, does more to reveal the misery
+of their condition there, than volumes of description.
+
+The statistics of crime and pauperism reveal results yet more
+astounding for our enemies, and triumphant for us. While the free
+States had, in 1850, about thirteen and a half millions, including a
+few hundreds of thousands of free blacks, and the South about nine and
+a half millions of whites and blacks, there were, in that year
+(23,664) twenty-three thousand six hundred and sixty-four criminal
+convictions in the North, and (2,921) two thousand nine hundred and
+twenty-one in the South. The same year, the North was supporting
+(114,704) one hundred and fourteen thousand seven hundred and four
+paupers; and the South (20,563) twenty thousand five hundred and
+sixty-three. One of the most remarkable things is the great excess of
+both crime and pauperism in the New England States, "the land of
+steady habits," not only as compared with the South, but as compared
+with the remainder of the North, except New York. In Boston and its
+adjacent county, in Massachusetts, the persons in jails, houses of
+correction or refuge, and alms-houses, bore, among the blacks, the
+ratio of _one to every sixteen_: and among the whites, of _one to
+every thirty-four_. In Richmond, Virginia, the same unhappy classes
+bore, among the blacks, the ratio of _one to every forty-six_, and
+among the whites, of _one to every one hundred and twelve_. By this
+test, then, the white people of Richmond are three times as happy and
+moral as the white people of Boston, and the negroes of Richmond have
+proportionably one-third less crime than the white people of Boston,
+and are nearly three times as moral as the free blacks of that city.
+
+We have thus examined the testimony of facts, as given to us under the
+unwilling authority of the Congress of the United States. They show
+that, by all the tests recognized among statesmen, slavery has not
+made the South less populous, less rich, less moral, less healthy, or
+less abundant in the resources of living than its boastful rival, in
+proportion to its opportunities. On this evidence of experience we
+rest ourselves.
+
+In dismissing this head of our discussion, we would briefly touch two
+points. One is the annual production of the industry of the North and
+the South. Without burdening the reader with statistical details, it
+is sufficient to sum up the annual results of the three great
+branches, of agriculture, mining, and manufactures. The North exceeds
+the South in proportion to population, in wheat, hay, dairy products,
+and manufactures; while the South greatly exceeds the North in the
+great staples of Indian corn and tobacco, and surpasses it almost
+immeasurably in rice, cotton, and naval stores. Summing up the varied
+productions of each section, we find that the industry of the South
+is, on the whole, more productive than that of the North, relatively
+to its numbers. And of the great commodities which constitute the
+basis of foreign commerce, the South yields more than the North, in
+about the ratio of four to one!
+
+The other point is the relative improvement of the soil. According to
+the census of 1860, there were _four_ acres of improved land to each
+inhabitant of the North, appraised, with their rateable proportion of
+stock and implements, at $223. This gives about $56 for each acre and
+its stock. In the South, on the other hand, each inhabitant claims
+_nine_ acres of improved land, valued, with their stock and
+implements, at $322. This allows about $36 for each acre and its
+stock. It has been argued that this evinces the slovenly and imperfect
+agriculture of the slaveholding States, and the comparative exhaustion
+of their soils. It is said, their rude tillage is spread over a far
+wider surface, and conducted with inferiour appointments. And this
+depreciating result slavery has brought about, they assert, in spite
+of superiour natural advantages. We remark that, contrary to the usual
+assertion, the natural fertility was superiour in the free States. The
+soil of the Middle States had a better natural average than that of
+the old Atlantic slave States, and the North-western States had a
+vastly larger proportion of fertile lands than the South-western. In
+the next place, the agriculture of the South is of such a character
+that it requires a wider area; and yet this requirement argues nothing
+of its greater imperfection. It may require more space to fly a kite
+than to spin a top, and yet it does not follow that the kite-flying is
+less skillful sport than the top-spinning. An iron manufactory must
+necessarily cover more ground than a chemical laboratory; but no one
+argues thence, that the ironmonger is less a master of his trade than
+the manufacturer of drugs, of his. Last: the fact that the Southern
+planter accounts the labour of his farm as property, and so, as a
+part of his invested capital, causes a lower nominal valuation of his
+lands, though there be no inferiority of actual production. Grain and
+grass lands in the county of Rockingham have always sold higher than
+grain and grass lands in the county of Albemarle, which were actually
+yielding the same products annually. The former were tilled by free
+labour, and the latter by slave; but the Albemarle farming was
+confessedly as skillful, as economical, and as profitable, as the
+Rockingham. The explanation is the following: The Rockingham farmer,
+hiring his free labour, needed no more capital for this purpose than
+was sufficient to pay the wages of a few months in advance of the
+realization of his crop. The Albemarle farmer expended a large portion
+of his farming capital in the purchase of slaves, and afterwards paid
+no money in hire. The former, investing twenty thousand dollars in
+agriculture, could expend the whole sum in land, except what was
+required to stock it and pay wages for a few months. Thus he would
+begin by buying three hundred acres of land for eighteen thousand
+dollars. But the slaveholding farmer began by expending eight thousand
+dollars in the purchase of servants, leaving him but ten thousand to
+pay for the three hundred acres of land. For this reason land of the
+same actual value must be rated at a smaller nominal price among
+slaveholders than among farmers employing free labour. But the true
+profits of the farming are not reduced thereby, in the proportion of
+eighteen thousand to ten thousand. For the slaveholder no longer has
+to tax his crops, (equal in gross amount to those of the Rockingham
+farmer,) with the hire of labourers. That tax he pays in the shape of
+the annual interest on the eight thousand dollars, which, in the first
+instance, he paid for his servants. Hence the facts do not argue that
+the land is intrinsically less productive or less profitable; they
+only argue a different distribution of capital between the two sources
+of production, land and labour. In consequence of that difference, the
+land must be represented by less money. This obvious explanation
+explodes much that has been taught concerning the comparative
+barrenness of Southern farming.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+These facts, then, have been established beyond question: That slavery
+was forced upon Virginia against her protests, by the cupidity of New
+England, and the tyranny and cupidity of Old England: That the African
+race being thus placed in the State without her agency, she adopted
+the remedy of domestic slavery, which is proved by the law of God in
+the Old and New Testaments to be innocent, and shown by events to be
+beneficent to the Africans: That, according to history, the laws of
+nations, and the laws of the British Empire inherited by the American
+States, slaveholding was lawful throughout the territories of the
+United States, save where it was restrained by State sovereignty: That
+it was expressly recognized and protected by the Constitution; such
+recognition having been an essential condition, without which the
+Southern States would never have accepted the Union: That every
+department of the government, and all political parties, habitually
+recognized the political equality of the slaveholding States, and of
+slaveholding citizens: That the Supreme Court, the authorized
+expounder of the Constitution, also recognized the equal rights of
+slaveholders in all the common territories: And that slavery proved
+itself at once, not only lawful, but eminently promotive of the
+well-being of the Africans, of the interests of the whole government,
+and of the publick wealth. Then the North, having ceased to find its
+own interest in the slave trade and slavery, changed its ground, and
+began to cast about, merely from a desire of sectional power in the
+confederacy, for means to destroy the institution. It is unnecessary
+to argue that the whole free-soil controversy, and the war which grew
+out of it, were really designed by them to destroy slavery in the
+States: for they themselves, in the pride of success, have long ceased
+to conceal that fact.
+
+Now, had slavery been intrinsically a moral and social evil, yet its
+protection was in the compact between the States; and to the honest
+mind, there was but one course for the North to adopt when she
+concluded that she could no longer endure her connexion with slavery.
+This was, to restore to the South the pledges, the fulfilment of which
+had become irksome; and to dissolve the Union peacefully and fairly,
+as it had been formed, leaving us in possession of our own country and
+rights, to bear our own sin, and pursue our own destiny. It was the
+federal compact alone, which gave the North any right to govern the
+South. If they repudiated that contract, it was annihilated equally
+for both parties. Thenceforward their claim to legislate for the
+South, or exercise any power over her, was baseless and iniquitous. No
+fair mind will dispute, that even though slavery had been an
+indefensible wrong, the South ought not to have permitted herself to
+be assailed for it, in an equal Union which she had sovereignly
+entered with this institution expressly recognized. But that basis of
+argument we utterly repudiate. We will not defend ourselves from such
+premises. We claim to have been justified, not only by the
+Constitution of the United States, but by God and the right, in our
+rights to slaves. Our _status_ in the Federal Union was, so far, as
+equal, as honourable, as legal, as free from ethical taint, as that of
+any other States with their property in horses, ships, land, and
+factories.
+
+We have, in another place, (the Life of Jackson,) stated with
+sufficient fulness, the admitted facts and doctrines of the
+Constitution, which justified the Southern States in resuming their
+independence, when the compact, to which they had partially yielded
+it, was destroyed. The indisputable proofs (now fully admitted by
+anti-slavery men) might be cited, which showed that their election of
+a sectional President, with other aggressions, were intended to
+destroy the most acknowledged and vital rights of the States. Had
+Virginia assumed her attitude of resistance upon that event, she might
+have defended it by that maxim, so obvious to every just mind, that it
+is righteous and wise to meet the first clear aggression, even though
+its practical mischiefs be unimportant: that "a people should rather
+contend for their rights upon their threshold than upon their
+hearthstone." But we had stronger justification still. The aggression
+intended was practically vast and ruinous in its results. It has been
+shown in previous chapters, that the destruction of African slavery
+among us was vital to us, because emancipation by such means would be
+destructive of the very framework of society, and of our most
+fundamental rights and interests. All our statesmen, of all parties,
+had taught us, not only that the reserved rights of the States were
+the bulwarks of the liberties of the people, but that emancipation by
+federal aggression would lead to the destruction of all other rights.
+A Clay, as much as a Calhoun, proclaimed that when abolition overthrew
+slavery in the South, it also would equally overthrow the
+Constitution. Calhoun, and other Southern statesmen, with a sagacity
+which every day confirms, had forewarned us, that when once abolition
+by federal aggression came, these other sure results would follow:
+that the same greedy lust of power which had meddled between masters
+and slaves, would assuredly, and for the stronger reason, desire to
+use the political weight of the late slaves against their late
+masters: that having enforced a violent emancipation, they would
+enforce, of course, negro suffrage, negro eligibility to office, and a
+full negro equality: that negro equality thus theoretically
+established would be practical negro superiority: that the tyrant
+section, as it gave to its victims, the white men of the South, more
+and more causes of just resentment, would find more and more violent
+inducements to bribe the negroes, with additional privileges and
+gifts, to assist them in their domination: that this miserable career
+must result in one of two things, either a war of races, in which the
+whites or the blacks would be, one or the other, exterminated; or
+amalgamation. But while we believe that "God made of one blood all
+nations of men to dwell under the whole heavens," we know that the
+African has become, according to a well-known law of natural history,
+by the manifold influences of the ages, a different, fixed _species_
+of the race, separated from the white man by traits bodily, mental and
+moral, almost as rigid and permanent as those of _genus_. Hence the
+offspring of an amalgamation must be a hybrid race, stamped with all
+the feebleness of the hybrid, and incapable of the career of
+civilization and glory as an independent race. And this apparently is
+the destiny which our conquerors have in view. If indeed they can mix
+the blood of the heroes of Manassas with this vile stream from the
+fens of Africa, then they will never again have occasion to tremble
+before the righteous resistance of Virginian freemen; but will have a
+race supple and vile enough to fill that position of political
+subjection, which they desire to fix on the South.
+
+But although Virginia well knew that the very existence of society was
+assailed by these aggressions, so strict was her loyalty to the
+Constitution, she refused to make the election of a sectional
+President the immediate occasion of resistance, because, outrage as it
+was, it was nominally effected by the forms of the Constitution. When
+her sisters, more advanced than herself in the spirit of resistance,
+resumed their independence, she refused to follow them. When, warned
+by thickening events, she assembled her Convention, immediate
+embodiment of her own sovereignty, it was not a convention of
+secessionists. Only twenty-five, out of the hundreds of members,
+advocated that extreme remedy. But she did by this Convention, what
+she had already done by her General Assembly: she repeated the
+assertion of the great principles on which the government was
+founded; that it was built on the free consent of States originally
+sovereign, and not on force; that however wrongfully any State might
+resume its independence without just cause, the only remedy was
+conciliation, and not force; that therefore the coercion of a
+sovereign State was unlawful, mischievous, and must be resisted. There
+Virginia took her stand--on this foundation right, as essential to the
+well-being of assailant as of assailed. It was not for slavery that
+she deliberately resolved to draw the sword, cardinal as she knew
+circumstances rendered slavery at this time; but for this corner-stone
+of all constitutional liberty, North and South. And this, too, was a
+principle which she had always held against all assailants, in all
+ages of the Republick. She had asserted it firmly against her own
+favourite, Andrew Jackson, in the case of South Carolina,
+notwithstanding her disapproval of the nullifying doctrine then held
+by that State. She only asserted her time-honoured creed now. It was
+not until the claim to subjugate sovereign States was practically
+applied, that Virginia drew the sword; and then, not for slavery, but
+for the Constitution, and the liberties of a continent, which it had
+protected.
+
+It is therefore a great and an odious perversion of the truth, to say
+that the defensive movement of the South was a war to extend and
+perpetuate slavery. African slavery was not the _cause_, but the
+_occasion_ of the strife, on either side. On the Northern side it was
+merely the pretext, employed by that aggressive section to carry out
+ambitious projects of domination. To the South, it was merely the
+circumstance of the controversy, that the right assailed was our right
+to the labour of our servants. It was not the circumstance for which
+we contended, but the principle--the great cause of moral right,
+justice, and regulated liberty. It was therefore a gross injustice to
+burden our cause, in the minds of the rest of the world, with the
+_odium_ which the prejudices of Christendom have attached to the name
+of slaveholder. Even those who are unable to overcome those
+prejudices, would, if just and magnanimous, approve our attempt to
+defend ourselves.
+
+Finally: the means by which this defence has been overpowered were as
+iniquitous as the attack. A war was waged, precipitated by treachery,
+aggravated by every measure of barbarity condemned by the laws of
+nations, by the agency of multitudinous hordes of foreign mercenaries,
+and semi-civilized slaves seduced from their owners; against captives,
+women, children, and private property; with the attempt to let loose
+upon our little community (which they found otherwise unconquerable) a
+servile insurrection and all the horrors of domestic assassination--an
+attempt disappointed only by the good feeling and good character which
+the servants themselves had learned from the humanity of their
+masters. The impartial and magnanimous mind which weighs these facts
+cannot but feel itself swelling with an unutterable sense of
+indignation. The Southern people feel little impulse to give
+expression to their sense of the enormous wrongs, in reproaches or
+vituperations of those who have thus destroyed them. When resistance
+was practicable, they gave a more expressive and seemly utterance to
+this sentiment, in the energy of their blows. Let the heroick spirit
+in which the soldiers of Virginia and the South struck for their
+liberties, and suffered, and died, represent our appreciation of this
+injustice. A righteous God, for our sins towards Him, has permitted us
+to be overthrown by our enemies and His. It is vain to complain in the
+ear of a maddening tempest. Although our people are now oppressed with
+present sufferings and a prospective destiny more cruel and disastrous
+than has been visited on any civilized people of modern ages, they
+suffer silently, disdaining to complain, and only raising to the
+chastening heavens, the cry, "How long, O Lord?" Their appeal is to
+history, and to Him. They well know, that in due time, they, although
+powerless themselves, will be avenged through the same disorganizing
+heresies under which they now suffer, and through the anarchy and woes
+which they will bring upon the North. Meantime, let the arrogant and
+successful wrongdoers flout our defence with disdain: we will meet
+them with it again, when it will be heard; in the day of their
+calamity, in the pages of impartial history, and in the Day of
+Judgment.
+
+
+
+
+EDWARD J. HALE & SON,
+
+(LATE OF FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA,)
+
+Publishers & Wholesale Booksellers & Stationers,
+
+=No. 16 MURRAY STREET, New York,=
+
+
+Publish the following works:--
+
+  DEFENCE OF VIRGINIA, AND OF THE SOUTH. By Rev. Dr. DABNEY, author of
+      a Life of Gen. (Stonewall) Jackson. 1 vol., 12mo, cloth
+
+    $1 50
+
+  DIARY OF A REFUGEE, DURING THE WAR. By a Lady of Virginia. 1 vol.,
+      12mo, cloth
+
+    2 00
+
+  LIFE OF GEN. PAT. CLEBURNE. (In preparation.)
+
+  HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA. By Rev. F. L. HAWKS, D.D., LL.D. 2 vols.,
+      8vo, cloth
+
+    5 00
+
+    Library sheep                         6 00
+    Half calf                             7 00
+
+  DEVEREUX'S NORTH CAROLINA EQUITY REPORTS. New edition. Vol. 2.
+
+  DEVEREUX AND BATTLE'S EQUITY REPORTS. New edition. 2 vols.
+
+  DEVEREUX AND BATTLE'S NORTH CAROLINA LAW REPORTS. New edition. Vols.
+      1 and 2.
+
+  IREDELL'S NORTH CAROLINA LAW REPORTS. Vols. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
+
+  IREDELL'S NORTH CAROLINA EQUITY REPORTS. Vols. 4, 5, 6, 7.
+
+They are prepared to furnish any of these, or complete sets of North
+Carolina Reports, as far as extant. Also, BATTLE'S New and Complete
+DIGEST of these Reports, brought down to 1866, and superseding all
+former Digests. 3 vols.
+
+
+
+
+SOUTHERN SCHOOL BOOKS.
+
+
+The subscribers are prepared and will be pleased to supply their
+customers with School Books of all kinds in use, but are particularly
+desirous to extend the use of books prepared for Southern Schools, by
+Southern authors, and therefore free from matter offensive to Southern
+people. Most prominent among these may be mentioned the
+
+  NORTH CAROLINA READERS. By Rev. C. H. WILEY, Superintendent of
+      Common Schools in North Carolina, and Rev. Dr. HUBBARD,
+      Professor in the University of North Carolina.
+
+  THE UNIVERSITY SERIES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE TEXT-BOOKS. By
+      Professors HOLMES, VENABLE, GILDERSLEEVE, DE VERE, and LE COMTE,
+      of Southern Universities, and Captain M. F. MAURY, one of the
+      most distinguished of living Geographers.
+
+  OUR OWN SERIES of Spellers, Readers, and Writing Books. By Rev.
+      Professor RICHARD STERLING, of Greensborough, N. C.
+
+Of the above, the following (wholesale prices annexed) are now, and
+others soon will be, ready:--
+
+    North Carolina Reader, No. 1.                                   30
+      "      "       "         2.                                   50
+      "      "       "         3.                                   75
+    Holmes's Southern Pictorial Primer, per dozen                   75
+      "         "     Elementary Speller,  "     _net cash_       1 20
+      "         "     Pictorial 1st Reader, each                    20
+      "         "         "     2d    "                             34
+      "         "         "     3d    "                             45
+      "         "         "     4th   "                             64
+      "         "         "     5th   "                           1 00
+    Venable's First Lessons in Numbers                              24
+      "       Mental Arithmetic                                     45
+    De Vere's Grammar in French                                   1 40
+    Sterling's Southern Primer, paper,        per dozen             90
+        "         "        "    stiff covers,     "               1 08
+        "         "     Pictorial Primer,         "               2 00
+        "         "     Speller, per dozen, _net cash_            1 20
+        "         "     1st Reader, each                            25
+        "         "     2d    "      "                              50
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+        "         "     5th   "      "                            1 08
+        "         "     Writing Books, per dozen                  1 80
+    Bingham's Latin Grammar. By Col. W. Bingham, Principal
+      of the celebrated Bingham School, Oaks, Alamance
+      County, N. C. Each.                                         1 20
+    Bingham's English Grammar. By the same. Each                    67
+    Ross's Southern Speaker. By Professor Ross, of Louisiana      1 13
+    Hill's Algebra (Gen. D. H. Hill, of "The Land we Love")       1 50
+
+They respectfully invite orders for these or other School,
+Miscellaneous, and Standard Books, Stationery, &c., &c., from their
+friends and the Southern public. They believe that they supply
+Booksellers, Merchants, Teachers, and others, with goods quite as
+cheaply, for cash, as they can be bought in this city.
+
+    Address
+
+    E. J. HALE & SON,
+
+    No. 16 MURRAY STREET, NEW YORK.
+
+[pointer hand] _Any Book, of their own or others' publications, will
+be sent by Mail, free of postage, on receipt of Publisher's advertised
+retail price._
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Words surrounded by _ are italicized.
+
+Words surrounded by = are bold.
+
+Apparent printer's errors and inconsistent spellings have been kept,
+including inconsistent use of hyphen (e. g. "church-members" and
+"church members").
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Defence of Virginia, by Robert L. Dabney
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+
+
+
+Title: A Defence of Virginia
+       And Through Her, of the South, in Recent and Pending
+              Contests Against the Sectional Party
+
+Author: Robert L. Dabney
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2014 [EBook #47422]
+
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+
+
+<h1>A DEFENCE OF VIRGINIA,</h1>
+
+<p class="center">[AND THROUGH HER, OF THE SOUTH,]</p>
+
+<p class="center small">IN</p>
+<p class="center large">RECENT AND PENDING CONTESTS AGAINST
+THE SECTIONAL PARTY.</p>
+
+<p class="center small p2">BY</p>
+
+<p class="center xlarge">PROF. ROBERT L. DABNEY, D.D.,</p>
+
+<p class="center small">OF VIRGINIA,<br />
+LATE OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center large p4">NEW YORK:<br />
+E. J. HALE &amp; SON, 16 MURRAY STREET.<br />
+1867.</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="small center">
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867,<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">By</span> E. J. HALE &amp; SON,<br />
+<br />
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern
+District of New York.
+</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="spaced p2">CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<table class="p2" cellpadding="3" summary="contents">
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER I.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Introductory</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER II.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The African Slave Trade</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER III.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Legal Status of Slavery in the United States</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">History of Emancipation</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER V.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Old Testament Argument</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">The Curse upon Canaan</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Abraham a Slaveholder</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Hagar Remanded to Slavery by God</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Slavery in the Laws of Moses</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Slavery in the Decalogue</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Objections to the Old Testament Argument</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_124">124</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The New Testament Argument</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Definition of &Delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Slavery often mentioned; yet not condemned</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Christ Applauds a Slaveholder</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">The Apostles Separate Slavery and its Abuses</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Slavery no Essential Religious Evil</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Slaveholders fully Admitted to Church-membership</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Relative Duties of Masters and Slaves Recognized</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Philemon and Onesimus</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">St. Paul Reprobates Abolitionists</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">The Golden Rule Compatible with Slavery</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Was Christ Afraid to Condemn Slavery?</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Ethical Argument</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Misrepresentations Cleared</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">The Rights of Man and Slavery</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Abolitionism is Jacobinism</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Labour of Another may be Property</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">The Slave Received due Wages</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_273">273</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Effects of Slavery on Moral Character</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_276">276</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Slavery and the African Slave Trade</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">The Morality of Slavery Vindicated by its Results</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Economical Effects of Slavery</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_295">295</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Slavery and Republican Government</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_297">297</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Slavery and Malthusianism</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_303">303</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Comparative Productiveness of Slave Labour</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_317">317</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Effects of Slavery in the South, compared with those of Free</span><br />
+    <span class="i2">Labour in the North</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_331">331</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="i2">Effects of Slavery on Population, Disease, and Crime</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_340">340</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER IX.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_349">349</a></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="spaced p4">PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<p>To the conquerors of my native State, and perhaps to
+some of her sons, a large part of the following defence
+will appear wholly unseasonable. A discussion of a social
+order totally overthrown, and never to be restored
+here, will appear as completely out of date to them as
+the ribs of Noah's ark, bleaching amidst the eternal
+snows of Ararat, to his posterity, when engaged in
+building the Tower of Babel. Let me distinctly premise,
+that I do not dream of affecting the perverted judgments
+of the great anti-slavery party which now rules the
+hour. Of course, a set of people who make success the
+test of truth, as they avowedly do in this matter, and
+who have been busily and triumphantly engaged for so
+many years in perfecting a plain injustice, to which
+they had deliberately made up their minds, are not
+within the reach of reasoning. Nothing but the hand
+of a retributive Providence can avail to reach them.
+The few among them who do not pass me by with silent
+neglect, I am well aware will content themselves with
+scolding; they will not venture a rational reply.</p>
+
+<p>But my purpose in the following pages is, first and
+chiefly, to lay this pious and filial defence upon the tomb
+of my murdered mother, Virginia. Her detractors, after
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span>
+committing the crime of destroying a sovereign and co-equal
+commonwealth, seek also to bury her memory
+under a load of obloquy and falsehood. The last and
+only office that remains to her sons is to leave their testimony
+for her righteous fame&mdash;feeble it may be now,
+amidst the din of passion and material power, yet inextinguishable
+as Truth's own torch. History will some
+day bring present events before her impartial bar; and
+then her ministers will recall my obscure little book, and
+will recognize in it the words of truth and righteousness,
+attested by the signatures of time and events.</p>
+
+<p>Again: if there is indeed any future for civilized government
+in what were the United States, the refutation
+of the abolitionist postulates must possess a living interest
+still. Men ask, "Is not the slavery question dead?
+Why discuss it longer?" I reply: Would God it were
+dead! Would that its mischievous principles were as
+completely a thing of the past as our rights in the Union
+in this particular are! But in the Church, abolitionism
+lives, and is more rampant and mischievous than ever,
+as infidelity; for this is its true nature. Therefore the
+faithful servants of the Lord Jesus Christ dare not cease
+to oppose and unmask it. And in the State, abolitionism
+still lives in its full activity, as Jacobinism; a fell spirit
+which is the destroyer of every hope of just government
+and Christian order. Hence, the enlightened patriot
+cannot cease to contend with it, until he has accepted,
+in his hopelessness, the <i>nefas de republica desperandi</i>.
+Whether wise and good men deem that this discussion
+is antiquated, may be judged from the fact that Bishop
+Hopkins (one of the most revered divines among Episcopalians)
+judged it proper, in 1864, and Dr. Stuart Robinson,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span>
+of Louisville, (equally esteemed among Presbyterians,)
+in 1865, to put forth new and able arguments
+upon this question.</p>
+
+<p>It should be added, in explanation, that, as a son of
+Virginia, I have naturally taken her, the oldest and
+greatest of the slaveholding States, as a representative.
+I was most familiar with her laws. In defending her, I
+have virtually defended the whole South, of which she
+was the type; for the differences between her slave
+institutions and theirs were in no respect essential.</p>
+
+<p>The most fearful consequence of the despotic government
+to which the South is now subjected, is not the
+plundering of our goods, nor the abridgment of privileges,
+nor the death of innocent men, but the degrading
+and debauching of the moral sensibilities and principles
+of the helpless victims. The weapon of arbitrary rulers
+is physical force; the shield of its victims is usually
+evasion and duplicity. Again: few minds and consciences
+have that stable independence which remains
+erect and undebauched amidst the disappointments, anguish,
+and losses of defeat, and the desertion of numbers,
+and the obloquy of a lost cause. Hence it has
+usually been found, in the history of subjugated nations,
+that they receive at the hands of their conquerors this
+crowning woe&mdash;a depraved, cringing, and cowardly
+spirit. The wisest, kindest, most patriotic thing which
+any man can do for his country, amidst such calamities,
+is to aid in preserving and reinstating the tottering
+principles of his countrymen; to teach them, while they
+give place to inexorable force, to abate nothing of
+righteous convictions and of self-respect. And in this
+work he is as really a benefactor of the conquerors as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span>
+of the conquered. For thus he aids in preserving that
+precious seed of men, who are men of principle, and not
+of expediency; who alone (if any can) are able to reconstruct
+society, after the tumult of faction shall have
+spent its rage, upon the foundations of truth and justice.
+The men at the North who have stood firmly aloof from
+the errors and crimes of this revolution, and the men at
+the South who have not been unmanned and debauched
+by defeat&mdash;these are the men whom Providence will call
+forth from their seclusion, when the fury of fanaticism
+shall have done its worst, to repair its mischiefs, and
+save America from chronic anarchy and barbarism; if,
+indeed, any rescue is designed for us. It is this audience,
+"few but fit," with which I would chiefly commune.
+They will appreciate this humble effort to justify
+the history of our native States, and to sustain the
+hearts of their sons in the hour of cruel reproach.</p>
+
+<p><span class="i2"><i>Hampden Sidney, Virginia, June, 1867.</i></span></p>
+<hr class="chap" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center xxlarge spaced">A DEFENCE OF VIRGINIA.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I.<br />
+
+INTRODUCTORY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>To the rational historian who, two hundred years
+hence, shall study the history of the nineteenth century,
+it will appear one of the most curious vagaries of human
+opinion, that the Christianity and philanthropy of
+our day should have given so disproportionate an attention
+to the evils of African slavery. Such a dispassionate
+observer will perceive that, while many other
+gigantic evils were rampant in this age, there prevailed
+a sort of epidemic fashion of selecting this one upon
+which to exhaust the virtuous indignation and sympathies
+of the professed friends of human amelioration.
+And he will probably see in this a proof that the
+Christianity and benevolence of the nineteenth century
+were not so superior, in wisdom and breadth, to those
+of the seventeenth and eighteenth, as the busy actors
+in them had persuaded themselves; but were, in fact,
+conceited, overweening, and fantastic.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It will appear to him a still stranger fact, that this
+zeal against African slavery was so partial in its exhibition.
+Up to this day, not only the Southern States
+of the late American Union, but the Brazilian, Turkish,
+and Spanish empires, among civilized nations, and
+many barbarous people, have continued the explicit
+practice of slavery, in so stern a form, that the institution
+in the Confederate States was, by comparison, extremely
+mild. Yet, throughout the Northern States of
+America and Europe, it is upon the devoted heads of
+Southern masters almost exclusively that the vials of
+holy wrath are poured out. Renascent Spain is quite a
+pet among Yankees and Europeans, though tenaciously
+clinging, in her colonies, to a system of slavery at whose
+barbarities the public sentiment of these Southern States
+would shudder, and though persistently winking at the
+African Slave Trade in addition. Slaveholding Brazil
+is on most pleasing terms with the United States and
+the European governments, which vie in soliciting her
+commercial intercourse and friendship with most amiable
+suavity. But when the sounding lash of the self-constituted
+friend of man is raised to chastise "the
+wickedness of slavery," all Yankeedom and all Europe
+seem to think only of us sinners. And yet here, of
+all places where it prevailed, African bondage was
+most ameliorated and most justifiable! Indeed, not a
+few of these consistent reformers have ten-fold as much
+patience with that demon of slaveholders, the King of
+Dahomey, as with the benignant Christian master in Virginia;
+and go to that truculent savage to request him
+not to cut the throats of another thousand of his inoffensive
+slaves in a "grand custom," with far more of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span>
+courtesy, forbearance, and amiability, than they can
+exercise towards us, when they come to reason with us
+touching the rights of our late peaceful and well-fed
+domestics. We see no reason for this partiality, but
+that the King of Dahomey is himself of that colour,
+which seems to be the only one acceptable to the tastes
+of this type of philanthropists. An Abolitionist poet
+has sung of our oppressing our brother man, because
+he was "guilty of a skin." To give the contrast, these
+persons act as though, in their view, the King of Dahomey's
+meritorious possession of the skin of approved
+colour, were enough to cover his multitude of sins!
+Now, if the rest of Christendom have determined to
+take slaveholders for their pet objects of abuse, we
+may justly demand of them, at least, to distribute their
+hard words more generally, and give all a share.</p>
+
+<p>This injustice is to be accounted for, in part, by the
+greater prominence which the late United States held
+before the world, making all their supposed sins more
+prominent; and in part by the zeal of our late very
+amiable and equitable partners, the Yankee people.
+They reserved their abuse and venom on this subject
+for their Southern fellow-citizens alone. They made it
+their business to direct the whole storm of odium, from
+abroad and at home, on our heads. They, having the
+manufacture of American books chiefly in their hands,
+took pains to fill Europe and their own country with
+industrious slanders against their own brethren: and
+so occupied the ear of the world with abuse of us, as
+to make men almost forget that there were any other
+slaveholders. For this they had two motives, one calculated,
+and the other passionate and instinctive. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span>
+latter was the sectional animosity which was bred by
+the very intimacy of their association under one government,
+with rival interests. The man who has
+learned to hate his brother, hates him, and can abuse
+him, more heartily than any more distant enemy. The
+deliberative motive was, to reduce the South to a state
+of colonial dependency upon themselves, and exclude all
+other nations from the rich plunder which they were accustomed
+to draw from the oppressed section, by means
+of the odium and misunderstanding which they created
+concerning us. The South was their precious gold
+mine, from which they had quarried, and hoped yet
+again to quarry, hoards of wealth, by the instruments of
+legislative and commercial jugglery. From this precious
+mine, they wished to keep other adventurers away by
+the customary expedient of spreading an odious character
+for moral <i>malaria</i> and pestilential vices around
+it. It did not suit their selfish purposes, that Europe
+should know, that in this slaveholding South was the
+true conservative power of the American Government,
+the most solid type of old English character, the
+greatest social stability and purity, and above all, the
+very fountain of international commerce and wealth;
+lest Europe should desire to visit and to trade with
+this section for itself. And the readiest way to prevent
+this, was to paint the South to all the rest of the world,
+in the blackest colours of misrepresentation, so as to
+have us regarded as a semi-barbarous race of domestic
+tyrants, whose chief occupations were chaining or
+scourging negroes, and stabbing each other with
+bowie-knives. The trick was a success. The Yankee
+almost monopolized the advantages of Southern trade
+and intercourse.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the South should have been impelled by the
+same facts to defend its institutions before the public
+opinion of the civilized world; for <i>opinion</i> is always
+omnipotent in the end, whatever prejudices and physical
+powers may oppose it. If its current is allowed to
+flow unchecked, its silent waters gradually undermine
+the sternest obstacles. This great truth men of thought
+are more apt to recognize than men of action. While
+the true statesman is fully awake to it, the mere politician
+is unconscious of its power; and when his expedients&mdash;his
+parties and his statutes&mdash;have all been silently
+swept away by the diffusion of abstract principles
+opposed to them, he cannot understand his overthrow.
+If the late Confederate States would have
+gained that to which they aspired, the position of a
+respectable and prosperous people among the nations
+of the world, it was extremely important that they
+should secure from their neighbours a more just appreciation
+of their institutions. A respectful and powerful
+appeal in defence of those institutions was due to
+our neighbours' opinions, unfair and unkind as they
+have been to us; and due to our own rights and self-respect.</p>
+
+<p>Our mere politicians committed an error in this particular,
+while we were still members of the United
+States, by which we should now learn. They failed
+to meet the Abolitionists with sufficient persistence
+and force on the radical question&mdash;the righteousness
+of African servitude as existing among us. It is true
+that this fundamental point has received a discussion
+at the South, chiefly at the hands of clergymen and
+literary men, which has evoked a number of works of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span>
+the highest merit and power, constituting almost a
+literature on the subject. One valuable effect of this
+literature was to enlighten and satisfy the Southern
+mind, and to produce a settled unanimity of opinion,
+even greater than that which existed against us in
+other States. But such is the customary and overweening
+egotism of the Yankee mind, that none of
+these works, whatever their merit, could ever obtain
+general circulation or reading in the North. People
+there were satisfied to read only their own shallow and
+one-sided arguments, quietly treating us as though our
+guilt was too clear to admit of any argument, or we
+were too inferior to be capable of it. The consequence
+was, that although the North has made the wrongs of
+the African its own peculiar cause&mdash;its great master-question&mdash;it
+is pitiably ignorant of the facts and arguments
+of the case. After twenty-five years of discussion,
+we find that the staple of the logic of their
+writers is still the same set of miserable and shallow
+sophisms, which Southern divines and statesmen have
+threshed into dust, and driven away as the chaff before
+the whirlwind, so long ago, and so often, that any intelligent
+man among us is almost ashamed to allude to
+them as requiring an answer. When the polemic heat
+of this quarrel shall have passed away, and the dispassionate
+antiquary shall compare the literature of the
+two parties, he will be amazed to see that of the popular
+one so poor, beggarly, and false, and that of the
+unpopular one so manly, philosophic, and powerful.
+But at present, such is the clamour of prejudice, our
+cause has not obtained a hearing from the world.</p>
+
+<p>The North having arrogated to itself the name of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span>
+chief manufacturer of literary material, and having
+chief control of the channels of foreign intercourse, of
+course our plea has been less listened to across the
+Atlantic than in America. The South has been condemned
+unheard. Well-informed men in Great Britain,
+we presume, are ignorant of the names and works of
+the able and dignified advocates to whom the South
+confidently and proudly committed her justification;
+and were willing to render their verdict upon the mere
+accusations of our interested slanderers. But while the
+United States yet existed unbroken, there was one <i>forum</i>,
+where we could have demanded a hearing upon the fundamental
+question: the Federal Legislature. From that
+centre of universal attention, our defence of the righteousness
+of the relation of master and slave, as existing
+among us, might have been spread before the public
+mind; and the abstract question having been decided
+by triumphant argument, the troubles of our Federal relations
+might possibly have been quieted. There were
+two courses, either of which might have been followed by
+our politicians, in defending our Federal rights against
+Abolitionism. One plan would have been, to exclude the
+whole question of slavery persistently from the national
+councils, as extra-constitutional and dangerous, and to
+assert this exclusion always, and at every risk, as the
+essential condition of the continuance of the South in
+those councils. The other plan was, to meet that abstract
+question from the first, as underlying and determining
+the whole subject, and to debate it everywhere,
+until it was decided, and the verdict of the
+national mind was passed upon it. Unfortunately, the
+Southern men did neither persistently. After temporary
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span>
+resistance, they permitted the debate; and then
+failed to conduct it on fundamental principles. With
+the exception of Mr. Calhoun, (whom events have now
+shown to have been the most far-seeing of our statesmen,
+notwithstanding the fashion of men to depreciate
+him as an "abstractionist" while he lived,) Southern
+politicians usually satisfied themselves with saying,
+that the whole matter was, according to the Constitution,
+one of State sovereignty; that Congress had no
+right to legislate concerning its merits; and that therefore
+they would not seem to admit such a right, by condescending
+to argue the matter on its merits. The
+premise was true; but the inference was practically
+most mischievous. If the Congress had no right to
+legislate about slavery, then it should not have been
+permitted to debate it. And Southern men, if they intended
+to make their stand on that ground, should have
+exacted the exclusion of all debate, at every cost. But
+this was perhaps impossible. The debate came; and,
+of course, the principles agitated ran at once back of
+the Constitution, to the abstract ethical question: "Is
+the holding of an African slave in the South a moral
+wrong in itself?" Southern men should have industriously
+followed them there; but they did not do it:
+and soon the heat and animosity of an aggressive and
+growing faction hurried the country beyond the point
+of calm consideration. A moment's reflection should
+have shown that the decisive question was the abstract
+righteousness of the relation of master and slave. The
+Constitution gave to the Federal Government no power
+over that relation in the States. True; but that Constitution
+was a compact between sovereign commonwealth:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>
+it certainly gave recognition and protection
+to the relation of master and slave; and if that relation
+is intrinsically unrighteous, then it protected a
+wrong. Then the sovereign States of the North were
+found in the attitude of protecting a wrong by their
+voluntary compact; and therefore it would have been
+the duty of all citizens of those States to seek, by all
+righteous means, the amendment or repeal of that compact.
+They would not, indeed, have been justified to
+claim all the benefits of the compact, and still agitate
+under it a matter which the compact excluded. But
+they would have been more than justified, they would
+have been bound to clear their skirts of the wrong, by
+surrendering the compact, if necessary. There was no
+evasion from the duty, except by proving that the Constitution
+did nothing unrighteous by protecting the relation;
+in other words, that the relation was not unrighteous.
+Again, on the subject of the "Higher Law,"
+our conservative statesmen and divines threw up a
+vast amount of pious dust. This partially quieted the
+country for a time; but, as might have been foreseen,
+it was destined to be inevitably blown away. There <i>is
+a higher law</i>, superior to constitutions and statutes; not,
+indeed, the perjured and unprincipled cant which has no
+conscience against swearing allegiance to a Constitution
+and laws which it declares sinful, in order to grasp
+emoluments and advantages, and then pleads "conscience"
+for disobeying what it had voluntarily sworn
+to obey; but the everlasting law of right in the word
+of God. Constitutions and laws which contravene this,
+ought to be lawfully amended or repealed; and it is the
+duty of all citizens to seek it. Let this be applied to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span>
+the Fugitive Slave Law. If the bondage was intrinsically
+unrighteous, then the Federal law which aided
+in remanding the fugitive to it, legalized a wrong. It
+became, therefore, the duty of all United States officers,
+who were required by statute to execute this law&mdash;not,
+indeed, to hold their offices and emoluments, and swear
+fidelity, and then plead conscientious scruples for the
+neglect of these sworn functions, (for this is a detestable
+union of theft and perjury with hypocrisy,)&mdash;but to
+resign those offices wholly, with their profits and their
+sinful functions. It would have become the duty of
+any private citizen, who might have been summoned by
+a United States officer, to act in a <i>posse</i>, guard, or any
+other way in enforcing this law, to decline obedience;
+and then, in accordance with Scripture, to submit
+meekly to the legal penalty of such a refusal, until
+the unrighteous law were repealed. But, moreover, it
+would have become the right and duty of these and all
+other citizens to seek the repeal of that law, or, if
+necessary, the abrogation of that Federal compact
+which necessitated it. But on the other hand, when
+we proved that the relation of master and slave is not
+unrighteous, and that therefore the Fugitive Slave Law
+required the perpetration of no wrong, and was constitutional,
+it became the clear moral duty of every citizen
+to concur in obeying it.</p>
+
+<p>Once more: the true key of the more commanding
+question of <i>free soil</i> was in the same abstract ethical
+point. If the relation of master and servant was unrighteous,
+and the institution a standing sin against
+God and human rights, then it was not to be extended
+at the mere dictate of convenience and gain. Although
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span>
+Northern men might be compelled to admit that, in the
+States, it was subject to State control alone, and expressly
+exempted from all interference of the Federal
+Government by the Constitution; yet, outside of the
+States, that Constitution and Government, representative
+as it was as a majority of free States, ought not to
+have been prostituted to the extension of a great moral
+wrong. Those free States ought, if their Southern partners
+would not consent to relinquish their right by a
+peaceable amendment of the Constitution, to have retired
+from the odious compact, and to have surrendered
+the advantages of the Union for conscience' sake. If,
+on the contrary, African slavery in America was no
+unrighteousness, no sin against human rights, and no
+contradiction to the doctrines of the Constitution, then
+the general teachings of that instrument concerning
+the absolute equality of the States and their several
+citizens under it, were too clear to leave a doubt, that
+the letter and spirit of the document gave the slaveholder
+just the same right to carry his slaves into any
+territory, with that of the Connecticut man to carry his
+clock-factory. Hence the ethical question, when once
+the slavery agitation became inevitable, should have
+been made the great question by us. The halls of Congress
+should have rung with the arguments, the newspaper
+press should have teemed with them. But little
+was done to purpose in this discussion, save by clergymen
+and literary men; and for reasons already indicated
+they were practically unheard. After it was too late
+to stem the torrent of passion and sectional ambition
+pouring against us, politicians did indeed awake to a
+tardy perception of these important views; but the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span>
+eyes of the Northern people were then obstinately
+closed against them by a foregone conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>We have cited these recent and striking illustrations
+of the fundamental importance of the ethical discussion,
+to justify the task we have undertaken. Some may
+suppose that, as the United States are no more as they
+were, and slaveholding is absolutely and finally ended,
+the question is obsolete. This is a great mistake.
+The status of the negro is just beginning to develop
+itself as an agitating and potent element in the politics
+of America. It will still continue the great ground of
+contrast, and subject of moral strife, between the North
+and the South.</p>
+
+<p>We have attempted to indicate the potency of the
+slow and silent but irresistible influence of opinion
+over human affairs. Let our enemies claim the triumph
+without question in the field of opinion; let
+them continue to persuade mankind successfully that
+we were a people stained by a standing social crime;
+and we shall be continually worsted by them. In order
+to be free, we must be respected: and to this end we
+must defend our good name. We need not urge that
+instinctive desire for the good opinion of our fellow-men,
+and that sense of justice, which must ever render
+it painful to be the objects of undeserved odium.
+Instead, therefore, of regarding the discussion of the
+rightfulness of African slavery as henceforth antiquated,
+we believe that it assumes, at this era, a new
+and wider importance. While the swords of our people
+were fighting the battles of a necessary self-defence,
+the pens of our statesmen should have been no less
+diligent in defending us against the adverse opinion of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span>
+a prejudiced world. Every opening should have been
+seized to disabuse the minds of Europeans, a jury to
+which we have hitherto had no access, although condemned
+by it. The discussion should everywhere have
+been urged, until public opinion was effectually rectified
+and made just to the Confederate States.</p>
+
+<p>At the first glance, it appears an arduous, if not a
+hopeless undertaking, to address the minds of such nations
+as the North and Great Britain in defence of
+Southern slavery. We have to contend against the
+prescriptive opinions and prejudices of years' growth.
+We assert a thesis which our adversaries have taken
+pains to represent as an impossible absurdity, of which
+the very assertion is an insult to the understanding and
+heart of a freeman. Ten thousand slanders have given
+to the very name of Southern slaveholder a colouring,
+which darkens every argument that can be advanced
+in his favour. Yet the task of self-defence is not entirely
+discouraging. Our best hope is in the fact that the
+cause of our defence is the cause of God's Word, and of
+its supreme authority over the human conscience. For,
+as we shall evince, that Word is on our side, and the
+teachings of Abolitionism are clearly of rationalistic
+origin, of infidel tendency, and only sustained by reckless
+and licentious perversions of the meaning of the
+Sacred text. It will in the end become apparent to the
+world, not only that the conviction of the wickedness
+of slaveholding was drawn wholly from sources foreign
+to the Bible, but that it is a legitimate corollary from
+that fantastic, atheistic, and radical theory of human
+rights, which made the Reign of Terror in France, which
+has threatened that country, and which now threatens
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span>
+the United States, with the horrors of Red-Republicanism.
+Because we believe that God intends to vindicate
+His Divine Word, and to make all nations honour it; because
+we confidently rely in the force of truth to explode
+all dangerous error; therefore we confidently expect that
+the world will yet do justice to Southern slaveholders.
+The anti-scriptural, infidel, and radical grounds upon
+which our assailants have placed themselves, make our
+cause practically the cause of truth and order. This is
+already understood here by thinking men who have
+seen Abolitionism bear its fruit unto perfection: and
+the world will some day understand it. We shall possess
+at this time another advantage in defending our
+good name, derived from our late effort for independence.
+Hitherto we have been little known to Europeans,
+save through the very charitable representations of our
+fraternal partners, the Yankees. Foreigners visiting
+the United States almost always assumed, that when
+they had seen the North, they had seen the country,
+(for Yankeedom always modestly represented itself as
+constituting all of America that was worth looking at.)
+Hence the character of the South was not known, nor
+its importance appreciated. Its books and periodicals
+were unread by Europeans. But now the very interest
+excited by our struggle has caused other nations to observe
+for themselves, and to find that we are not <i>Troglodytes</i>
+nor <i>Anthropophagi</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Another introductory remark which should be made
+is, that this discussion, to produce any good result,
+must distinctly disclaim some extravagant and erroneous
+grounds which have sometimes been assumed.
+It is not our purpose to rest our defence on an assumption
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span>
+of a diversity of race, which is contradicted both
+by natural history and by the Scripture, declaring that
+"God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to
+dwell on all the face of the earth." Nor does the
+Southern cause demand such assertions as that the condition
+of master and slave is everywhere the normal
+condition of human society, and preferable to all others
+under all circumstances. The burden of odium which
+the cause will then carry, abroad, will be immeasurably
+increased by such positions. Nor can a purpose be
+ever subserved by arguing the question by a series of
+comparisons of the relative advantages of slave and free
+labour, laudatory to the one part and invidious to the
+other. There has been hitherto, on both sides of this
+debate, a mischievous forgetfulness of the old adage,
+"comparisons are odious!" When Southern men thus
+argued, they assumed the disadvantage of appearing as
+the propagandists, instead of the peaceful defenders, of
+an institution which immediately concerned nobody but
+themselves; and they arrayed the self-esteem of all
+opponents against us by making our defence the necessary
+disparagement of the other parties. True,
+those parties have usually been but too zealous to
+play at this invidious game, beginning it in advance.
+We should not imitate them. It is time all parties had
+learned that the lawfulness and policy of different social
+systems cannot be decided by painting the special
+and exceptional features of hardship, abuse, or mismanagement,
+which either of the advocates may imagine
+he sees in the system of his opponent. The course of
+this great discussion has too often been this: Each
+party has set up an easel, and spread a canvas upon it,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span>
+and drawn the system of its adversary in contrast with
+its own, in the blackest colours which a heated and angry
+fancy could discover amidst the evils and abuses
+imputed to the rival institution. The only possible result
+was, that each should blacken his adversary more
+and more; and consequently that both should grow
+more and more enraged. And this result did not argue
+the entire falsehood of either set of accusations. For,
+unfortunately, the human race is a fallen race&mdash;depraved,
+selfish, unrighteous and oppressive, under all
+institutions. Out of the best social order, committed to
+such hands, there still proceeds a hideous amount of
+wrongs and woe; and that, not because the order is
+unrighteous, but because it is administered by depraved
+man. For this reason, and for another equally conclusive,
+we assert that the lawfulness, and even the wisdom
+or policy of social institutions affecting a great population,
+cannot be decided by these odious contrasts of
+their special wrong results. That second reason is,
+that the field of view is too vast and varied to be
+brought fairly under comparison in all its details before
+the limited eye of man. First, then, if we attempt to
+settle the matter by endeavouring to find how much evil
+can be discovered in the working of the opposite system,
+there will probably be no end at all to the melancholy
+discoveries which both parties will make against
+each other, and so no end to the debate: for the guilty
+passions of men are everywhere perpetual fountains of
+wrong-doing. And second, the comparison of results
+must be deceptive, because no finite mind can take in
+all the details of both the wholes. Our wisdom, then,
+will be to take no extreme positions, and to make no
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span>
+invidious comparisons unnecessarily. It is enough for
+us to place ourselves on this impregnable stand; that
+the relation of master and slave is recognized as lawful
+in itself by a sound philosophy, and above all, by the
+Word of God. It is enough for us to say (what is
+capable of overwhelming demonstration) that for the
+African race, such as Providence has made it, and
+where He has placed it in America, slavery was the
+righteous, the best, yea, the only tolerable relation.
+Whether it would be wise or just for other States to introduce
+it, we need not argue.</p>
+
+<p>And in conclusion, we would state that it is our purpose
+to argue this proposition chiefly on Bible grounds.
+Our people and our national neighbours are professedly
+Christians; the vast majority of them profess to
+get their ideas of morality, as all should, from the Sacred
+Scriptures. A few speculative minds may reason
+out moral conclusions from ethical principles; but the
+masses derive their ideas of right and wrong from a
+"Thus saith the Lord." And it is a homage we owe to
+the Bible, from whose principles we have derived so
+much of social prosperity and blessing, to appeal to its
+verdict on every subject upon which it has spoken. Indeed,
+when we remember how human reason and learning
+have blundered in their philosophizings; how great
+parties have held for ages the doctrine of the divine
+right of kings as a political axiom; how the whole civilized
+world held to the righteousness of persecuting
+errors in opinion, even for a century after the Reformation;
+we shall feel little confidence in mere human reasonings
+on political principles; we shall rejoice to follow
+a steadier light. The scriptural argument for the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span>
+righteousness of slavery gives us, moreover, this great
+advantage: If we urge it successfully, we compel the
+Abolitionists either to submit, or else to declare their
+true infidel character. We thrust them fairly to the
+wall, by proving that the Bible is against them; and if
+they declare themselves against the Bible (as the most
+of them doubtless will) they lose the support of all
+honest believers in God's Word.</p>
+
+<p>This discussion will therefore be, in the main, a series
+of expositions. The principles of scriptural exposition
+are simply those of common sense; and it will be the
+writer's aim so to explain them that they shall commend
+themselves to every honest mind, and to rid them of
+the sophisms of the Abolitionists.</p>
+
+<p>But before we proceed to this discussion we propose
+to devote a few pages to the exposition of the historical
+facts which place the attitude of Virginia in the proper
+light.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II.<br />
+
+THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>This iniquitous traffick, beginning with the importation
+of negroes into Hispaniola in 1503, was first pursued
+by the English in 1562, under Sir John Hawkins,
+who sold a cargo at the same island that year. The
+news of his success reaching Queen Elizabeth, she became
+a partner with him in other voyages. Under the
+Stuart kings, repeated charters were given to noblemen
+and merchants, to form companies for this trade, in one
+of which, the Duke of York, afterwards James II., was
+a partner. The colony of Virginia was planted in 1607.
+The first cargo of negroes, only twenty in number,
+arrived there in a Dutch vessel in 1620, and was bought
+by the colonists. All the commercial nations of Europe
+were implicated in the trade; and all the colonies
+in America were supplied, to a greater or less extent,
+with slave labour from Africa, whether Spanish, Portuguese,
+English, French, or Dutch. But England became,
+on the whole, the leader in this trade, and was
+unrivalled by any, save her daughter, New England.</p>
+
+<p>The happy revolution of 1688, which placed William
+and Mary on the throne, arrested for a time the activity
+of the royal company for slave trading, by throwing the
+business open to the whole nation. For one of the reforms,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span>
+stipulated with the new government, was the
+abolition of all monopolies. But the company did not
+give up its operations; and it even succeeded in exacting
+from Parliament an indemnity of �10,000 <i>per annum</i>
+for the loss of its exclusive privilege. But the most
+splendid triumph of British enterprise was that
+achieved by the treaty of Utrecht, 1712, between Queen
+Anne and Spain. By a compact called the <i>Asiento</i>
+treaty, the Spanish monarch resigned to the English
+South Sea Company, the exclusive slave trade even between
+Africa and the Spanish colonies. Four thousand
+eight hundred slaves were to be furnished to the Spanish
+colonies annually, for thirty years, paying to the
+King of Spain an impost of thirty-three and a third dollars
+per head; but the company had the privilege of
+introducing as many more as they could sell, paying
+half duty upon them. The citizens of every other nation,
+even Spaniards themselves, were prohibited from
+bringing a single slave. The British Queen and the
+King of Spain became stockholders in the venture, to
+the extent of one-fourth each; the remainder of the
+stock was left to British citizens. And Anne, in her
+speech from the throne, detailing to her Parliament the
+provisions of the treaty of Utrecht, congratulated them
+on this monopoly of slave trading, as the most splendid
+triumph of her arms and diplomacy.<a name='FNanchor_1'></a><a href='#Footnote_1'><sup>[1]</sup></a> Meantime, the
+African Company, with private adventurers at a later
+day, plied the trade with equal activity, for furnishing
+the British colonies. Finally, in 1749, every restriction
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span>
+upon private enterprise was removed; and the slave
+trade was thrown open to all Englishmen; for, says
+the statute: "the slave trade is very advantageous to
+Great Britain." But every resource of legislation, and
+even of war, was employed during the eighteenth century
+to secure the monopoly of the trade to British
+subjects, and to enlarge the market for their commodity
+in all the colonies. To this end, the royal government
+of the plantations, which afterwards became the United
+States, was perseveringly directed. The complaint of
+Hugh Drysdale, Deputy Governor of Virginia, in 1726,
+that when a tax was imposed to check the influx of
+Africans, "the interfering interest of the African company
+has obtained the repeal of the law,"<a name='FNanchor_2'></a><a href='#Footnote_2'><sup>[2]</sup></a> was common
+to him and all the patriotic rulers of the Southern
+colonies.</p>
+
+<p>Reynal estimates the whole number of negroes stolen
+from Africa before 1776 at nine millions; Bancroft at
+something more than six millions. Of these, British
+subjects carried at least half: and to the above numbers
+must be added a quarter of a million thrown by
+Englishmen into the Atlantic on the voyage.<a name='FNanchor_3'></a><a href='#Footnote_3'><sup>[3]</sup></a> As the
+traffick continued in full activity until 1808, it is a safe
+estimate that the number of victims to British cupidity
+taken from Africa was increased to five millions. The
+profit made by Englishmen upon the three millions carried
+to America before 1776, could not have been less
+than four hundred millions of dollars. The negroes
+cost the traders nothing but worthless trinkets, damaged
+fire-arms, and New England rum: they were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span>
+usually paid for in hard money at the place of sale.
+This lucrative trade laid the foundation, to a great degree,
+for the commercial wealth of London, Bristol, and
+Liverpool. The capital which now makes England the
+workshop and <i>emporium</i> of the world, was in large part
+born of the African slave trade. Especially was this
+the chief source of the riches which founded the British
+empire in Hindostan. The South Sea and the African
+Companies were the prototypes and pioneers of that
+wonderful institution, the East India Company; and
+the money by which the latter was set on foot was derived
+mainly from the profitable slave-catching of the
+former. When the direct returns of the African trade
+in the eighteenth century are remembered; when it is
+noted how much colonial trade has contributed to British
+greatness, and when it is considered that England's
+colonial system was wholly built upon African slavery,
+the intelligent reader will be convinced that the slave
+trade was the corner-stone of the present splendid prosperity
+of that Empire.</p>
+
+<p>But after the nineteenth century had arrived, the
+prospective impolicy of the trade,<a name='FNanchor_4'></a><a href='#Footnote_4'><sup>[4]</sup></a> the prevalence of
+democratic and Jacobin opinions imported from France,
+the shame inspired by the example of Virginia, with
+(we would fain hope) some influences of the Christian
+religion upon the better spirits, began to create a powerful
+party against the trade. First, Clarkson published
+in Latin, and then in English, his work against
+the slave trade, exposing its unutterable barbarities, as
+practised by Englishmen, and arguing its intrinsic
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span>
+unrighteousness. The powerful parliamentary influence
+of Wilberforce was added, and afterwards that of the
+younger Pitt. The commercial classes made a tremendous
+resistance for many years, sustained by many
+noblemen and by the royal family; but at length the
+Parliament, in 1808, declared the trade illicit, and took
+measures to suppress it. Since that time, the British
+Government, with a tardy zeal, but without disgorging
+any of the gross spoils with which it is so plethoric,
+wrung from the tears and blood of Africa, has arrogated
+to itself the special task of the catchpole of the
+seas, to "police" the world against the continuance of
+its once profitable sin. Its present attitude is in curious
+contrast with its recent position, as greedy monopolist,
+and queen of slave traders; and especially when
+the observer adverts to her activity in the Coolie traffick,
+that new and more frightful form, under which the
+Phariseeism of this age has restored the trade, he will
+have little difficulty in deciding, whether the meddlesome
+activity of England is prompted by a virtuous
+repentance, or by a desire to replace the advantages of
+the African commerce with other fruits of commercial
+supremacy.</p>
+
+<p>The share of the Colony of Virginia in the African
+slave trade was that of an unwilling recipient; never
+that of an active party. She had no ships engaged in
+any foreign trade; for the strict obedience of her governors
+and citizens to the colonial laws of the mother
+country prevented her trading to foreign ports, and
+all the carrying trade to British ports and colonies
+was in the hands of New Englanders and Englishmen.
+In the replies submitted by Sir William Berkeley, Governor,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span>
+1671, to certain written inquiries of the "Lords
+of Plantations," we find the following statement: "And
+this is the cause why no great or small vessels are
+built here; for we are most obedient to all laws, while
+the men of New England break through, and trade to
+any place that their interest leads them."<a name='FNanchor_5'></a><a href='#Footnote_5'><sup>[5]</sup></a> The same
+facts, and the sense of grievance which the colonists
+derived from them, are curiously attested by the party
+of Nathaniel Bacon also, who opposed Sir William
+Berkeley. When they supposed that they had wrested
+the government from his hands, Sarah Drummond, an
+enthusiastic patriot, exclaimed: "Now we can build
+ships, and like New England, trade to any part of the
+world."<a name='FNanchor_6'></a><a href='#Footnote_6'><sup>[6]</sup></a> But her hopes were not realized: Virginia
+continued without ships. No vessel ever went from
+her ports, or was ever manned by her citizens, to engage
+in the slave trade; and while her government can
+claim the high and peculiar honour of having ever opposed
+the cruel traffick, her citizens have been precluded
+by Providence from the least participation in it.</p>
+
+<p>The planting of the commercial States of North
+America began with the colony of Puritan Independents
+at Plymouth, in 1620, which was subsequently
+enlarged into the State of Massachusetts. The other
+trading colonies, Rhode Island and Connecticut, as well
+as New Hampshire (which never had an extensive
+shipping interest), were offshoots of Massachusetts.
+They partook of the same characteristics and pursuits;
+and hence, the example of the parent colony is taken
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span>
+here as a fair representation of them. The first ship
+from America, which embarked in the African slave
+trade, was the <i>Desire</i>, Captain Pierce, of Salem; and
+this was among the first vessels ever built in the colony.
+The promptitude with which the "Puritan
+Fathers" embarked in this business may be comprehended,
+when it is stated that the Desire sailed upon
+her voyage in June, 1637.<a name='FNanchor_7'></a><a href='#Footnote_7'><sup>[7]</sup></a> The first feeble and dubious
+foothold was gained by the white man at Plymouth
+less than seventeen years before; and as is
+well known, many years were expended by the struggle
+of the handful of settlers for existence. So that it
+may be correctly said, that the commerce of New England
+was born of the slave trade; as its subsequent
+prosperity was largely founded upon it. The Desire,
+proceeding to the Bahamas, with a cargo of "dry fish
+and strong liquors, the only commodities for those
+parts," obtained the negroes from two British men-of-war,
+which had captured them from a Spanish slaver.</p>
+
+<p>To understand the growth of the New England slave
+trade, two connected topics must be a little illustrated.
+The first of these is the enslaving of Indians. The
+pious "Puritan Fathers" found it convenient to assume
+that they were God's chosen Israel, and the pagans
+about them were Amalek and Amorites. They hence
+deduced their righteous title to exterminate or enslave
+the Indians, whenever they became troublesome. As
+soon as the Indian wars began, we find the captives
+enslaved. The ministers and magistrates solemnly
+authorized the enslaving of the wives and posterity of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span>
+their enemies for the crimes of the fathers and husbands
+in daring to defend their own soil. In 1646, the
+Commissioners of the United Colonies made an order,<a name='FNanchor_8'></a><a href='#Footnote_8'><sup>[8]</sup></a>
+that upon complaint of a trespass by Indians, any of that
+plantation of Indians that should entertain, protect, or
+rescue the offender, might be seized by reprisal, and held
+as hostages for the delivery of the culprits; in failure of
+which, the innocent persons seized should be slaves, and
+be exported for sale as such. In 1677, the General
+Court of Massachusetts<a name='FNanchor_9'></a><a href='#Footnote_9'><sup>[9]</sup></a> ordered the enslaving of the
+Indian youths or girls "of such as had been in hostility
+with the colony, or had lived among its enemies in the
+time of the War." In the winter of 1675-6, Major Waldron,
+commissioner of the General Court for that territory
+now included in Maine, issued a general warrant
+for seizing, enslaving, and exporting every Indian
+"known to be a manslayer, traitor, or conspirator."<a name='FNanchor_10'></a><a href='#Footnote_10'><sup>[10]</sup></a>
+The reader will not be surprised to hear, that so monstrous
+an order, committed for execution to any or
+every man's irresponsible hands, was employed by
+many shipmasters for the vilest purposes of kidnapping
+and slave hunting. But in addition, in numerous instances
+whole companies of peaceable and inoffensive
+Indians, submitting to the colonial authorities, were
+seized and enslaved by publick order. In one case one
+hundred and fifty of the Dartmouth tribe, including
+their women and children, coming in by a voluntary
+submission, and under a general pledge of amnesty,
+and in another instance, four hundred of a different
+tribe, were shamelessly enslaved. By means of these
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span>
+proceedings, the numbers of Indian servants became so
+large, that they were regarded as dangerous to the
+Colony. They were, moreover, often untameable in
+temper, prone to run away to their kinsmen in the
+neighbouring wilderness, and much less docile and
+effective for labour than the "blackamoors." Hence
+the prudent and thrifty saints saw the advantage of
+exporting them to the Bermudas, Barbadoes, and other
+islands, in exchange for negroes and merchandise; and
+this traffick, being much encouraged, and finally enjoined,
+by the authorities, became so extensive as to
+substitute negroes for Indian slaves, almost wholly in
+the Colony.<a name='FNanchor_11'></a><a href='#Footnote_11'><sup>[11]</sup></a> Among the slaves thus deported were
+the favourite wife and little son of the heroic King
+Philip. The holy Independent Divines, Cotton, Arnold,
+and Increase Mather, inclined to the opinion that
+he should be slain for his father's sins, after the example
+of the children of Achan and Agag;<a name='FNanchor_12'></a><a href='#Footnote_12'><sup>[12]</sup></a> but the
+authorities probably concluded that his deportation
+would be a more profitable, as well as a harsher punishment.
+These shocking incidents will no longer appear
+incredible to the reader, when he is informed that
+the same magistrates sold and transported into foreign
+slavery two English children, one of them a girl, for
+attending a Quaker meeting;<a name='FNanchor_13'></a><a href='#Footnote_13'><sup>[13]</sup></a> while the adult ladies
+present were fined �10 each, and whipped.<a name='FNanchor_14'></a><a href='#Footnote_14'><sup>[14]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In pleasing contrast with these enormities, stands
+the contemporaneous legislation of the Colony of Virginia
+touching its Indian neighbours. By three acts,
+1655 to 1657, the colonists were strictly forbidden to
+trespass upon the lands of the Indians, or to dispossess
+them of their homes even by purchase. Slaying an
+Indian for his trespass was prohibited. The Indians,
+provided they were not armed, were authorized to pass
+freely through the several settlements, for trading, fishing,
+and gathering wild fruits. It was forbidden to enslave
+or deport any Indian, no matter under what circumstances
+he was captured; and Indian apprentices
+or servants for a term of years could only be held as
+such by authority of their parents, or if they had none,
+of the magistrates.<a name='FNanchor_15'></a><a href='#Footnote_15'><sup>[15]</sup></a> Their careful training in Christianity
+was enjoined, and at the end of their terms,
+their discharge, with wages, was secured by law.</p>
+
+<p>The second, and more potent cause of development
+of the New England slave trade, was the commerce between
+those colonies and the West Indies. Each of
+the mother countries endeavoured to monopolize to herself
+all the trade and transportation of her own colonies.
+But it was the perpetual policy of Great Britain
+to intrude into this monopoly, which Spain preserved
+between herself and her colonies, while she jealously
+maintained her own intact. This motive prompted her
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span>
+systematic connivance at every species of illicit navigation
+and traffick of her subjects in those seas. The
+New England colonies were not slow to imitate their
+brethren at home; and although their maritime ventures
+were as really violations of the colonial laws of
+England, as of the rights of Spain, the mother country
+easily connived at them for the sake of their direction.
+The Spanish Main was consequently the scene of a
+busy trade during the seventeenth century, which was
+as unscrupulous and daring as the operations of the
+Buccaneers of the previous age. The only difference
+was, that the red-handed plunder was now perpetrated
+on the African villages instead of the Spanish, and for
+the joint advantage of the New England adventurers
+and the Spanish and British planters. At length, the
+treaty of Utrecht, in 1712, recognized this encroaching
+trade, and provided for its extension throughout the
+Indies.<a name='FNanchor_16'></a><a href='#Footnote_16'><sup>[16]</sup></a> New England adventure, as well as British,
+thus received a new <i>impetus</i>. The wine-staves of her
+forests, the salt fish of her coasts, the tobacco and flour
+of Virginia, were exchanged for sugar and molasses.
+These were distilled into that famous New England
+rum, which, as Dr. Jeremy Belknap, of Massachusetts,
+declared, was the foundation of the African slave trade.<a name='FNanchor_17'></a><a href='#Footnote_17'><sup>[17]</sup></a>
+The slave ships, freighted with this rum, proceeded to
+the coast of Guinea, and, by a most gainful traffick,
+exchanged it for negroes, leaving the savage communities
+behind them on fire with barbarian excess, out of
+which a new crop of petty wars, murders, enslavements,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span>
+and kidnappings grew, to furnish future cargoes of
+victims; while they wafted their human freight to the
+Spanish and British Indies, Virginia, the Carolinas, and
+their own colonies. The larger number of their victims
+were sold in these markets; the less saleable remnants
+of cargoes were brought home, and sold in the New
+England ports. But not seldom, whole cargoes were
+brought thither directly. Dr. Belknap remembered,
+among many others, one which consisted almost wholly
+of children.<a name='FNanchor_18'></a><a href='#Footnote_18'><sup>[18]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Thus, the trade of which the good ship Desire, of
+Salem, was the harbinger, grew into grand proportions;
+and for nearly two centuries poured a flood of
+wealth into New England, as well as no inconsiderable
+number of slaves. The General Court of Massachusetts
+recognized the trade as legal, imposing a duty of �4
+per head on each negro sold in the province, with a
+drawback for those resold out of it, or dying in twelve
+months.<a name='FNanchor_19'></a><a href='#Footnote_19'><sup>[19]</sup></a> The weight of this duty is only evidence of
+a desire to raise revenue, and to discourage the settlement
+of numbers of negroes in Massachusetts; not of
+any disapproval of the traffick in itself, as a proper employment
+of New England enterprise. The government
+of the province preferred white servants, and was
+already aware of the unprofitable nature of African
+labour in their inhospitable climate; but the furnishing
+of other colonies with negroes was a favoured
+branch of commerce. The increase of negro slaves in
+Massachusetts during the seventeenth century was
+slow. But the following century changed the record.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span>
+In 1720, Governor Shute states their numbers at two
+thousand. In 1754, a census of negroes gave four
+thousand five hundred; and the first United States census,
+in 1790, returned six thousand.<a name='FNanchor_20'></a><a href='#Footnote_20'><sup>[20]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Meantime, the other maritime colonies of Rhode
+Island and Providence Plantations, and Connecticut,
+followed the example of their elder sister emulously;
+and their commercial history is but a repetition of that
+of Massachusetts. The towns of Providence, Newport,
+and New Haven became famous slave trading ports.
+The magnificent harbour of the second, especially, was
+the favourite starting-place of the slave ships; and its
+commerce rivalled, or even exceeded, that of the present
+commercial metropolis, New York. All the four
+original States, of course, became slaveholding.<a name='FNanchor_21'></a><a href='#Footnote_21'><sup>[21]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>No records exist, accessible to the historian, by
+which the numbers of slaves brought to this country
+by New England traders can be ascertained. Their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span>
+operations were mingled with those of Englishmen
+from the mother country. While the total of the operations
+of the latter, including their importations into the
+Spanish colonies, was greatly larger than that of the
+New Englanders, the latter probably sustained at least
+an equal share of the trade to the thirteen colonies, up
+to the time of the Revolution; and thenceforward, to
+the year 1808, when the importations were nominally
+arrested, they carried on nearly the whole. So that the
+presence of the major part of the four millions of Africans
+now in America, is due to New England. Some
+further illustrations will be given of the method and
+spirit in which that section conducted the trade. The
+number of The Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser for
+September 12th, 1763, contains the following:</p>
+
+<p>"By a gentleman who arrived here a few days ago
+from the coast of Africa, we are informed of the arrivals
+of Captains Morris, Ferguson, and Wickham, of this
+port, who write very discouraging accounts of the
+trade upon the coast; and that upwards of two hundred
+gallons of real rum had been given for slaves per
+head, and scarcely to be got at any rate for that commodity.
+This must be sensibly felt by this poor and
+distressed Government, <i>the inhabitants whereof being
+very large adventurers in the trade, having sent and about
+sending upwards of twenty sail of vessels</i>, computed to
+carry in the whole about nine thousand hogsheads of
+rum, a quantity much too large for the places on the
+coast, where that commodity has generally been vended.
+We hear that many vessels are also gone and going from
+the neighbouring Governments, likewise from Barbadoes,
+from which place a large cargo of rum had arrived
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span>
+before our informant left the coast, of which they
+gave two hundred and seventy gallons for a prime
+slave."</p>
+
+<p>When it is remembered that the Massachusetts ports
+were then small towns, the fact that they had more
+than twenty ships simultaneously engaged in the trade
+to the Guinea coast alone, clearly reveals that it was
+the leading branch of their maritime adventure, and
+main source of their wealth. The ingenuous lament of
+the printer over the increasing cost of "a prime slave,"
+gives us the correct clue to the change in their views
+concerning the propriety of the trade. When the negro
+rose in value to two hundred gallons "of real rum"
+(the sable slave hunters were becoming as acute as
+Brother Jonathan himself, touching the adulterated article),
+the conscience of the holy adventurer began to
+be disturbed about the righteousness of the traffick.
+When the slave cost two hundred and fifty gallons, the
+scruples became troublesome; and when his price
+mounted up towards three hundred, by reason of the
+imprudence of the naughty man with his large cargo,
+from Barbadoes, the stings of conscience became intolerable.
+By the principles of that religion which "supposeth
+that gain is godliness,"<a name='FNanchor_22'></a><a href='#Footnote_22'><sup>[22]</sup></a> the trade was now
+become clearly wrong.</p>
+
+<p>The following extracts are from the letter of instructions
+given by a leading Salem firm to the captain
+of their ship, upon its clearing for the African
+coast:<a name='FNanchor_23'></a><a href='#Footnote_23'><sup>[23]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Captain</span>&mdash;&mdash;: Our brig, of which you have the
+command, being cleared at the office, and being in
+every other respect complete for sea, our orders are,
+that you embrace the first fair wind, and make the best
+of your way to the coast of Africa, and there invest
+your cargo in slaves. As slaves, when brought to market,
+like other articles, generally appear to the best advantage;
+therefore too critical an inspection cannot be
+paid to them before purchase, to see that no dangerous
+distemper is lurking about them, to attend particularly
+to their age, to their countenances, to the straightness
+of their limbs, and, as far as possible, to the goodness or
+badness of their constitution, etc., etc., will be very considerable
+objects. Male or female slaves, whether full
+grown or not, we cannot particularly instruct you
+about; and on this head shall only observe that prime
+male slaves generally sell best in any market."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"Upon your return, you will touch at St. Pierre's,
+Martinico, and call on Mr. John Mounreau for your
+further advice and destination. We submit the conducting
+of the voyage to your good judgment and prudent
+management, not doubting of your best endeavours
+to serve our interest in all cases; and conclude with committing
+you to the almighty Disposer of all events."</p>
+
+<p>The present commercial and manufacturing wealth of
+New England is to be traced, even more than that of
+Old England, to the proceeds of the slave trade, and
+slave labour. The capital of the former was derived
+mainly from the profits of the Guinea trade. The shipping
+which first earned wealth for its owners in carrying
+the bodies of the slaves, was next employed in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span>
+transporting the cotton, tobacco, and rice which they
+reared, and the imports purchased therewith. And
+when the unjust tariff policy of the United States
+allured the next generation of New Englanders to
+invest the swollen accumulations of their slave trading
+fathers in factories, it was still slave grown cotton
+which kept their spindles busy. The structure of New
+England wealth is cemented with the sweat and blood
+of Africans.</p>
+
+<p>In bright contrast with its guilty cupidity, stands
+the consistent action of Virginia, which, from its very
+foundation as a colony, always denounced and endeavoured
+to resist the trade. It is one of the strange
+freaks of history, that this commonwealth, which was
+guiltless in this thing, and which always presented a
+steady protest against the enormity, should become, in
+spite of herself, the home of the largest number of African
+slaves found within any of the States, and thus,
+should be held up by Abolitionists as the representative
+of the "sin of slaveholding;" while Massachusetts,
+which was, next to England, the pioneer and
+patroness of the slave trade, and chief criminal, having
+gained for her share the wages of iniquity instead of
+the persons of the victims, has arrogated to herself the
+post of chief accuser of Virginia. It is because the latter
+colony was made, in this affair, the helpless victim
+of the tyranny of Great Britain and the relentless avarice
+of New England. The sober evidence of history
+which will be presented, will cause the breast of the
+most deliberate reader to burn with indignation for the
+injustice suffered by Virginia, and the profound hypocrisy
+of her detractors.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The preamble to the State Constitution of Virginia,
+drawn up by George Mason, and adopted by the Convention
+June 29th, 1776, was written by Thomas Jefferson.
+In the recital of grievances against Great Britain,
+which had prompted the commonwealth to assume its
+independence, this preamble contains the following
+words: "By prompting our negroes to rise in arms
+among us; those very negroes whom, by an inhuman
+use of his negative, he had refused us permission to
+exclude by law."<a name='FNanchor_24'></a><a href='#Footnote_24'><sup>[24]</sup></a> Mr. Jefferson, long a leading member
+of the House of Burgesses, and most learned of all
+his contemporaries in the legislation of his country,
+certainly knew whereof he affirmed. His witness is
+more than confirmed by that of Mr. Madison,<a name='FNanchor_25'></a><a href='#Footnote_25'><sup>[25]</sup></a> who
+says: "The British Government constantly checked
+the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to this infernal
+traffick." Mr. Jefferson, in a passage which was expunged
+from the Declaration of Independence by New
+England votes in the Congress, strongly stated the
+same charge. And George Mason, perhaps the greatest
+and most influential of Virginians, next to Washington,
+reiterated the accusation with equal strength,
+in the speech in the Federal Convention, 1787, in which
+he urged the immediate prohibition of the slave trade by
+the United States. See Madison Papers, vol. iii., pp.
+1388-1398. A learned Virginian antiquary has found,
+notwithstanding the destruction of the appropriate evidences,
+which will be explained anon, no less than
+twenty-eight several attempts made by the Burgesses
+to arrest the evil by their legislation, all of which were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>
+either suppressed or negatived by the proprietary or
+royal authority. A learned and pious Huguenot divine,
+having planted his family in the colony, in the first half
+of the last century, bears this testimony: "But our
+Assembly, foreseeing the ill consequences of importing
+such numbers among us, hath often attempted to lay a
+duty upon them which would amount to a prohibition,
+such as ten or twenty pounds a head; but no governor
+dare pass such a law, having instructions to the contrary
+from the Board of Trade at home. By this means
+they are forced upon us, whether we will or not. This
+plainly shows the African Company hath the advantage
+of the colonies, and may do as it pleases with the ministry."<a name='FNanchor_26'></a><a href='#Footnote_26'><sup>[26]</sup></a>
+These personal testimonies are recited the
+more carefully, because the Vandalism of the British
+officers at the Revolution annihilated that regular documentary
+evidence, to which the appeal might otherwise
+be made. Governor Dunmore first, and afterwards
+Colonel Tarleton and Earl Cornwallis, carried off and
+destroyed all the archives of the colony which they
+could seize, and among them the whole of the original
+journals of the House of Burgesses, except the volumes
+containing the proceedings of 1769 and 1772. The only
+sure knowledge which remains of those precious records
+is derived from other documents and fragmentary
+copies of some passages, found afterwards in the desks
+of a few citizens. The wonderfully complete collection
+of their laws edited by Hening, under the title of
+"Statutes at Large," was drawn from copies and collections
+of the acts which, having received the assent
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span>
+of the governors and kings, were promulgated to the
+counties as actual law. Of course the suppressed and
+negatived motions against the slave trade are not to be
+sought among these, but could only have been found in
+the lost journals of the House. But enough of the
+documentary evidence remains, to substantiate triumphantly
+the testimony of individuals.</p>
+
+<p>The first act touching the importation of slaves,
+which was allowed by the royal governor and king,
+was that of the 11th William III., 1699, laying an impost
+of twenty shillings upon each servant or African
+slave imported. The motive assigned is the raising
+of a revenue to rebuild the Capitol or State House,
+lately burned down; and the law was limited to three
+years.<a name='FNanchor_27'></a><a href='#Footnote_27'><sup>[27]</sup></a> This impost was renewed for two farther
+terms of three years, by subsequent Assemblies.<a name='FNanchor_28'></a><a href='#Footnote_28'><sup>[28]</sup></a> Before
+the expiration of this period, the Assembly of 1705
+laid a permanent duty of sixpence per head on all passengers
+and slaves entering the colony;<a name='FNanchor_29'></a><a href='#Footnote_29'><sup>[29]</sup></a> and this
+little burthen, the most which the jealousy of the British
+slave traders would permit, was the germ of the
+future taxes on the importation. This impost was
+increased by the Assembly of 1732, to a duty of five
+<i>per centum ad valorem</i>, for four years.<a name='FNanchor_30'></a><a href='#Footnote_30'><sup>[30]</sup></a> Subsequent
+Assemblies continued this tax until 1740, and then
+doubled it, on the plea of the war then existing.<a name='FNanchor_31'></a><a href='#Footnote_31'><sup>[31]</sup></a>
+During the remainder of the colonial government, the
+impost remained at this grade, ten <i>per centum</i> on the
+price of the slaves, and twenty <i>per centum</i> upon those
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span>
+imported from Maryland or Carolina. As the all-powerful
+African Company in England was not concerned
+in maintaining a transit of the slaves from one
+colony to another, after they were once off their hands,
+they permitted the Burgesses to do as they pleased
+with the Maryland and Carolina importations. Here,
+therefore, we have an unconfined expression of the sentiments
+of the Assemblies; and they showed their fixed
+opposition to the trade by imposing what was virtually
+a prohibitory duty. In 1769, the House of Burgesses
+passed an act for raising the duty on all slaves imported,
+to twenty <i>per centum</i>.<a name='FNanchor_32'></a><a href='#Footnote_32'><sup>[32]</sup></a> The records of the
+Executive Department show that this law was vetoed
+by the king, and declared repealed by a proclamation
+of William Nelson, President of the Council, April 3d,
+1771. The Assembly of 1772 passed the same law
+again, with the substitution of a duty of �5 per head, instead
+of the twenty <i>per centum</i>, on slaves from Maryland
+and Carolina;<a name='FNanchor_33'></a><a href='#Footnote_33'><sup>[33]</sup></a> and it received the signature of Governor
+Dunmore. It may well be doubted whether it
+escaped the royal veto.</p>
+
+<p>But the House now proceeded to a more direct effort
+to extinguish the nefarious traffick. Friday, March
+20th, 1772, it was<a name='FNanchor_34'></a><a href='#Footnote_34'><sup>[34]</sup></a> "Resolved, that an humble address
+be prepared to be presented to his Majesty, to express
+the high opinion we entertain of his benevolent intentions
+towards his subjects in the colonies, and that we
+are thereby induced to ask his paternal assistance in
+averting a calamity of a most alarming nature; that
+the importation of negroes from Africa has long been
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span>
+considered as a trade of great inhumanity, and under
+its present encouragement may endanger the existence
+of his American dominions; that self-preservation,
+therefore, urges us to implore him to remove all restraints
+on his Governors from passing acts of Assembly
+which are intended to check this pernicious commerce;
+and that we presume to hope the interests of a
+few of his subjects in Great Britain will be disregarded,
+when such a number of his people look up to him for
+protection in a point so essential; that when our duty
+calls upon us to make application for his attention to
+the welfare of this, his antient colony, we cannot refrain
+from renewing those professions of loyalty and
+affection we have so often, with great sincerity, made,
+or from assuring him that we regard his wisdom and
+virtue as the surest pledges of the happiness of his
+people."</p>
+
+<p>"Ordered, That a Committee be appointed to draw
+up an address to be presented to his Majesty, upon the
+said resolution." And a Committee was appointed of
+Mr. Harrison, Mr. Carey, Mr. Edmund Pendleton, Mr.
+Richard Henry Lee, Mr. Treasurer, and Mr. Bland.</p>
+
+<p>"Wednesday, April 1st, 1772: Mr. Harrison reported
+from the Committee appointed upon Friday, the twentieth
+day of last month, to draw up an address to be
+presented to his Majesty, that the Committee had drawn
+up an address accordingly, which they had directed
+him to report to the House; and he read the same in
+his place; which is as followeth," etc. The address is
+so nearly in the words of the resolution, that the reader
+need not be detained by its repetition. The House
+agreed, <i>nemine contradicente</i>, to the address, and the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span>
+same Committee was appointed to present an address
+to the Governor, asking him to transmit the address to
+his Majesty, "and to support it in such manner as he
+shall think most likely to promote the desirable end
+proposed." This earnest appeal met the fate of all the
+previous: Mammon and the African Company were
+still paramount at Court, over humanity and right.
+But the Revolution was near at hand, bringing a different
+redress for the grievance.</p>
+
+<p>On the 15th of May, 1776, Virginia declared her independence
+of Great Britain, and the Confederacy, following
+her example, issued its declaration on the 4th
+of July of the same year. The strict blockade observed
+by the British navy, of course arrested the foreign
+slave trade, as well as all other commerce. But in
+1778, the State of Virginia, determined to provide in
+good time against the resumption of the traffick when
+commerce should be reopened, gave final expression
+to her will against it. At the General Assembly held
+October 5th, Patrick Henry being Governor of the Commonwealth,
+the following law was the first passed:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center p2"><span class="smcap lowercase">AN ACT FOR PREVENTING THE FARTHER IMPORTATION OF SLAVES.<a name='FNanchor_35'></a><a href='#Footnote_35'><sup>[35]</sup></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I. For preventing the farther importation of slaves
+into this Commonwealth: <i>Be it enacted by the General
+Assembly</i>, That from and after the passing of this act,
+no slave or slaves shall hereafter be imported into this
+Commonwealth by sea or land, nor shall any slaves so
+imported be bought or sold by any person whatsoever.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"II. Every person hereafter importing slaves into
+this Commonwealth contrary to this act, shall forfeit
+and pay the sum of one thousand pounds for every
+slave so imported, and every person selling or buying
+any such slaves, shall in like manner forfeit and pay the
+sum of five hundred pounds for every slave so bought
+or sold, one moiety of which forfeitures shall be to the
+use of the Commonwealth, and the other moiety to him
+or them that will sue for the same, to be recovered by
+action of debt or information in any court of record.</p>
+
+<p>"III. <i>And be it further enacted</i>, That every slave imported
+into this Commonwealth, contrary to the true
+intent and meaning of this act, shall, upon such importation,
+become free."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The remaining sections of the law only proceed to
+exempt from the penalty citizens of the other United
+States, coming to live as actual residents with their
+slaves in the Commonwealth, and citizens of Virginia
+bringing in slaves from other States of the Union by
+actual inheritance.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Virginia has the honour of being the first Commonwealth
+on earth to declare against the African
+slave trade, and to make it a penal offence. Her action
+antedates by thirty years the much bepraised legislation
+of the British Parliament, and by ten years the
+earliest movement of Massachusetts on the subject;
+while it has the immense advantage, besides, of consistency;
+because she was never stained by any complicity
+in the trade, and she exercised her earliest untrammelled
+power to stay its evils effectually in her dominions.
+Thus, almost before the Clarksons and Wilberforces
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span>
+were born, had Virginia done that very work for
+which her slanderers now pretend so much to laud
+those philanthropists. All that these reformers needed
+to do was to bid the British Government go and imitate
+the example which Virginia was the first to set,
+among the kingdoms of the world. It is true that the
+first Congress of 1774, at Philadelphia, had adopted a
+resolution that the slave trade ought to cease; but this
+body had no powers, either federal or national; it was
+a mere committee; and its inspiration upon this subject,
+as upon most others, came from Virginia. In 1788, Massachusetts
+passed an act forbidding her citizens from
+importing, transporting, buying, or selling any of the
+inhabitants of Africa as slaves, on a penalty of fifty
+pounds for each person so misused, and of two hundred
+pounds for every vessel employed in this traffick. Vessels
+which had already sailed were exempted from all
+penalty for their present voyages.<a name='FNanchor_36'></a><a href='#Footnote_36'><sup>[36]</sup></a> It is manifest from
+the character of the penalties, that this law was not
+passed to be enforced; and the evidence soon to be
+adduced will show, beyond all doubt, that this is true.
+The act was one of those cheap tributes which Pharisaic
+avarice knows so well how to pay to appearances.
+Connecticut passed a very similar law the same year,
+prohibiting her citizens to engage in the slave trade,
+and voiding the policies of insurance on slave ships.
+The slave trade of New England continued in increasing
+activity for twenty years longer.</p>
+
+<p>It may be said, that if the government of Virginia
+was opposed to the African slave trade, her people purchased
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span>
+more of its victims than those of any other colony;
+and the aphorism may be quoted against them,
+that the receiver is as guilty as the thief. This is
+rarely true in the case of individuals, and when applied
+to communities, it is notoriously false. All States contain
+a large number of irresponsible persons. The
+character of a free people as a whole should be estimated
+by that of its corporate acts, in which the common
+will is expressed. The individuals who purchased
+slaves of the traders were doubtless actuated by various
+motives. Many persuaded themselves that, as they
+were already enslaved, and without their agency, and
+as their refusal to purchase them would have no effect
+whatever to procure their restoration to their own country
+and to liberty, they might become their owners,
+without partaking in the wrong of which they were
+the victims. Many were prompted by genuine compassion,
+because they saw that to buy the miserable creatures
+was the only practicable way in their reach to
+rescue them from their pitiable condition; for tradition
+testifies that often when the captives were exposed in
+long ranks upon the shore, near their floating prisons,
+for the inspection of purchasers, they besought the
+planters and their wives to buy them, and testified an
+extravagant joy and gratitude at the event. All purchasers
+were, perhaps, influenced partly by the convenience
+and advantage of possessing their labour.
+Had every individual in Virginia been as intelligent
+and virtuous as the patriots who, in the Burgesses,
+denounced the inhuman traffick, the colony might perhaps
+have remained without a slave, notwithstanding
+the two centuries of temptation during which its ports
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span>
+were plied with cargoes seeking sale. But a commonwealth
+without a single weak, or selfish, or bad man,
+is a Utopia. The proper rulers were forbidden by the
+mother country to employ that prohibitory legislation
+which is, in all States, the necessary guardian of the publick
+virtue; and it is therefore that we place the guilt
+of the sale where that of the importation justly belongs.
+Doubtless many an honourable citizen, after sincerely
+sustaining the endeavour of his Burgess to arrest the
+whole trade, himself purchased Africans, because he
+saw that their general introduction into the country
+was inevitable, without legislative interference; and
+his self-denial would only have subjected him to the
+severe inconveniences of being without slaves in a
+community of slaveholders, whilst it did not arrest the
+evil.</p>
+
+<p>The government of Virginia was unquestionably
+actuated, in prohibiting the slave trade, by a sincere
+sense of its intrinsic injustice and cruelty. Mr. Jefferson,
+a representative man, in his "Notes on Virginia,"
+had given indignant expression to this sentiment. And
+the reprobation of that national wrong, with regret for
+the presence of the African on the soil, was the universal
+feeling of that generation which succeeded the
+Revolution; while they firmly asserted the rightfulness
+of that slavery which they had inherited. But human
+motives are always complex; and along with the moral
+disapprobation for the crime against Africa, the Burgesses
+felt other motives, which, although more personal,
+were right and proper. They were sober, wise
+and practical men, who felt that to protect the rights,
+purity, and prosperity of their own country and posterity,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span>
+was more properly their task, than to plead the
+wrongs of a distant and alien people, great although
+those wrongs might be. They deprecated the slave
+trade, because it was peopling their soil so largely
+with an inferior and savage race, incapable of union,
+instead of with civilized Englishmen. This was precisely
+their apprehension of the enormous wrong done
+the colony by the mother country. They understood
+also the deep political motive which combined with the
+lust of gain to prompt the relentless policy of the Home
+Government. With it, the familiar argument was:
+"Let us stock the plantations plentifully with Africans,
+not only that they may be good customers for our manufactures,
+and producers for our commerce; but that
+they may remain dependent and submissive. An Englishman
+who emigrates, becomes the bold assertor of
+popular and colonial rights; but the negro is only fit
+for bondage." For the same reason, the colonies felt
+that the forcing of the Africans upon them was as
+much a political as a social wrong. But that righteous
+Providence, whose glory it is to make the crimes of the
+designing their own punishment, employed African
+slavery in the Southern colonies as a potent influence
+in forming the character of the Southern gentleman,
+without whose high spirit, independence, and chivalry,
+America would never have won her freedom from British
+rule.</p>
+
+<p>This contrast between the policy and principles of
+Virginia and of the New England colonies will be concluded
+with two evidences. The one is presented in
+the history of the Declaration of Independence. Mr.
+Jefferson, the author, states that he had inserted in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span>
+enumeration of grievances against the King of Great
+Britain, a paragraph strongly reprobating his arbitrary
+support of the slave trade, against the remonstrances of
+some of the colonies. When the Congress discussed
+the paper, this paragraph was struck out, "in complaisance,"
+he declares, "to South Carolina and Georgia,
+who had never attempted to restrain the importation
+of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to
+continue it. Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt
+a little tender under these censures; for though their
+people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had
+been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."<a name='FNanchor_37'></a><a href='#Footnote_37'><sup>[37]</sup></a>
+Thus New England assisted to expunge from that immortal
+paper a testimony against the slave trade,
+which Virginia endeavoured to place there.</p>
+
+<p>The other evidence is presented by a case much more
+practical. In the Convention of 1787, which framed the
+Constitution of the United States, two questions concerning
+African slaves caused dissension. Upon the
+supreme right of the States over the whole subject of
+slavery within their own dominions, upon the recognition
+of slaves as property protected by the federal
+laws, wherever slavery existed, and upon the fugitive
+slave law, not a voice was raised in opposition. But
+the Convention presumed (what subsequent history did
+not confirm,) that the main expenses of the federal
+government would be met by direct taxation; and
+some principle was to be adopted, for determining how
+slaves should rank with freemen, in assessing capitation
+taxes, and apportioning representation. The other
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span>
+question of difficulty was the suppression of the African
+slave trade, which, upon the return of peace, had been
+actively revived by New England, with the connivance
+of Carolina and Georgia. The Southern States, who
+expected to have nearly the whole tax on slaves to
+pay, desired to rate them very low; some members proposed
+that five slaves should count as equal to only one
+white freeman; others, that three slaves should count
+for one. The New England colonies generally desired
+to make a negro count as a white man, both for representation
+and taxation! After much difference, the
+majority of the Convention agreed to a middle conclusion
+proposed by Mr. Madison, that five negroes should
+count for three persons.<a name='FNanchor_38'></a><a href='#Footnote_38'><sup>[38]</sup></a> But the other question was
+not so easily arranged. The Committee of eleven appointed
+to draw up a first draught of a constitution had
+proposed that in Art. vii., &#167; 4, of their draught, Congress
+should be prohibited from laying any import duty
+on African slaves brought into the country. The effect
+of this, so far as the federal government was concerned,
+would be to legalize the slave trade forever, and protect
+it from all burdens.<a name='FNanchor_39'></a><a href='#Footnote_39'><sup>[39]</sup></a> Maryland (by her legislature,
+then sitting,) to her immortal honour, and Pennsylvania
+and Virginia, exhibited a determination to
+change this section, so as to arrest the trade through
+the action of the federal government, either by prohibition
+or tax. The New England States, South Carolina,
+and Georgia, opposed them, and advocated the original
+section, assigning various grounds. The difference
+threatened to make shipwreck of the whole work of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span>
+the Convention, when Gouverneur Morris adroitly proposed
+to commit the subject, along with that of the
+proposed navigation law, in order that disagreeing
+parties might be induced, by private conference, to
+combine mutual concessions into a sort of bargain.
+The subjects were accordingly committed to a Committee
+of one from each State. This Committee reported,
+August 24th, "in favour of not allowing Congress to
+prohibit the importation of slaves before 1800, but giving
+them power to impose a duty at a rate not exceeding
+the average of other imports." South Carolina
+(through General Pinckney) moved to prolong the
+importation from 1800 to 1808, <i>and Massachusetts</i>
+(through Mr. Gorham) <i>seconded the motion</i>. It was
+then passed, as last proposed, <i>New Hampshire</i>, <i>Massachusetts</i>,
+<i>Connecticut</i>, (the only New England States
+then present,) Maryland, North Carolina, and South
+Carolina, voting in the affirmative, and New Jersey,
+Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia in the negative.<a name='FNanchor_40'></a><a href='#Footnote_40'><sup>[40]</sup></a>
+The maritime States soon after gained their point, of
+authorizing Congress to pass, by a majority vote, a
+navigation law for their advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, by the assistance of New England, the iniquities
+of the African slave trade, and the influx of that
+alien and savage race into America, were prolonged
+from the institution of the federal government until
+1808. Is it said, that New England had at this time
+no interest in slavery, did not value it, and was already
+engaged in removing it at home? This is true; and it
+is so much the worse for her historical position. It
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span>
+only shows that she desired to fix that institution which
+she had ascertained to be a curse to her, upon her
+neighbours, for the sake of keeping open twenty years
+longer an infamous but gainful employment, and of
+securing a legislative bounty to her shipping. In other
+words, her policy was simply mercenary. And these
+votes for prolonging the slave trade effectually rob her
+of credit for emancipation at home; proving beyond
+all peradventure, that the latter measure was wholly
+prompted by her sense of her own interests, and not of
+the rights of the negro. For if the latter motive had
+governed, must it not have made her the equal opponent
+of the increase of slavery in Carolina and Georgia?</p>
+
+<p>But the agency of New England in that increase was
+still more active and direct. As though to "make hay
+while the sun shone," the people of that section renewed
+their activity on the African coast, with a diligence
+continually increasing up to 1808. Carey, in his work
+upon the slave trade, estimates the importations into
+the thirteen colonies between 1771 and 1790, (nineteen
+years,) at thirty-four thousand; but that between the
+institution of the federal government and 1808, he
+places at seventy thousand. His estimate here is unquestionably
+far too low; because forty thousand were
+introduced at the port of Charleston, South Carolina,
+alone, the last four years;<a name='FNanchor_41'></a><a href='#Footnote_41'><sup>[41]</sup></a> and within the years 1806
+and 1807, there were six hundred arrivals of New England
+slavers at that place.<a name='FNanchor_42'></a><a href='#Footnote_42'><sup>[42]</sup></a> The latter fact shows that
+those States must have possessed nearly the whole
+traffick. And the former bears out Mr. De Bow, in enlarging
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span>
+the total of importations under the federal government
+to one hundred and twenty-five thousand, at
+least. For the average at one port was ten thousand
+per year. In 1860, there were ten-fold as many Africans
+in the United States as had been originally brought
+thither from Africa. But as many of these had been
+multiplying for four, or even five generations, this
+rate of increase is too large to assume for the importations
+of 1800, whose descendants had only come to the
+third generation. Assuming the half as nearly correct,
+which seems a moderate estimate, we find their increase
+five-fold. So that there were, in 1860, six hundred and
+twenty-five thousand more slaves in the United States
+than would have been found here, had not New England's
+cruelty and avarice assisted to prolong the slave
+trade nineteen years after Virginia and the federal
+government would otherwise have arrested it.</p>
+
+<p>After the British, and even after the other governments
+of Europe, had abolished the trade in name, it
+continued with a vast volume. Whereas at the time of
+the abolition, in 1808, eighty-five thousand slaves were
+taken from Africa annually, nearly fifty thousand annually
+were still carried, as late as 1847, to Brazil and
+the Spanish Indies.<a name='FNanchor_43'></a><a href='#Footnote_43'><sup>[43]</sup></a> In this illicit trade, no Virginian
+(and, indeed, no Southern) ship or shipmaster has ever
+been in a single case implicated, although our State
+had meantime begun no inconsiderable career of maritime
+adventure. But adventurers from New England
+ports and New York were continually found sharing
+the lion's portion of the foul spoils. And to the latest
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span>
+reclamations of the British Government upon the Brazilian,
+for violations of the treaties and laws against
+the slave trade upon the extended shores of that empire,
+the answer of its noble Emperor has still been,
+that if Britain would find the real culprits, she must go
+to the ports of Boston and New York to seek them.<a name='FNanchor_44'></a><a href='#Footnote_44'><sup>[44]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>But one more fact remains: When the late Confederate
+Government adopted a constitution, although it was
+composed exclusively of slaveholding States, it voluntarily
+did what the United States has never done: it
+placed an absolute prohibition of the foreign slave
+trade in its organic law.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III.<br />
+
+LEGAL STATUS OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It has been a favourite and persistent assertion of
+Abolitionists, that slavery in America was an exceptional
+institution, and contrary to the law of nature
+and nations. They represent it as owing its existence
+solely to the <i>lex loci</i> of the States where it was
+legalized by their own legislation; and hence they
+draw the conclusion, that the moment a slave passed
+out of one of these States into a free State, or into the
+territories of the United States, his bondage terminated
+of itself. Hence, also, they argue that slaveholders
+had no right to the protection of that species of property
+in the territories, which were the common possession
+of the citizens of all the States; and that the federal
+government could not properly permit the growth
+of, or recognize, new slave States. Their party cry
+was: "Freedom is national; slavery is local." It is
+plain that this proposition is the premise necessary to
+all the above assumptions. It will now be shown that
+this proposition is untrue. Slavery in the United
+States, instead of being the mere creature of <i>lex loci</i>,
+was founded on a basis as broad as that of the American
+Union, was in full accordance with the law of nature
+and nations as then recognized by the States and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span>
+the federal government, and had universal recognition
+by the force of general law. The exclusion of slavery
+from any State was legally the exception, owing its
+validity purely to the <i>lex loci</i>, and to the recognized
+sovereignty of the States over their own local affairs.
+Hence, the rights of slaveholders stood valid, of course,
+in all the common territories of the United States, and
+everywhere, save where the sovereignty of a non-slaveholding
+State arrested them within its own borders.
+This representation is established by the following
+facts:</p>
+
+<p>First. When the federal government was formed, all
+the family of European nations was slaveholding; and
+they all alike held the Africans as unquestioned and
+legitimate subjects of bondage. The slave trade was
+held by publick law as legitimate as the trade in corn.
+It was the subject of treaty stipulations between the
+several powers; and slave trading companies were
+formally chartered and protected by all the leading
+powers. Slaves were declared by the English judges
+to be merchandise.<a name='FNanchor_45'></a><a href='#Footnote_45'><sup>[45]</sup></a> They were universally held legal
+prize of war when taken on the high seas.<a name='FNanchor_46'></a><a href='#Footnote_46'><sup>[46]</sup></a> They were
+recognized subjects of reclamation in forming and executing
+treaties. Thus, not to go outside of our own
+history, we find General Washington, in 1783, by order
+of Congress, remonstrating with the British commander
+evacuating New York city, because certain officers of
+the retiring forces carried away with them the fugitive
+slaves of American citizens; and the latter was compelled
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span>
+to surrender the attempt, as an unauthorized
+spoliation of property.<a name='FNanchor_47'></a><a href='#Footnote_47'><sup>[47]</sup></a> In 1788, the Government of
+the United States claimed of Spain the return of fugitive
+slaves from the Spanish colony of Florida;<a name='FNanchor_48'></a><a href='#Footnote_48'><sup>[48]</sup></a> and
+our government promised, in return, the rendition of
+Spanish slaves found in the United States. It is well
+known that the treaty of the United States with Great
+Britain, negotiated by Mr. Jay, and ratified by President
+Washington, and the treaty of Ghent, in 1815,
+both secured indemnities for slaves of American citizens
+abducted during the two wars; thus treating them
+as property under the protection of national law in
+America, and of the law of nations. In face of this
+array of facts, we boldly ask, with what face it can be
+asserted that slavery was not recognized by international
+law? Whether it is not as consonant with the
+law of nature as of nations, will appear at another
+place.</p>
+
+<p>Second. During the whole planting and growth of the
+British colonies in America, and at the time when they
+passed from that government into the federal Union,
+the Empire of Great Britain was slaveholding in all its
+parts. The obvious consequence is, that the government
+formed by the thirteen colonies in a part of the
+territory of that empire, inherited the legal condition of
+their mother, in this particular. In seceding from that
+empire, they brought away the slaveholding <i>status</i>; and
+this subsisted <i>ipso facto</i>, except where it was changed
+by the <i>lex loci</i>. All the original territory of the American
+Union was slave territory, as was that subsequently
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span>
+acquired from France. Hence slave owners of
+course possessed their rights in all this territory, unless
+they were expressly restrained by special legislation
+of the States, sovereign each one within its own borders.
+The consequence cannot be denied, if the premise
+be admitted. Let the reader consider the following
+evidences of it:</p>
+
+<p>In 1772, only four years before the Declaration of
+Independence, Lord Mansfield, in the Court of King's
+Bench, decided the famous Somersett case, by which, it
+has usually been asserted, slavery was forever terminated
+in England, and the principle was settled that
+this relation was inconsistent with her free laws. Mr.
+Stewart, a citizen of Virginia, going to England on
+business, carried with him a negro slave, Somersett,
+whom he had bought in Jamaica. After a time he
+indicated a purpose to return home, carrying his slave
+with him; whereupon the negro absconded. His
+master had him seized, and placed on board a ship
+in the Thames, to be forcibly carried to Jamaica and
+sold. The negro then sued out an application for
+<i>habeas corpus</i>, which being argued at a previous term,
+was finally decided by Lord Mansfield, at the Trinity
+term, 1772. The true extent of that decision will hereafter
+be shown. Our purpose here is to cite the admissions
+made by the court, as to the existing state of
+English laws.<a name='FNanchor_49'></a><a href='#Footnote_49'><sup>[49]</sup></a> It is noticeable, that this tribunal exhibited
+a great reluctance to decide the case, declaring
+that it was attended with great, and almost inextricable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span>
+difficulties, and that Lord Mansfield proposed to
+evade a decision by recommending a compromise between
+Mr. Stewart and the black. This not being
+done, the court stated that there were then fifteen
+thousand negro slaves in England, worth not less
+than seven hundred thousand pounds sterling. It
+also recognized the decisions of Sir Philip Yorke, and
+Lord Chief Justice Talbot, confirmed in 1749, by that
+of the chancellor, Lord Hardewicke, that if a slave,
+brought by his master to England, should be detained
+from him, an action of <i>trover</i> for his recovery would
+lie; and the decision of Lord Talbot, that a negro
+slave brought by his master to England from a colony,
+or baptized by the clergy, did not thereby gain
+his liberty; and the opinion of the latter that while
+the Statute of Tenures had abolished manorial villeinage,
+a white man might still become a <i>villein in gross</i>,
+by the laws of England.<a name='FNanchor_50'></a><a href='#Footnote_50'><sup>[50]</sup></a> The court declared farther,
+that the slave property of a debtor was undoubtedly
+liable to action in the English courts, to recover the
+sums due a creditor. But after all these admissions,
+which clearly amount to a recognition of the fact
+that England itself was then by law a slaveholding
+country, Lord Mansfield proceeds to settle the principle
+(the only one, as he carefully declares, to which
+his decision extends) that the power of the writ of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span>
+<i>habeas corpus</i>, not being limited to free persons by
+express statute, should, as he thinks, in England be
+extended to slaves, when they invoke it, and should be
+held to override the rights of the master under the
+laws; because those rights were now regarded as
+odious and excessive by current publick opinion.
+Such, and no more, is the extent of this much be praised,
+and much misunderstood decision! It is
+plain to common sense, that if it is not an instance of
+the judicial abuse of making, instead of expounding,
+law, it only establishes the fact that the laws of slaveholding
+England were then in a ridiculously inconsistent
+state.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, not only were there then fifteen thousand
+negro slaves in England, but they were publickly
+bought and sold in the markets of London. The prevalence
+of slavery is attested by another species of historical
+evidence, very different from that of learned
+judges, but at least as authentick. The pictures by
+which Hogarth has fixed the follies and peculiarities of
+fashionable life on his immortal canvass, frequently
+contain the African valet; showing that the possession
+of this species of servants was demanded by high life.
+From the Normans, those noted slaveholders, to 1775,
+no statute had been passed upon the subject of personal
+slavery.<a name='FNanchor_51'></a><a href='#Footnote_51'><sup>[51]</sup></a> There then existed, in the northern part of
+the kingdom of Great Britain, from thirty thousand to
+forty thousand persons, of whom the Parliament said,
+"Many colliers, coal-heavers, and salters, are in a state
+of slavery, or bondage, bound to the collieries or salt-works
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span>
+where they work, for life, transferable with the
+collieries and salt-works, when their original masters
+have no use for them."<a name='FNanchor_52'></a><a href='#Footnote_52'><sup>[52]</sup></a> Again in 1799, they declare
+that "many colliers and coal-heavers still continue in
+a state of bondage."</p>
+
+<p>Thus it appears that England was itself slave territory,
+at the time the thirteen colonies, declaring their
+independence, brought away her laws and institutions.
+But our argument of this fact is <i>ex abundantia</i>; it may
+be waived, and still our conclusion holds, because, by
+existing laws, all the plantations and colonies of England
+in America were then, yet more indisputably,
+slave territory. No stronger proof of this proposition
+can be imagined, than the manner in which slavery was
+planted in these communities. Not only were all the
+thirteen colonies, and all the West India plantations,
+slaveholding; but it required no statute, either of Parliament
+or of colonial legislature, to introduce African
+slavery, or to establish the right of the owner, because
+it was already established by imperial law and usage.
+The first negroes were bought in Virginia in 1620; the
+first act touching their bondage was passed by the
+Burgesses in 1659; and this does not enact their slavery,
+but recognizes it as existing. It was not until
+1670,<a name='FNanchor_53'></a><a href='#Footnote_53'><sup>[53]</sup></a> that any law was passed which expressly enacted
+their slavery. But for fifty years they had been
+unquestioned slaves, had paid impost duty as such, had
+been bought and sold, had been bequeathed, had been
+subject of suits. By what law? Obviously by the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span>
+general law of the British Empire, and of nations. The
+manner of the introduction of slavery into Massachusetts
+was the same. "The involuntary servitude of
+Indians and negroes in the several colonies originated
+under a law not promulgated by legislation, and rested
+upon prevalent views of universal jurisprudence, or the
+<i>law of nations</i>, supported by the express or implied
+authority of the Home Government."<a name='FNanchor_54'></a><a href='#Footnote_54'><sup>[54]</sup></a> But the
+"canny" Puritans, more careful than the Virginians to
+fortify their slave property, enacted slavery of both
+classes, in their earliest codes of laws, 1641 and 1660.<a name='FNanchor_55'></a><a href='#Footnote_55'><sup>[55]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>That African slavery was the universal law of the
+British colonial empire, is equally plain from the facts
+already given concerning the legalizing of the slave
+trade. The treaty of Utrecht secured to Britain a
+monopoly of that traffick. The Parliament chartered
+the African Company, with the right to trade in slaves
+to all the colonies. The Parliament then by statute
+threw the trade open to all British subjects. The Parliament,
+by express law, made the property in slaves
+held in the colonies subject of action in English courts.
+The Solicitor-General, with Chancellor after Chancellor,
+decided that residence in England did not emancipate
+the slave upon his return to his colonial home. The
+General Court of Massachusetts enacted the same rule,
+as did the Burgesses of Virginia, again and again;
+and were never disallowed therein by the king. Even
+so late as 1827, fifty-five years after the Somersett case,
+Lord Stowell decided, in the case of the slave Grace,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>
+from Antigua, that on her return to the colony, her
+condition as a slave for life was fully revived.<a name='FNanchor_56'></a><a href='#Footnote_56'><sup>[56]</sup></a> And
+in the correctness of this decision, we find Mr. Justice
+Story concurring.<a name='FNanchor_57'></a><a href='#Footnote_57'><sup>[57]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The argument then is, that at the American Revolution
+all the territory claimed by the thirteen colonies
+was, by the law of the Empire, and of nations, slaveholding
+territory. The colonies, in assuming their
+independence, brought away the rights and institutions
+which they had inherited as colonial parts of that
+empire; and whatever prescriptive right was not
+expressly changed by law, was universally held to
+survive, as of course. Hence all the territory of the
+American Union was slave territory; and the only
+mode by which any part became non-slaveholding, was
+by the exercise of State sovereignty enacting a <i>lex loci</i>,
+which was only operative within the bounds of the
+State itself.</p>
+
+<p>Third. The chief territory which the United States
+acquired between the Revolution and the Mexican war,
+was Louisiana. This vast region was gained by treaty
+from France in 1803. It was then a single province
+and government of the French Republick, and was,
+through all its extent, a slaveholding country. In the
+third article of the treaty for its purchase, between the
+United States and the First Consul, it was stipulated
+that until the ceded territory should be incorporated, as
+States, in the Union, all its citizens should be "in the
+mean time maintained and protected in the free enjoyment
+of their liberty, property, and the religion which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span>
+they profess." The settled doctrine of the courts of
+Louisiana has always been, that this guarantee covered
+all the citizens emigrating into any part of the
+territory before its erection into a State, as fully as
+those living in Louisiana in 1803.<a name='FNanchor_58'></a><a href='#Footnote_58'><sup>[58]</sup></a> Thus, the rights of
+slave owners in the whole of the Louisiana purchase
+were guaranteed to them by treaty, until such time as
+the part they inhabited became a sovereign State, and
+thus assumed plenary power over the subject. But, by
+Article 6th, &#167; 2d, of the Constitution of the United
+States, all treaties made by the authority of the United
+States are declared to be the supreme law of the land.
+Thus the rights of the master in all this region were
+placed above the power of the legislature itself.</p>
+
+<p>Fourth. The federal constitution recognized and protected
+property in slaves, in every way which was
+competent to a federative compact of this kind. The
+slaveholding States had representation for three-fifths
+of their slaves. The slaves were made subjects of direct
+taxation, as property. The constitution provided
+expressly for a fugitive slave law, which was soon
+passed by the Congress, and continued to be the law of
+the land until the termination of the government. By
+the constitution, property in slaves was created like any
+other property; and no ground can be found for the assertion
+that its rights were more restricted than rights
+in cattle or lands. But the fundamental idea of that instrument
+was the impartial equality of all the citizens
+before the law. Whatever authority Congress had over
+the common territories, was as trustee for all the citizens
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span>
+of the United States equally. Hence it seems obvious
+that this body was bound to recognize in all the
+citizens equal rights, in going into those territories with
+any species of property which they might hold by the
+laws of any State, or of Congress, and to protect them
+in those rights while the country was in a territorial
+condition.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, these principles have been expressly decided
+by the highest constitutional authority in the land, as
+well as by the voice of the most enlightened founders
+of the government. When the mischievous contest concerning
+the admission of Missouri was rising in 1819,
+Mr. Madison declared, concerning the article of the constitution
+which conferred on Congress its powers over
+the territories, (Art. 4, &#167; 3,) that "it cannot be well extended
+beyond a power over the territories <i>as property</i>,
+and the power to make provisions really needful or
+necessary for the government of settlers, until ripe
+for admission into the Union."<a name='FNanchor_59'></a><a href='#Footnote_59'><sup>[59]</sup></a> The Supreme Court of
+the United States, in the well-known case of Dred Scott,
+decided that Africans were not citizens of the United
+States in the meaning of the constitution;<a name='FNanchor_60'></a><a href='#Footnote_60'><sup>[60]</sup></a> that property
+in African slaves was on the same footing under
+that instrument with other legal property;<a name='FNanchor_61'></a><a href='#Footnote_61'><sup>[61]</sup></a> that the
+residence of a slave in a territory of the United States
+did not emancipate him, nor did his residence in a non-slaveholding
+State for a time, prevent the recurrence
+of his state of bondage, on his return to the State in
+which he had been a slave;<a name='FNanchor_62'></a><a href='#Footnote_62'><sup>[62]</sup></a> and that Congress had no
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span>
+power to use its authority to exclude slavery from any
+part of the territories.<a name='FNanchor_63'></a><a href='#Footnote_63'><sup>[63]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Thus the main proposition with which we set out is
+abundantly sustained by the history and legislation of
+the country. Three evasions from this conclusion have
+been attempted, of which the first is from the language
+of the Declaration of Independence, in which these famous
+words occur: "We hold these truths to be self-evident:
+that all men are created equal; that they are
+endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
+rights; that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit
+of happiness," etc. The inference is, that the Declaration
+intended to imply that the slavery of the Africans
+was a natural wrong incapable of being legalized;
+and it is claimed that this document is of the organic
+force of constitutional law to the confederation which
+then asserted its independence. Both these suppositions
+are erroneous. As to the latter, it may be justly
+argued, that the Declaration of Independence was simply
+what it calls itself: a <i>declaration</i>, a justificatory
+statement addressed to the world without, and not an
+act of organic legislation ascertaining the rights of the
+citizens within. The evidence is, that it <i>enacts nothing</i>
+save the one point of the independence of the colonies.
+Neither the Confederation nor the new Union formed in
+1787 ever based any legislation upon it, save as their acts
+involved the fact of independence. The constitution
+made no reference to it; did not ground itself upon
+it, and did not re�nact it. Hence, let its meaning be
+what it may, it legislates nothing for or against slavery.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But it is too clear to be disputed, that the enslaved
+African race were not intended to be included, and
+formed no part of the people who asserted their rights
+in this Declaration. The evidence is, that if the men
+who framed it had intended to refer to African slavery,
+they would have completely stultified themselves. For
+the majority of them, and of the States which they represented,
+continued to hold Africans in bondage just as
+before. A few years after, the same men met in federal
+convention, and framed the late constitution of the
+United States; by which property in slaves was protected
+and perpetuated as before, and traffick in Africans
+was prolonged until 1808, and made subject of
+taxation like other merchandise. The States which
+were emancipating their own Africans, equally with
+those which retained them in bondage, retained their
+laws prohibiting the marriage of Africans with whites.<a name='FNanchor_64'></a><a href='#Footnote_64'><sup>[64]</sup></a>
+Connecticut, until 1796, prohibited free negroes from
+travelling beyond their township without a pass. New
+Hampshire, and Congress itself, precluded negroes from
+serving in the militia.<a name='FNanchor_65'></a><a href='#Footnote_65'><sup>[65]</sup></a> The Declaration of Independence
+was therefore intended by its framers to assert
+the liberties of civilized Americans and Englishmen,
+and not of African barbarians held in bondage. Whether
+their consistency therein can be defended, is a separate
+question, to which attention will be given in the
+proper place. But all publicists are agreed, that the
+meaning of a document is the document; and that this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span>
+meaning is to be ascertained by the intentions of those
+who frame and adopt it.</p>
+
+<p>The second objection to our conclusion is grounded
+upon the Ordinance of the Confederation, in 1787, by
+which slavery was prohibited in the North-western Territory
+ceded to the United States by Virginia. This
+magnificent domain, including the present States of
+Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, was conquered from the public
+enemy in the years 1778-9, by the Commonwealth
+of Virginia. She sent out her own troops, at her own
+charges, without either authority or assistance from
+the Confederation, then also engaged in a war with
+Great Britain, under her own commission to her heroick
+son, General George Rogers Clarke. Upon the conquest
+of the country, she disposed by her own State action
+of the prisoners of war captured, and annexed the
+territory to the State of Virginia, which then also included
+Kentucky. The other States, and the Confederation, uniformly
+recognized this region as legitimately
+a part of Virginia. But during and after the war, the
+States which owned no unsettled territory grew exceedingly
+jealous of those which possessed such regions,
+and especially of Virginia. They feared her ulterior
+grandeur and power. But their expressed plea was,
+that she, and other States possessed of vacant lands,
+could pay their share of the common war debt, without
+taxation, by the sale of these lands, which, as they
+claimed, were the fruits of the common exertions of the
+States, while the others would be subjected to an onerous
+taxation. The North-west Territory had, in fact,
+been won by Virginia, with her own bow and spear;
+but at the request of the Congress of the Confederation,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>
+she magnanimously laid the splendid prize upon the
+altar of the common cause, ceding it in 1784 to Congress,
+for the common behoof of the United States.
+The Congress of the Confederation passed a long enactment,
+known as the Ordinance of 1787, providing, in
+many articles, for its settlement, for its government
+while a territory, and for the sale of lands. Among
+these was a clause prohibiting slavery in it. But meantime,
+the Confederation was superseded by the general
+government organized under the new constitution of
+1787. The first Congress during the administration of
+General Washington, acting under the article of the
+constitution already cited for taking and managing the
+"territory and other property" of the Confederation,
+passed an act, (August 7th, 1789,) for putting in effect
+the Ordinance of the Congress of the Confederation,
+now extinct.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the history of the case. The inference of the
+objector is, that because the Congress of 1789, acting
+under the late constitution, claimed power to execute
+the ordinance of 1787, (passed by the previous and different
+general government,) with its anti-slavery clause
+included, therefore that constitution gave it power to
+exclude slavery from any other territory. But the inference
+is worthless. For, first, the Congress of the
+old Confederation had not a particle of constitutional
+power to adopt such an anti-slavery clause. So declared
+Mr. Madison emphatically:<a name='FNanchor_66'></a><a href='#Footnote_66'><sup>[66]</sup></a> and so has decided
+the Supreme Court of the United States.<a name='FNanchor_67'></a><a href='#Footnote_67'><sup>[67]</sup></a> Both these
+high authorities declare, that if the clause had any
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span>
+validity, it derived it only from the assent of Virginia,
+who had full sovereignty over the territory, and who
+accepted and ratified the exclusion by act of her General
+Assembly, as well as by the mouths of her representatives
+in the Confederation. And the Congress of
+1789, in accepting the conditions imposed by the Ordinance
+of 1787 on the territory, as valid and abiding,
+undertook to change nothing, because it regarded that
+validity as the result of treaty stipulations between
+Virginia and the other twelve States represented by the
+old Congress. It conceived itself as having inherited
+from a previous and different government powers over
+this particular territory, which it could by no means
+have originated by its own constitutional authority.<a name='FNanchor_68'></a><a href='#Footnote_68'><sup>[68]</sup></a>
+Second: The government framed under the new constitution
+was one of limited powers; and Congress was
+expressly inhibited, by the instrument which created
+it, from exercising any authority not granted. But such
+a power as that to exclude citizens of any of the United
+States from the common territory, because they proposed to
+carry there property legalized both by the
+Constitution of the United States and of their own
+State, was not granted to Congress. That a government
+whose very foundation was the equality of the
+States, should thus attempt to disfranchise some States
+of a part of their rights, was a solecism too monstrous
+for these able and enlightened men. Third: When
+similar cessions of territory were afterwards made by
+North Carolina and Georgia, these States refused to Congress
+the privilege of appending to their laws touching
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span>
+these lands, the exclusion of slavery; and Congress
+obeyed, so framing their enactments as to admit and
+protect slave-owners. This proves that the exclusion
+derived its force from the consent of the Sovereign
+State, and not from the power of Congress.</p>
+
+<p>The third ground of objection which has been advanced
+against our main proposition, is the doctrine
+said to have been decided by the Supreme Court of the
+United States, (as in the case of Prigg against the
+State of Pennsylvania,) that according to recognized
+international laws, a nation which does not hold slaves
+itself is not bound to recognize property in slaves in
+neighbouring nations, when those slaves come into its
+borders; and that if a rendition is claimed, it must be
+asked of comity, or of special stipulation, and not as of
+international right. The answer is clear and facile.
+The States of the American Union were, initially, as independent
+nations to each other; and then they were
+all slaveholding. Each one of them recognized in its
+own citizens the right of property in slaves; and therefore,
+if the above doctrine be granted, they could not
+then, by international law, refuse to recognize it in nations
+living at amity with them. Again: When they
+passed out of this condition of absolute independence,
+into that of federal union, their relations, so far as they
+ceased to be international, were regulated exclusively
+by the constitution; and by this constitution the property
+in slaves was expressly recognized, the rendition
+of fugitive slaves was expressly required of all the
+States, whether themselves holding slaves or not; and
+all the common territory of the Union was originally
+slave territory until it became free territory by sovereign
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span>
+State action. Plainly, in such a case as this, the
+international law of Europe has no application, against
+historical facts and actual constitutional enactments.
+The sophism of this plea in the mouths of anti-slavery
+men, the uniform assertors of consolidation doctrines,
+would make the States, in the same breath, independent
+nations, in order that the international law of a different
+hemisphere may be applied against them, and also subject
+provinces of an anti-slavery nation, in order that
+they may be stripped of that equality of rights, belonging
+to sovereign constituent parties in a confederation.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.<br />
+
+HISTORY OF EMANCIPATION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The motive for introducing the historical facts contained
+in this chapter is the following: That the credit
+of Virginia as a slaveholding State is relatively illustrated
+by the conduct of her partners in the confederation
+touching the same matter. Virginia never passed
+a general act of emancipation; on the contrary, she
+forbade masters to free their slaves within her borders,
+unless they also provided for their removal to new
+homes. But what was it which the Northern States
+actually did? The general answer to this question cannot
+be better given than in the words of the Hon. A. H.
+H. Stuart of Virginia, in his Report to the General Assembly,
+as chairman of its joint committee on the Harper's
+Ferry outrages. He says:</p>
+
+<p>"At the date of the declaration of our national independence,
+slavery existed in every colony of the Confederation....</p>
+
+<p>"Shortly after the Declaration of Independence, the
+Northern States adopted prospective measures to relieve
+themselves of the African population. But it is a
+great mistake to suppose that their policy in this
+particular was prompted by any spirit of philanthropy or
+tender regard for the welfare of the negro race. On
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span>
+the contrary, it was dictated by an enlightened self-interest,
+yielding obedience to overruling laws of social
+economy. Experience had shown that the African race
+were not adapted to high northern latitudes, and that
+slave labour could not compete successfully with free
+white labour in those pursuits to which the industry of
+the North was directed. This discovery having been
+made, the people of the North, at an early day, began
+to dispose of their slaves by sale to citizens of the Southern
+States, whose soil, climate, and productions were
+better adapted to their habits and capacities; and the
+legislation of the Northern States, following the course
+of publick opinion, was directed, not to emancipation,
+but to the removal of the slave population beyond their
+limits. To effect this object, they adopted a system of
+laws which provided, prospectively, that all slaves born
+of female slaves, within their jurisdiction, after certain
+specified dates, should be held free when they attained
+a given age. No law can be found on the statute-book
+of any Northern State, which conferred the boon of
+freedom on a single slave in being. All who were
+slaves remained slaves. Freedom was secured only to
+the children of slaves, born after the days designated
+in the laws; and it was secured to them only in the
+contingency that the owner of the female slave should
+retain her within the jurisdiction of the State until after
+the child was born. To secure freedom to the afterborn child,
+therefore, it was necessary that the consent
+of the master, indicated by his permitting the mother
+to remain in the State, should be superadded to the provisions
+of the law. Without such consent, the law
+would have been inoperative, because the mother, before
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span>
+the birth of the child, might, at the will of the master,
+be removed beyond the jurisdiction of the law. There
+was no legal prohibition of such removal, for such a
+prohibition would have been at war with the policy of
+the law, which was obviously removal, and not emancipation.
+The effect of this legislation was, as might
+have readily been foreseen, to induce the owners of female
+slaves to sell them to the planters of the South,
+before the time arrived when the forfeiture of the offspring
+would accrue. By these laws, a wholesale slave
+trade was inaugurated, under which a large proportion
+of the slaves of the Northern States were sold to persons
+residing south of Pennsylvania; and it is an unquestionable
+fact that a large number of the slaves of
+the Southern States are the descendants of those sold
+by Northern men to citizens of the South, with covenants
+of general warranty of title to them and to their
+increase."</p>
+
+<p>Thus wrote Mr. Stuart, after thorough research. A
+brief recital of the enactments of the Northern slaveholding
+States will show that his general representation
+is correct. We begin with Massachusetts. No
+law against slavery, (which had been long legally established
+in the colony,) was ever passed by her legislature;<a name='FNanchor_69'></a><a href='#Footnote_69'><sup>[69]</sup></a>
+and in that sense, the right to hold slaves
+may be said to have formally existed, until it was extinguished
+by her adoption of the "constitutional
+amendment," in 1866! Practically, slavery was gradually
+removed after 1780, by the current of the legal
+decisions against it, grounded upon a clause in the new
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span>
+bill of rights, adopted by the State in that year. This
+clause asserted, nearly in the words of the Declaration
+of Independence, the native equality and liberty of
+men. In 1781 a slave of N. Jennison, of Worcester
+County, recovered damages of his master for beating.<a name='FNanchor_70'></a><a href='#Footnote_70'><sup>[70]</sup></a>
+This decision, if sustained, of course implied the cessation
+of slavery. Although the Legislature of the State
+was moved in 1783, by this Jennison and others, to declare
+that slavery did not exist legally, so that the
+doubt might be ended, that body refused to act; nor
+did it ever after abolish slavery.<a name='FNanchor_71'></a><a href='#Footnote_71'><sup>[71]</sup></a> But judicial
+decisions after the example of the Jennison case were
+made from time to time, until, in 1796, the Supreme Court
+of Massachusetts, in the case of Littleton <i>v.</i> Tuttle,<a name='FNanchor_72'></a><a href='#Footnote_72'><sup>[72]</sup></a>
+gave its countenance to the doctrine, that the bill of
+rights virtually made slavery illegal. That all this
+was a glaring instance of the judicial abuse, <i>ampliandi
+jurisdictionem</i>, is manifest from many facts: That the
+Massachusetts statesmen who adopted the same proposition
+in the Declaration of Independence, never dreamed
+of its possessing any force to abolish slavery in the
+United States which set it forth: That the convention
+which drew up the bill of rights for Massachusetts did
+not think of such an application; That this document
+declared "no part of any citizen's property could be
+taken from him without his own consent:" That slaves
+continued to be bought and sold, and advertised as
+before; And that the abolitionists, still in the minority,
+continued after 1780 to remonstrate against slavery as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span>
+a sin still legalized. But such a mode of determining
+the question was well adapted to the meddlesome and
+crooked temper of that people. By this judicial trick
+the envious non-slaveholders were enabled to attack
+their richer slaveholding neighbours, and render them
+so uneasy as to insure their disposing of their slaves;
+while still there was neither law nor publick opinion
+prevalent enough to procure a legal act of emancipation.</p>
+
+<p>New Hampshire and Vermont embodied the principle
+of prospective emancipation in their new constitutions.
+In 1790 there were 158 slaves in New Hampshire. In
+1840 there was still <i>one</i>! Rhode Island passed a law
+in 1784, that no person born after that year should continue
+a slave. Connecticut embodied in the revision of
+her laws, in 1784, a law providing that all children
+born of slave parents after March 1st of that year,
+should be free at twenty-five years of age. In 1797
+the term of servitude was reduced to twenty-one years
+for all born after August 1st of that year. Slavery was
+not actually abolished by law until June 12th, 1848;
+when the census shows there were no fewer than
+seventeen slaves in the State; and how old and worthless
+they must have been, appears from the fact that
+the youngest of them must have been born before
+March 1st, 1784.<a name='FNanchor_73'></a><a href='#Footnote_73'><sup>[73]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>In New York, the laws for slaves were more severe
+than in the Southern States, and the African slave
+trade was zealously encouraged during the whole
+colonial period. The slave could not testify, even to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span>
+exculpate a slave. Three justices, with a sort of jury
+of five freeholders, could try capitally, and inflict any
+sentence, <i>inclusive of burning alive</i>.<a name='FNanchor_74'></a><a href='#Footnote_74'><sup>[74]</sup></a> It was not until
+1799 that the State commenced a system of laws for
+the gradual abolition of slavery. Every slave child
+born after July 4th of that year was to be free, the
+males after twenty-eight, and the females after twenty-five
+years. In 1810, the benefit of freedom was also
+extended to those born before July 4th, 1799, to take
+effect July 4th, 1827, the date at which the earliest born
+of those freed by previous law reached their majority of
+twenty-eight years.<a name='FNanchor_75'></a><a href='#Footnote_75'><sup>[75]</sup></a> Still the census of 1830 found
+75 slaves! The Revised Statutes of New York, after
+1817, provided a penalty for those carrying them out of
+the State for sale; showing that the tendency to do so
+existed.</p>
+
+<p>In New Jersey, the first act looking towards prospective
+emancipation was adopted in 1784. By it all born
+after 1804 were to be free in 1820. It was not until
+1820 that action was taken to give effect to this promise;
+and then the nature of the law was such as to postpone
+the hopes of the slaves. The first section of the
+law of February 24th, 1820, says: "Every child born
+of a slave within this State since the 4th day of July
+1804, or which shall hereafter be born as aforesaid,
+shall be free; but shall remain the servant of the
+owner of his or her mother, and the executors, administrators
+and assigns of such owners, in the same
+manner as if such child had been bound to service by
+the Trustees or Overseers of the poor, and shall continue
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span>
+in such service, if a male until the age of twenty-five
+years, and if a female until the age of twenty-one
+years." It was within the scope of possibility that
+slave women whom this law left slaves for life might
+bear children as late as the year 1848: whence bondage
+would not have been terminated wholly by it until 1873.
+New Jersey had 236 slaves for life in 1850. It is
+stated by one of the best informed of her old citizens,
+that the prospective effect of these enactments was to
+cause a considerable <i>exodus</i> to Southern markets; and
+that when a boy, he heard much talk of the sale of
+negroes, and the sending of them to "the Natchez," and
+was cognizant of the continual apprehension of the
+negroes concerning the danger.</p>
+
+<p>In Pennsylvania, emancipation was also prospective
+and gradual. Her first act was passed March 1st, 1780.
+The rate at which it operated may be seen from these
+figures: In 1776 she had about 10,000 slaves; in 1790,
+(ten years after her first act,) she had 3,737; in 1800,
+1,706; in 1810, 795; in 1820, 211; in 1830, 403; and
+in 1840, 64 slaves.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, the emancipation legislation of the Northern
+States has been reviewed, and the assertions of the
+Hon. Mr. Stuart substantially sustained. That Northern
+emancipation was prompted by no consideration for
+the supposed rights of Africans, but by regard to their
+own interests, is evinced by many facts. Of these,
+perhaps the most general and striking is the persistent
+neglect of the welfare of their emancipated slaves;
+the refusal to give them equal civic rights, until they
+found a motive for doing so in malice against the South;
+and the shocking decadence, vice and misery to which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span>
+a nominal liberty, according to the testimony of Northern
+writers, has consigned their wretched free blacks.
+Another proof is found in the current language of the
+men of the generation which effected the change.
+That language, as is well remembered by elderly persons
+still living, was usually such as this: that now
+that the population had filled up the country, the question
+of emancipation was simply one of choice between
+their own children and the negro&mdash;whether their sons
+should emigrate, or the negro be gotten rid of, as there
+was no longer room for both. Another conclusive
+proof is in the fact that while these States were getting
+rid of their own negroes, they were deliberately
+voting (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut,
+in the Convention of 1787,) to prolong the introduction
+of slaves into the Carolinas nineteen years more. Still
+another evidence is found in the repugnance of those
+States to the influx of free blacks, and the stringent
+laws of some of them to prevent it. Thus, Massachusetts,
+in March, 1788, (eight years after the pretended
+extinction of human bondage,) passed a law ordering
+every black, mulatto or Indian who came into the State
+and remained two months to be publickly whipped;
+and this punishment was to be repeated "if he or she
+shall not depart <i>toties quoties</i>."<a name='FNanchor_76'></a><a href='#Footnote_76'><sup>[76]</sup></a> <i>This law remained
+in force until 1834!</i> as is shown by its appearance in
+the Revised Laws of Massachusetts, 1823. It is also
+to be noted that the scheme of gradual emancipation,
+upon which the whole North acted, obviously recognizes
+the property of the master in his slave as legitimate
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span>
+in itself. It only touches it, (because private
+rights are here required to give place to publick interest,)
+in the case of those born after a certain day.
+The slavery of the others is left as perpetual and legal
+as ever. And even as to the later born, the right of
+the master receives a certain recognition, in that he is
+allowed twenty-five years' service as a partial compensation
+for the surrender of the remainder.</p>
+
+<p>But how different is the summary abolition forced
+upon Virginia and the South! Here, the general legislation
+of the State was steadily multiplying, elevating
+and blessing the black race, which in the North was so
+rapidly dying out under its pretended liberty. And
+private beneficence of Virginians, without any legal
+compulsion, had actually given the boon of freedom to
+at least one hundred thousand blacks; which is more
+than all the citizens of the New England States, New
+York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania together, ever did,
+under the force of all their laws.<a name='FNanchor_77'></a><a href='#Footnote_77'><sup>[77]</sup></a> In this wise and
+beneficent career Virginia has been violently interrupted,
+against her recognized and guaranteed rights, by
+instant and violent abolition. The motive of the North,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span>
+as a whole, has manifestly been, not love for the negro,
+but hatred of the white man, and lust of domination.
+This abolition is purely the result of a supposed military
+necessity, because the North believed that otherwise
+she could not overthrow the South in an unjust
+war. But for this single fact, the Africans would still
+be in bondage, so far as the Yankee was concerned.
+The proof is, that the Chicago platform of the Black
+Republican party in 1860, expressly repudiated the
+purpose ever to meddle with slavery in the States.
+Mr. Lincoln, the chosen man of the North, solemnly
+asserted the same thing in his letter to A. H. Stephens
+of Georgia, in his publick inaugural, and in his messages.
+The Congress, after the beginning of the war,
+solemnly declared to the world by a joint resolution,
+that the purpose of the war was only to restore the
+Union, and not to restrict or change State institutions.
+Mr. Lincoln constantly declared to the Abolitionists,
+that if the perpetuation of slavery tended to restore the
+Union, it should be perpetuated. His standing invitation
+to the States in arms against him was: "If you
+wish to keep your slaves, come back into the Union."
+Can the North be believed in her own declarations?
+Then, the charge made is true&mdash;that abolition in the
+South was prompted by ambition and hatred, not by
+philanthropy.</p>
+
+<p>Nor has this act been less wicked in its effects than
+in its motive. To the white race it was the most violent,
+convulsive, reckless and mischievous act ever
+perpetrated by a civilized government. As a war
+measure, it was calculated and expected to evoke all
+the savage horrors of servile war, neighbourhood massacre
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span>
+and butchery of non-combatants. Only the
+kindly relations which the benevolence and justice of
+the people of Virginia had established between themselves
+and their slaves, and the good character which
+we had given to these former savages, disappointed
+this desired result. As an economic measure, it was
+the most violent ever attempted in modern history; being
+a sudden confiscation of half, (and in some of the
+counties two-thirds) the existing property of the country;
+and a dislocation of its whole labour system, just
+when the people were bowed under the burden of a
+gigantic war, and a collapsed currency. That it did
+not then again result in a total paralysis of industry,
+in famine and anarchy, (which was probably intended),
+is only to be explained by the exercise of an energy,
+versatility, good sense, and industry in the Southern
+people, which are almost miraculous. By annihilating
+at one blow so much of the property on which the indebtedness
+of the country was based, it insured a
+financial confusion and general bankruptcy which are
+destined to plunge hundreds of thousands of innocent
+persons (innocent even from Yankee points of view)
+into destitution and domestic distress, which three generations
+will not heal. It confiscated the property of
+"loyal Union men," of helpless minors and lunatics, of
+venerable and infirm widows, without compensation,
+just as it did the possessions of the Confederate leader
+most obnoxious to the Yankee wrath. And what was
+the species of possession? Was it some foul lucre,
+like the spoils of an Achan, so unrighteous that it
+must be instantly plucked away, regardless of consequences?
+No; it was a species of property legalized by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span>
+Moses and Christ, owned for ages by the boasted ancestors
+of the despoilers, now owned by themselves in
+the form of its fruits and increase, guaranteed by the
+Constitution which alone gave them any right to govern
+us, legalized by all our State laws, which were of
+earlier and superior authority to that Constitution, and
+recognized by the sacred pledges of the North itself,
+even so late as the beginning of this war.</p>
+
+<p>But the step has been far more mischievous and unjust
+to the poor blacks, its pretended beneficiaries. It did
+not tarry to inquire whether they were fit for the change.
+It has resulted in the outbreak of a flood of vice, before
+repressed; of drunkenness, of illicit lust, of infanticide,
+of theft; and above all, of idleness, the least flagrant,
+but most truly mischievous fault of the African. It has
+suddenly and greatly diminished their share of the
+material goods they before enjoyed. The supplies of
+clothing and shoes now acquired by them do not reach
+a third of what they received before the war. Immediately
+on their emancipation, all the rural mill-owners
+testified that their grists <i>fell off one-half</i>, and have remained
+at that grade since. In those neighbourhoods
+where the blacks did not emigrate, (which was true of
+many neighbourhoods,) this showed that the consumption
+of bread was reduced one-half; for although the
+large proprietors now had no occasion to send their
+large grists, yet, unless there were less consumed, the
+aggregate of the little grists of the freedmen's families
+should have made good that decrease. Every statesman
+knows that any burden or disaster imposed upon
+the industrial pursuits of a country, is transmitted
+down by the property classes to the destitute class, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span>
+presses there with its whole force; just as inevitably as
+the weight of a statue placed upon the top of a column,
+is ultimately delivered upon the lowest <i>stratum</i> of
+foundation-stones. For the great law of self-preservation
+prompts each man, who has any property, to employ
+it in evading that pressure for himself and his
+family. Thus the actual <i>onus</i> is handed down, until
+it reaches that class who have no property, and must
+therefore bear it, because they have nothing wherewith
+to pay for the shifting of it. Thus, all the malice of
+the conqueror, aimed at the hated white man, while it
+crowds us down, also crowds down equally the labourer
+beneath us; and the blow alights ultimately on him.</p>
+
+<p>The famine which is now preying upon some parts
+of the South illustrates the mischief done by the disorganization
+of labour, and the comparative excellence of
+the old system. Such was its beneficence, that it carried
+the Southern country through all the exhausting
+trials of the war, without actual dearth in any part of
+the Confederacy. Hundreds of thousands of our most
+vigorous men were wholly withdrawn from productive
+pursuits; our own armies were to be sustained; great
+hosts of enemies were continually tearing the vitals of
+the country; the year 1864 brought a drought so severe
+that in some parts of the country the crops of grain
+were reduced to one-tenth of the usual harvests; and
+yet, such was the happiness of our system, that it endured
+all these enormous trials, and met the wants of
+all. But after the new <i>r�gime</i> was well established,
+there came in 1866 such a drought as the South had
+several times experienced before, without inconvenience;
+and although all was peace, there were no
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span>
+armies to support, and no labouring man was called
+from the farm to the unproductive toils of the camp
+and the intrenchment, famine immediately resulted.
+Here is a fair comparison of the system of free African
+labour, with the old one. Indolence is the parent of
+crime. While the smaller misdemeanours are more frequent,
+there has been an alarming increase of felonies.
+In the orderly little county of Prince Edward, the
+criminal convictions of black persons averaged only
+one per year before the war. The last year they numbered
+twelve! An inquiry into the statistics of crime
+in our cities would reveal a yet larger increase.<a name='FNanchor_78'></a><a href='#Footnote_78'><sup>[78]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Last, facts already evince, that the doom of ultimate
+extermination which Southern philanthropists have
+ever predicted as the result of premature emancipation,
+is already overtaking the negro with giant strides.
+About the end of 1866 the officers of the State revenue
+made their returns, which showed that there were then
+about 275,650 negro males over 21 years within the
+present limits of Virginia. Repeated calculations made
+from previous returns show that there are usually four
+and a half times as many souls among the blacks of
+Virginia as there are males over 21 years. The entire
+black population of the State then, at the end of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span>
+last year, was 340,500. The census of 1860 returned
+531,000 blacks within the present limits of the State.
+The diminution is therefore 190,500; or nearly two-fifths,
+in less than two years. Some may suppose that
+more negro men have left the State since the war than
+women and children. If this is true, the number of
+males is now relatively smaller, and should be multiplied
+by a larger ratio than 4-1/2 to find the correct total.
+But, on the other hand, it is certain that the neglect and
+mortality have been much larger among the aged and
+little children than among the robust men. This fact,
+therefore, reduces the ratio of the total to the males over
+21 years, and renders it certain that 340,500 is a large
+estimate. The same officers brought in returns which
+show that the white population of Virginia, although
+decimated by a terrible war, has actually increased
+since 1860. But we exposed no negro to the dangers of
+the battle. Thus it is made manifest that the philanthropy
+of Yankees has been to the poor negro an infinitely
+more desolating scourge than a tremendous
+war has been to the race against which the sword was
+openly wielded. And it requires little arithmetic to
+discover how long it will be, at this rate, before the
+monstrous consummation will be reached of the extinction
+of a whole nation of people by their professed
+friends.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span></p>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V.<br />
+
+THE OLD TESTAMENT ARGUMENT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>&#167; 1. Let us appeal, then, to the Bible, to learn the
+moral character of Domestic Slavery. It will be well
+for both writer and readers, if they recall the reverence
+and honesty with which such a book should be approached;
+if the one is cautious to permit no party zeal,
+pride of opinion, or love of hypothesis, to tempt him to
+warp the sacred text to any thing inconsistent with its
+own truth and purity; and if the others are equally
+careful to receive its teachings with impartiality and
+docility.</p>
+
+<p>That no misunderstanding may attend the discussion,
+we must define at the outset, what we mean by that
+domestic slavery which we defend. By this relation
+we understand <i>the obligations of the slave to labour for
+life, without his own consent, for the master</i>. The thing,
+therefore, in which the master has property or ownership,
+is the involuntary labour of the slave, and not his
+personality, or his soul. A certain right of control over
+the person of the slave is incidentally given to the
+master by his property in the bondsman's labour; that is,
+so much control as is necessary to enable him to secure
+the labour which belongs to him. But we repeat, it is
+not the person, but the labour of the slave, which is the
+master's property. This is substantially the definition
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span>
+of Paley, an enemy of slavery; and it is obviously correct;
+it expresses the general result of the laws of all
+modern nations which have had slaves, touching that
+relation.</p>
+
+<p>The abolitionists clamorously insist upon a different
+definition, which makes the master claim property in
+the very personality of the slave, in his soul, in the
+highest capacities which connect him with his God,
+and in his very being. According to this description,
+slavery converts the responsible, rational being, into a
+mere thing, a chattel, a commodity, by converting him
+into mere property of another man. The motive of this
+preposterous definition is obvious enough. One of the
+most astute of American Abolitionists has been candid
+enough to avow it, saying that if our definition be
+adopted, there is an end of the discussion; for every
+logician must see that it is absurd to declare the mere
+ownership of one man's labour by another, an essential
+and necessary moral wrong; which is the character it
+suits them to ascribe to slavery. Their object is so to
+represent it, that it shall appear a self-evident injustice,
+and the apologist shall be overwhelmed and silenced by
+a foregone prejudice. For, if it gave a literal ownership
+in the person and being of the slave, which can belong
+to none but the Creator; if it made not only his
+labour, but his conscience, the property of the master,
+destroying his moral responsibility, it would indeed dehumanize
+him, and would be an iniquity indefensible by
+any fair mind. The trick of securing the victory before
+the contest begins, by raising a false issue, is not very
+novel. The utter absurdity of applying such a definition
+to African slavery in America, appears from this:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span>
+that it is contrary to the whole tenour of the legislation
+which establishes and regulates the institution among
+us. These laws, first, legislate for the slave, as to his
+own conduct, as a responsible human being, govern
+him by precepts sanctioned by rewards and punishments,
+and require of him intelligent obedience to the
+same moral rules which are enforced on his master.
+Second, the laws assign to the master precisely that
+amount of control over his slave's person which they
+suppose (whether correctly or not is no concern to us
+in this argument) to be incidental to his property in
+the servant's labour; and no more. Third, they protect
+the person, being, and moral responsibility of the slave
+against his own master. If the master kills him, it is
+murder, by the law. The slave's Sabbath is secured to
+him by the law. If the master force him to commit
+a crime, the former is held by the law guilty therefor,
+as accessory before the fact: and the latter is also held
+to his personal responsibility for it. And last, the law
+treats the slave so fully as a rational and responsible
+human, that it even bestows on him the right of litigation
+against his own master, in one case. Any African
+setting up a plea of unlawful detention in bondage,
+against his master, is allowed to sue <i>in forma pauperis</i>,
+in the courts of law. How could the fact be more
+clearly defined, that the institution of slavery treats the
+slave as a rational human being, and gives the master
+property in nothing but his labour?</p>
+
+<p>Yet Senator Sumner points triumphantly to the words
+of the South Carolina statute as proving that slavery
+makes the servant a mere thing; and all smaller Abolitionists
+have caught up his special pleading. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span>
+cane of Mr. Brooks having given him, as it seems, a
+special taste for things South Carolinian, he hunted up
+a clause where the law of that State declares, that
+slaves and their children shall be held in every respect
+as "chattels personal." This proves beyond a peradventure,
+he says, that the law reduces the slave to a
+mere thing, as though he were an <i>ox</i> or <i>bureau</i>. Yet, a
+hundred other laws of South Carolina treat him as a
+responsible man! Any honest mind will perceive the
+explanation, at once; which is, that the lawyers of
+South Carolina were not aiming, in this law, to settle
+the question of the moral nature of slavery; but to decide
+whether property in a slave should be regarded as
+pertaining to the <i>real</i>, or to the <i>personal</i> estate of a citizen;
+and in deciding it, they very properly had more
+regard to legal perspicuity than to ethical accuracy of
+definition. Let us suppose that among the statutes of
+the British Parliament, there should be one (as there
+very probably is) declaring that when a master mechanic
+dies, having an indentured apprentice, the unfinished
+term of service of this apprentice should be
+held as belonging to his personal effects, and should
+be so used for the benefit of his heirs or creditors.
+And let us suppose, farther, that in defining this fact,
+some such words as these should be used: that said apprentice
+should be held in every respect, as pertaining
+unto the personal estate of the deceased. Then, the
+same logic would prove that the British laws reduce an
+apprentice to a mere chattel! But we have a better
+illustration of its folly. God says, Genesis xxvi. 14:
+"Isaac had <i>possessions</i> of flocks, and herds, and servants."
+Leviticus, xxv. 45: "Of the children of strangers
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span>
+that do sojourn among you, of them shall you buy: ...
+and they shall be your <i>possession</i>." Exodus, xxi. 20, 21:
+"And if a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod,
+and he die under his hand: he shall be surely punished.
+Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall
+not be punished: <i>for he is his money</i>." Does God's
+law dehumanize the slave, and reduce him to a mere
+chattel? We repeat, then, that, according to the slave
+institutions of the Southern States, it is only the labour
+of the servant which belongs to the master, and is
+treated as property.</p>
+
+<p>Let it be understood, then, from the beginning, that
+we are not inquiring into the moral character of that
+thing which Abolitionists paint as domestic slavery; a
+something horrid with the groans of oppressed innocence
+and the clang of unrighteous stripes; a something
+which aims to reduce a man to a brute, and denies
+him his natural right to serve his Creator and save
+his soul. We begin by asserting that these things, if
+they ever exist in fact, are not domestic slavery, but
+the abuses of it. We are not the apologists of them:
+we no more defend them than do the Abolitionists. In
+this discussion we have nothing more to do with them,
+except to express, once for all, our strong abhorrence
+and reprobation of all such unlawful abuses of a lawful
+institution. It has been a favourite trick of our opponents,
+to represent the abuses of the relation so prominently
+and odiously, that the defender of slavery shall
+be held up to the abhorrence of the publick as the defender
+of the abuses. Especially if he is a clergyman,
+(and necessity has thrown our side of this discussion
+very much into the hands of Southern clergymen,) do
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span>
+they raise a holy clamour, representing the unnatural
+wickedness of a desecrating of the sacred office to apologize
+for such iniquities. Their object is to raise a
+prejudice against us in advance, which will deprive us
+of a dispassionate and just hearing. With all dispassionate
+and just readers, for whom alone we write, it
+should be enough for us to repeat emphatically, that it
+is only the relation of domestic slavery as authorized
+by God, that we defend; and not the abuses it has received
+at the hands of wicked men. The parental authority,
+and civil government, and the operations of
+God's own church, are often abused also. The intelligent
+reader, and especially the intelligent Englishman,
+will remember how triumphantly this shallow sophism
+of arguing against a thing from its abuses, is exposed
+by Burke, in his reply to Bolingbroke's posthumous assault
+on Christianity, the ironical "Defence of Natural
+Society." Such argument from abuses can only be just
+when it is shown that the wrongs pointed out are not
+incidental abuses, but legitimate, and necessary, and
+uniform consequences of the institution itself. But
+that the incidental evils of African slavery among us
+are not such, is abundantly proved by the simple fact,
+that thousands of masters held slaves among us, and
+yet perpetrated none of these abuses. About the relative
+frequency of such abuses, we shall have something
+to say at a subsequent place. Enough now to point to
+the fact, that by the vast majority of our servants they
+were unfelt, so that they cannot be necessary parts of
+the system.</p>
+
+<p>We conclude these preliminary definitions by requesting
+the reader to note well what is the moral character
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span>
+which we understand the Bible to assign to slavery.
+We do not admit that it is a thing in itself evil, but yet
+attended with such circumstances, in the eyes of many
+merciful and humane masters who have found themselves
+by inheritance unwilling slaveholders, that a
+change would be attended with still greater mischiefs:
+so that they are excusable for its continuance for a
+time. This is the view of many moderate and kind anti-slavery
+men; it is not ours. We do not hold that slaveholding
+is only justified as belonging to that class of
+wrongs, to which the laws of Moses assigned polygamy,
+which ought not to have been done, but which, when
+done, cannot be undone, except by the perpetrating of
+a greater wrong. We assert that <i>the Bible teaches that
+the relation of master and slave is perfectly lawful and
+right, provided only its duties be lawfully fulfilled</i>.
+When we say this, we shall not be understood as saying
+that all men ought to live in this relation, notwithstanding
+the wide diversities of their condition and
+characters, or that it would be politic, or even right,
+for all. But we say that the relation is not sin in itself;
+but may be perfectly righteous and innocent, and
+not merely excusable. And we are free to confess that
+unless the Bible taught us this truth, we should be
+obliged to hold with the decided Abolitionists. We
+could never be of the number of those, who attempt to
+transmute the essential traits of moral right and wrong,
+at the demand of expediency, and to excuse the continuance
+of a radical injustice, by the inconvenience of
+repairing it. Duty belongs to man; consequences to
+God.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 2. <i>The Curse upon Canaan.</i></h3>
+
+<p>The student of history perceives that, whatever may
+be the moral character of domestic slavery, it is one of
+the most hoary institutions of the human race. It has
+prevailed in every age and continent, and under patriarchal,
+monarchical, despotic, aristocratic, republican
+and democratic governments; while secular history
+gives us no account of its origin. But Sacred Writ informs
+us, and traces it to the earlier generations of the
+human family as refounded after the flood. In Genesis,
+ix. 20 to 27, we have the following brief narrative:
+"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 Japhet 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. And
+he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan
+shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japhet and he
+shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be
+his servant."</p>
+
+<p>In explanation of it, the following remarks may be
+made; on which the majority of sound expositors are
+agreed. In this transaction, Noah acts as an inspired
+prophet, and also as the divinely chosen, patriarchal
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span>
+head of church and state, which were then confined to
+his one family. God's approbation attended his verdict,
+as is proved by the fact that the divine Providence
+has been executing it for many ages since Noah's death.
+Canaan probably concurred in the indecent and unnatural
+sin of Ham. As these early men were extremely
+ambitious of a numerous and prosperous posterity,
+Ham's punishment, and Canaan's, consisted in the mortification
+of hearing their descendants doomed to a degraded
+lot. These descendants were included in the
+punishment of their wicked progenitors on that well-known
+principle of God's providence, which "visits the
+sin of the fathers upon the children," and this again is
+explained by the fact, that depraved parents will naturally
+rear depraved children, unless God interfere by
+a grace to which they have no claim; so that not only
+punishment, but the sinfulness, becomes hereditary.
+Doubtless God's sentence, here pronounced by Noah,
+was based on his foresight of the fact, that Ham's posterity,
+like their father, would be peculiarly degraded
+in morals; as actual history testifies of them, so far as
+its voice extends.</p>
+
+<p>Some have been weak enough to draw a justification
+of slavery from the fact, that the bondage of Canaan's
+posterity is predicted. This logic the Abolitionists
+have, of course, delighted to expose; it was easy to
+show, by sundry biblical instances, like that of the Assyrian
+employed to chastise Israel, and then punished
+by God for his own rapacity, that it is no justification
+of one's acts to find that God, in his inscrutable and
+holy workings, has overruled them to the effectuation
+of his own righteous, secret purposes. And our opponents,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span>
+with a treachery fully equal to the folly of our
+unwise advocates, usually represent this as nearly the
+whole amount, and the fair exemplar, of our biblical argument.
+Such is not the use we design to make of this
+important piece of history.</p>
+
+<p>It does in the first place, what all secular history and
+speculations fail to do: it gives us the origin of domestic
+slavery. And we find that it was appointed by God
+as the punishment of, and remedy for (nearly all God's
+providential chastisements are also remedial) the peculiar
+moral degradation of a part of the race. God here
+ordains that this depravity shall find its necessary restraints,
+and the welfare of the more virtuous its safeguard
+against the depraved, by the bondage of the latter.
+He introduces that feature of political society, for
+the justice of which we shall have occasion to contend;
+that although men have all this trait of natural equality
+that they are children of a common father, and sharers
+of a common humanity, and subjects of the same law
+of love; yet, in practice, they shall be subject to social
+inequalities determined by their own characters, and
+their fitness or unfitness to use privileges for their own
+and their neighbours' good.</p>
+
+<p>But second: this narrative gives us more than a prediction.
+The words of Noah are not a mere prophecy;
+they are a verdict, a moral sentence pronounced upon
+conduct, by competent authority; that verdict sanctioned
+by God. Now if the verdict is righteous, and
+the execution blessed by God, it can hardly be, that the
+executioners of it are guilty for putting it in effect.
+Can one believe that the descendants of Shem and Japhet,
+with this sentence in their hands, and the divine
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span>
+commendation just bestowed on them for acting unlike
+Ham, could have reasonably felt guilty for accepting
+that control over their guilty fellow-men which God
+himself had assigned? For the vital difference between
+the case of the Assyrians, when their guilty ambition
+was permissively employed by God to punish the back-slidings
+of his own people, and the case of Shem and
+Japhet, is this: The Assyrians were cursed by God for
+doing their predicted work, in the very sentence; Shem
+and Japhet were blessed by Him in the very verdict
+which assigns Canaan as their servant.</p>
+
+<p>It may be that we should find little difficulty in tracing
+the lineage of the present Africans to Ham. But
+this inquiry is not essential to our argument. If one
+case is found where God has authorized domestic slavery,
+the principle is settled, that it cannot necessarily
+be sin in itself. It is proper that we should say, in
+conclusion, that this passage of Scripture is not regarded,
+nor advanced, as of prime force and importance in
+this argument. Others more decisive will follow.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 3. <i>Abraham a Slaveholder.</i></h3>
+
+<p>The references to the bondsmen of Abraham and his
+son Isaac are the following: Genesis xiv., 14, "And
+when Abram heard that his brother," (or relative, viz.:
+Lot,) "was taken captive, he armed his trained servants,
+born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen,
+and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided
+himself against them, he and his servants, by night,"
+etc. Genesis xvii., 10, etc., "This is my covenant
+which ye shall keep, between me and you, and thy seed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span>
+after thee; every man-child among you shall be circumcised," ...
+v. 12, "And he that is eight days old
+shall be circumcised among you, every man-child in
+your generations; he that is born in the house, or
+bought with money of any stranger, which is not of
+thy seed. He that is born in thy house and he that is
+bought with thy money must needs be circumcised,"
+and v. 26, 27, "In the self-same day was Abraham circumcised,
+and Ishmael his son; and all the men of his
+house, born in the house and bought with money of the
+stranger, were circumcised with him." Genesis xviii.
+17 to 19, "And the <i>Lord</i> said, Shall I hide from Abraham
+that thing which I do: seeing that Abraham shall
+surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the
+nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I
+know him, that he will command his children and his
+household after him, and they shall keep the way of the
+<i>Lord</i>, to do justice and judgment: that the Lord may
+bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him."
+Genesis xx. 14, "And Abimelech" (seeking reconciliation
+with Abraham for the wrong intended to Sarah his
+wife, at God's command,) "took sheep and oxen, and
+men-servants and women-servants, and gave them unto
+Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife." Genesis
+xxiv. 35, Eliezer, when seeking a wife for Isaac, says:
+"And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly, and he
+is become great; and he hath given him flocks, and
+herds, and silver, and gold, and men-servants, and
+maid-servants, and camels and asses." And Genesis,
+xxvi. 12, 14, it is said of Isaac: "And the <span class="smcap">Lord</span>
+blessed him. And the man waxed great and went forward
+and grew until he became very great. For he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span>
+had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and
+great store of servants."</p>
+
+<p>It appears then, that Abraham, "the friend of God,"
+and Isaac, the most holy and spotless of the Patriarchs,
+were great slaveholders. But before pursuing the argument
+farther, it may be prudent to remove the quibble
+that these servants were not slaves, in the sense of
+our African slaves, but only humble clansmen, retainers,
+or hirelings. At least one writer would prove this
+by the fact that Abraham did not fear to arm three hundred
+and eighteen of them. For had they been real slaves,
+says he, they would not have continued so one day after
+getting arms in their hands. The retort most appropriate
+would be, that Abraham was not afraid to arm
+his slaves, though actual slaves, because there were no
+saucy, meddling, Yankee Abolitionists in those days to
+preach insubordination and make ill blood between
+masters and servants. But, more seriously, what shall we
+say of the professed reasoning which assumes the very
+point in debate? viz.: that slavery is an evil; and thence
+infers the conclusion that these could not be slaves,
+because they did not seize the power to burst the bonds
+of such an evil when placed in their reach? If their
+bondage was not evil, which is the question <i>sub judice</i>
+in this debate, then they would not necessarily desire
+to burst from it. And that these were actual slaves is
+clear, because the words for bondsman and bondsmaid
+here used are, in every case, <i>ebed</i> and <i>shippheh</i>, which are
+defined by every honest lexicon to mean actual slaves,
+which are used in that sense alone everywhere else in
+the Hebrew Scriptures, which are contrasted in the
+book of Leviticus with the "hired servant," or <i>sasir</i>.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span>
+A part of these servants were bought from foreigners
+with Abraham's money. They are represented along
+with his very sheep and oxen as his property.</p>
+
+<p>Abraham and Isaac then, were all their lives literal
+slaveholders, on a large scale. Now we do not argue
+that this fact alone, coupled with the other, that they
+were good men, proves that slaveholding is innocent.
+The Abolitionists, fond of an easy victory on a false
+issue, always hasten to represent this as the amount of
+the argument; and then, their reply is obvious&mdash;that
+the example of truly good men is no rule of ethics for
+us, unless supported by the expressed or implied approval
+of God; for good men are imperfect, and many
+of their errors are recorded, by the honesty of the
+sacred writers, for our warning&mdash;that Abraham himself
+was guilty of falsehood to Abimelech, King of Gerar,
+and especially that he was betrayed into the gross sin
+of concubinage. Hence they say, Abraham's example
+no more proves slaveholding innocent than concubinage.
+We reply, that all these remarks, except the last,
+are perfectly just; but they have no application to the
+case, because God's sanction of Abraham's example as
+a slaveholder is expressly found in the narrative. The
+cases of slaveholding and concubinage are totally
+different. First, because the origin of the latter sin
+in the accursed lineage of Cain, and the act of the
+murderer Lamech, is impliedly stamped with God's condemnation,
+(Genesis iv. 19,) whereas the origin of
+domestic slavery is given us in the righteous sentence
+of God for depraved conduct. Second, Abraham fell
+into the sins of falsehood and concubinage but once,
+under violent temptation. There is no evidence that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span>
+either he or Isaac ever practised them again, but both
+lived and died without one recorded qualm of conscience,
+in the practice of slaveholding, and made it
+one of their last acts, before passing to the judgment-seat
+of God, to bequeath their slaves, as property, to
+their heirs. Third, in Genesis xxiv. 35, and xxvi. 12,
+14, it is represented that the bestowal of a multitude of
+slaves on Abraham and Isaac was a mark of the divine
+favour. In the first passage, it is indeed only the
+pious Eliezer who states this; but in the second, it is
+stated of Isaac by the sacred narrative itself. Now to
+represent God as blessing a favoured saint by bestowing
+providentially gifts which it is a sin to have, implicates
+God in the sin. Fourth, in Genesis xviii. 17
+to 19, Jehovah expresses his love for Abraham, approbation
+for his character, and purpose to exalt him as
+a blessing to all nations, because "He knew him that
+he would command his children and his household
+after him, that they shall keep the way of the <i>Lord</i> to
+do justice and judgment." What was this "household,"
+distinct from his children? Hebrew usage and
+the context answer with one voice, his slaves. Then,
+God's high favour to Abraham was explained by the
+fact that he foresaw the patriarch would govern his
+children and slaves religiously and righteously. Now
+we ask emphatically, does a holy God bless a misguided
+and sinning man for the manner in which he perseveres
+in the sinful practice, be that manner what it may? If
+the relation of master and slave were sinful, would not
+the virtue of terminating the relation at once, so far
+transcend the questionable credit of using it to make
+the wronged and oppressed victim live piously, that it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span>
+would be impossible for God to bestow his peculiar
+praise on the latter, where the former was lacking?
+There is no righteous way to perpetuate an unrighteous
+relation. Therefore God's blessing Abraham for his
+good government of his slaves, is proof that it is not a
+sin to have slaves to govern.</p>
+
+<p>But, last and chiefly, we have a still stronger fact to
+present. When Abraham was directed in Genesis xvii.,
+10, etc., to circumcise himself as a sign of the covenant
+between God and him, he was also directed to
+circumcise all his male children. The parental relationship
+was made the ground of their inclusion in the
+same covenant. And God directed his slaves also,
+"born in his house, or bought with his money of any
+foreigner," to be circumcised along with him. The
+parental tie brought his children under the religious
+rite of circumcision; the bond of master and servant
+brought his servants under it. Here then, we have the
+relationship of domestic slavery sanctioned, along with
+the parental and filial, by God's own injunction, by a
+participation in the holiest sacrament of the ancient
+church. Would a holy God thus baptize an unholy
+relation? Would he make it the ground of admission
+to a religious ordinance? To see a feeble illustration
+of the absurdity of such a conclusion, consider what
+would be thought of a minister of the New Testament,
+in which our Saviour has forbidden a plurality of wives,
+if that minister should desecrate the marriage ceremonial
+of his church, knowingly, to sanctify the union
+of the felon in the act of bigamy? Such a desecration
+would surely be not less shocking in the Author, than
+in a minister of religion.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And here, the favourite plea of the anti-slavery men
+fails entirely&mdash;that Abraham lived in the dawn of religious
+light; that the revelation given him was only
+partial, and that while he possessed the rectitude of
+conscience which would have made him relinquish all
+sinful relations, if enlightened as to their true character,
+the customs of his age misled him to commit things
+which Christians afterwards taught to be sinful, and
+that therefore, these things, excusable in him because
+of his ignorance, would be wickedness in us. There is
+some truth in these statements, but they have nothing
+on earth to do with this example; because the circumcision
+of the slaves was God's act, and not Abraham's.
+God knows all things. He is perfectly holy and unchangeable.
+If he had seen that slavery is intrinsically
+wrong, and had intended at some future day to declare
+it so, would he at this time have sanctioned it by making
+it the ground of a solemn ordinance of religion? As
+we shall see, this cry of the imperfection of the Old
+Testament revelation is of Socinian origin, and is essentially
+false, in the sense in which it is uttered. But
+be it as just as any statement could be, it has no application
+here; because our whole inference is drawn from
+the acts of God himself, and not of an Old Testament
+Saint.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 4. <i>Hagar remanded to Slavery by God.</i></h3>
+
+<p>Sarah, in a season of desperation at her childless
+condition, seems to have been tempted to imitate the
+corrupt expedient which was prevalent among the Canaanites
+around her, and which still prevails in the
+East. According to this usage, the chief wife, or wife
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span>
+proper, gives to her husband a concubine from among
+her slaves, as a sort of substitute for herself; and the
+offspring of the connexion is regarded as her own
+child. Abram, misled by evil example, and by the solicitations
+of his wife&mdash;the person who would have had
+the best right to complain of his act&mdash;concurred temporarily
+in the arrangement, and received his Egyptian
+slave Hagar as an inferior wife. The favour of her
+master, and the prospective honour of being the mother
+of offspring, which has always been exceedingly prized
+by Oriental women, so inflated the servant with impudence,
+that she no longer treated her mistress with decent
+respect. When Sarah bitterly complained of this,
+Abram replied by reminding her that Hagar was still
+her slave; and that she was entitled, as a mistress, to
+compel her to observe a suitable demeanour. When
+Sarah proceeded to exert this authority, probably administering
+corporal punishment to Hagar for some instance
+of impertinence, the latter ran away, and pursued
+the direction which led to her native country,
+Egypt. It was then that the angel of the <span class="smcap">Lord</span> found
+her "by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said,
+Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither
+wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my
+mistress Sarai. And the angel of the <span class="smcap">Lord</span> said unto
+her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under
+her hands." Genesis xvi., 7 to 9. He then proceeded
+to unfold the future of her unborn son, and Hagar
+obeyed his commands. From verses 10th and 13th, we
+learn certainly that this angel was a Divine Person.
+For, in the first place, he promises Hagar, "I will multiply
+thy seed exceedingly;" but none but the Almighty
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span>
+could truthfully make such a promise in his own name,
+as it is here made. In the latter place we are informed
+that it was the <span class="smcap">Lord</span> (in Hebrew, <i>Jehovah</i>; the most
+characteristic and incommendable name of God) that
+spake unto her; and Hagar called his name: "Thou
+God, seest me." We remark again, that Hagar was
+certainly in the relation of domestic slavery, and not of
+a hired servant, to Abraham and Sarai. She is called
+<i>Shiphheh</i>, which is the regular word for female slave
+in the Old Testament. Had she not been an actual
+slave, Sarai would never have presumed, according to
+Oriental usage, to dispose of her person in the manner
+related. Here, then, we have God, himself, the Angel
+Jehovah, who can be no other than the Second Person
+of the Trinity, Christ, commanding this fugitive to return
+into the relation of domestic slavery, and submit
+to it. Can that relation be in itself sinful? To assert
+this, would make our adorable Saviour <i>particeps criminis</i>.
+He cannot have required a soul to return into a
+sinful state. He never requires of his servants more
+than their duty; so that if Sarai had possessed no real
+and just title to Hagar's services as a slave&mdash;if the claim
+had been a mere imposition and injustice, she would
+not have been required to submit to it. Abolitionists
+attempt to evade this by saying that Hagar was instructed
+to return and submit to bondage on the same
+principle on which Christ instructs us, when wrongfully
+smitten on one cheek to turn the other likewise.
+This, say they, by no means implies that the smiting
+was just. We reply, that the parallel cannot be drawn.
+Had Hagar been in the hand of an unjust mistress, it
+would have been her duty in Christian forbearance to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span>
+"take it patiently, though buffeted wrongfully." But
+she was not now in Sarai's hand. She had successfully
+escaped it, and was far advanced in her' journey
+to her native Egypt, where she evidently expected
+to find friends and shelter. Under these circumstances,
+it is preposterous to say that the grace of Christian
+forbearance required of her to return voluntarily whither
+no claim of right drew her, and subject herself to
+unjust and unauthorized persecution again. We ask,
+Does Christ so press the duty of peaceableness, as to
+sacrifice to it the whole personal well-being and rightful
+interests of the innocent victim of unjust aggression?
+Is his chief object, in these lessons of forbearance,
+to gratify and pamper the lust of persecution in
+the aggressor? Is there no right of just self-defence
+left? Surely he teaches us that we owe a duty to our
+own life and well-being, as well as to our fellow-men's.
+When we are wronged, we are to defend this right only
+in such ways as become a son of peace&mdash;a man of forgiveness.
+But the same Saviour who taught his disciples
+to render good for evil when injured, also commanded
+them: "When they persecute you in one city,
+flee ye into another." When a peaceable escape can
+be secured from injustice, it is both the privilege and
+duty of the most forgiving Christian on earth to use it.
+Now Hagar was in such a condition; had her subjection
+to Sarai been, as the Abolitionists say slavery is, a
+condition of unjust persecution, the Saviour's instructions
+to her would doubtless have been: "Now that
+you have escaped the injustice of her that wronged
+you, flee to another city." His remanding her to Sarai
+shows that the subjection was lawful and right.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It has been objected again, that we cannot argue
+this, unless we are willing to argue the lawfulness of
+concubinage; because to send Hagar back to her bondage
+was to resign her again to this relation. We utterly
+deny it. The <span class="smcap">Lord</span> only says to her: "Return to
+thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands;" not
+"Return to thy master's bed." There is not one particle
+of proof that Abram continued his improper connexion
+with her after these transactions. Nor is there
+more worth in the remark, that subsequently, the same
+divine Being met Hagar wandering in the same wilderness,
+and did not require her to return, but assisted her
+journey. The answer is, that she was then under no
+obligation to return; because her master had fully
+manumitted her, and bestowed her freedom on her.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 5. <i>Slavery in the Laws of Moses.</i></h3>
+
+<p>God, in accordance with his covenant with Abraham,
+set apart Israel, through the ministry of Moses, to be
+his peculiar and holy people, his witness in the midst
+of an apostate world, to keep alive the services and
+precepts of true morality and true religion, till, in the
+fulness of time, Jesus Christ should come in the flesh,
+and begin the Christianizing of all nations. To effect
+these objects, He renewed his revelation of the eternal
+and unchangeable moral law, from Sinai, in the Decalogue;
+and he also gave, by the intervention of Moses,
+various religious and civil laws, which were peculiar to
+the Jews, and were never intended to be observed after
+the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The great object of
+all this legislation, was to set apart the Jewish nation
+as a holy people, peculiarly dedicated to purity of moral
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span>
+life, and the maintenance of true religion, amidst corrupt
+and idolatrous generations. To effect this, God
+found it necessary to raise a barrier to familiar social
+intercourse between the Israelites and their corrupting
+heathen neighbours; and sundry of the expedients by
+which this barrier was raised, were prohibitions of
+usages which would have been, in themselves, neither
+right nor wrong, but morally indifferent, as the eating
+of pork. Some of those laws having the same object in
+view, required acts in their original nature indifferent;
+such as circumcision and eating the Passover. But it
+is totally inconsistent with the holiness of God, and
+with his purpose of setting Israel apart to a holy life,
+that any of those peculiar laws should require acts in
+themselves wicked, or forbid things in themselves morally
+binding. It would be impiety to represent God as
+capable of commanding what is wrong; and to enjoin
+sin in order to make people holy, would be a folly and
+a contradiction. God's revealed will, so far as it is revealed
+for a rule of life, either permanent or temporary,
+can contain nothing but what is right, and pure, and
+just. If it had been a positive moral duty to eat pork,
+this holy God would never have made the prohibition
+to eat it a part even of the temporary, ceremonial laws
+of his servants. Had it been morally wrong to kill,
+roast, and eat a lamb, God would never have enjoined
+on them the institution of the Passover. These conclusions
+are as plain as the alphabet.</p>
+
+<p>Now then, if we find any particular thing either sanctioned
+or enjoined, in the peculiar ceremonial or civil
+institutions of Moses, it does not prove that thing to be
+morally binding on us, in this century, or necessarily
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span>
+politic and proper for us; but it does prove it to be, in
+its essential moral character, innocent. That thing cannot
+be sin in itself. So, Jno. David Michaelis, in his
+<i>Commentaries on the Laws of Moses</i>, Book 1, Art. 1.
+This is the important and just distinction. The fact
+that animal sacrifices were required in the ceremonial
+laws of Moses, does not prove that it is our duty, under
+the Christian dispensation, to offer sacrifices, or that it
+is appropriate for us to do so; but it does prove that
+the act would be in itself innocent (though useless) for
+us, and for every one, if it had not been forbidden in
+subsequent revelation. Otherwise, a holy God would
+never have enjoined or sanctioned it at all.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, the fact that God expressly authorized domestic
+slavery, among the peculiar and temporary civil
+laws of the Jews, while it does not prove that it is our
+positive duty to hold slaves, does prove that it is innocent
+to hold them, unless it has been subsequently forbidden
+by God. Now then, let us see what God authorized
+by Moses. Exodus xxi. 2 to 6: "If thou buy an
+Hebrew servant, (Ebed,) 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 unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his
+master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span>
+shall serve him forever," (that is, probably, until the
+year of Jubilee, which came once in fifty years. See
+Leviticus xxv. 41.)</p>
+
+<p>This, cries the anti-slavery man, was only temporary
+servitude. We reply: but it was involuntary servitude,
+though temporary. It gave to the master the right to
+compel the labour of the servant without his consent;
+and this is a sanction of the principle of our institution.
+What will be said then to the following? Leviticus
+xxv. 44 to 46: "Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids
+which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are
+round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and
+bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers
+that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy and of
+their families that are with you, which they begat in
+your land; and they shall be your possession," (your
+property.) "And ye shall take them as an inheritance
+for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession;
+they shall be your bondmen forever; but over
+your brethren, the children of Israel, ye shall not rule
+over one another with rigour."</p>
+
+<p>The antithesis in the position of the two laws shows
+that these heathen slaves were not to go free at the
+year of Jubilee, like Hebrew slaves. They are to be
+bondmen forever. They and their children, slaves by
+birth, are to descend from father to son, as heritable
+property. There was to be "no seventh year freedom
+here; there is no Jubilee liberation." So says the
+learned divine, Moses Stuart, of Andover, himself an
+anti-slavery man. And so say all respectable Hebrew
+antiquaries. Indeed it would be hard to construct language
+defining more strongly and fully all those features
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span>
+of domestic slavery most contradictory to the theory
+of Abolitionists. They were to be bought and sold.
+They were heritable property: (Mr. Sumner would prove
+hence, "mere chattels.") Here is involuntary slavery
+for life, expressly authorized to God's own peculiar and
+holy people, in the strongest and most careful terms.
+The relation, then, must be innocent in itself. With
+what show of candour can men say, in the face of a
+sanction so full, so emphatic, so hearty, that Moses,
+finding the hoary institution of domestic slavery so
+deeply rooted that it would be impossible then to abolish
+it, <i>tolerated</i> it, and limited it by all the restrictions
+which he could apply, calculated to cut off its worst
+horrors? We ask, was Moses the author of these laws,
+or God? Does the Almighty, the Unchangeable, the
+Holy, connive at moral abuses, like a puny human magistrate,
+and content himself, where he dare not denounce
+a sin, with pruning its growth a little? We ask again:
+Is this gloss borne out by the facts? Was Moses, in
+fact, timid in assailing old and deeply-rooted vices, and
+in demanding that they should be eradicated wholly?
+Let his uncompromising legislation against Idolatry
+and Adultery answer. The truth is, such writers as use
+the above language know nothing about the true nature
+of domestic slavery, and draw their inferences only
+from their prejudices. God and Moses knew it well.
+They knew that it was an institution which, when not
+abused, was suitable to the character of the depraved
+persons for whom it was designed, and wholesome and
+benign. Hence, they prohibit all inhuman abuses of
+it; and then they do not tolerate it merely as an unavoidable
+wrong; but they expressly legalize it, as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span>
+right. An honest mind can make nothing less of their
+words. But in Numbers xxxi. 25 to 30, and Joshua
+ix. 20 to 27, we have instances which are, if possible,
+still stronger. In the former passage the people of
+Midian had been conquered by God's command, and the
+captives and spoils brought home; the captives to be
+slaves for life according to the law of Leviticus, ch.
+xxv. The book of Numbers then proceeds: "And the
+Lord spake unto Moses saying, Take the sum of prey
+that was taken both of man and of beast, thou and
+Eleazer the priest and the chief fathers of the congregation;
+and divide the prey into two parts; between
+them that took the war upon them who went out to
+battle, and between all the congregation. And levy a
+tribute unto the Lord of the men of war which went
+out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the persons,
+and of the beeves, and of the asses and of the
+sheep: Take it of their half, and give it unto Eleazer
+the priest, for an heave-offering of the <i>Lord</i>. And of
+the children of Israel's half thou shalt take one portion
+of fifty, of the persons, of the beeves, of the asses and
+of the flocks, of all manner of beasts, and give them
+unto the Levites which keep the charge of the tabernacle
+of the Lord." In verses 40th and 46th, we read
+farther that the "<i>Lord's</i> tribute of the persons" of the
+first half, "was thirty and two persons," and of the
+second half, "three hundred and twenty." Here God
+commands a portion of these slaves to be set apart to a
+sacred use, and dedicated to himself, that they might
+become the property of the ministers of religion. The
+second instance is not contained in the books of Moses,
+but in the history of his successor Joshua: we group it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span>
+with the former, for its similarity. In Joshua, ch. ix.,
+we are told that while he was triumphantly engaged in
+the destruction of the condemned heathen tribes of Palestine,
+according to God's command, the people of Gibeon,
+a part of the doomed race, despairing of a successful
+defence, adopted this stratagem to save themselves.
+Under pretence that they were not of Palestine at all,
+but from a very distant place, their ambassadors obtained
+from the leaders of the Israelites a very stringent
+oath of amity. This pledge the elders incautiously
+gave, without seeking the divine direction. In a very
+few days they learned to their astonishment, that these
+Gibeonites lived in the very heart of Palestine, close to
+the spot where they were encamped, and that they were
+of the very race which they were appointed to destroy.
+But they had sworn in the name of Jehovah not to destroy
+them. In this state of things, the princes and
+Joshua determined to punish them for their falsehood,
+and at the same time substantially observe their oath,
+by leaving them unhurt, but reducing them to slavery
+as the serfs of the Tabernacle and its ministers. In
+verses 23d and 27th, Joshua told them: "Now, therefore,
+ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed
+from being bondmen," (Ebed, i. e., slaves,) "and hewers
+of wood and drawers of water for the house of my
+God." "And Joshua made them that day hewers of
+wood and drawers of water for the congregation and
+for the altar of the <i>Lord</i>, even unto this day, in that
+place which he should choose." This compact the Gibeonites
+seem gladly to have accepted. In 2d Samuel,
+ch. xxi., we find this same race of serfs still living
+among the Israelites, under the same compact. King
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span>
+Saul, David's predecessor, having broken it by killing
+many of them, God himself interposed, and required a
+satisfaction for the breach. Here we have evidence
+that the slaves of heathen origin were not freed by the
+Jubilee, for centuries had now elapsed and they were
+still slaves. We also see evidence that the contract
+made by Joshua was not regarded by God as unlawful.
+In this case, also, we find God accepting a religious offering
+of slaves for the service of his sanctuary. And
+these, while real slaves, did not belong each to an individual
+master, but were slaves to an institution and a
+caste, a form of bondage always justly regarded as less
+benevolent than the former.</p>
+
+<p>Yet men say slavery is a wicked relation, which God
+only tolerated and curbed in the Old Testament. The
+<i>Lord's</i> claiming his tythe of slaves (as of cattle and
+wheat) seems to the candid man a strange way of expressing
+bare tolerance! Was it not enough to leave
+the laity of the "holy people" polluted with the sin of
+slaveholding, without proceeding by his own express
+injunction to introduce the "taint" into the still more
+sacred caste of the priesthood? Did the God of all
+holiness direct a part of the wages of iniquity to be set
+apart for his holy uses? Perhaps it may be said that
+He regarded the holy use as sanctifying the unholy
+source of the offering. The surmise is blasphemous.
+But see Deuteronomy xxiii. 18: "Thou shalt not bring
+the hire of a whore or the price of a dog into the house
+of the <i>Lord</i> thy God for any vow: for even both these
+are abomination to the <i>Lord</i> thy God." To set apart to
+God's use property wickedly acquired was an insult to
+his holiness: and to offer Him even what was acquired
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span>
+by the sale of an animal ceremonially unclean, was resented
+as a type of the same sin. The consecration of
+these slaves to sacred uses is therefore the strongest
+possible proof that slaves are lawful property. To sum
+up: The divine permission and sanction of slavery to
+the very people whom God was setting apart to a holy
+life, the consecration of slaves as property to a sacred
+purpose, the regulating by law of the duties flowing
+from the relation, all prove that it was then a lawful
+and innocent one. Otherwise, we should have the holy
+God teaching sin. If it was innocent once in its intrinsic
+nature, it is innocent now, unless it has been subsequently
+prohibited by God. But no such prohibition
+can be shown.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 6. <i>Slavery in the Decalogue.</i></h3>
+
+<p>Although the Ten Commandments were given along
+with the civil and ceremonial laws of the Hebrews, we
+do not include them along with the latter, because the
+Decalogue was, unlike them, given for all men and all
+dispensations. It is a solemn repetition of the sum of
+those duties founded on the natures of man and of
+God, and on their relations, enjoined on all ages alike.
+It contains nothing ceremonial, or of merely temporary
+obligation; (which is binding merely because it is commanded;)
+but all is of perpetual, moral obligation. It
+claims to be, rightly explained, a perfect and complete
+rule. Our Saviour repeatedly adopts it as the eternal
+sum of all duty, on which hang all the law and the
+prophets, that is, all Scripture. Accordingly, we find
+that the mode of its republication gave to this Decalogue
+a grandeur and weight shared by no secular or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span>
+ceremonial precepts. Deuteronomy v. informs us that
+it was delivered first, thus receiving the precedence,
+that it was spoken by God himself in articulate words,
+heard by all the quaking multitude, in tones of thunder,
+from the smoking summit of Sinai, with the terrible
+concomitants of angelic hosts, devouring fire, lightnings
+and earthquakes; that God added no more, thus
+refusing to all the subsequent precepts the honour of
+such a publication, and that He himself then engraved
+it on stone, signifying by the imperishable material,
+the perpetuity of this law.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, all the principles of right stated or implied in
+this Decalogue, are valid, not for Hebrews only, but for
+all men and ages. They rise wholly above the temporary
+and positive precepts, which were only binding
+while they were expressly enjoined. They have not
+been, because they cannot be, repealed or modified;
+they are as immutable as God's perfections. In our
+Saviour's words, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot
+or one tittle of this law shall not pass away."</p>
+
+<p>Now, our argument is, that in this short summary,
+the relation of master and slave is mentioned twice;
+and that in modes which are a recognition of its lawfulness.
+It is introduced as a basis of duties and rights
+founded upon it, and those rights are defended, and
+those duties enjoined. But if it were an unlawful relation,
+what rights could grow out of it except the
+slave's right to have it broken? And what duties of
+the master could be founded on it, except the duties of
+discontinuing, repenting of, and repairing its wrongs?
+In the 4th Commandment, Exod. xx. 10, it is made the
+master's duty to cause the slave to observe the Sabbath
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span>
+day. After the 8th Commandment had forbidden injury
+to our fellow-man's property in act, by overt theft,
+the 10th, (v. 17,) prohibits its injury even in thought
+by corrupt coveting. And in the enumeration of possessions
+thus carefully covered from assault, are men-servants
+(<i>ebed</i>) and maid-servants, along with real estate
+and cattle. If the reader would feel the strength
+of the argument implied in these facts, let him ask
+himself what would have been his amazement, if, after
+the description which God's word gives of the authority,
+righteousness, purity, and perpetuity of this Decalogue,
+he had read in it, that highwaymen and pirates are commanded
+to enforce Sabbath observance on their injured
+victims, and that we must not covet our neighbour's
+concubine, or the stolen goods in his possession? And
+this, without hint of the guilt of violence, concubinage,
+and theft. It would be impossible for either understanding
+or conscience to reconcile itself to the anomaly;
+he would feel, inevitably, that God was incapable
+of such implied sanction of sin.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 7. <i>Objections to the Old Testament Argument.</i></h3>
+
+<p>To state the arguments from the laws of Moses and
+the Decalogue has not required a large space, because
+those conclusions are so plain and sound, that many
+words were not needed. But the cavils, objections and
+special pleadings of the Abolitionists teem like the
+frogs of Egypt, engendered in the mire of ignorance
+and prejudice, so numerous because so worthless.
+And when it is seen that we perhaps expend more
+space in their refutation than we did in the direct argument,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span>
+the heedless reader may possibly be inclined
+to say to himself, that there must be something wrong
+in an argument to which so much can be objected.
+We beg him to observe then, that we pause to explode
+these objections, not because they are of any weight,
+but because we purpose to make thorough work with
+our opponents. When we have finished these rejoinders,
+we shall take the impartial reader to witness,
+that not only the weight, but the least appearance of
+plausibility in these cavils has been blown into thin
+air. And then we shall have the right to infer that
+their number indicates, not the questionable character
+of our positions, but only a fixed and blind prejudice
+against the truth in our adversaries.</p>
+
+<p>It is objected that domestic slavery among the Hebrews
+was a much milder institution than in Virginia,
+and that, therefore, we have no right to argue from the
+one to the other. If it were true that Hebrew slavery
+was milder, it might show that we were wrong in the
+way in which we treated our slaves; but it could not
+prove that slaveholding was wrong. The principle
+would still be established, for the lawfulness of the relation.
+But let it be noted that the peculiar mitigations
+of slavery affected only slaves of Hebrew blood, not
+Gentiles. Whatever may have been the leniency of the
+system, the state of the Gentile slaves showed the essential
+features of slavery among us, the right to the
+slave's labour for life without his consent, property in
+that labour, the right to buy, sell and bequeath it; the
+right to enforce it on the slave by corporal punishments,
+which might have any degree of severity short
+of death. (See Exod. xxi. 20, 21.) Virginians had no interest
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span>
+to contend for any stricter form of slavery than
+this.</p>
+
+<p>Second. It is said that the permission to buy, possess,
+and bequeath slaves of heathen origin, which we have
+cited, related only to the seven condemned tribes of
+Canaan, and was part of the divinely appointed penalty
+for their wickedness. Even such a man as Dr.
+Wayland, of Brown University, Rhode Island, has
+adopted this plea, thus justifying in a prominent instance
+the assertion that Abolitionism is grounded in a
+shameful ignorance of facts. The answer to the plea
+is, that it is expressly contrary to fact. The Hebrews
+were positively prohibited to reserve any of the seven
+condemned nations for slaves, and were enjoined to exterminate
+them all, lest the contagion of their vile
+morals should corrupt Israel. On the other hand, they
+were told that they might buy them slaves of any of
+the other Gentile nations around them, with whom they
+were to live on terms of national amity. (See Deuteronomy,
+xx. 10 to 18.) After directing the policy of the
+Hebrews towards conquered enemies from these nations,
+and permitting the enslaving of the captives,
+Moses proceeds: (v. 15.) "Thus shalt thou do unto
+all the cities which are very far off from thee, which
+are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities
+of these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee
+for an inheritance, thou shalt save nothing alive that
+breatheth; but thou shalt utterly destroy them, namely,
+the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the
+Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord
+thy God hath commanded thee; that they teach you not
+to do after all their abominations," etc. (See also,
+Josh. vi. 17 to 21; viii. 26; x. 28 to 32, etc., etc.)
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Third. It is objected from these very injunctions, that
+the examples of the commands given to the Israelites
+are no rules for us; that God commanded them to exterminate
+the seven nations of Canaan; but if we
+should therefore proceed to attack and destroy a neighbouring
+nation which had not assailed us, it would be
+a horrible wickedness. It is asked: Were the fanatics
+of the English Commonwealth in the 17th century correct
+when they justified their barbarities upon royalists
+by the examples of Joshua's slaughter of the Amorites,
+and Samuel's of Amalek? And we are told that our
+argument from Hebrew slavery is of the same absurd
+kind.</p>
+
+<p>We reply: We willingly accept the instances. God's
+command to Joshua and Samuel to exterminate the Canaanites
+and Amalek, does prove that killing is not
+necessarily murder. This very instance gives us an
+unanswerable argument against those who oppose all
+capital punishments as wrong. And just so we employ
+the other instance, which our assailants say is parallel&mdash;Hebrew
+slavery&mdash;to prove that slaveholding is not
+necessarily sinful. But the instances are not parallel.
+The sanction of domestic slavery was a statute law for
+all generations of Hebrews; the command to exterminate
+the seven tribes imposed a specific task on certain
+individuals. It is absurd to confound an executive
+command, given to particular men for the once, under
+particular circumstances, with the sanctions of a permanent
+institution, designed to descend from generation
+to generation. The command to exterminate the
+seven guilty tribes was the former, the permission to
+hold slaves the latter. True, the example of Joshua in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span>
+blotting these tribes from existence, is no authority for
+us to do likewise, unless we also can show a direct divine
+commission authorizing us for a special case. But
+neither was that example authority to any subsequent
+generation of Hebrews, after Joshua, to exterminate
+any other pagan tribe. Will any one say that the authority
+given by Moses to his fellow-citizens to hold
+slaves was not just as good to enable subsequent generations
+of Hebrews to hold slaves? Prejudice cannot
+carry sophistry so far. There is, therefore, no analogy
+between the two cases, in the point necessary for
+grounding the objection to our argument.</p>
+
+<p>Fourth. It is said that Moses himself commanded
+that a runaway slave should not be surrendered to his
+master; thereby plainly teaching that slaves had a
+right to their liberty, if they could escape. This, it is
+urged, proves that there must be some mistake in our
+conclusions. Of course, this passage is quoted triumphantly
+as settling the question against the fugitive
+slave-law, required by the late Constitution of the
+United States. It is found in Deuteronomy xxiii. 15,
+16: "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant
+which is escaped from his master unto thee: he shall
+dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which
+he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him
+best; thou shalt not oppress him."</p>
+
+<p>We need no better answer to this citation, than that
+given by a Northern divine already named, who is no
+friend to slavery, Rev. Moses Stuart. He says: "The
+first inquiry of course is: Where does his master live?
+Among the Hebrews or among foreigners? The language
+of the passage fully developes this, and answers
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span>
+the question. He has 'escaped from his master unto
+the Hebrews.' (The text says, unto <i>thee</i>, i. e., Israel.)
+'He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in one of thy
+gates.' Of course then, he is an immigrant, and did
+not dwell among them before his flight. If he had been
+a Hebrew servant, belonging to a Hebrew, the whole
+face of the thing would be changed. Restoration or
+restitution, if we may judge by the tenour of other
+property laws among the Hebrews, would have surely
+been enjoined. But, be that as it may, the language of
+the text puts it beyond a doubt, that the servant is a
+foreigner and has fled from a heathen master." Mr.
+Stuart then proceeds to assign obvious reasons why a
+foreign servant escaping from a heathen master was
+not to be restored: that the bondage from which he
+escaped was inordinately cruel, including the power of
+murder for any caprice; and that to force him back
+was to remand him to the darkness of heathenism, and
+to rob him of the light of true religion, which shone in
+the land of the Hebrews alone. He adds: "But if we
+put now the other case, viz.: that of escape from a Hebrew
+master, who claimed and enjoyed Hebrew rights,
+is not the case greatly changed? Who could take from
+him the property which the Mosaic law gave him a
+right to hold? Neither the bondsman himself, nor the
+neighbours of the master to whom the fugitive might
+come. Reclamation of him could be lawfully made, and
+therefore must be enforced." This explanation forces
+itself upon our common sense. To suppose that Moses
+could so formally authorize and define slavery among
+the Hebrews, and then enact that every slave might
+gain his liberty by merely stepping over the brook or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>
+imaginary line which separated the little cantons of the
+tribes from each other, or even by going to the next
+house of his master's neighbours, and claiming protection,
+whenever petulance, or caprice, or laziness should
+move him thereto; this is absurd; it is trivial child's
+play. It takes away with one hand what it professed
+to give with the other. The fact that slavery continued
+to exist from age to age, is proof enough that the Hebrews
+did not put the Abolitionist construction on the
+law. To this agree the respectable Hebrew antiquarians,
+as Horne, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Fifth. It is urged that Revelation was in its plan
+progressive, like the morning twilight; that the Mosaic
+code was the early dawn; that God, for wise reasons,
+left many points in darkness, which the full daylight of
+the Gospel has since shown to be sin. And, therefore,
+several practices, which we are now taught to be sinful,
+may have been ignorantly followed by good men,
+and tolerated by this imperfect legislation of God's
+law. Yet if we, who enjoy a fuller revelation, should
+indulge in these practices, we should be guilty and disobedient.</p>
+
+<p>Grant this, for the present. Grant, for argument's
+sake, that it may have been consistent with the plan of
+revelation to make known at first only a partial rule of
+duty, leaving some sins unmentioned. Yet surely it
+was not consistent with the truth and holiness of God,
+to throw a false light in that partial revelation, on
+those parts of man's duty which he professed to reveal!
+So far as any revelation from God goes, it must be a
+true and righteous one. If it undertook to fix a point
+of duty, it must fix it correctly, whatever else it might
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span>
+omit. Otherwise; we should have a holy, true, and
+good Creator, while professing to guide man to duty
+and life, misleading him to sin and death. Let now
+the reader note that the lawfulness of slavery was not
+one of the points omitted. God spake expressly upon
+it; and what he said was to authorize it.</p>
+
+<p>But we do not admit that Moses' was an incomplete
+revelation in the sense of the Abolitionists. They are
+fond of representing the New Testament revelation as
+completing, amending, and correcting that of the Old.
+Its details the New Testament does complete; but if it
+were amended or corrected by any subsequent standard
+of infallible truth, this would prove it not truly inspired.
+Indeed, the history of theological opinion shows plainly
+enough that this anti-slavery view of Old Testament
+revelation is Socinian and Rationalistic. Modern Abolitionism
+in America had, in fact, a Socinian birth, in
+the great apostasy of the Puritans of New England to
+that benumbing heresy, and in the pharisaism, shallow
+scholarship, affectation, conceit and infidelity of the
+Unitarian clique in the self-styled American Athens,
+Boston. It is lamentable to see how men professing to
+be evangelical are driven by blind prejudices against
+Southern men and things, to adopt this skeptical tone
+towards God's own word. The ruinous issue has been
+seen in the case of a minister of the Gospel, who, after
+floundering through a volume of confused and impotent
+sophisms, roundly declares that if compelled to admit
+that the Bible treated slavery as not a sin in itself, he
+would repudiate the Bible rather than his opinions.</p>
+
+<p>But we point these objectors to that Saviour who
+said, in the full meridian of revealed light of this Old
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span>
+Testament law: "Whosoever shall keep these commandments
+shall enter into eternal life;" and to the fact
+that the Decalogue itself twice recognizes the right of
+the master. Will they say that this too was an old,
+partial, and imperfect revelation? Not so says the
+sweet Psalmist of Israel: "The law of the Lord is perfect."
+Psalms, xix. 7. Whatever Abolitionists may
+cavil, Jesus Christ acknowledged no more perfect rule
+of morals than the Ten Commandments, as expounded
+by the "law and the prophets."</p>
+
+<p>Sixth. An objection has been raised against the Old
+Testament argument, from the supposed permission of,
+or connivance at, polygamy and causeless divorce in
+the laws of Moses. This objection has been urged by
+Dr. Channing, the celebrated Unitarian, and since, in a
+more exact form, by Dr. Wayland. In substance it is
+this: That polygamy was allowed by the Old Testament
+law, and divorce for a less cause than conjugal
+infidelity was expressly permitted by Moses. But both
+these are as expressly forbidden as sinful by our Saviour.
+Matthew xix. 3 to 9. Therefore the main assertion
+in defence of slavery, on which the argument rested,
+does not hold: for these two instances show that a
+thing is not intrinsically innocent because it was permitted
+for a time to the Jews.</p>
+
+<p>Our reply is, that both the premises of the objection
+are absolutely false. Polygamy and capricious divorce
+never were authorized by Old Testament law, in the
+sense in which domestic slavery was; and, second, the
+latter was never prohibited in the New Testament, as
+polygamy and such divorces expressly are. Either of
+these facts, without the other, makes the objection invalid,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span>
+as we shall show; but we shall establish both.
+Before doing this, however, we would ask: Suppose
+these assertions of Drs. Wayland and Channing proved
+that God expressly permitted polygamy and causeless
+divorce to his own chosen and holy people, and that
+Jesus Christ yet denounced these things as sins; what
+is gained? Not only is this part of our defence of
+slavery overthrown, but the holiness of God is also
+overthrown; or else the inspiration of the Scriptures.
+(The latter would be a result evidently not very repugnant
+to Socinians and their sympathizers.) For then
+these Scriptures would make Him the teacher of sin to
+the very persons whom he was setting apart to peculiar
+holiness. If God did indeed authorize polygamy and
+causeless divorce in the Old Testament law, then the
+only inference for the devout mind is, that those things
+were then innocent, and would still be so, had not Christ
+afterwards forbidden them. Now, when we pass into
+the New Testament, and find that domestic slavery
+(which these objectors would make the parallel of
+polygamy and divorce without just cause) is not forbidden
+there, as the latter two were, but is again permitted,
+authorized and regulated, we must conclude
+that it is still innocent, as it must have been when a
+holy God allowed it to his holy people.</p>
+
+<p>But the first part of the objectors' premise is also
+false; polygamy and causeless divorce never were sanctioned
+by Moses as domestic slavery was. Even admitting
+the more ignorant rendering of the matter, how
+wide is the difference in God's treatment of the two subjects!
+Slaves are mentioned as lawful property, not
+only in the biographies of God's erring and fallible servants,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span>
+but in his own legislation; the acquisition of
+them is a blessing from him; their connexion with their
+masters is made the basis of religious sacraments; property
+in slaves is protected by laws of divine enactment;
+and the rights and duties of them and their masters defined.
+But when we pass to the subjects of plurality
+and change of wives, while we see the lives of imperfect,
+though good men, candidly disclosing these abuses,
+no legislative act recognizes them, except in the single
+case of divorce. In all God's laws and precepts, He always
+says <i>wife</i>, not <i>wives</i>, so carefully does He avoid
+a seeming allowance of a plurality. The Decalogue
+throws no protection around concubines, against the
+coveting of others. The rights and duties of polygamists
+are never defined by divine law, save in seeming
+exceptions which will be explained. How unlike is all
+this to the legislation upon slavery!</p>
+
+<p>What has been already said leaves our argument impregnable.
+But so much misapprehension exists about
+the two cases, that the general interests of truth prompt
+a little farther separate discussion of each. The two
+enactments touching divorce which present the supposed
+contradiction in the strongest form, are those of
+Moses in Deuteronomy xxiv. 1 to 4, and Matthew xix.
+3 to 9. These the reader is requested to have under his
+eye. The form of the Pharisees' question to Christ,
+("Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife <i>for every
+cause</i>?") concurs with the testimony of Josephus, in
+teaching us that a monstrous perversion of Moses' statute
+then prevailed. The licentious, and yet self-righteous
+Pharisee claimed, as one of his most unquestioned
+privileges, the right to repudiate a wife, after the lapse
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span>
+of years, and birth of children, for any caprice whatsoever.
+The trap which they now laid for Christ was designed
+to compel him either to incur the <i>odium</i> of attacking
+this usage, guarded by a jealous anger, or to
+connive at their interpretation of the statute. Manifestly
+Christ does not concede that they interpreted
+Moses rightly; but indignantly clears the legislation of
+that holy man from their licentious perversions, and
+then, because of their abuse of it, repeals it by his plenary
+authority. He refers to that constitution of the
+marriage tie which was original, which preceded Moses,
+and was therefore binding when Moses wrote, to show
+that it was impossible he could have enacted what they
+claimed. What then did Moses enact? Let us explain
+it. In the ancient society of the East, females being
+reared in comparative seclusion, and marriages negotiated
+by intermediaries, the bridegroom had little opportunity
+for a familiar acquaintance even with the
+person of the bride. When she was brought to him at
+the nuptials, if he found her disfigured with some personal
+deformity or disease, (the undoubted meaning of
+the phrase "some uncleanness,") which effectually
+changed desire into disgust, he was likely to regard
+himself as swindled in the treaty, and to send the rejected
+bride back with indignity to her father's house.
+There she was reluctantly received, and in the anomalous
+position of one in name a wife, yet without a husband,
+she dragged out a wretched existence, incapable
+of marriage, and regarded by her parents and brothers
+as a disgraceful incumbrance. It was to relieve the
+wretched fate of such a woman, that Moses' law was
+framed. She was empowered to exact of her proposed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span>
+husband a formal annulment of the unconsummated contract,
+and to resume the <i>status</i> of a single woman, eligible
+for another marriage. It is plain that Moses' law
+contemplates the case, only, in which no consummation
+of marriage takes place. She finds <i>no favour</i> in the
+eyes "of the bridegroom." He is so indignant and disgusted,
+that desire is put to flight by repugnance. The
+same fact appears from the condition of the law, that
+she shall in no case return to this man, "after she is
+defiled," i. e., after actual cohabitation with another
+man had made her unapproachable (without moral defilement)
+by the first. Such was the narrow extent of
+this law. The act for which it provided was divorce
+only in name, where that <i>consensus, qui matrimonium
+facit</i>, (in the words of the law maxim,) had never been
+perfected. The state of social usages among the Hebrews,
+with parental and fraternal severity towards the
+unfortunate daughter and sister, rendered the legislation
+of Moses necessary, and righteous at the time; but
+"a greater than Moses" was now here; and he, after
+defending the inspired law-giver from their vile misrepresentation,
+proceeded to repeal the law, because it
+had been so perverted, and because the social changes
+of the age had removed its righteous grounds. Let the
+Abolitionists show us a similar change in the law of
+domestic slavery, made by Christ, and we will admit
+that the moral conditions of the relation have changed
+since Moses' day.</p>
+
+<p>The case of the polygamist is still clearer; for we assert
+that the whole legislation of the Pentateuch and of
+all the Old Testament is only adverse to polygamy.
+As some Christian divines have taught otherwise, we
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span>
+must ask the reader's attention and patience for a brief
+statement. Polygamy is recorded of Abraham, Jacob,
+Gideon, Elkanah, David, Solomon; but so are other sins
+of several of these; and, as every intelligent reader
+knows, the truthful narrative of holy writ as often discloses
+the sins of good men&mdash;for our warning, as their
+virtues for our imitation. And he who notes how, in
+every Bible instance, polygamy appears as the cause of
+domestic feuds, sin, and disaster, will have little doubt
+that the Holy Spirit tacitly holds all these cases up for
+our caution, and not our approval. But, then, God
+made Adam one wife only, and taught him the great
+law of the perpetual unity of the twain, just as it is
+now expounded by Jesus Christ. (Genesis ii. 23, 24,
+with Matthew xix. 4 to 6.) God preserved but one wife
+each to Noah and his sons. In every statute and preceptive
+word of the Holy Spirit, it is always <i>wife</i>, and
+not <i>wives</i>. The prophets everywhere teach how to
+treat a <i>wife</i>, and not <i>wives</i>. Moses, Leviticus xviii. 18,
+in the code regulating marriage, expressly prohibits
+the marriage of a second wife in the life of the first,
+thus enjoining monogamy in terms as clear as Christ's.
+Our English version hath it: "Neither shalt thou take
+a wife to her sister to vex her, to uncover her nakedness,
+besides the other, in her lifetime." Some have
+been preposterous enough to take the word <i>sister</i> here
+in its literal sense, and thus to force on the law the
+meaning that the man desiring to practise polygamy
+may do so provided he does not marry two daughters
+of the same parents; for if he did this, the two sisters
+sharing his bed would, like Rachel and Leah, quarrel
+more fiercely than two strangers. But the word "<i>sister</i>"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span>
+must undoubtedly be taken in the sense of <i>mates</i>,
+<i>fellows</i>, (which it bears in a multitude of places,) and
+this for two controlling reasons. The other sense makes
+Moses talk nonsense and folly, in the supposed reason
+for his prohibition; in that it makes him argue that two
+sisters sharing one man's bed will quarrel, but two
+women having no kindred blood will not. It is false to
+fact and to nature. Did Leah and Rachel show more
+jealousy than Sarah and Hagar, Hannah and Peninnah?
+But when we understand the law in its obvious sense,
+that the husband shall not divide his bed with a second
+mate, the first still living, because such a wrong ever
+harrows and outrages the great instincts placed in woman's
+heart by her Creator, we make Moses talk truth
+and logick worthy of a profound legislator. The other
+reason for this construction is, that the other sense
+places the 18th verse in irreconcilable contradiction to
+the 16th verse. This forbids the marriage of a woman
+to the husband of her deceased sister; while the 18th
+verse, with this false reading, would authorize it.</p>
+
+<p>Once more: Malachi, (chapter ii. 14, 15.) rebuking
+the various corruptions of the Jews, evidently includes
+polygamy; for he argues in favour of monogamy, (and
+also against causeless divorce,) from the fact that God,
+"who had the residue of the Spirit," and could as easily
+have created a thousand women for each man as a
+single one, made the numbers of the sexes equal from
+the beginning. He states this as the motive, "that he
+might seek a godly seed;" that is to say, that the object
+of God in the marriage relation was the right rearing
+of children, which polygamy notoriously hinders.
+Now the commission of an Old Testament prophet was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span>
+not to legislate a new dispensation; for the laws of
+Moses were in full force; the prophets' business was
+to expound them. Hence, we infer that the laws of
+the Mosaic dispensation on the subject of polygamy
+had always been such as Malachi declared them. He
+was but applying Moses' principles.</p>
+
+<p>To the assertion that the law of the Old Testament
+discountenanced polygamy as really as the New Testament,
+it has been objected that the practice was maintained
+by men too pious towards God to be capable of
+continuing in it against express precept; as, for instance,
+by the "king after God's own heart," David.
+Did not he also commit murder and adultery? Surely
+there is no question whether Moses forbids these! The
+history of good men, alas, shows us too plainly the
+power of general evil example, custom, temptation, and
+self-love, in blinding the honest conscience. It has
+been objected that polygamy was so universally practised,
+and so prized, that Moses would never have
+dared to attempt its extinction. When will men learn
+that the author of the Old Testament law was not Moses,
+but God? Is God timid? Does he fear to deal firmly
+with his creatures? But it is denied that there is any
+evidence that polygamy was greatly prevalent among
+the Hebrews. And nothing is easier than to show, that
+if it had been, Moses was a legislator bold enough to
+grapple with it. What more hardy than his dealing
+with the sabbatical year, with idolatry? It is objected
+that the marriage of the widow who was childless to
+the brother of the deceased, to raise up seed to the
+dead, presents a case of polygamy actually commanded.
+We reply, no one can show that the next of kin was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span>
+permitted or required to form such marriage when he
+already had a wife. The celebrated J. D. Michaelis, a
+witness learned and not too favourable, says, in his
+Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, of this law, "Nor
+did it affect a brother having already a wife of his
+own." Book III., ch. vi., &#167; 98. It is objected that polygamy
+is recognized as a permitted relation in Deuteronomy
+xxi. 15-17, where the husband of a polygamous
+marriage is forbidden to transfer the birthright from
+the eldest son to a younger, the child of a more favoured
+wife; and in Exodus xxi. 9, 10, where the husband
+is forbidden to deprive a less favoured wife of her marital
+rights and maintenance. Both these cases are explained
+by the admitted principle, that there may be
+relations which it was sin to form, and which yet it is
+sinful to break when formed. No one doubts whether
+the New Testament makes polygamy unlawful; yet it
+seems very clear that the apostles gave the same instructions
+to the husbands of a plurality of wives entering
+the Christian church. There appears, then, no
+evidence that polygamy was allowed in the laws of
+Moses.</p>
+
+<p>We have thus shown that the objection of Dr. Channing
+to our Old Testament argument for the lawfulness
+of domestic slavery, is false in both its premises. First,
+it is not true that Moses sanctioned polygamy and
+causeless divorce in the sense in which he sanctioned
+slavery. And second, if he did, it would prove that
+those practices were lawful until they were prohibited
+by our Redeemer; but domestic slavery has met no such
+prohibition from him, and is therefore lawful still. If not,
+why did the divine Reformer strike down the two "sister
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span>
+sins," and leave the third, the giant evil, untouched?
+There is but one answer: He did not regard it as a sin.</p>
+
+<p>If too much space has been devoted to this objection,
+the apology is, that it is a subject much misunderstood
+by Christian divines. The explanation is, that the
+study of Hebrew antiquities has, in our day, been left
+so much to German rationalists and secret Socinians;
+the late essays of British and Yankee scholars being to
+so great a degree servile imitations of theirs. But
+these skeptical <i>literati</i> of Germany, while wearing the
+clergyman's frock for the sake of the emoluments of an
+established church, have usually been unsanctified men,
+harbouring the most contemptuous views of Old Testament
+inspiration. The reader will bear in mind that,
+whether he is convinced, with us, that Moses actually
+prohibited polygamy, or not, the refutation of the Abolitionist
+objection is still perfectly valid.</p>
+
+<p>The seventh and last objection against our Old Testament
+argument consists of various passages from the
+Hebrew prophets, which denounce the oppression of
+the poor, and the withholding of the labouring man's
+wages. Every phrase which sounds at all like their
+purpose is violently seized by the Abolitionists, and
+pressed incontinently into the service of condemning
+slavery, without regard to the sacred writer's intention
+or meaning. Were all the texts thus wrested discussed
+here, this section would be swelled into a book. A few
+passages which our opponents regard as their strongest
+will be cited, therefore; and the reply to these will be
+an answer to all. One such is Isaiah, lviii. 6: "Is not
+this the fast which I have chosen, to loose the bands of
+wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span>
+oppressed go free; and that ye break every yoke?"
+Another is found in Jeremiah xx. 13: "Woe unto him
+that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his
+chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's services
+without wages, and giveth him not for his work."
+Another is in Jeremiah xxxiv. 17: "Therefore, thus
+saith the Lord: Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming
+liberty every man to his brother, and every
+man to his neighbour." And to find a scriptural stone
+to pelt the fugitive slave-law, they quote Isaiah xvi. 3:
+"Hide the outcasts; betray not him that wandereth."</p>
+
+<p>Now, one would think that it should have given some
+pause to these perversions of Scripture, to remember that
+these same prophets were undoubtedly slaveholders.
+Witness, for instance, Elisha, who was so large a slaveholder
+as to have eleven ploughmen at once, and who, after
+he devoted himself exclusively to his prophetic ministry,
+still had his servants, Gehazi and others. (2 Kings,
+v. 20, and vi. 15.) How could they have aimed such denunciations
+at slave-owners, and escaped the sarcasm,
+"Physician, heal thyself?" It should have been remembered
+again, that Moses' laws, in which slaveholding
+was expressly sanctioned, were enacted by authority
+just as divine as that by which Isaiah and Jeremiah
+preached; that Moses was more a prophet than even
+they&mdash;"the greatest of the prophets;" that his laws
+were still in full force; that they bore to these prophets'
+instructions the relation of text to exposition; and that
+always the great burden of their accusations against
+their guilty countrymen was, that they had forsaken
+Moses' statutes. Were the guardians and expounders
+of the Constitution armed with power not only to repeal,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span>
+but to vilify, the very law which they were appointed
+to expound? May the sermon contradict its own text?</p>
+
+<p>Before these rebukes of oppression can be applied,
+then, as God's condemnation of domestic slavery, it
+must be proved that in His view slavery is oppression.
+To take this for granted is a begging of the whole
+question in debate. But not only is it not proved by
+any such texts; it is obvious from the above remarks,
+that it cannot be proved by them, unless God can be
+made to contradict himself. But when we examine a
+little the connected words of these prophets themselves,
+we learn from them what they do mean; and we see an
+instance, ludicrous if it were not too painful, of the
+heedless folly with which the Word of God is abused.
+Thus, in Isaiah, lviii. 6, 7, we proceed to the very next
+words, and learn that the duty in hand consists in
+"bringing to their homes the poor that are cast out,"
+and being charitable to "their own flesh." Were the
+Gentile slaves of the Hebrews "their own flesh" in the
+sense of the Old Testament, i. e., their kindred by blood?
+Manifestly, the phrase intends their fellow-citizens of
+Hebrew blood in distress. Are slaveholders in danger
+of sinning by driving away from their houses their domestic
+slaves; and do they need objurgation to make
+them receive them back? Such is the "infinite nonsense"
+forced upon Isaiah's words by Abolitionists.
+There is, then, no reference here to the emancipation
+of Gentile slaves; but to the duties of charity, justice
+and hospitality towards the oppressed of their fellow-citizens.
+And if the passage has any reference to servants,
+it is only to the sin of detaining Hebrew servants
+beyond the Sabbatical year's release.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When we turn to Jeremiah xxii. 13, a glance at the
+connexion shows us that the woe against using a neighbour's
+services without wages, is denounced against
+Shallum, the wicked king of Judah, who built his palaces,
+not by his domestic servants, but by unlawfully
+impressing his political subjects. Such is the marvellous
+accuracy of Abolitionist exposition! So in Jeremiah
+xxxiv. 17, which rebukes the Jews for not "proclaiming
+every man liberty to his brother," one little
+question should have staggered our zealous accusers:
+Were Gentile slaves "brethren" to Jews, in the sense
+of the prophet? And we have only to carry the eye
+back to verse 14, to see him explaining himself, that
+they did not comply with the Mosaic law, "at the end
+of seven years to let go every man his brother a Hebrew,
+which hath been sold unto thee." From the obligation
+of that law, the masters of Gentiles were expressly
+excepted.</p>
+
+<p>But the illustration of crowning folly is Isaiah xvi.
+3, which is so boldly wrested to countenance the harbouring
+of runaway slaves. The words are not the
+language of the prophet at all! The chapter is a
+dramatic picture of the distress of the pagan nations
+near Judea, and especially of Moab, one among them,
+in a time of invasion which Isaiah denounces upon
+them in punishment for their sin; and this verse represents
+the fugitive Moabites as entreating Jews for concealment
+and protection when pursued by their enemies.
+So that there is no slave nor slave-owner in the case at
+all; nor does the prophet's language contain any thing
+to imply whether it was righteous or not for the Jews
+to grant the request of these affrighted sinners in the
+hour of their retribution.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We have now reviewed, perhaps at too much length,
+the various impotent attempts made to escape from the
+meshes of our inexorable Old Testament argument. It
+is an argument short, plain, convincing. Although
+every thing enjoined on the Hebrews is not necessarily
+enjoined on us, (because it may have been of temporary
+obligation,) yet every such thing must be innocent in
+its nature, because a holy God would not sanction sin
+to his holy people, in the very act of separating them
+to holiness. But slaveholding was expressly sanctioned
+as a permanent institution; the duties of masters
+and slaves are defined; the rights of masters protected,
+not only in the civic but the eternal moral law of God;
+and He himself became a slave-owner, by claiming
+an oblation of slaves for his sanctuary and priests.
+Hence, while we do not say that modern Christian nations
+are bound to hold slaves, we do assert that no
+people sin by merely holding slaves, unless the place
+can be shown where God has uttered a subsequent prohibition.
+But there is no such place, as the next chapter
+will show. While we well know that to secret infidels
+and rationalists, as all Abolitionists are, this has
+no weight, to every mind which reverences the inspiration
+of the Old Testament it is conclusive. And let
+every Christian note, that with the inspiration of the
+Old Testament stands or falls that of Christ and the
+apostles, because they commit themselves irretrievably
+to the support of the former.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span></p>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.<br />
+
+THE NEW TESTAMENT ARGUMENT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Inspiration always represents the New Testament as
+its final teaching. Revelation is there completed; and
+all the instruction concerning right and wrong which
+man is ever to ask from God, must be sought in this
+book. We have done, then, with all sophistical pleas
+concerning the twilight of revelation: for we have come
+now to the meridian splendour. If slaveholding was
+allowed to the Old World for the hardness of its heart,
+here we may expect to see it repealed. Wherever the
+New Testament leaves the moral character of slavery,
+there it must stand. What, then, is its position here?</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 1. <i>Definition of</i> &Delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;.</h3>
+
+<p>The word commonly translated servant in the authorized
+version of the New Testament is &Delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;, (<i>doulos</i>,)
+which is most probably derived from the verb &delta;&epsilon;&omega;, (<i>deo</i>,)
+'I bind.' Hence the most direct meaning of the noun
+is 'bondsman.' Many Abolitionists, with a reckless
+violence of criticism which cannot be too sternly reprobated,
+have endeavoured to evade the crushing testimony
+of the New Testament against their dogma, by
+denying that this word there means slave. Some of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span>
+them would make it mean son, some <i>hired servant</i>, and
+some <i>subject</i>, or dependent citizen. Even Mr. Albert
+Barnes, in his Commentaries on the Epistles, denies that
+the Word carries any evidence that a servile relation,
+proper, is intended by the sacred Writers. Every honest
+and well-informed biblical scholar feels that it would
+be an insult to his intelligence to suppose that a discussion
+of this preposterous assertion was needed for
+him: but as our aim is the general reader, we will
+briefly state the evidence that &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;, when not metaphorical,
+means in the mouth of Christ and his apostles
+a literal, domestic slave.</p>
+
+<p>Judea and the Roman Empire in their day were full of
+domestic slaves, so that in many places they were more
+numerous than the free citizens. &Delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf; is confessedly
+the Word used for slave by secular writers of antiquity,
+in histories, statutes, works on political science, such
+as Aristotle's, in the allusions of Greeks to the Roman
+civil law, where they make it uniformly their translation
+for <i>Servus</i>, so clearly and harshly defined in that law
+as a literal slave. Did apostles and evangelists use the
+Greek language of their day correctly and honestly?
+And if &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf; in them does not mean slave, there is no
+stronger word within the lids of the New Testament
+that does; (nor in the Greek language;) so that there
+is in all the apostolic histories and epistles, no allusion
+to this world-wide institution which surrounded them!
+Who believes this? Again: The current Greek translation
+of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, whose idioms
+are more imitated in the New Testament than any
+other book, uses &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;, as in Leviticus xxv. 44, for
+translation of the <i>Ebed</i>, bought with money from the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span>
+Gentiles. The places where the New Testament writers
+use &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf; metaphorically imply the meaning of <i>slave</i> as
+the literal one, because the aptness of the trope depends
+on that sense. Thus, Acts iv. 29, xvi. 17, Romans i. 1,
+apostles are called God's &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&iota;, servants, to express
+God's purchase, ownership and authority over them, and
+their strict obedience. Make the literal sense any thing
+less than slave proper, and the strength and beauty of
+the trope are gone. Again, the word is often used in
+contrast with <i>son</i>, and <i>political subject</i>, so as to prove a
+different meaning. Thus, John viii. 34, 35: "Whosoever
+committeth sin is the servant (&delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;) of sin. And
+the &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf; abideth not in the house forever: but the son
+abideth ever." Luke xix. 13, 14: "He called his ten
+&delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&iota;, and delivered them ten pounds, etc.; but his
+citizens (&pi;&omicron;&lambda;&iota;&tau;&alpha;&iota; = political subjects) hated him," etc.
+Galatians iv. 1: "Now the heir, as long as he is a child,
+differeth nothing from a &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;, though he be lord of
+all, but is under tutors and governors," etc. In conclusion:
+all well-informed and candid expositors tell
+us, that by &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;, the New Testament means slave.
+We may mention Drs. Bloomfield, Hodge, and Trench.
+The classical authorities of the Greek language give
+this as the most proper meaning; and the biblical lexicons
+of the New Testament Greek testify the same. Of
+the latter, we may cite Dr. Edward Robinson, of New
+York, no friend to slavery. He says:</p>
+
+<p>"&Delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf; &omicron;&upsilon;.&delta; = (subst. fr. &delta;&epsilon;&omega;,) a bondsman, a slave,
+servant, properly by birth, diff. from &alpha;&nu;&delta;&rho;&omicron;&pi;&omicron;&delta;&omicron;&nu;, 'one
+enslaved in war.' Compare Xen. Anab. iv. 1, 12,
+&alpha;&iota;&chi;&mu;&alpha;&lambda;&omega;&tau;&alpha; &alpha;&upsilon;&delta;&rho;&alpha;&pi;&omicron;&delta;&alpha;. Hell. i. 6, 15; Thuc. viii. 28, &tau;&alpha;
+&alpha;&nu;&delta;&rho;&alpha;&pi;&omicron;&delta;&alpha; &pi;&alpha;&nu;&tau;&alpha;, &kappa;&alpha;&iota; &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&alpha; &kappa;&alpha;&iota; &epsilon;&lambda;&epsilon;&upsilon;&theta;&epsilon;&rho;&alpha;. But such
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span>
+a captive is sometimes called &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;, Xen. Cyr. 3,
+1, 11, 19, ib., 4, 4, 12. Different also from &#x1F41; &delta;&iota;&alpha;&kappa;&omicron;&nu;&omicron;&sigmaf;,
+see that art. No. 1. In a family, the &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf; was one
+<i>bound to serve</i>, a slave, the property of his master, a
+'living possession,' as Aristotle calls him, Pol. 1, 4.
+&#x1F41; &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf; &kappa;&tau;&eta;&mu;&alpha; &tau;&iota; &epsilon;&mu;&psi;&upsilon;&chi;&omicron;&nu;. Compare Gen. xvii. 12, 27;
+Exod. xii. 44. According to the same writer, a complete
+household consisted of slaves and freemen, Polit. 1, 3.
+&omicron;&iota;&kappa;&iota;&alpha; &delta;&epsilon; &tau;&epsilon;&lambda;&epsilon;&iota;&omicron;&sigmaf; &epsilon;&kappa; &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omega;&nu; &kappa;&alpha;&iota; &epsilon;&lambda;&epsilon;&upsilon;&theta;&epsilon;&rho;&omicron;&nu;. The &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;,
+therefore, was never a <i>hired</i> servant, the latter being
+called &mu;&iota;&sigma;&theta;&iota;&omicron;&sigmaf;, &mu;&iota;&sigma;&theta;&omega;&tau;&omicron;&sigmaf;, q. v. Dr. Robinson then proceeds
+to define &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf; in detail as meaning, "1, Properly
+of involuntary service, a <i>slave</i>, servant, as opposed
+to &epsilon;&lambda;&epsilon;&upsilon;&theta;&epsilon;&rho;&omicron;&sigmaf;. 2, Tropically, of voluntary service, a <i>servant</i>,
+implying obligation, obedience, devotedness. 3,
+Tropically, a <i>minister</i>, attendant, spoken of the officers
+and attendants of an Oriental court, who are often
+strictly slaves."</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 2. <i>Slavery often mentioned; yet not condemned.</i></h3>
+
+<p>The mere absence of a condemnation of slaveholding
+in the New Testament is proof that it is not unlawful.
+In showing that there is no such condemnation, we are
+doing more than we could be held bound to do by any
+logical obligation: we might very properly throw the
+burden of proof here upon our accusers, and claim to
+be held innocent until we can be proved to be guilty by
+some positive testimony of holy writ. But our cause is
+so strong, that we can afford to argue ex <i>abundantia</i>;
+to assert more than we are bound to show. We claim
+then the significant fact, that there is nowhere any rebuke
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span>
+of slaveholding, in express terms, in the New
+Testament. Of the truth of this assertion it is sufficient
+proof, that Abolitionists, with all their malignant
+zeal, have been unable to find a single instance, and are
+compelled to assail us only with inferences. The express
+permission to hold slaves given by Moses to God's
+people, is nowhere repealed by the 'greater than Moses,'
+the Divine Prophet of the new dispensation. Let the
+reader consider how this fact is strengthened by the
+attendant circumstances. Christ and his apostles
+preached in the midst of slaves and slaveholders. The
+institution was exceedingly prevalent in many parts of
+the world. Potter tells us that in Athens, (a place
+where Paul preached,) the freemen citizens, possessed
+of franchises, were twenty-one thousand, and the slaves
+four hundred thousand. The congregations to which
+Christ and his apostles preached, were composed of
+masters and their slaves. The slavery of that day, as
+defined by the Roman civil law, was harsh and oppressive,
+treating the slave as a legal nonentity, without
+property, rights, or legal remedy; without marriage,
+subject, even as to his life, to the caprice of his master,
+and in every respect a human beast of burden. Again:
+to this institution Christ and his apostles make many
+allusions, for illustration of other subjects; and upon
+the institution itself they often speak didactically. Yet,
+while often condemning the abuses and oppressions incident
+to it, they never condemn the relation. Several
+times the apostles give formal enumerations of the prevalent
+sins of their times; as in Romans i. 29, 31; Galatians
+v. 19 to 21; Matthew xv. 19; Colossians iii. 8,
+9; 2 Timothy iii. 2 to 4. These catalogues of sins are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span>
+often full and minute; but the owning of slaves never
+appears among them.</p>
+
+<p>Now, we are entitled to claim, that this silence of
+the later and final revelation leaves the lawfulness of
+slaveholding in full force, as expressly established in
+the earlier. On that allowance we plant ourselves, and
+defy our accusers to bring the evidence of its repeal.
+On them lies the burden of proof. And we have indicated
+by the circumstances detailed above, how crushing
+that burden will be to them.</p>
+
+<p>This is the most appropriate place to notice the evasion
+attempted from the above demonstration. They
+plead that slavery is not specially forbidden in the
+New Testament, because the plan of the Bible is to
+give us a rule of morals, not by special enactments for
+every case, but by general principles of right, which
+we must apply to special cases as they arise. "Inspiration
+has not," say they, "specially condemned every
+possible sin which may occur in the boundless varieties
+of human affairs, because then the whole world would
+not contain the books that should be written; and the
+voluminous character of the rule of duty would disappoint
+its whole utility; and if any sin were omitted in
+order to abridge it, this would be taken as a sanction.
+Hence, God gives us a set of plain general principles,
+of obvious application under the law of love." Therefore,
+it is argued, we are not to expect that the sin of
+slaveholding should be singled out. Enough that general
+principles given exclude it.</p>
+
+<p>There is a portion of truth in this statement of the
+matter, and in the grounds assigned for it. But waiving
+for the present the exposure of the groundless assertion
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span>
+that there are any general principles in the New
+Testament condemnatory of slaveholding, we deny that
+this book teaches morals only by general rules. It also
+does it, in a multitude of cases, by special precepts. A
+multitude of special sins prevalent in that and all ages
+are singled out. This being so&mdash;the lists of particular
+sins being so full and specific as they are&mdash;we assert
+it would have been an unaccountable anomaly to pass
+over a thing so important, open, prevalent, had it been
+intrinsically wrong. But why does Revelation omit a
+number of particulars, and state general principles?
+For the lack of room, it is said. The other plan would
+have made the Bible too large. Now we ask, as the
+case actually stands in the New Testament, would not
+a good deal of room have been saved as to slavery, by
+simply specifying it as wrong? It is a queer way to
+economize space, thus to take up a subject, define it at
+large, limit, modify it, retrench its abuses, lay down in
+considerable detail a part of its duties and relations;
+and then provide by some general principle for its utter
+prohibition! Would not the obvious way have been,
+to say in three plain words, what was the only fundamental
+thing, after all, which, on this supposition, needed
+to be taught, "Slavery is sinful?" This would have
+settled the matter, and also have saved space and ambiguity,
+and made an end of definitions, limitations,
+abuses, inferences and all, in the only honest way. But
+farther, we admit that the Bible has left a multitude of
+new questions, emerging in novel cases, to be settled
+by the fair application of general principles, (which are
+usually illustrated in Scripture by application to some
+specific case.) Now must not an honest mind argue,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span>
+that since the human understanding is so fallible in inferential
+reasonings, especially on social ethics, where
+the premises are so numerous and vague, and prejudices
+and interests so blinding, a special precept, where
+one is found applicable, is better than an inference
+probably doubtful? Will it not follow a 'thus saith
+the Lord,' if it has one, rather than its own deduction
+which may be a blunder? Well, then, if God intended
+us to understand that he had implicitly condemned
+slavery in some general principles given, it was most
+unlucky that He said any thing specific about it, which
+was not a specific condemnation. For what He has
+specifically said about it must lead His most honest
+servants to conclude that He did not intend to leave it
+to be settled by general inference, that He exempted it
+from that class of subjects. Had God not alluded to it
+by name, then we should have been more free to apply
+general principles to settle its moral character, as we
+do to the modern duel, not mentioned in Scripture, because
+it is wholly a modern usage. But since God has
+particularized so much about slaveholding, therefore,
+honesty, humility, piety, require us to study his specific
+teachings in preference to our supposed inferences, and
+even in opposition to them. Here, then, we stand: Inspiration
+has once expressly authorized slaveholding.
+Until a repeal is found equally express, it must be innocent.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 3. <i>Christ applauds a Slaveholder.</i></h3>
+
+<p>Our Lord has thrown at least a probable light upon
+his estimation of slaveholders by his treatment of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span>
+Centurion of Capernaum, and his slave. The story may
+be found in Matthew viii. 5 to 13, and Luke vii. 2 to 10.
+This person, though a Gentile and an officer of the Roman
+army, was, according to the testimony of his Jewish
+neighbours, a sincere convert to the religion of the
+Old Testament, and a truly good man. He had a valued
+slave very sick, called in Matthew his "boy," (&pi;&alpha;&iota;&sigmaf;,)
+a common term for slave in New Testament times;
+but Luke calls him again and again his "slave," (&delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;.)
+Hearing of Christ's approach, he sent some of his Hebrew
+neighbours, (rulers of the synagogue,) to beseech
+our Lord to apply his miraculous power for the healing
+of his sick slave. A little later he appears himself, and
+explains to Jesus, that it was not arrogance, but humility,
+which prevented his meeting him at first, with
+his full confidence. For as he, though a poor mortal,
+was enabled, by the authority of an officer and master,
+to make others come and go at his bidding, so he knew
+that Christ could yet more easily bid away his servant's
+disease. And therefore he had not deemed it necessary
+to demand (what he was unworthy to receive) an actual
+visit to his house. Hereupon Christ declares with delight,
+that he "had not found so great faith, no, not in
+Israel." This was high praise indeed, after the faith of
+a Nathanael, a John, a James, a Mary Magdalene, a
+Martha, and a Lazarus. Yet this much-applauded man
+was a slaveholder! But our Lord comes yet nearer to
+the point in dispute. He speaks the word, and heals
+the slave, thus restoring him to the master's possession
+and use. Had the relation been wrong, here, now, was
+an excellent opportunity to set things right, when he
+had before him a subject so docile, so humble, so grateful
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span>
+and trustful. Should not Christ have said: "Honest
+Centurion, you owe one thing more to your sick
+fellow-creature: his liberty. You have humanely sought
+the preservation of his being, which I have now granted;
+but it therefore becomes my duty to tell you, lest
+silence in such a case should confirm a sinful error, that
+your possession of him as a slave outrages the laws of
+his being. I cannot become accomplice to wrong. The
+life which I have rescued, I claim for liberty, for righteousness.
+I expect it of your faith and gratitude, that
+instead of begrudging the surrender, you will thank me
+for enlightening you as to your error." But no; Christ
+says nothing like this, but goes his way and leaves the
+master and all the people blinded by his extraordinary
+commendation of the slave-owner, and his own act in
+restoring the slave to him, to blunder on in the belief
+that slavery was all right. Certain we are, that had
+Dr. Channing, or Dr. Wayland, or the most moderate
+Abolitionist, been the miracle-worker, he would have
+made a very different use of the occasion. However
+he might have hesitated as to immediate and universal
+emancipation, he would have felt that the opportunity
+was too fair to be lost, for setting up a good strong
+precedent against slavery. Hence we feel sure that
+Christ and they are not agreed in the moral estimate of
+the relation.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 4. <i>The Apostles separate Slavery and its Abuses.</i></h3>
+
+<p>We find the apostles everywhere treating slavery, in
+one particular, as the Abolitionists refuse to treat it;
+that is to say, distinguishing between the relation and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span>
+its incidental abuses. Our accusers now claim a license
+from the well-known logical rule, that it is not fair to
+argue from the abuses of a thing to the thing itself.
+Hence they insist that in estimating slavery, we must
+take it in the concrete, as it is in these Southern States,
+with all that bad men or bad legislation may at any
+time have attached to it. And if any feature attaching
+to an aggravated case of oppression should be proved
+wrong, then the very relation of master and slave must
+be held wrong in itself. The bald and insolent sophistry
+of this claim has been already alluded to. By this
+way it could be proved that marriage, civil government
+and church government, as well as the parental relation,
+are intrinsically immoral; for all have been and
+are abused, not only by the illegal license of individual
+bad men, but by bad legislation. Just as reasonably
+might a monk say to all Mohammedans, that marriage
+is a sin, for the character of the institution must be
+tried in the concrete, with all the accessaries which usually
+attend it in Mohammedan lands, and most certainly with
+such as are established by law; and among
+these is polygamy, which is sinful; wherefore the marriage
+relation is wrong. And this preposterous logick
+has been urged, although it has been proved that, in
+the vast majority of cases in these States, masters did
+preserve the relation to their slaves, without connecting
+with it a single one of the incidents, whether allowed
+by law or not, which are indefensible in a moral
+view. To say that the relation was sinful, in all these
+virtuous citizens, because some of the occasional incidents
+were sinful, is just as outrageous as to tell the
+Christian mother that her authority over her child is a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>
+wicked tyranny, because some drunken wretch near by
+has been guilty of child-murder. But our chief purpose
+here is to show, that the apostles were never guilty of
+this absurdity; and that, on the contrary, they separated
+between the relation and its abuses, just as Christian
+masters now claim to do.</p>
+
+<p>Let the reader note then, that the type of slavery
+prevailing where the apostles preached, was, compared
+with ours, barbarous, cruel, and wicked in many of its
+customary incidents, as established both by usage and
+law. Slaves were regarded as having neither rights
+nor legal remedies. No law protected their life itself
+against the master. There was no recognized marriage
+for them, and no established parental or filial relations.
+The chastity of the female slave was unprotected by
+law against her master. And the temper of society
+sanctioned the not infrequent use of these powers, in
+the ruthless separation of families, inhuman punishments,
+hard labour, coarse food, maiming, and even
+murder. Such were the iniquities which history assures
+us connected themselves only too often with this
+relation in the apostles' days, and were sanctioned by
+human laws.</p>
+
+<p>But did they provoke these inspired law-givers to
+condemn the whole institution? By no means. As we
+have seen, they nowhere pronounce the relation of
+master and slave an inherent wrong. They everywhere
+act as though it might be, and when not abused,
+was, perfectly innocent. And that it might be innocent,
+they forbade to the members of the Christian
+church all these abuses of it. Thus they separated between
+the relation and its abuses. Doubtless, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span>
+standard which they had in view, in commanding masters
+to "render to their servants those things which
+are just and equal," <i>was the Mosaic law</i>. We have seen
+how far this was in advance of the brutalities permitted
+by pagan laws, and how it protected the life,
+limbs, and chastity of servants among the Hebrews.
+This law, being founded in righteousness, was in its
+general spirit the rule of the New Testament church
+also. When this separation is made by the apostles
+between the relation and its abuses, we find that
+the former includes, as its essentials, just these elements:
+a right to the slave's labour for life, coupled
+with the obligation on the master to use it with justice
+and clemency, and to recompense the slave with a
+suitable maintenance; and on the slave's part, the obligation
+to render this labour with all good fidelity, and
+with a respectful obedience. Is not this just the definition
+of slavery with which we set out?</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 5. <i>Slavery no Essential Religious Evil.</i></h3>
+
+<p>The Apostle Paul teaches that the condition of a
+slave, although not desirable for its own sake, has no
+essential bearing on the Christian life and progress;
+and therefore, when speaking as a Christian minister,
+and with exclusive reference to man's religious interests,
+he treats it as unimportant. The proof of this
+statement may be found in such passages as the following:
+1 Cor. xii. 13, "For by one Spirit we are all baptized
+into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles,
+whether we be bond or free: and have all been made
+to drink into one Spirit." Galat. iii. 28, "There is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span>
+neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free;
+there is neither male nor female; for we are all one in
+Jesus Christ." So, substantially, says Colos. iii. 11.
+But the most decisive passage is 1 Cor. vii. 20, 21: "Let
+every man abide in the same calling wherein he was
+called. Art thou called being a servant? care not for
+it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather."
+(Paul had just defined his meaning in the phrase "calling
+in which he was called," as being circumcised or
+uncircumcised, bond or free.)</p>
+
+<p>The drift of all these passages is to teach that a man's
+reception by Christ and by the Church does not depend
+in any manner on his class or condition in secular
+life; because Christianity places all classes on the
+same footing as to the things of the soul, and offers to
+all the same salvation. When, therefore, men come to
+the throne of grace, the baptismal water, the communion
+table, distinctions of class are left behind them
+for the time. Hence, these distinctions are not essential,
+as to the soul's salvation. The last passage
+quoted brings out the latter truth more distinctly. Is
+any Christian, at his conversion, a Jew? That circumstance
+is unimportant to his religious life. Was he a
+Gentile? That also is unimportant. Was he a slave
+when converted to Christ? Let not this concern him,
+for it cannot essentially affect his religious welfare:
+the road to heaven is as open to him as to the freeman.
+But if a convenient and lawful opportunity to acquire
+his freedom, with the consent of his master, occurs,
+then freedom is to be preferred. Such is the meaning
+found in the words by all sober expositors, including
+those of countries where slavery does not exist. Who
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span>
+can believe that the apostle would have taught thus, if
+slavery had been an iniquitous relation?</p>
+
+<p>But when he tells the Christian servant that freedom
+is to be preferred by him to bondage, if it may be rightfully
+acquired, we must remember the circumstances of
+the age, in order to do justice to his meaning. The
+same apostle, speaking of marriage, says, "Art thou
+loosed from a wife? seek not to be bound." Does he
+mean to set himself against the holy estate of matrimony,
+and to contradict the divine wisdom which said
+that "it is not good for man to be alone?" By no
+means. He explains himself as advising thus "because
+of the present distress." Exposure to persecution,
+banishment, death, made it a step of questionable prudence
+at that time, to assume the responsibilities of a
+husband and father. Now the laws and usages of the
+age as to slaves were, as we have seen, harsh and oppressive.
+But worse than this, many masters among
+the heathen were accustomed to require of their slaves
+offices vile, and even guilty; and scruples of conscience
+on the slave's part were treated as an absurdity or rebellion.
+In such a state of society, although the relation
+of servitude was not in itself adverse to a holy
+life, the prudent man would prefer to be secured
+against the possibility of such a wrong, by securing
+his liberty if he lawfully could. Moreover, society offered
+a grade, and a career of advancement, to the
+"freedman" and his children. Master and slave were
+of the same colour; and a generation or two would obliterate
+by its unions the memory of the servile condition.
+But in these States, where the servant's rights
+were so much better protected by law and usage, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span>
+where the freed servant, being a black, finds himself
+only deprived of his master's patronage, and still debarred
+as much as ever from social equality by his colour
+and caste, the case may be very different. Freedom
+to the Christian slave here, may prove a loss.</p>
+
+<p>Now who can believe that the Apostle Paul would
+have spoken thus of slavery, if he had thought it an
+injurious and iniquitous relation, as hostile to religion,
+as degrading to the victim's immortal nature, and as
+converting him from a rational person into a chattel, a
+human brute? He treats the condition of bondage, in
+its religious aspects, precisely as he does accidents of
+birth, being born circumcised or uncircumcised, a citizen
+of the Empire or a subject foreigner, male or female.
+We have a practical evidence how incompatible
+such language is with the Abolitionist first principle,
+in their very different conduct. Do they ever say to
+the Christian slave: "Art thou called being a servant?
+care not for it." We trow not. They glory in teaching
+every slave they can to break away from his bondage,
+even at the cost of robbery and murder. And Mr.
+Albert Barnes informs his readers, that in his interviews
+with runaway slaves, he long ago ceased to instruct
+them that it was their duty to return to their
+masters. It is evident, therefore, that this abolitionist
+and St. Paul were not agreed.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 6. <i>Slaveholders fully Admitted to Church-membership.</i></h3>
+
+<p>We now proceed, in the sixth place, to a fact of still
+greater force: that slaveholders were admitted by
+Christ to full communion and good standing in the
+Christian church. Let us first establish the fact. In
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span>
+Acts X. 5-17, we learn that the pious Cornelius had
+at least two household servants, (&omicron;&iota;&kappa;&epsilon;&tau;&omega;&nu;, one of the
+Septuagint words for domestic slave.) There is no
+hint of his liberating them; but the Apostle Peter tells
+his brethren, Acts xi. 15-17, that he was obliged to admit
+him by baptism to the church, by the act of God
+himself. Says he: "Forasmuch then as God gave
+them the like gift as he did unto us," (power of miracles,)
+"who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what
+was I, that I could withstand God?" So he baptized
+him and his servants together. Again we find the
+Epistle to the Ephesians addressed in the first verse,
+"to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful
+brethren in Christ Jesus," with a blessing in the
+second verse appropriate to none but God's children.
+When, therefore, in subsequent parts of the Epistle,
+we find any persons addressed in detail with apostolic
+precepts, we conclude of course that they are included
+in "the saints and faithful." But all expositors say
+these terms mean church members in good standing.
+If we find here any persons commanded to any duty,
+we know that they are church members. This thought
+confirms it, that St. Paul knew well that his office gave
+him no jurisdiction over the external world. He had
+himself said to the church authorities at Corinth,
+"What have I to do, to judge them that are without?"
+1 Cor. v. 12. Now, in the sixth chapter and ninth verse
+of Ephesians, we find him, after commanding Christian
+husbands, Christian wives, Christian parents, Christian
+children, and Christian slaves, how to demean themselves,
+addressing Christian masters: "And ye, masters,
+do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span>
+knowing that your Master also is in heaven," &amp;c.
+Here, therefore, must have been slaveholders in good
+standing in this favourite church, which was organized
+under St. Paul's own eye. The Epistle to the Colossians
+is also addressed "to the saints and faithful
+brethren in Christ which are at Colosse:" and in ch. iv.
+1, Christian slaveholders are addressed: "Masters, give
+unto your servants that which is just and equal," &amp;c.
+There were, therefore, slaveholders in full communion
+at Colosse. Again: Mr. Albert Barnes (whom we cite
+here for a particular reason which will appear in the
+sequel) says correctly, that Timothy received his first
+Epistle from St. Paul at Ephesus, three or four years
+after that church was planted, having been left in
+charge there. But in Ephes. vi. 2, St. Paul Writes:
+"And they" (i. e. these Christian slaves) "that have believing
+masters, let them not despise them because
+they are brethren, but rather do them service because
+they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit,"
+(i. e. of the blessings of redemption.) "These things
+teach and exhort." There were still slaveholders then,
+in this church, three or four years after its organization;
+and Timothy is commanded to have them treated
+as brethren faithful and beloved, partakers of the favour
+of God. The Epistle to the Ephesians, according
+to the same Mr. Barnes, was written from four to seven
+years after the founding of the church, and that to the
+Colossians from ten to thirteen. So that this membership
+of slaveholders had continued for these periods.</p>
+
+<p>But we have a stronger case still. St. Paul, during
+his imprisonment at Rome, addresses Philemon of Colosse
+thus: "Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span>
+Timothy our brother, unto our dearly beloved and
+fellow-labourer, (&sigma;&upsilon;&nu;&epsilon;&rho;&gamma;&omicron;&sigmaf;) and to our beloved Apphia
+and Archippus, our fellow-soldier, and to the church in
+thy house." Philemon, then, was a church member; his
+house was a place of meeting for the church; he was
+beloved of Paul; and last, he was himself a Christian
+minister. (Such is the only meaning of &sigma;&upsilon;&nu;&epsilon;&rho;&gamma;&omicron;&sigmaf; here,
+according to the agreement of all expositors, of whom
+may be mentioned Bloomfield, Doddridge, and Dr.
+Edward Robinson of New York.) But Philemon was
+a slaveholder: the very purpose of this affectionate
+epistle was to send back to him a runaway slave.
+Here, then, we have a slaveholder, not only in the
+membership, but ministry of the Church.</p>
+
+<p>Now when we consider how jealously the apostles
+guarded the purity of the church, it will appear to be
+incredible that they should receive slaveholders thus, if
+the relation were unrighteous. The terms of admission
+(for adults) were the renunciation of all known sin,
+and a credible repentance leading to reparation, where ever
+practicable. Even the Baptist, who was unworthy
+to loose the shoe-latchet of Christ, could say: "Bring
+forth therefore the fruits meet for repentance." From
+all the prevalent and popular sins of Pagan society, the
+church members were inexorably required to turn away;
+else excommunication soon rid the church of their
+scandal. Thus, 1 Cor. v. 11, says: "But now I have
+written unto you not to keep company, if any man that
+is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an
+idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner;
+with such an one no not to eat." Christ separated his
+church out of the world, to secure sanctity and holy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span>
+living. To suppose that he, or his apostles, could
+avowedly admit and tolerate the membership of men
+who persisted in criminal conduct, betrays the very
+purpose of the church, and impugns the purity of the
+Saviour himself. And here, all the evasions of Abolitionists
+are worthless; as when they say that Christ's
+mission was not to meddle with secular relations, or to
+interfere in politics; for the communion of the church
+was his own peculiar domain; and to meddle with every
+form of sin there was precisely his mission. Entrance
+to the church was voluntary. The terms of membership
+were candidly published; the penalty for violating
+them was purely spiritual, (mere exclusion from the
+society,) and interfered with no man's political rights
+or franchises. So that within this spiritual society,
+Christ had things his own way; there was no difficulty
+from without that could possibly restrain his action;
+and if he tolerated deliberate sin here, his own character
+is tarnished.</p>
+
+<p>So cogent is this, that Mr. Albert Barnes, in his
+'Notes' on 1 Tim. vi. 2, seeks to evade it thus: "Nor
+is it fairly to be inferred from this passage that he
+(Paul) meant to teach that they (masters) might continue
+this (i. e. slaveholding) and be entitled to all the
+respect and confidence due to the Christian name, or be
+regarded as maintaining a good standing in the church.
+Whatever may be true on these points, the passage
+before us only proves, that Paul considered that a man
+who was a slaveholder <i>might</i> be converted, and be
+spoken of as a 'believer' or a Christian. Many have
+been converted in similar circumstances, as many have
+in the practice of all other kinds of iniquity. What
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span>
+was their duty <i>after</i> their conversion was another question."</p>
+
+<p>That is, as a murderer or adulterer <i>might</i> become a
+subject of Almighty grace, so might a slaveholder; but
+all three alike must cease these crimes, when converted,
+in order to continue credible church members! To him
+who has weighed the Scripture facts, this statement will
+appear (as we shall find sundry others of this writer)
+so obviously uncandid, that it is mere affectation to
+refrain from calling it by its proper name, dishonesty.
+The simple refutation is in the fact, by which Mr. Barnes
+has convicted himself, that the slaveholders were still
+in the churches from three to thirteen years after they
+were organized, with no hint from the apostle that they
+were living in a criminal relation; that they were still
+beloved, approved, yea applauded, by Paul; and that
+one of them was even promoted to the ministry. The
+last case is particularly ruinous to Mr. Barnes. For
+when did Philemon first acquire his slave Onesimus?
+Before the former first joined the Church? Then Paul
+permitted him to remain all these years a member, and
+promoted him to the ministry, with the 'sin of slavery'
+unforsaken! Was it after he joined the church? Then
+a thing occurred which, on Mr. Barnes' theory, is impossible:
+because buying a slave, being criminal, must
+have terminated his church membership.</p>
+
+<p>We thank God that it is true that some sinners of
+every class are converted. But their conversion must
+be followed by a prompt repentance and forsaking of
+their sins. Thus, it is said to the Corinthians, 1 Cor.
+vi. 9 to 11: "Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor
+idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span>
+themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous,
+nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit
+the kingdom of God. And such were some of
+you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye
+are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the
+Spirit of our God." According to the Abolitionists, another
+class of criminals fully deserving to be ranked in
+the above black list&mdash;slaveholders&mdash;enter the church
+under Paul's administration, without being washed or
+sanctified. If slaveholding is wrong, it was their duty
+on entering the Church to repent of, forsake and repair
+this wrong; to liberate their slaves, and to repay them
+for past exactions so far as possible. If this was their
+duty, it was the duty of the apostle to teach it to them.
+But he has not taught it: he has taken up the subject,
+and merely taught these masters that they would discharge
+their whole duty by treating their slaves, as
+slaves, with clemency and equity; and then he has continued
+them in the Church. It remains true, therefore,
+that this allowed membership of slaveholders in the
+apostolic churches, proves it no sin to own slaves.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 7. <i>Relative Duties of Masters and Slaves recognized.</i></h3>
+
+<p>Another fact equally decisive is, that the apostles
+frequently enjoin on masters and slaves their relative
+duties, just as they do upon husbands and wives, parents
+and children. And these duties they enforce, both
+on master and servant, by Christian motives. Pursuing
+the same method as under the last head, we will first
+establish the fact, and then indicate the use to be made
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>In Ephesians vi. 5 to 9, having addressed the other
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span>
+classes, the Apostle Paul says: "Servants, be obedient
+to them that are your masters according to the flesh,
+with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart as
+unto Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but
+as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from
+the heart; with good-will doing service as to the Lord
+and not unto men; knowing that whatsoever good
+thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the
+Lord, whether he be bond or free. And ye masters, do
+the same things unto them, forbearing threatening:
+knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither
+is there respect of persons with him."</p>
+
+<p>In Colos. iii. 22 to iv. 1, inclusive, almost the same
+precepts occur in the same words, with small exceptions,
+and standing in the same connexion with recognized
+relations. Let the reader compare for himself. In 1
+Tim. vi, 1, 2, we read: "Let as many servants as are under
+the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour,
+that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
+And they that have believing masters, let them
+not despise them because they are brethren; but rather
+do them service, because they are faithful and beloved,
+partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort."
+So, in the Epistle to Titus, having directed him how to
+instruct sundry other classes in their relative duties, he
+says, ch. ii. 9 to 12: "Exhort servants to be obedient
+unto their own masters, and to please them well in all
+things: not answering again; not purloining, but
+showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine
+of God our Saviour in all things. For the grace
+of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all
+men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span>
+lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly
+in this present world," etc. So, the Apostle Peter, 1 Ep.
+ii. 18, 19: "Servants, be subject to your masters with
+all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the
+froward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience
+towards God endure grief, suffering wrongfully."</p>
+
+<p>The word for <i>servant</i> in all these passages is &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;,
+except the last, where the Apostle Peter uses &omicron;&iota;&kappa;&epsilon;&tau;&iota;&alpha;. But
+this is also proved to mean here, domestic slaves proper,
+by the current Septuagint and New Testament usage,
+by its relation to &delta;&epsilon;&sigma;&pi;&omicron;&tau;&alpha;&iota;&sigmaf;, (masters,) which always
+means in this connexion the proprietor of a slave, and
+by the reference in the subsequent verse to being buffeted
+for a fault; an incident of the slave's condition,
+rather than of the hired freeman's. Now the drift of all
+these precepts is too plain to be mistaken. Slaves who
+are church-members are here instructed that it is their
+religious duty to obey their masters, to treat them with
+deferential respect, and with Christian love where the
+masters are Christian, and to render the service due
+from a servant with fidelity and integrity, without requiring
+to be watched or threatened. The motives
+urged for all this are not carnal, but evangelical, a
+sense of duty, love for Christ and his doctrine, the
+credit of which was implicated in their Christian conduct
+here, and the expectation of a rich reward from
+Jesus Christ hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>But the apostles are not partial. In like manner they
+positively enjoin on masters who are church-members,
+the faithful performance of their reciprocal duties to
+their slaves. They must avoid a harsh and minatory
+government: they must allot to the slave an equitable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span>
+maintenance and humane treatment, and in every respect
+must act towards him so as to be able to meet
+that judgment, where master and slave will stand as
+equals before the bar of Jesus Christ, at which social
+rank has no weight. These precepts imply, of course,
+that both master and servant are church-members;
+otherwise they would not have been under the ecclesiastical
+authority of the apostles. They imply with
+equal clearness, that the continuance of the relation was
+contemplated as legitimate: for if this is terminated as
+sinful, the duties of the relation are at an end, and such
+precepts are so much breath thrown away. Does any
+sophist insist that the "rendering of that which is just
+and equal" must not be less than emancipation? The
+very words refute him; for then he would no longer be
+his servant, and the master no longer master; so that
+he could owe no duties as such. Further, the same
+passage proceeds to enjoin on the slave the duties of a
+continued state of servitude. We repeat: all these
+passages contemplate the continuance of the relation
+among church-members, as legitimate. What would
+men say of the Christian minister who should instruct
+the penitent gambler how to continue the stated practice
+of his nefarious art in a Christian manner: and the
+penitent adulterer how to continue his guilty connexion
+exemplarily? When such a law-giver as Christ legislates
+concerning such a thing, there is but one thing he
+can consistently enjoin: and that is its instant termination.
+If slaveholding is a moral wrong, the chief
+guilt, of course, attaches to the master, because on his
+side is the power. When the apostles pass, then, from
+the duties of servants to those of masters, it is unavoidable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span>
+that they must declare the imperative duty of
+emancipation. But they say not one word about it:
+they seek to continue the relation rightfully. Therefore,
+either slaveholding is not wrong, or the apostles
+were unfaithful. The explanation of these passages,
+which we have given, is that of all respectable expositors,
+especially the British, no friends of slavery.</p>
+
+<p>The attempt is made to argue, that if this were correct,
+then the holy apostles would be implicated in a
+connivance at the excesses and barbarities which, the
+history of the times tells us, often attached to the servile
+condition. The answer is: that they condemn and
+prohibit all the wrongs, as criminal, and leave the relation
+itself as lawful. No other defence can be set up
+for their treatment of the conjugal and parental relations.
+Antiquarians tell us they also were then deformed
+by great abuses. The wife and child were no
+better than slaves. Over the latter the father had the
+power of life and death, and of selling into bondage.
+From the former he divorced himself at pleasure, and
+often visited her with corporal punishment. How do
+the apostles treat these facts? They recognize the relation
+and forbid its abuses. Shall any one say that
+because these abuses were current, therefore they should
+have denounced the domestic relations, and invented
+some new-fangled communism? Or shall it be said
+that, because they have not done this, they wink at the
+wife-beatings, the child-murders, and the other barbarities
+so common in Greek and Oriental families?
+We trow not. Why then should these absurd inferences
+be attached to their treatment of domestic slavery?
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the favourite evasion of these Scriptures is that
+of Dr. Wayland: "The scope of these instructions to
+servants is only to teach patience, fidelity, meekness,
+and charity, duties which Christians owe to all men,
+even their enemies." In like strain, Mr. Albert Barnes,
+in his 'Notes on Ephesians,' vi. 7, writes: "But let not a
+master think, because a pious slave shows this spirit,
+that therefore the slave feels the master is right in withholding
+his freedom; nor let him suppose, because religion
+requires the slave to be submissive and obedient,
+that therefore it approves of what the master does. It
+does this no more than it sanctions the conduct of Mary
+and Nero, because religion required the martyrs to be
+unresisting, and to allow themselves to be led to the
+stake. A conscientious slave may find happiness in
+submitting to God, and doing His will, just as a conscientious
+martyr may. But this does not sanction the
+wrong, either of the slave-owner or of the persecutor."
+It is difficult to restrain the expression of natural indignation
+at so shameless a sophism as this, which outrages
+at once the understanding of the reader and the
+honour of Christ. It represents the pure and benign
+genius of Christianity as walking abroad, and finding
+oppressor and oppressed together, the oppressor avowedly
+within her reach, as well as his victim, as a subject
+of her spiritual jurisdiction and instruction. To
+the one she is represented as saying: "Oh, injured
+slave! glorify thy meek and lowly Saviour under this
+unrighteous oppression, by imitating His patience."
+Turning then to the other, who is present, and equally
+subject to her authority, must she not, of course, give
+the correlative injunction: "Oh, master! since thy yoke
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span>
+is wicked, cease instantly to persecute Christ in the
+person of his follower." But no: abolitionism represents
+her as saying nothing at all on this point; but
+merely dismissing his side of the case with the injunction
+to oppress equitably! The honest mind meets such
+a statement, not only with the '<i>Incredulus sum</i>,' but
+with the '<i>Incredulus odi</i>,' of the Latin satirist. And
+the suffering victim of oppression could not but feel,
+while he recognized the duty of patience, that the counterpart
+treatment of his oppressor by Christianity was
+a foul injustice. The fact that Christ and apostles admitted
+these masters, with these slaves, to the same
+communion, proves that the comment of Mr. Barnes is
+preposterous. The fact that these Christian slaves are
+commanded to treat these pretended oppressors as
+"brethren, faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit,"
+proves it. Do the apostles, while enjoining patience
+under the persecutions of a bloody Nero, admit
+that Nero, with his brutality, to the same Christian
+communion with the peaceful and holy victims, address
+him as "saint and faithful in Christ Jesus," and instruct
+him to burn and tear the Christians for their faith,
+in a godly manner? The comment is disproved by Peter,
+when he says that there were slave-owners who
+were "good and gentle," as well as others who were
+"froward." Does truth or common sense distinguish
+"good and gentle" persecutors? It is disproved farther,
+by the fact that the apostles do not enjoin patience
+only, on these servants, as on Christians forbearing under
+an injury; but they enjoin duty, obedience, and
+fidelity also, as upon Christians paying reciprocal obligations.
+It is not patience under ruthless force, which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span>
+they require, as a tribute to Christ's honour; but it is
+obedience due to the master's legitimate authority, and
+that, a tribute due to the master also. Servants must
+"show all good fidelity." This implies an obligation
+to which to be faithful. Fidelity does not exist where
+there is no debt. To unrighteous exaction we may be
+submissive; but fidelity has no place. But the crowning
+refutation is, that St. Paul sent back an escaped
+slave to his master Philemon, from Rome to Colosse,
+hundreds of miles away. Will any one say that the
+duty of Christian submission and patience under wrongs
+extends so far as to require an injured Christian to go
+back several hundred miles, and hunt up his oppressor
+in order to be maltreated again, after Providence had
+enabled him to escape from his injuries? If Mr. Barnes
+is correct, Onesimus should have claimed that he had
+now availed himself of Christ's own command: "When
+they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another;"
+and was rightfully concealed in the midst of the vast
+metropolis. This was requiring him to "turn the other
+cheek" with a vengeance: to waive the right of peaceable
+escape which his Divine Lord had given him, and
+go all the way to Asia to be unjustly smitten again!
+There is this farther absurdity: the pious servant is required
+to stretch his forbearance to so Quixotic a degree,
+as to waive, not only the claim of forcible self-defence,
+but that of legal protection. (Oh that the holy
+Abolitionists had practised towards the injured South a
+little tythe of this forbearance which their learned
+scribe so consistently inculcates!) Is it Christ's requirement,
+that the Christian under oppression must refuse
+the shield of legal protection? Did Paul think
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span>
+thus, when, prosecuted at the bar of Porcius Festus by
+unscrupulous enemies, he claimed the rights of his citizenship
+with so admirable a union of forbearance and
+courage? Now, if Messrs. Wayland and Barnes are
+right, these oppressed slaves possessed a tribunal in
+common with their oppressors, to which they could lawfully,
+peacefully, forgivingly, yet righteously summon
+them: <i>the church court</i>. They could have demanded of
+these authorities, with the strictest Christian propriety,
+to use all their spiritual powers, so far as they went,
+to induce the masters, their fellow-members, to give
+them that liberty which was their due. But, so exceedingly
+forbearing are they, that they not only forego
+forcible resistance, but the peaceable claim of their ecclesiastical
+right, for fear they might be thought to act
+in an impatient manner! A highwayman meets me in
+a wood, and begins to beat me and rob me: I have a
+weapon, but I forbear to use violence against him.
+Meantime, the legal authorities pass by, and I also forbear
+to claim their protection under the law, lest it
+should scandalize the amiable highwayman, and make
+him think less favourably of my religion!</p>
+
+<p>It may be well, in concluding this point, to notice
+the plea that Christians were required by the apostles
+to render not only patience and submission to the Emperor
+Nero, but also allegiance and hearty obedience.
+Yet none will say that Nero was a righteous ruler.
+We reply, the case is precisely in our favour: for it
+proves the proposition exactly parallel to ours, that
+civil government is a lawful institution, notwithstanding
+it is abused. The government of the C�sars was
+providentially the <i>de facto</i> one, and Nero, bad as he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span>
+was, its recognized head. As such, all his magisterial
+acts which were not specifically contrary to God's law,
+were legitimate, and were the proper objects of the
+civic obedience of the Christian subject. Otherwise,
+the apostles would never have exacted it for him. The
+instance does imply, therefore, that civil government is
+a lawful relation; and this is precisely what we infer
+from the parallel instances of obedience enjoined on
+servants to masters. If Abolitionists are not willing to
+argue that the relation of ruler and subject is sin <i>per se</i>,
+notwithstanding the obedience required to Nero, they
+cannot argue from their proposed analogy between
+Nero's cruelties and slaveholding. But an equally conclusive
+reply is, that apostles never admitted a Nero,
+with his barbarities in full sway, to the same communion-table
+with his patient Christian victims, commanding
+the latter to forbear as towards a wrongdoer, and
+yet failing to give him the correlative command, to
+cease the wrong-doing.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 8. <i>Philemon and Onesimus.</i></h3>
+
+<p>The Epistle to Philemon is peculiarly instructive and
+convincing as to the moral character of slavery. This
+Abolitionists betray, by the distressing wrigglings and
+contortions of logic, to which they resort, in the vain
+attempt to evade its inferences. The whole Epistle
+need not be recited. The apostle, after saluting Philemon
+as a brother and fellow-minister, and commending
+him in terms of peculiar beauty, warmth, and affection,
+for his eminent piety, and his hospitalities and charities
+to Christians, proceeds thus, v. 8 to 19: "Though
+I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span>
+which is convenient, yet, for love's sake, I rather
+beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged,
+and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I beseech
+thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in
+my bonds; which in time past was to thee unprofitable,
+but now profitable to thee and to me; whom I
+have sent again: thou, therefore, receive him, that
+is, mine own bowels: Whom I would have retained
+with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered
+unto me in the bonds of the Gospel. But without
+thy mind would I do nothing: that thy benefit should
+not be as it were of necessity, but willingly. For perhaps
+he therefore departed for a season, that thou
+shouldst receive him forever; not now as a servant,
+but above a servant, a brother beloved, especially to
+me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh,
+and in the Lord. If thou count me therefore, a partner,
+receive him as myself. If he hath wronged thee,
+or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account; I Paul
+have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it,"
+&amp;c. That it may not be supposed we give an explanation
+of these words warped to suit our own views, we
+will copy the very words of the judicious Dr. Thomas
+Scott, one of the most fair and reasonable of expositors,
+and a declared enemy of slavery. In his introduction
+to the Epistle, he says: "Philemon seems to have been
+a Christian of some eminence, residing at Colosse,
+(Col. iv. 9, or 17,) who had been converted under St.
+Paul's ministry, (19,) perhaps during his abode at
+Ephesus, (Acts xix. 10.) When the apostle was imprisoned
+at Rome, Onesimus, a slave of Philemon, having,
+as it is generally thought, been guilty of some dishonesty,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span>
+left his master and fled to that city, though at
+the distance of several hundred miles. When he came
+thither, curiosity or some such motive induced him to
+attend on St. Paul's ministry, which it pleased God to
+bless for his conversion. After he had given satisfactory
+proof of a real change, and manifested an excellent
+disposition, by suitable behaviour, which had greatly
+endeared him to Paul, he judged it proper to send him
+back to his master, to whom he wrote this epistle, that
+he might procure Onesimus a more favourable reception
+than he could otherwise have expected." Notes on v.
+12 to 16: "Onesimus was Philemon's legal property,
+and St. Paul had required, and prevailed with him, to
+return to him, having made sufficient trial of his sincerity:
+and he requested Philemon to receive him with
+the same kindness as he would the aged apostle's own
+son according to the flesh, being equally dear to him,
+as his spiritual child. He would gladly have kept him
+at Rome, to minister to him in his confinement, which
+Onesimus would willingly have done in the bonds of
+the Gospel, being attached to him from Christian love
+and gratitude; and as he knew that Philemon would
+gladly have done him any service in person, if he had
+been at Rome, so he would have considered Onesimus
+as ministering to him in his master's stead. But he
+would not do any thing of this kind without his consent,
+lest he should seem to extort the benefit, and
+Philemon should appear to act from necessity, rather
+than from a willing mind. And though he had hopes
+of deriving benefit from Onesimus' faithful service, at
+some future period, by Philemon's free consent, yet he
+was not sure that this was the Lord's purpose concerning
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span>
+him; for perhaps he permitted him to leave his master
+for a season in so improper a manner, in order that,
+being converted, he might be received on his return
+with such affection, and might abide with Philemon
+with such faithfulness and diligence, that they should
+choose to live together the rest of their lives as fellow-heirs
+of eternal felicity. In this case he knew that
+Philemon would no longer consider Onesimus merely as
+a slave, but view him as 'above a slave, even a brother
+beloved.' This he was become to Paul in an especial
+manner, who had before been entirely a stranger to him;
+how much more, then, might it be supposed that he
+would be endeared to Philemon, when he became well
+acquainted with his excellency! seeing he would be
+near to him both in the flesh as one of his domestics,
+and in the Lord, as one with him in Christ by faith."</p>
+
+<p>Thus far Dr. Scott. These are substantially the
+views given of this epistle by Calvin, Whitby, Henry,
+Doddridge, McKnight, Hodge, and others: none of
+whom were slaveholders, or friends of the institution.
+Now, our purpose is not to vindicate the intrinsic innocence
+of slaveholding here, by dwelling again upon
+the just arguments, which have been already stated:
+that a slaveholder here receives from an inspired
+apostle the highest Christian commendations; and that
+he is addressed as a brother minister in the church.
+The Epistle presents still more emphatic evidence:
+First, if the relation is unrighteous, and the master's
+authority unfounded, then the only ground upon which
+the duty of the slave's submission rests, is that of
+Christian forbearance. When the wicked bonds were
+once happily evaded, and the oppressed person in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span>
+safety, that ground of obligation was wholly at an end.
+A captive has been unlawfully detained by a gang of
+highwaymen, for the purpose of exacting ransom. He
+has given them the slip, and is secure. Is there any
+obligation to go back, because, while there, there was
+an obligation to refrain from useless violence and
+bloodshed? Let us even suppose that the means of
+the captive's escape were in some point immoral: does
+this fact make it his duty to go back and submit himself
+to the freebooters? By no means. To God he
+ought to repent of whatever was immoral in the manner
+of his escape: but he is bound to make no reparation
+for it to the robbers, because they had no right to
+detain him at all. But we see St. Paul here enjoining
+on the newly-awakened conscience of Onesimus, the
+duty of returning to his master. That the apostle sent
+him, and that he went back under a sense of moral obligation,
+is proved by two facts: St. Paul had a strong
+desire to retain him, being greatly in need of an affectionate
+domestic, in his infirm, aged, and imprisoned condition,
+but he felt that he must not. (Verse 13.) Paul
+had no power, except moral power, to make Onesimus
+go back, being himself a helpless captive; so that the
+latter must have been carried back by a sense of duty.
+Hence this instance proves, beyond a cavil, that the
+relation of master and servant was moral; it lies above
+the level of all those quibbles which we have been
+compelled to rebut.</p>
+
+<p>Second: the transaction clearly implies a moral
+propriety or ownership in Onesimus' labour, as pertaining
+to Philemon; of which the latter could not be rightfully
+deprived without his consent. For proof, see the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span>
+fact that Paul says, (v. 14,) "Without thy mind I would
+do nothing, that thy benefit should not be as it were of
+necessity, but willingly." The attendance of Onesimus
+on Paul, <i>i. e.</i>, the bestowal of his labour, would have
+been, if given, Philemon's "benefit" to Paul. If, as
+Abolitionists say, Onesimus belonged to himself, how
+could it be Philemon's benefit, or benefaction? See also
+the fact that St. Paul (v. 18) explicitly recognizes the
+justice of Philemon's claim to indemnity for Onesimus'
+bad conduct. In order to smoothe the way for his
+pardon by his justly offended master, he proposes to
+pay this himself, whatever it may be, and (v. 19) gives
+the force of a pecuniary bond to his promise, by writing
+and signing it with his own hand: (the rest of the
+Epistle, as the most of Paul's, being evidently written
+by an amanuensis.) Some expositors, indeed, explain
+the 18th verse by supposing that Onesimus, when running
+away, had stolen something from Philemon. There
+is not a particle of evidence for this in the narrative;
+and it is a most unsafe method of explaining the Scriptures,
+to do it by bringing in gratuitous surmises. But
+be this as it may, Paul's language covers both suppositions,
+of debt for his delinquent services, and retention
+of his master's property: ("If he hath wronged thee,
+or oweth thee any thing.") Is it objected that St. Paul
+suggests, v. 19th, that gratitude ought to cause Philemon
+to forego the exaction of such a vicarious payment
+from him? The reply is, that the very nature of this
+plea implies most strongly the legal completeness of
+Philemon's title to the compensation. A poor man is
+sued for a debt. His only answer is, that he thinks the
+suitor ought to be <i>generous</i> enough to remit this debt
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span>
+to him, inasmuch as he had once saved that suitor's
+life. Surely this plea is itself an admission that the
+debt is legal; and if the claimant chooses to be ungracious
+enough to press it under the circumstances, it
+must be paid. Moreover, Philemon's debt of gratitude
+was, thus far, to Paul, and not to Onesimus. Paul's
+stepping under the burden of his debt was an act of
+voluntary generosity only. The apostle makes no claim
+of any obligation, even of courtesy, from Philemon to
+his delinquent slave.</p>
+
+<p>But if Onesimus' labour was Philemon's property, of
+which he could not be rightfully deprived without his
+own consent, and for the loss of which he was entitled
+to an equivalent, slaveholding cannot be in itself unlawful.
+We have here a recognition of the very essence
+of the relation.</p>
+
+<p>This case is so fatal to the theory of all Abolitionists
+who admit the canonical authority of the Epistle, that
+desperate efforts are made to pervert its meaning. Mr.
+Albert Barnes, Coryph�us of these expository sophists,
+says in one of his comments, that it does not appear
+from the Epistle that Paul really sent Onesimus back
+to his master at all! "There is not the slightest evidence
+that he <i>compelled</i>, or even urged him to go. The
+language is just such as would have been used on the
+supposition, either that he <i>suggested</i> to him to go and
+bear a letter to Colosse, or that Onesimus desired to go,
+and that Paul sent him agreeably to his request. Compare
+Philip. ii. 25, Col. iv. 7, 8. But Epaphroditus and
+Tychicus were not sent against their own will; nor is
+there any more reason to think that Onesimus was."
+Mr. Barnes then adds the notable reason, that Paul
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span>
+had no sheriff or constable to send Onesimus by; so
+that if he did not choose to return, he could not compel
+him. But the stubborn fact is, that Onesimus went;
+and it must be accounted for. This author's account is,
+that he probably found he had not mended his condition
+by running away, and so, desired to return to regain
+his comfortable home; whereupon Paul availed himself
+of the occasion to write to his friend. This solution is
+not particularly honourable to the religious character
+of either party: we shall neither insult the apostle by
+adopting, nor the understanding of readers by refuting
+it. As to Paul's 'sending' of Epaphroditus to Phillippi,
+and Tychicus to Colosse, we note that the word is not
+the same with the one used of Onesimus. This is
+&alpha;&nu;&epsilon;&pi;&epsilon;&mu;&psi;&alpha;; and it is expressly defined by Robinson's
+Lexicon as an authoritative sending up, or remitting to
+a higher tribunal, such as the sending of Paul by
+Festus to C�sar, Acts xxv. 21. Further, Paul did 'send'
+these two brethren, not indeed as slaves are sent, but
+by his apostolic authority, to which they doubtless
+cheerfully responded. Paul had no physical force by
+which to drive Onesimus all the way from Rome to
+Colosse; but there is such a thing as moral power, and
+the fact that the conscience of the sent freely seconds
+the righteous authority of the sender, surely does not
+prove this authority to be naught. How perverse must
+he be, who can see in the words, "whom I (Paul) have
+sent," nothing but that Onesimus sent himself! Is not
+this the state of facts, plain to any honest mind: that
+Paul instructed him it was his duty to return to his
+lawful master, and as his spiritual teacher told him to
+do so? And this injunction the converted Onesimus
+cheerfully obeyed.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Barnes also says, it is not proved that Onesimus
+was a literal slave at all; he may have been a hired
+servant or apprentice. Here, as will appear more fully,
+he expressly contradicts himself. But as to the assumption,
+we reply, that Onesimus is called, v. 16, &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;, a
+name never given to the hired servant: that he is sent
+back to his rightful owner, a thing which necessarily
+implies his slavery: that St. Paul intercedes for him;
+and that he recognizes his master's property in his
+labour. The whole company of expositors, ancient and
+modern, until Mr. Barnes, have declared that Onesimus
+was Philemon's slave.</p>
+
+<p>But others again, following the same notable guide,
+learn that he was manumitted by the letter of Paul; so
+that they find here, not a justification of the slaveholder,
+but an implied rebuke of slavery. Thus contradictory
+is error! Just now he was not a slave at all: now he
+is a slave manumitted; and that by one who had no
+power to do it. The ground claimed for the latter position
+is, v. 16, "Not now as a servant, but above a servant,
+a brother beloved." Now, the obvious sense of
+these words is, that Philemon should now receive Onesimus
+back, not as a slave only, but as both a slave
+and Christian brother. For proof: By what law could
+Paul manumit another man's servant? And he had
+admitted Philemon's rightful authority, v. 10, by saying:
+"I beseech thee for my son Onesimus." Why beseech,
+if he might have commanded? If Paul had a right to
+emancipate, why did he send him back at all, when
+every other motive prompted to keep him? He again
+disclaims such right, v. 14, "But without thy mind I
+would do nothing." Still another proof appears, v. 18,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span>
+19, where St. Paul fully recognizes Onesimus' continued
+servitude by undertaking to pay for his delinquencies.
+The Epistle then adds, that Philemon was "to receive
+him back forever," v. 15, <i>i. e.</i>, for life. The residence
+of a free denizen or dependent could not be defined
+as for life; because he would go away whenever he
+pleased. And last, St. Paul expressly declares that this
+life-long relation was to be political as well as spiritual,
+both that of a servant and fellow-Christian&mdash;"How
+much more (beloved) now unto thee both in the flesh and
+in the Lord."</p>
+
+<p>Such are the wretched quibblings by which abolitionism
+seeks to pervert the plain meaning of God's
+Word, as clearly apprehended by the great current of
+Christian expositors, both ancient and modern, Greek,
+Latin, and English. We almost feel that an apology is
+due to the enlightened reader, for detaining him with
+the formal exposure of these miserable follies; but our
+promise was to display the thorough emptiness of our
+opponents.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 8. <i>St. Paul reprobates Abolitionists.</i></h3>
+
+<p>One passage of the New Testament remains to be
+noticed. It is that which commands the exclusion of
+Abolitionist teachers from church communion, 1 Tim.
+vi. 3-5. St. Paul had just enjoined on this young minister
+the giving of proper moral instruction to servants.
+The pulpit was to teach them the duty of subordination
+to masters, as to rightful authority; and if those masters
+were also Christians, then the obligation was only the
+stronger. See v. 1, 2. The apostle then proceeds, v. 3,
+"If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span>
+words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ,
+and to the doctrine which is according to godliness,"
+(the opposite teaching of abolitionism contradicts
+Christ's own word,) "he is proud, knowing nothing,
+but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof
+cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse
+disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of
+the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such
+withdraw thyself."</p>
+
+<p>The more carefully these words of the Holy Ghost are
+considered, the more exceedingly remarkable will they
+appear. Doubtless, every reader of previous ages has
+felt a slight trace of wonder, that the apostle should
+have left on record a rebuke of such particularity, sternness,
+and emphasis, when there appeared nothing in the
+opinions or abuses of the Christian world, of sufficient
+importance quite to justify it. We have no evidence
+that, either in the primitive or medi�val church, any
+marked disposition prevailed to assail the rights of
+masters over their slaves, to such extent as to threaten
+the disorganization of civil society or the dishonouring
+of Christianity thereby. This denunciation of the apostle
+seems to have been sufficient to give the <i>quietus</i> to the
+spirit of abolition, so long as any reverence for inspiration
+remained. Even while the policy of the Roman
+Church and clergy was steadily directed to the extinction
+of feudal slavery in Western Europe, it does not
+appear that the doctors of that church assailed the master's
+rights or preached insubordination to the slaves.
+Why then did St. Paul judge it necessary to leave on
+record so startling a denunciation? The question is
+answered by the events of our age: these words were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span>
+written for us on whom these ends of the world have
+come. And we have here a striking proof that his pen
+was guided by omniscient foreknowledge. The God
+who told Paul what to write, foresaw that though the
+primitive church stood in comparatively slight need of
+such admonitions, the century would come, after the
+lapse of eighteen ages, when the church would be invaded
+and defiled by the deadly spirit of modern abolitionism,
+a spirit perverse, blind, divisive and disorganizing,
+which would become the giant scourge and opprobrium
+of Christianity. Therefore has this stern warning been
+recorded here, and left standing until events should
+make men understand both its wisdom and the lineaments
+of the monster which it foreshadowed. The
+learned Calvin, and the amiable Henry, in explaining
+the Epistle to Philemon, allude to the question: Why
+should this short letter, which directly touches no publick
+concernment of the churches, written on a personal
+topick from Paul to his friend, be preserved among the
+canonical Scriptures by God's Spirit and providence?
+They answer, that it was placed there because, although
+short and of private concernment, it teaches us many
+pleasing lessons of Paul's condescension and courtesy,
+and above all, of the adaptation of Christianity to visit,
+purify, and elevate the lowest and vilest of the ranks of
+men. This is true, so far as it goes; but another part
+of God's purpose is now developed. He left this little
+Epistle among his authoritative words, because he foresaw
+that the day would come when the Church would
+need just the instructions against insubordination,
+which are here presented in a concrete case.</p>
+
+<p>Those who have seen and suffered by modern abolitionism
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span>
+best know, how astonishingly true is the picture
+here drawn of it by the Divine limner. God here
+declares that the principles of the lawfulness of slavery,
+the rights of masters, and the duty of obedience in
+slaves, are wholesome, and according to godliness. In
+addition, the sacred authority of our Lord Jesus Christ
+is claimed for them. The Abolitionist who assails these
+teachings is described as a man proud, yet ignorant.
+This combined arrogance and vindictiveness, with ignorance
+of the true facts and merits of the case upon
+which they presume to dictate, are proverbial in modern
+abolitionism, according to the testimony of neutral parties,
+and even of some of their own clique. With a
+stupid superciliousness, equally ludicrous and offensive,
+they revile men wiser and better than themselves, and
+pass an oracular verdict upon questions of which they
+know nothing. They are doting about questions
+and strifes of words: that is, as the original word
+means, their minds are morbid with logomachies, and
+idle debates, and corrupted by prejudice and the spirit
+of disputation. ("Perverse disputings of men of corrupt
+minds.") Those who have read thus far in this discussion
+have seen, in the prejudiced sophisms which we
+have been compelled to quote for refutation, sufficient
+evidence of the perverse, erroneous, and disputatious
+spirit of abolitionism. Their dogmas are not supported
+by the testimony of Scripture, nor the lights of practical
+experience, nor sound political philosophy; but by
+vain and Utopian theories of human rights, and philosophy
+falsely so called. The fruit of their discussions
+has been naught but "envy, strife, railings, and evil
+surmisings." The fact betrays itself in a thousand
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span>
+ways, that envy of the slaveholder and his supposed advantages
+and power, is the root of much of their zeal.
+Hence the epithets of "aristocrat," "lordly slaveholder,"
+"Southern nabob," as ridiculously false to fact as envious,
+which form so large a part of the staple of their
+abuse. They hate us because they suppose we possessed
+a privilege of which they were deprived. The
+angry and divisive tendencies of abolitionism have
+manifested themselves but too familiarly in the rending
+of churches, in the awakening of fierce contention
+wherever it has appeared, in the destruction of the
+union both of law and of love between the American
+States, and in a gigantic war which has filled a continent
+with woe and crime. And the remaining trait of
+"railings" is verified by the fact that these professed
+friends of humanity have exhausted the most inhuman
+stores of vituperation upon a class of Christian people
+whom none can know without loving for their purity
+and benevolence. There is no sect that knows how to
+scold so virulently as the Abolitionists. The apostle
+adds that they are "men of corrupt minds, and destitute
+of the truth." Now it is notoriously the fact that this
+sect, although claiming to be the special advocates of
+righteousness, have ever prosecuted their ends by unprincipled
+and false means. Their party action has
+been hypocritical and unscrupulous. Their main weapons
+have been slanders. And the tendency to mendacity
+has since been illustrated on a scale so grand in
+the recent War, by falsifications of fact, diplomatic
+treacheries, and wholesale breaches of covenant, that
+the accuracy of the apostle's description becomes startling.
+It would seem that when once a man is swayed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span>
+by this spirit fully, he is under a fatality to speak untruth,
+whether he be prime-minister, historian, official
+of government, or divine.</p>
+
+<p>The last trait of abolitionism which the apostle
+draws, is one which, at the first glance, strikes the observer
+with surprise, but which is fully verified by the
+reality. This is the intensely mercenary spirit of the
+sect. "Supposing that gain is godliness." Without
+due reflection, one would suppose that a party animated
+as much as this is by an intense and sincere fanaticism,
+and that, a fanaticism of pretended humanity,
+whatever violences it might commit, would at least be
+free from the vice of a calculated avarice. But the
+suppleness of fanaticism in affiliating with every other
+vice, is not duly appreciated; it is a fact, true, if unexpected,
+that genuine fanaticism can tolerate any thing
+except the peculiar object of its hate, and that it is
+compatible with supreme selfishness. For what is fanaticism
+but selfishness acting under the forms of pride
+with its offspring censoriousness, the lust of power,
+envy, and dogmatism? Modern events verify the apostle's
+picture: the religion and humanitarianism of abolition
+are only a covert avarice. The people of the American
+States are notorious for their worship of wealth,
+just in proportion as they are swayed by the anti-slavery
+furor. No party has ever appeared on the stage
+of Federal politics, whose ends were so avowedly selfish
+and mercenary. The wrongs of the slave have been
+the pretext, sectional and personal aggrandizement the
+true ends. That party, under the phase of "free-soil,"
+has thrown off the mask, and avowed the declaration
+that the true meaning of their opposition to the rights
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span>
+of Southern masters in the territories is, that "the soil
+of America belongs to the white man;" and the poor
+negro, though now a native of it, is begrudged a home
+and a living upon it. There is no class of people in
+America which has expended so little of its money for
+the actual advantage of the black race, as the abolitionists.
+Usually, the history of the case has been, that
+they would give of their money, neither to ransom a
+slave from bondage, nor to aid the cause of African colonization,
+nor to assist a distressed free negro of their
+own section: the only use to which they can be induced
+to apply it is the printing of vituperations against the
+masters. It was the testimony of the fugitive slaves
+themselves, that the philanthropy of the Abolitionists
+extended only to seducing them from their homes;
+thenceforth their whole thought was to make gain of
+their godliness. The crowning evidence, however, of
+the mercenary spirit of this party is in this fact, that
+their advent to power in the Federal government of the
+United States has been, according to the testimony of
+their mutual recriminations, the epoch of an unprecedented
+reign of peculation and official corruption. Such
+is the picture of abolitionism as drawn by the Apostle
+Paul, and verified in America in our day. It is our
+privilege and our wisdom to obey his closing injunction,
+"From such withdraw thyself," that we may not
+become partakers of their sins. From this stern and
+just denunciation, it may be learned how utterly the
+New Testament is opposed to the whole doctrine and
+spirit of the party.</p>
+
+<p>We have now passed in review every passage in the
+New Testament, in which domestic slavery is directly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span>
+treated, and we have seen that they every one imply
+the innocency of the institution. We have discussed
+many of the evasions by which Abolitionists attempt
+to escape these testimonies, and have found them utterly
+unsound. There remain two pleas, of more general
+application to the New Testament argument, to
+which the ablest of their advocates seem to attach
+prime importance. To these we will now attend.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 9. <i>The Golden Rule Compatible with Slavery.</i></h3>
+
+<p>One of these general objections to our New Testament
+argument is the following. They say, Christ
+could not have intended to authorize slavery, because
+the tenour and spirit of His moral teachings are opposed
+to it. The temper He currently enjoins is one of
+fraternity, equality, love, and disinterestedness. But
+holding a fellow-being in bondage is inconsistent with
+all these. Especially is the great "Golden Rule" incompatible
+with slavery. This enjoins us to do unto our
+neighbour as we would that he should do unto us.
+Now, as no slaveholder would like to be himself enslaved,
+this is a clear proof that we should not hold
+others in slavery. Hence, the interpretations which
+seem to find authority for slavery in certain passages
+of the New Testament, must be erroneous, and we are
+entitled to reject them without examination.
+Abolitionists usually advance this with a disdainful
+confidence, as though he who does not admit its justice
+were profoundly stupid. But it is exceedingly easy to
+show that it is a bald instance of <i>petitio principii</i>, and it
+is founded on a preposterous interpretation of the Golden
+Rule, which every sensible Sabbath-school boy knows
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span>
+how to explode. Its whole plausibility rests on the <i>�
+priori</i> assumption of prejudice, that slaveholding cannot
+but be wicked, and on a determination not to see it otherwise.
+Our refutation, which is demonstrative, reveals
+the Socinian origin and Rationalistic character of these
+opinions. Socinianism harbours loose views of the
+authority of inspiration, and especially of that of the
+Old Testament. It scruples not to declare, that these
+venerable documents contain many admixtures of human
+error, and wherever it finds in them any thing it
+does not like, it boldly rejects and repudiates it. Moreover,
+Socinianism having denied the divinity of our Redeemer
+Christ, finds itself compelled to attempt an answer
+to the hard question: Wherein, then, is He greater
+than Moses, David, or Isaiah? And in what respect
+does He fulfil those transcendent representations which
+the Scriptures correctly give of His superiority of person
+and mission? The answer which orthodoxy makes
+is plain and good: That it is because He is God as
+well as man, while they were but sinful men, redeemed
+and inspired; and that His mission is to regenerate
+and atone, while theirs was only to teach. But the
+answer which Socinianism has devised is in part this:
+Christ was commissioned to reform the moral system
+of the Old Testament, and to teach a new law of far
+superior beauty, purity, and benevolence. Thus, they
+have a corrupt polemical motive to misrepresent and
+degrade the Old Testament law, in order to make a
+<i>Nodus vindice dignus</i>, for their imaginary Christ, who
+does nothing but teach. To effect this, they seize on
+all such passages as those in the "Sermon on the
+Mount," which refute Pharisaic glosses, and evolve the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span>
+true law of love. This is the mint from which abolitionists
+have borrowed their objections against our
+Old Testament defence of slaveholding; such as this,
+that however it may have been allowed to the Hebrews,
+by their older and ruder law, "because of the hardness
+of their hearts," it is condemned by the new law of
+love, taught by Jesus. Now, our refutation (and it is
+perfect) is, that this law of love was just as fully announced
+by slaveholding Moses as it is by Jesus; in
+terms just as full of sweetness, benevolence, and universal
+fraternity. Yea more, the very words of Jesus
+cited by them and their Socinian allies, as the most
+striking instances of the superior mildness and love
+of His teachings, are in most cases quoted from Moses
+himself! The authority by which Christ enforced them
+upon His Jewish auditors was Moses' own! Such is
+the shameful ignorance of these fanatics concerning
+the real contents of that Old Testament which they depreciate.
+Thus, Christ's epitome of the whole law into
+the two commands to love God and our neighbour, is
+<i>avowedly quoted</i> from "the law," <i>i. e.</i>, the Pentateuch.
+See Matthew xxii. 36 to 39, and Mark xii. 28 to 33. It
+may be found in Deut. vi. 4 and 5, and in Levit. xix. 18.
+Even the scribe of Mark, xii. 32, Pharisee as he was,
+understood better than these modern Pharisees of abolitionism,
+that Christ's ethics were but a reproduction
+of Moses'. He avows the correctness of Christ's rendering
+of the Pentateuch law, and very intelligently
+adduces additional evidence of it by evident allusion
+to 1 Samuel xv. 22, and Hosea vi. 6. Again: does
+Christ inculcate forgiveness of injuries, benefactions
+towards enemies, and the embracing of aliens in our
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span>
+philanthropy as well as kindred and fellow-citizens?
+He does but cite them to the authority of Moses in
+Levit. xix. 18, Exod. xxiii. 4, 5, Levit. xxiv. 22, Exod.
+xxii. 21, xxxiii. 9. For here their great prophet himself
+had taught them that revenge must be left to God, that
+an embarrassed or distressed enemy must be kindly
+assisted, and that the alien must be treated in all humane
+respects as a fellow-citizen, under a lively and
+sympathetic sense of their own sufferings when they
+were oppressed aliens in Egypt. The Golden Rule, as
+stated by our Saviour, is but a practical application of
+the Mosaic precept "to love our neighbours as ourselves,"
+borrowed from Moses. In Matt. vii. 12, Christ,
+after giving the Golden Rule, adds, "for this is the law
+and the prophets." That is, the Golden Rule is the
+summary of the morality of the Pentateuch and Old
+Testament prophets. We repeat that there is not one
+trait of love, of benevolence, of sweet expansive fraternity,
+of amiable equity, contained in any of Christ's
+precepts or parables, that is not also found in the Laws
+of Moses. Their moral teachings are absolutely at
+one, in principle; and so they must be, if both are from
+the unchangeable God. To say otherwise is a denial
+of inspiration; it is infidelity; and indeed abolitionism
+is infidelity. Our reply, then, is, <i>that Christ's giving
+the law of love cannot be inconsistent with his authorizing
+slaveholding; because Moses gave the same law of
+love, and yet indisputably authorized slaveholding</i>. We
+defy all the sophisms of the whole crew of the perverse
+and destitute of the truth, to obscure, much less to rebut
+this answer, without denying the inspiration and even
+the common truthfulness of Moses. But that they will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span>
+not stickle to do: for what do they care for Moses, or
+Christ either, in comparison of their fanatical idol?</p>
+
+<p>But a more special word should be devoted to the argument
+from the Golden Rule. The sophism is so bald,
+and the clear evolution of it has been given so often,
+even in the humblest manuals of ethics prepared for
+school-boys, that it is tiresome to repeat its exposure.
+But as leading Abolitionists continue to advance the
+oft-torn and tattered folly, the friends of truth must continue
+to tear it to shreds. The whole reasoning of the
+Abolitionists proceeds on the absurd idea, that any caprice
+or vain desire we might entertain towards our
+fellow-man, if we were in his place, and he in ours,
+must be the rule of our conduct towards him, whether
+the desire would be in itself right or not. This absurdity
+has been illustrated by a thousand instances. On
+this rule, a parent who, were he a child again, would be
+wayward and self-indulgent, commits a clear sin in
+restraining or punishing the waywardness of his child,
+for this is doing the opposite of what he would wish
+were he again the child. Judge and sheriff commit a
+criminal murder in condemning and executing the
+most atrocious felon; for were they on the gallows
+themselves, the overmastering love of life would very
+surely prompt them to desire release. In a word,
+whatever ill-regulated desire we are conscious of having,
+or of being likely to have, in reversed circumstances,
+that desire we are bound to make the rule of
+our action in granting the parallel caprice of any other
+man, be he bore, beggar, highwayman, or what not.
+On this understanding, the Golden Rule would become
+any thing but golden; it would be a rule of iniquity;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span>
+for instead of making impartial equity our regulating
+principle, it would make the accidents of man's criminal
+caprice the law of his acts. It would become
+every man's duty to enable all other men to do whatever
+his own sinful heart, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>, might
+prompt.</p>
+
+<p>The absurdity of the abolitionist argument may be
+shown, again, by "carrying the war into Africa." We
+prove from it, by a process precisely as logical as
+theirs, that emancipation is a sin. Surely the principle
+of the Golden Rule binds the slave just as much as the
+master. If the desire which one would feel (<i>mutatis
+mutandis</i>) must govern each man's conduct, then the
+slave may be very sure that, were he the master, he
+would naturally desire to retain the services of the
+slaves who were his lawful property. Therefore, according
+to this abolition rule, he is morally bound to
+decline his own liberty; <i>i. e.</i>, to act towards his master
+as he, were he the master, would desire his slave to act.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear, then, that our Saviour, by His Golden
+Rule, never intended to establish so absurd a law. The
+rule of our conduct to our neighbour is not any desire
+which we might have, were we to change places; but
+it is <i>that desire which we should, in that case, be morally
+entitled to have</i>. To whatsoever treatment we should
+conscientiously think ourselves morally entitled, were
+we slaves instead of masters, all that treatment we as
+masters are morally bound to give our servants, so far
+as ability and a just regard for other duties enables
+us. Whether that treatment should include emancipation,
+depends on another question, whether the desire
+which we, if slaves, should very naturally feel to be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span>
+emancipated, is a righteous desire or not; or, in other
+words, whether the obligation to service is rightful.
+Hence, before the Golden Rule can be cited as enjoining
+emancipation, it must first be settled whether the master's
+title is unrighteous. The Apostle Paul gives precisely
+the true application of this rule when he says:
+"Masters, give unto your servants that which is just
+and equal." And this means, not emancipation from
+servitude, but good treatment as servants; which is
+proven by the fact that the precept contemplates the
+relation of masters and servants as still subsisting. All
+this is so clear, that it would be an insult to the intelligence
+of the reader to tarry longer upon the sophism.
+We only add, that the obvious meaning above put upon
+the Golden Rule is that given to it by all sensible expositors,
+such as Whitby, Scott, Henry, before it received
+an application to this controversy. Yet, though
+this obvious answer has been a hundred times offered,
+abolitionists still obtrude the miserable cheat, in
+speeches, in pamphlets, in tracts, as though it were the
+all-sufficient demonstration of the anti-Christian character
+of slavery. They will doubtless continue a hundred
+times more to offer it, to gull none, however, except
+the wilfully blind.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 10. <i>Was Christ Afraid to Condemn Slavery?</i></h3>
+
+<p>The other general evasion of the New Testament argument
+for the lawfulness of slavery, is to say: That
+Jesus Christ and his apostles did not indeed explicitly
+condemn slavery; but that they forbore from doing so
+for prudential reasons. They saw, say these abolitionists,
+that it was a sin universally prevalent, entwined
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span>
+with the whole fabrick of human society, and
+sustained by a tremendous weight of sinful prejudice
+and self-interest. To denounce it categorically would
+have been to plunge the infant church, at its feeble beginning,
+into all the oppositions, slanders, and strifes
+of a great social revolution, thus jeopardizing all its
+usefulness to the souls of men. For this reason, Christ
+and his apostles wisely refrained from direct attack,
+and contented themselves with spreading through the
+world principles of love and equity, before which
+slavery would surely melt away in due time. So say all
+the abolitionists. So says Dr. Wayland, in substance,
+not only in his discussion of slavery, but in his more
+responsible and deliberate work, the "Moral Science."
+In that essay, Bk. II., Pt. II., Chap. I., &#167; 1, he says: "The
+Gospel was designed, not for one race, or for one time,
+but for all races, 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 lodgement in every part
+of the known world: so that by its universal diffusion
+among all classes of society, it might quietly and
+peacefully modify and subdue the evil passions of
+men; and thus, without violence, work a revolution in
+the whole mass of mankind. In this manner alone
+could its object, a universal moral revolution, have
+been accomplished. For if it had forbidden the evil
+instead of subverting the principle&mdash;if it had proclaimed
+the unlawfulness of slavery, and taught slaves
+to <i>resist</i> the oppression of their masters, it would instantly
+have arrayed the two parties in deadly hostility
+throughout the civilized world; its announcement
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span>
+would have been the signal of servile war, and the
+very name of the Christian religion would have been
+forgotten amidst the agitations of universal bloodshed.
+The fact that, under these circumstances, 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."</p>
+
+<p>Such is the Jesuitry which is gravely charged, by a
+professed minister of the Christian religion, and prominent
+instructor of youth, upon our Lord Jesus Christ
+and his apostles! Such is the cowardly prudence
+which it imputes to men who, every one, died martyrs
+for their moral courage and unvarying fidelity to truth.
+And thus is the divine origin and agency by which, the
+Bible declares, and by which alone Christianity is to
+succeed in a hostile world, quietly left out of view;
+and American youth are taught to apprehend it as a
+creed which has no Divine king ruling the universe for
+its propagation, no Almighty providence engaged for
+its protection, no Holy Ghost working irresistibly in
+the hearts of such as God shall call, to subdue their enmity
+to the obedience of Christ: but Christianity is
+merely a human system of moral reform, liable to total
+extinction, unless it is a little sly in keeping back its
+unpopular points, until an adroit occasion offers, (such,
+for instance, as the power and support of a resistless
+Yankee majority in some confederation of slaveholders,)
+to make the unpopular doctrine go down, or at
+least, to choke off those who dare to make wry faces!
+Christ and the twelve went out, forsooth, into a sinful
+and perishing world, professing to teach men the way
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span>
+of salvation; and yet, although they knew that any sin
+persevered in must damn the soul, they were totally silent
+as to one great and universal crime! They came
+avowedly to "reprove the world of sin, of righteousness,
+and of judgment;" and yet uttered no rebuke for
+this "sum of all villainies." They went preaching the
+Gospel of repentance from all known sin, as the sole
+condition of eternal life: and yet never notified their
+hearers of the sin of one universal practice prevalent
+among them, lest, forsooth, they should raise a storm of
+prejudice against their system! Nay, far worse than
+this: they are not satisfied with a <i>suppressio veri</i>, but
+as though to insure the fatal misleading of the consciences
+which they undertook to guide to life, their
+policy of pusillanimity leads them to a positive <i>suggestio
+falsi</i>. Had they been simply and wholly silent
+about the great sin, this had been bad enough. But
+this is not what they did. It is a glozing deceit to attempt
+to cover up the case under the pretended admission
+that "the Gospel does not forbid slavery," as
+though this were the whole of it. Christ and his apostles
+allude to slavery: they say a multitude of things
+about it: they travel all around it: they limit its
+rights and define its duties: they retrench its abuses:
+they admit the perpetrators of its wrong, (if it be a
+wrong,) unrepenting, into the bosom of the church, and
+to its highest offices. They do almost every thing which
+is calculated to justify in masters the inference that it
+is lawful. And then they finally dismiss the whole
+matter, without one explicit warning of its sinfulness
+and danger. According to this theory, the apostles
+find their trusting pupils on the brink of the precipice,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span>
+surrounded with much darkness; and having added
+almost every circumstance adapted farther to obfuscate
+their consciences, they coolly leave them there,
+with no other guidance than a reference to those general
+principles of equity which, beautifully taught by
+Moses, had already signally failed to enlighten them.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Wayland's hypothesis is also deceitful and erroneous,
+in representing Christ as having no alternatives
+save the one which he imputes to him, or else of so
+denouncing slavery as to "teach slaves to <i>resist</i> the oppression
+of their masters," and thus lighting the flames
+of servile war. Is this so? When a given claim is
+condemned by the Bible as not grounded in right, does
+it necessarily follow on Gospel principles that those on
+whom it is made must resist it by force? Surely not.
+The uniform teaching of our Saviour to the wronged
+individual is, "that he resist not evil." Christ, if he had
+regarded slaveholding as sinful, would not indeed have
+incited slaves to resistance, any more than he did the
+victims of polygamy which he condemned. But he would
+have taught his disciples the sinfulness of the relation,
+and within the pale of his own spiritual commonwealth,
+the Church, he would have enforced reformation by
+refusing to admit or retain any who persevered in the
+wrong. Less than this he could not have done.</p>
+
+<p>The hypothesis is also false to facts and to the actual
+method of his mission towards deeply rooted sins, as
+declared both by his words and conduct. He expressly
+repudiates this very theory of action. He declares that
+he came "not to send peace on earth, but a sword:"
+and announces himself as the grand incendiary of the
+world. How degrading to the almighty king of Zion is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span>
+this imputation of politic cowardice! And how different
+from the real picture where we see him boldly exposing
+the hypocrisy of the Jewish rulers, and assailing their
+most cherished deceptions, though he knew that the
+price of his truthfulness would be his blood! And can
+this paltry theory be true of that Paul, who took his
+hearers to record, in full view of his dread account, that
+he was "clear from the blood of all men, because he
+had not shunned to declare to them all the counsel of
+God?" (Acts, xx. 27.) This of the man who everywhere
+assailed and explicitly denounced the idolatry of Greece
+and Rome, established by law, entwined with every
+feeling, and defended by imperial might? This of men
+who, sternly reprobating the universal libertinism of
+the heathen world, attacked what every one, countenanced
+by sages and statesmen, regarded as a lawful
+indulgence? This of men who boldly roused every prejudice
+of the Jewish heart, by declaring their darling
+system of rites and types effete, their ceremonial righteousness
+a cheat, and the middle wall of partition
+between them and the Gentiles, the bulwark of their
+proud spiritual aristocracy, broken down? It is slander.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, this hypothesis represents that Saviour who
+claimed omniscience, as adopting a policy which was as
+futile as dishonest. He forbore the utterance of any
+express testimony against the sin of slaveholding, say
+they, leaving the church to find it out by deduction
+from general principles of equity. But in point of
+fact, the church never began to make such deduction,
+until near the close of the 18th century. Neither primitive,
+nor reformed, nor Romanist, nor modern divines
+taught the doctrine of the intrinsic sinfulness of slaveholding.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span>
+The church as a body never dreamed it.
+Slavery remained almost universal. It remained for the
+political agitators of atheistic, Jacobin France, almost
+eighteen hundred years after Christ's birth, to give
+active currency to this new doctrine, and thus to infuse
+energy into the fanaticism of the few erratic Christian
+teachers, such as Wesley, who had hitherto asserted
+this novelty. Now, did Christ foresee this? If he did
+not, he is not divine. If he did, then Dr. Wayland
+believes that he deliberately chose a plan which consigned
+seventeen centuries of Christians to a sin, and
+as many of slaves to a wrong, which he all along abhorred.
+<i>Credat Jud&oelig;us Apella!</i></p>
+
+<p>The book from which we have extracted these words
+of Dr. Wayland, was put forth by him as a text-book
+for the instruction of young persons in academies and
+colleges, in the <i>science of morals</i>. We are informed that
+it is extensively used for this purpose. What can be
+expected of that people which suffers the very springs
+of its morality to be thus corrupted, by inculcating
+these ethics of expediency? Not satisfied with teaching
+to mortals that species of morality, so called, which
+makes convenience the measure of obligation, this scribe
+of their Israel imputes the same degrading principle to
+the Redeemer of men, and Author of religion, in thus
+suppressing the truth, and intimating error to whole
+generations of his own followers, in order to avoid the
+inconveniences of candour. So that unsuspecting youth
+are thus taught to approve and imitate this corrupt
+expediency, in the very person of the Redeemer God,
+whom they are commanded to adore. Will the Yankee
+give an actual <i>apotheosis</i> to his crooked principles, in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span>
+the person of an imaginary New England Christ? We
+thank God that this is not the Christ of the Bible, nor
+our Redeemer, but only the hideous invention of "men
+of perverse minds and destitute of the truth." But
+since we are taught (Psalm cxv. 8) that they who
+worship false Gods are like unto them, that is to say,
+that idolaters always reproduce in themselves all the
+abominations which they adore in their idols, we need
+no longer wonder at any thing which the Yankee people
+may do. Hence that state of publick morals blazoned
+to the world by the effrontery of their own corrupt
+press, charged upon each other in their mutual recriminations,
+and betrayed in their crimes against the general
+weal.</p>
+
+<p>In concluding the biblical part of this discussion, it
+may be expected that we should indicate more exactly
+the influence which we suppose Christianity ought to
+have exerted upon slavery, and its ultimate destiny
+under pure Bible teachings. It may be asked: "When
+you claim that slavery is literally and simply a righteous
+relation, in itself, if it be not perverted and
+abused; do you mean that this is the normal and perfect
+relation for the labouring man; that this is to be
+the fullest and most blessed social development of
+Christianity: that it ought to subsist in the best states
+of Christian society, and will endure even in the millennium?"
+We reply, that one uniform effect of Christianity
+on slavery, has been to ameliorate it, to remove its
+perversions and abuses, just as it does those of the
+other lawful relations among men; to make better masters
+and better servants, and thus to promote the welfare
+of both. Domestic slavery has been violently and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span>
+mischievously ended in the South; and it is doubtless
+ended here in this form, finally. And it has long been
+manifest that the radical and anti-Christian tendency
+of the age is likely speedily to break up this form of
+servitude in other places where it still prevails. But
+true slavery, that is, the involuntary subjection of one
+man to the will of another, is not thereby any more
+abolished than sin and death are abolished. And least
+of all will real bondage of man to man be abolished in
+countries governed by radical democracy. The Scriptural,
+the milder and more benign form of servitude is
+swept away, in the arrogance of false political philosophy,
+to be replaced by more pretentious but more grinding
+forms of society. But, it may be asked: Will not
+the diffusion of the pure and blessed principles of the
+Gospel ultimately extinguish all forms of slavery? We
+answer: Yes, we devoutly trust it will, not by making
+masters too righteous to hold slaves, but by so correcting
+the ignorance, thriftlessness, indolence, and vice of
+labouring people, that the institution of slavery will be
+no longer needed. Just so, we hope that the spread of
+Christianity will some day abolish penitentiaries and
+jails: but this does not imply that to put rogues into
+penitentiaries is not now, and will not continue, so long
+as rogues shall continue to deserve imprisonment, an
+act which an angel might perform without sullying his
+morality. So likewise, we hope that our ransomed
+world will see the day when defensive war and military
+establishments will be superseded: superseded not because
+defensive war and the calling of the Christian
+soldier are immoral when one's country is wrongfully
+invaded; but because there will be none immoral
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span>
+enough to commit the aggressions which now justify
+these costly, though righteous expedients of defence.
+There appears, in many minds, a strange impotency to
+comprehend the truth, that the strict righteousness of
+the relation maintained, and the treatment observed towards
+a person, may depend on that person's character.
+They will not see that, as it may be strictly moral to
+punish one who is guilty because of his guilt, and yet
+suffering is not intrinsic good in itself; so it may be
+perfectly righteous to hold a class in bondage, which is
+incapable of freedom, and yet it may be true still that
+bondage is not a good in itself. Because they cannot
+accept the extreme dogma, that domestic slavery is the
+<i>beau ideal</i> of the proper relation of labour to capital,
+they seem to imagine that they are bound in consistency
+to hold that it is somehow an evil. Yet they have
+too much reverence for God's word to assert, with the
+abolitionists, in the teeth of its fair meaning, that slavery
+is sin <i>per se</i>. So, they attempt to stand on an intermediate
+ground of invisible and infinitesimal breadth.
+The plain solution of the matter is, that slavery may
+not be the <i>beau ideal</i> of the social organization; that
+there is a true evil in the necessity for it, but that this
+evil is not slavery, but the ignorance and vice in the
+labouring classes, of which slavery is the useful and
+righteous remedy; righteous so long as the condition
+of its utility exists. Others pass to another extreme,
+and seeing that the Bible undoubtedly teaches that
+slaveholding is righteous, they liken the relation to
+those of the husband and father. There is, however,
+this obvious difference: These relations were established
+in paradise before man fell. Their righteousness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span>
+and usefulness are not dependent on the fact that man
+is a sinner, and they would be appropriately continued
+as long as men are in the body, though all were perfectly
+wise and holy. But the propriety of slavery,
+like that of the restraints and punishments of civil government,
+rests on the fact that man is depraved and
+fallen. Such is his character, that the rights of the
+whole, and the greatest welfare of the whole, may, in
+many cases, demand the subjection of one part of
+society to another, even as man's sinfulness demands
+the subjection of all to civil government. Slavery is,
+indeed, but one form of the institution, <i>government</i>.
+Government is controul. Some controul over all is
+necessary, righteous, and beneficent: the degree of it
+depends on the character of those to be controuled. As
+that character rises in the scale of true virtue, and self-command,
+the degree of outward controul may be properly
+made lighter. If the lack of those properties in
+any class is so great as to demand, for the good and
+safety of the whole, that extensive controul which
+amounts to slavery, then slavery is righteous, righteous
+by precisely the same reason that other government is
+righteous. And this is the Scriptural account of the
+origin of slavery, as justly incurred by the sin and depravity
+of man.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.<br />
+
+THE ETHICAL ARGUMENT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>&#167; 1. The flimsy character of the arguments based by
+the abolitionists on the Scriptures, betrays another
+than a biblical origin for their doctrines. They come
+primarily not from God's word, but from "philosophy
+falsely so called;" the abolitionists, having determined
+on them in advance, are only concerned with the sacred
+records, to thrust them aside by quibbles and evasions.
+But the only sure and perfect rule of right is the Bible.
+This, we have seen, condemns domestic slavery neither
+expressly nor by implication. It shows us the institution
+in the family of the "Father of the faithful," the
+"friend of God," and there recognized by God himself
+in the solemn sacrament of the Old Testament circumcision:
+We have found it expressly authorized to God's
+chosen people, Israel, and defended in the Decalogue
+itself: We see it existing throughout the ages of that
+dispensation, while inspired men, so far from condemning,
+practised it: We see that it is not removed by the
+fuller light of the New Testament; but on the contrary,
+its duties are defined, and slaveholders admitted
+to all the privileges of the Church: We learn, in a
+word, that domestic slavery existed throughout the
+ages of revelation, was practised continually by multitudes
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span>
+of God's own people, was never once rebuked,
+but often recognized and authorized. We assert then,
+that, according to that infallible standard, it is lawful.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, it is condemned in unmeasured terms by most
+of the people of Christendom, is said to be abhorrent to
+the political ethicks of the age, and has been reprobated
+by some of the fathers of our own commonwealth.
+What then? In the emphatic language of the book
+whose protection we claim: "Let God be true, but
+every man a liar." Nor are we much concerned to explain
+away this collision between human speculation
+and God's word. When we consider the weakness of
+human reason, and the mortifying history of its vagaries;
+when we remember how many dogmas once held
+for axioms are now exploded, and what monstrous
+crimes and follies have been upheld by the unanimous
+consent of philosophers, we are not afraid to adopt the
+teachings of the All-Wise, in preference to the deductions
+of blundering and purblind mortals. When the
+political experience of the world shall have matured
+and corrected the opinions of men, we have no fear but
+that all the truly wise, and good, and philosophical, will
+justify us, and will acknowledge that this simple, this
+decried, this abhorred expedient of inspired law-givers
+was, after all, best conformed to the true wants and
+welfare of those to whom it was applied, and wiser
+than any of the conceited <i>nostrums</i> of political quackery;
+that, in short, "the foolishness of God was wiser
+than men." Here, then, we place our feet; and our
+answer to reviling abolitionists and a frowning world
+is: Your reproach is not against us, but God. Go and
+convict the All-Wise of folly, the Infinite Holiness of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span>
+injustice. Amidst the cruel sufferings of the war which
+was thrust upon us for this institution, and of the violent
+and disastrous overthrow of our liberties; amidst
+the floods of obloquy which our interested persecutors
+have belched forth upon us, and the contemptuous neglect
+of the nations, our confidence is in God's countenance.
+He permits us to be sorely chastened for our
+sins; but he will not finally suffer his own honour to be
+reproached. He will surely rebuke in the end, the folly
+and impiety of our slanderers, and "bring forth our
+righteousness as the noonday."</p>
+
+<p>The Socinian and skeptical type of all the evasions
+of our Scriptural argument has been already intimated.
+If the most profane and reckless wresting of God's
+word will not serve their turn, to make it speak abolitionism,
+then they not seldom repudiate its authority.
+One of their leaders, long a professed minister of the
+Gospel, declares, at the close of a train of tortuous
+sophisms, that if he were compelled to believe the Bible
+countenances slavery, he should be compelled to give
+up the Bible: thereby virtually confessing that he had
+never been convinced of the infallibility of that which,
+for thirty years, he had been pretending to preach to
+men as infallible. Others, more blatant and blasphemous,
+when compelled to admit that both the Bible
+and the American constitution recognized slavery, exclaimed:
+"Give me, then, an anti-slavery constitution,
+an anti-slavery Bible, and an anti-slavery God!"</p>
+
+<p>Orthodox Christians have always held it as a rule
+perfectly settled, that a revelation which was made to
+yield to any and every supposed deduction of reason,
+would be no authoritative rule of faith at all. It is only
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span>
+when the express word of Scripture clearly contradicts
+a proposition which appears to be a primary intuition
+of the reason, that it constitutes any difficulty in the
+reception of God's word. But can this prejudice against
+slavery claim to be such? The tests of such truths are,
+that they shall be seen in their own light to be true;
+that they shall be necessary; and that all sane human
+beings shall inevitably believe them, if they comprehend
+the terms of the statements. Obviously, abolitionism
+can claim none of these traits. Instead of being self-evident,
+we shall show that it is a mere deduction from
+a deceitful and baseless theory. To the mind of all former
+ages, it has failed to commend itself as true. All
+ancient nations, and most moderns, have believed the
+contrary. All ancient philosophers, and all Bible saints,
+the latter at least as conscientious and clear-headed as
+modern fanatics, believed slavery to be lawful. The
+great philosophers of the middle ages, surpassed by
+none in acumen, and guided by the uninspired lights of
+a Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, thought and wrote without
+suspecting the sinfulness of slavery. Thousands of
+Christians in the Southern States, of as enlightened
+and honest consciences as any in the world, lived and
+died masters, with no other self-reproach than that they
+did not more faithfully fulfil the master's duties. Since
+it is not a self-evident, not a necessary, not a universally
+received truth, that slavery is sinful, we therefore
+claim the authority of the Scriptures as conclusive, and
+boldly repudiate all logical obligation to reconcile them
+with the vain conclusions of human speculation. "He
+that reproveth God, let him answer it."</p>
+
+<p>Yet we acknowledge the obligation of those who
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span>
+undertake to expound God's word, "to commend it to
+every man's conscience in the sight of God," so far as
+the self-confidence and petulance of the depraved reason
+will permit. To show, therefore, that we have no
+fear of any legitimate human speculation, and to do
+what in us lies "to justify the ways of God to men,"
+we propose in this chapter to examine the ethical argument
+against slavery with some care.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 2. <i>Misrepresentations Cleared.</i></h3>
+
+<p>But abolitionists, by their audacious assumptions,
+endeavour to throw the question out of the pale of discussion:
+they exclaim that it needs no wire-drawn inference,
+it is self-evident, that a system which dehumanizes
+a human being, and makes his very person like
+a brute's body, the property of another creature; which
+necessitates the entailing of ignorance and vice; which
+ignores the marital and parental rights; which subjects
+the chastity of the female to the brute will of her master,
+and which fills Southern homes with the constant
+outcry of oppression, is an iniquity: and that he who
+attempts to cite the testimony of reason and Scripture
+in defence of such wrongs, offers an insult to their
+minds and consciences which self-respect requires them
+to repel at once. The malignant industry of our enemies
+in propagating these monstrous slanders, compels
+us, therefore, to pause at the outset of the discussion,
+to rebut them, and disabuse the minds of readers. And
+it is here asserted, once for all, that the popular apprehension
+of the slave's condition and treatment, spread
+throughout Europe and the North, <i>is utterly false</i>: that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span>
+it is the result of nothing less than persistent, wilful,
+and almost incredible lying on the part of interested
+accusers; and that this is recognized by every intelligent
+European and Northern man who has resided
+among us long enough truly to know the institution of
+slavery. The character disclosed by the Yankees in
+the war lately closed, has effectually taught the rest of
+the world to recognize the probability of our charge.</p>
+
+<p>The reader is first, then, requested to recall the definition
+of American slavery admitted by us in the beginning
+of the fifth chapter. It is not an ownership of
+the servant's moral personality, soul, religious destinies,
+or conscience; but a property in his involuntary
+labour. And this right to his labour implies just so
+much controul over his person as enables his master to
+possess his labour. Our doctrine "hath this extent, no
+more." This we established beyond cavil by a reference
+to our laws and usages. Now, the abolitionist
+argues that the master's claim over the servant, if just,
+must imply a right to employ any means necessary to
+perpetuate it, such as to keep the mind of his slaves
+stupid and dark, because this is necessary to prevent
+his aspiring to his liberty. We reply that such means
+are not necessary in the nature of the case. To assert
+their necessity audaciously begs the question. If the
+master's claim were so essentially unrighteous, that
+any intelligent reflection in the slave would justify his
+indignation and resistance, then it might be more convenient
+for the master to make him an unreflecting
+animal. But the very subject in debate is, whether
+the claim is unrighteous. Suppose that the relation
+can be demonstrated to be right, reasonable, and beneficent
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span>
+for the servant, (which is what we assert,)
+then the only effect of intelligent reflection and of
+knowledge and virtue combined in the slave's character,
+will be to render him better satisfied with his
+condition. So that to degrade his soul is not a necessary
+means for perpetuating the master's authority,
+and not a part of the rights of masters. And now, it
+is emphatically asserted that Southern masters, as a
+class, did not seek or desire to repress either the
+mental or religious culture of their servants' souls;
+but the contrary. It is our solemn and truthful testimony,
+that the nearly universal temper of masters was
+to promote and not to hinder it; and the intellectual
+and religious culture of our slaves met no other general
+obstacle, save that which operates among the labouring
+poor of all countries, their own indifference to it,
+and the necessities of nearly constant manual labour.
+If there was any exception, it was caused by the mischievous
+meddling of abolitionists themselves, obtruding
+on the servants that false doctrine so sternly
+condemned by St. Paul. Southern masters desired the
+intelligence and morality of their servants. As a
+class, masters and their families performed a large
+amount of gratuitous labour for that end; and universally
+met all judicious efforts for it from others with
+cordial approval. An intelligent Christian servant was
+universally recognized as being, in a pecuniary view,
+a better servant. Is it asserted that there is still much
+degrading ignorance among Southern negroes? True:
+but it exists not because of our system, but in spite of
+it. There is more besotted ignorance in the peasantry
+of all other countries. It is the dispassionate conviction
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span>
+of intelligent Southerners, that our male slaves
+presented a better average of virtue and intelligence
+than the rank and file of the Federal armies by which
+we were overrun: and even the negro troops of our
+conquerors, although mostly recruited from the more
+idle and vicious slaves, were better than the white!
+The Africans of these States, three generations ago,
+were the most debased among pagan savages. A nation
+is not educated in a day. How long have the British
+people been in reaching their present civilization under
+God's providential tutelage? The South has advanced
+the Africans, as a whole, more rapidly than any other
+low savage race has ever been educated. Hence we
+boldly claim, that our system, instead of necessitating
+the ignorance and vice of its subjects, deserves the
+credit of a most beneficent culture.</p>
+
+<p>We may here refer to the charge, that Virginian
+slavery condemned the Africans to mental and religious
+darkness, by forbidding them all access to letters;
+because the laws of the commonwealth forbade the
+teaching of them to read. Will not even the intelligent
+reader, after the currency of this charge, be surprised
+to learn that <i>there has never been such a law upon the
+statute books of Virginia</i>? To assert that there has been
+such a law, is an unmitigated falsehood. The only
+enactment which touches the subject is the following
+sentence, in the statute defining what were "unlawful
+assemblages" of negroes. "And every assemblage of
+negroes for the purpose of instruction in reading and
+writing, or in the night time for any purpose, shall be
+an unlawful assembly." Stat. 1830-31, p. 107. The
+previous section, commencing the definition of these
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span>
+unlawful assemblies, expressly states that they are unlawful
+if held <i>without the master's consent</i>. Our courts
+and lawyers uniformly held that, without this feature,
+no assemblage of negroes, to do any thing not criminal
+<i>per se</i>, can be unlawful; because the whole spirit of
+Virginian laws recognized the master's authority. His
+slaves were subject to his government. His authorization
+legalized everything not intrinsically criminal.
+Accordingly, the uniform interpretation given to the
+above words was, that it was the assembling of slaves
+for instruction in letters by others than their master or
+his authorized agents, which constituted the unlawful
+assembly. The whole extent of the law was, to arm
+masters with the power to prevent the impertinent
+interference of others with his servants, under the
+pretext of literary instruction; a power which the
+meddlesomeness of abolitionists pointed out as most
+wholesome and necessary. There was no more law to
+prevent the master from teaching his slaves than his
+children; either by himself, or his authorized agent;
+and thousands of slaves in Virginia were taught to read
+by their masters, or their children and teachers. As
+many Virginian slaves were able to read their Bibles,
+and had Bibles to read, as could probably be found
+among the labouring poor of boasted Britain. Here let
+another unmitigated falsehood be exposed. Since the
+ill-starred overthrow of our system, the most noted
+religious newspaper of the North, mentioning an appropriation
+of Bibles by the American Bible Society for
+gifts to negroes of the South, applauded the measure,
+because, as it asserted, "the Southern States had
+hitherto forbidden the circulation of the Scriptures
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span>
+among their slaves." It would be mere puling in us, to
+affect the belief that this amazing statement was made in
+ignorance; when the officials of the Society whose organ
+this slanderer professed to be, well know that, ever
+since the institution of the Bible Society, they were
+scarcely more familiar with any species of applications,
+than those of Christian masters and mistresses, and of
+Southern ministers, for Scriptures suitable for their
+servants. There has never been a law in Virginia
+preventing the gratuitous circulation of the Bible among
+slaves, or the possession or reading of it by slaves:
+and it is confidently believed that there has never been
+a single man in Virginia who desired such a law, or
+who would have executed it, had it defiled our statute
+book; unless, perchance, it was some infidel of that
+French school which invented abolitionism.</p>
+
+<p>It is charged again, that slavery impiously and inhumanly
+sacrificed the immortal soul of the slave, to
+secure the master's pecuniary interest in him. This
+slander is already in part answered. We farther declare
+that neither our laws, nor the current temper and usage
+of masters, interfered with the slave's religious rights.
+On the contrary, they all protected and established
+them. The law protected the legal right of the slave to
+his Sabbath, forbidding the master to employ him on
+that day in secular labours, other than those of necessity
+and mercy. Instances in which slaves were prevented
+by their masters from attending the publick worship of
+God, were fully as rare among us, and as much reprobated,
+as similar abuses are in any other Christian
+country. On the contrary, the masters were almost
+universally more anxious that their servants should
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span>
+attend publick worship, than the servants were to avail
+themselves of the privilege. There was scarcely a
+Christian church in the South, which had not its black
+communicants sitting amicably at the table beside
+their masters; and the whole number of these
+adult communicants was reported by the statistics of
+the churches, as not less than a half million. We can
+emphatically declare, that we never saw or heard of a
+house of worship in the South, where sittings were not
+provided for the blacks at the expense of the whites:
+and it is believed that if there was such a case, it was
+in a neighbourhood containing no negro population.
+And in nearly every case, these sittings were more ample
+than the blacks could be induced to fill. Nor was there
+any expenditure of money on ecclesiastical objects,
+which was more cheerfully and liberally made, than that
+for the religious culture of the slaves. Further, with a
+few exceptions they enjoyed the fullest religious liberty
+in the selection of their religious communions and places
+of worship. Masters refused them liberty to join the
+churches of their choice more rarely than parents in
+New England and Old England perpetrated that act of
+spiritual tyranny upon their wives and daughters. So
+punctilious was this respect for the spiritual liberty of
+the servants, that masters universally yielded to it their
+own denominational preferences and animosities, allowing
+their servants to join the sects most repugnant to
+their own, even in cases as extreme as that of the Protestant
+and Romanist. The white people of the South
+may consider themselves truly fortunate, if they preserve,
+under the despotism which now rules them, as
+much religious liberty as our negroes received at our
+hands.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Our system is represented as oppressive and cruel,
+appointing different penalties for crimes to the black
+man and the white man; depriving the slave of the
+privilege of testifying against a white in a court of
+justice; subjecting him to frequent and inhuman corporal
+punishments, and making it a crime for him to
+exercise the natural right of self-defence, when violently
+assailed by a white man. The reply is, that the penal
+code of Virginia was properly made different in the case
+of the whites and the blacks, because of the lower moral
+tone of the latter. Many things, which are severe
+penalties to the white man, would be no punishment to
+the negro. And the penal code for the latter was
+greatly milder, both in its provisions, and in the temper
+of its administration, than that which obtained in
+England over her white citizens, far into this century.
+The slave was not permitted to testify against a white
+man, and this was a restriction made proper by his low
+grade of truthfulness, his difference of race, and the fact
+that he was to so great a degree subject to the will of
+another. But the seeming severity of this restriction
+was almost wholly removed, among us, by the fact that
+he always had, in his master, an interested and zealous
+patron and guardian, in all collisions with other white
+men. From oppression by his own master he found
+his sufficient protection, usually, in affection and self-interest.
+But in most of the abolition States, the
+wretched free black was equally disqualified to testify
+against his white oppressor; and the vast difference
+against him was, that he had no white master, the legal
+equal of his assailant, eagerly engaged by self-interest,
+affection, and honourable pride, to protect him. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span>
+black "citizen" was the helpless victim of the white
+swindler or bully. And such was usually the hypocrisy
+of abolitionism.</p>
+
+<p>It is true again, that our law gave the master the
+power of corporal punishment, and required the slave
+to submit. So does the law of England give it to parents
+over children, to masters over apprentices, and to
+husbands over wives. Now, while we freely admit
+that there were in the South, instances of criminal
+barbarity in corporal punishments, they were very infrequent,
+and were sternly reprobated by publick opinion.
+So far were Southern plantations from being
+"lash-resounding dens," the whipping of adult men and
+women had become the rare exception. It was far less
+frequent and severe than the whipping of white men
+was, a few years ago, in the British army and navy, not
+probably more frequent than the whipping of wives is
+in the Northern States of America, and not nearly so
+frequent as the whipping of white young ladies now
+is in their State schools. The girls and boys of the
+plantations received the lash from masters and agents
+more frequently than the adults, as was necessary and
+right for the heedless children of mothers semi-civilized
+and neglectful; but universally, this punishment by
+their owners was far less frequent and severe than the
+black parents themselves inflicted. We may be permitted
+to state our own experience as a fair specimen
+of the average. The writer was for eighteen years a
+householder and master of slaves, having the government
+of a number of different slaves; and in that time
+he found it necessary to administer the lash to adults in
+four cases; and two of these were for a flagrant <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span>
+adultery&mdash;(resulting in the permanent reform of at least one
+of the delinquents.) His government was regarded by
+his slaveholding neighbours as by no means relaxed.
+Indeed, Europeans and Yankees are always surprised at
+the leniency and tolerance of Southern masters. But to
+the vain modern notion, that corporal punishments are
+in any case barbarous and degrading, we give place not
+for an instant. God enjoined them, in appropriate cases,
+on Hebrew citizens. Solomon inculcates the rod as the
+most wholesome correction for children. The degradation
+is in the offence, and not in the punishment. This
+pretended exclusion of whipping is a part of that Godless
+humanitarianism, born of conceit and pride, which
+always shows itself as full of real ferocity as of affected
+mildness.</p>
+
+<p>It is also an outrageous misrepresentation to say
+that our laws imposed no check upon the master's brutality
+in punishing, and took away the slave's natural
+right of self-defence. The slave whose life was assailed
+might exercise the natural right of self-defence,
+even against his own master. He did it, of course, under
+the same responsibility to the law, and the same risque
+of guilt, if it should appear that he had shed blood gratuitously
+in a moment of ill-justified passion, under which
+the white man acts. Cases actually adjudicated have
+clearly ascertained this principle. In the county of&mdash;&mdash;,<a name='FNanchor_79'></a><a href='#Footnote_79'><sup>[79]</sup></a>
+a slave, in the year 1861, turned upon his master during
+harvest, and with his scythe inflicted a mortal wound.
+He was arrested by his own fellow-slaves, and when
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span>
+questioned, replied to one, "I intended to kill him;"
+and to another, "I tried to cut him in two." It was
+proved by the defence, at his trial, (through the exclusive
+testimony of blacks,) that his master had, on previous
+days, and also on the morning of the same day,
+two hours previously, harassed him with barbarous and
+unusual punishments, by which, although none of them
+even in appearance assailed life, a just sense of outrage
+and high indignation must have been produced. The
+grave defect of this defence was, that the assaults of the
+master, although barbarous, never had implicated life,
+and that two or more hours had intervened, for the cooling
+of passion. The only immediate provocation at the
+time of killing was the repetition of some words of rebuke,
+with a comparatively slight chastisement. Such
+was the case. The court decided that, on the one hand, a
+verdict of justifiable homicide could not be given in the
+slave's favour, because the lawful present provocation
+was absent; but on the other, that it was not murder, because
+the barbarities which had preceded the act justified
+resentment. The crime was therefore ascertained
+as a mitigated homicide, with a milder punishment.</p>
+
+<p>The laws of Virginia protected not only the life, but
+the limb of the slave against white persons, and even
+his own master. The statute against wounding, stabbing
+and maiming is in the following words:<a name='FNanchor_80'></a><a href='#Footnote_80'><sup>[80]</sup></a> "If any
+free person maliciously shoot, stab, cut or wound <i>any
+person</i>, or by any means cause him bodily injury
+with intent to maim, disfigure, disable or kill, he shall,
+except where it is otherwise provided, be punished by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span>
+confinement in the penitentiary not less than one, nor
+more than ten years. If such act be done unlawfully,
+but not maliciously, with the intent aforesaid, the offender
+shall, at the discretion of the jury if the accused
+be white, or of the court if he be a negro, either be confined
+in the penitentiary not less than one nor more
+than five years, or be confined in jail not exceeding
+twelve months, and fined not exceeding five hundred
+dollars." And in the chapter on trials it is added:
+<a name='FNanchor_81'></a><a href='#Footnote_80'><sup>[81]</sup></a> "And on any indictment for maliciously shooting,
+stabbing, cutting or wounding a person, or by any
+means causing him bodily injury with intent to kill
+him, the jury may find the accused not guilty of the offence
+charged, but guilty of maliciously doing such
+act with intent to maim, disfigure or disable, or of unlawfully
+doing it, with intent to maim, disfigure, disable
+or kill, such person." These are but digests of
+repeated older statutes of Virginia, of date 1803, 1815,
+and 1819. Now the General Court, the highest tribunal
+of appeal in criminal cases, <a name='FNanchor_82'></a><a href='#Footnote_82'><sup>[82]</sup></a>decided that the "<i>any
+person</i>," protected by these laws, included the slave;
+and that an indictment for the malicious stabbing of a
+slave could be supported under these acts. Thus,
+while the slave was required to accept the chastisement
+of his master, his life and limb were as fully protected
+as those of the white man.</p>
+
+<p>The General Court,<a name='FNanchor_83'></a><a href='#Footnote_83'><sup>[83]</sup></a> in 1851, decided the appeal of
+Simeon Souther, convicted in the County of Hanover of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span>
+murder in the second degree, because his slave Sam
+had, according to evidence, died under an excessive
+and barbarous whipping, with other punishments, the
+whole evidently not intended to kill. Souther's counsel
+appealed from this sentence to the General Court,
+asking that the grade of the offence be reduced to manslaughter
+only, because it appeared in evidence that
+the punishments were not inflicted with intent to kill.
+The court, after reprobating Souther's conduct as a
+"case of atrocious and wicked cruelty," instead of reducing
+the grade of the sentence already ascertained,
+decided that it was already too low; and that it should
+have been declared murder in the first degree. This
+tribunal granted that it is lawful for the master to
+chastise his slave; and that the law, as expounded by
+the same authority, (5th Randolph, 678,) did not sustain
+an indictment of the master on the mere allegation
+of excess in chastisement, where it was not charged
+that any unlawful maiming or other injury ensued. Because
+"it is the policy of the law in respect to the relation
+of master and slave, and for the sake of securing
+proper subordination and obedience on the part of the
+slave, to protect the master from prosecution in all
+such cases." ... "But in so inflicting
+punishment for the sake of punishment, the owner
+of the slave acts at his peril; and if death ensues in
+consequence of such punishment, the relation of master
+and slave affords no ground of excuse or palliation.
+The principles of the common law in relation to homicide
+apply to his case, without qualification or exception;
+and according to those principles, the act of the
+prisoner, in the case under consideration, amounted to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span>
+murder. Upon this point we are unanimous." And
+Souther, although a man of property, and supported by
+the most active and able counsel, was committed to the
+penitentiary, (in pursuance of the original sentence, of
+murder in the second degree,) where he died. Such
+was the law and its administration in Virginia.</p>
+
+<p>It may further be asserted that the laws were at
+least as well administered among us, against the murderers
+and oppressors of slaves, as against those who
+killed their equals. Our people had unfortunately imbibed,
+to some degree, the infidel and fanatical notions
+prevalent at the North against capital punishments;
+so that crimes of bloodshed met with more tolerance
+from publick sentiment than was proper. But when a
+master took the life of his servant, especially if it were
+done by cruel punishments, the publick scorn for his
+meanness and tyranny, and the general feeling of kindliness
+for our dependent fellow-creatures, were apt to
+secure a far more faithful execution of the law against
+him, than if he had slain his white peer for any insult
+or wrong.</p>
+
+<p>The laws of Virginia were equally just and careful
+in protecting the liberty of every person not justly held
+to bondage. The stealing or kidnapping of any human
+being with the purpose of selling him into slavery, is a
+felony, punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary
+not less than three, nor more than ten years.<a name='FNanchor_84'></a><a href='#Footnote_84'><sup>[84]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Any coloured person whatsoever, conceiving himself
+to be unlawfully detained in bondage, may apply to any
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span>
+justice of the peace, or county or circuit superior court,
+to enter a suit for his freedom. There is not, within
+the lids of the Virginian code, another statute, so generous,
+so careful, so tender, so watchful, in protecting
+every possible right of a plaintiff, as this law enabling
+the slave, unjustly detained, to sue out his freedom.
+First, it compels every magistrate, of every grade, and
+every court, of every grade, to hearken to the cry of the
+supposed oppressed man, and to take effectual steps to
+secure him release, if just. Next, it instantly takes the
+claimant out of the hand of his nominal master, and
+assigns him protection and maintenance, during the
+pendency of his claim. Next, it provides counsel, and
+all costs of suit for the oppressed man, at publick
+expense. Next, it orders that his case shall have precedence
+of all other cases, before whatever court he
+may select, at its first sessions, irrespective of its place
+on the docket. And last, if the claim to freedom be
+found just, the court is empowered to give him damages
+for his detention pending the suit.<a name='FNanchor_85'></a><a href='#Footnote_85'><sup>[85]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Another charge against us is, that our laws abrogated
+the rights of marriage among slaves, authorized their
+capricious separation by masters, and thus consigned
+them to promiscuous concubinage, like that of beasts.
+Now, first, admitting defect in our legislation here, let
+us ask, how much of the blame of the continuance of
+this defect is chargeable upon the frantic attacks of
+abolitionists upon us? Every sensible man can understand,
+that a people so fiercely assailed in their vital
+rights should be occupied solely by righteous defence,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span>
+and should feel the time unsuited for the discussion of
+innovations, however needful. And next, let it be
+understood what the South has really done, and has not
+done, herein, and it will appear that an amazing misrepresentation
+is made of the whole case. The form of
+the charge usually is, that our laws deprived the slaves
+of all marital rights. This is, first, a monstrous perversion
+of the facts, in that the Africans never had any
+marital rights or domestic institutions to be deprived of.
+Have men forgotten, that in their native country there
+was no marriage, and no marriage law, but the negroes
+either lived in vagrant concubinage, or held their plurality
+of wives as slaves, to be either sold or slain at will?
+They have, at least, lost nothing, then; and the utmost
+that could be charged upon our legislation is, that it did
+not undertake to innovate upon their own native usages;
+that it did not force upon them marital restraints,
+and penalties for their breach, which the Africans
+were disqualified either to understand or value, which
+they would have regarded as a more cruel burden than
+their bondage. Next, our laws did not, as many seem
+to represent, prohibit, or delegalize the marriage of
+slaves; but were simply silent about them. The meaning
+of this silence was, to leave the whole matter to the
+controul of the master. It appears almost impossible
+for anti-slavery men to be made to apprehend the
+nature of the institution, as described in the words,
+'<i>domestic</i> slavery.' Their minds, perverted with vain
+dreams of the powers and perfectibility of the State,
+cannot be made to apprehend that God has made other
+parties than the commonwealth and the civil magistrate,
+depositories of ruling power; and that this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span>
+arrangement is right and benevolent. Now, it is the
+genius of slavery, to make the family the slave's commonwealth.
+The family is his State. The master is his
+magistrate and legislator, in all save certain of the
+graver criminal relations, in which the commonwealth
+deals directly and personally with him. He is a member
+of municipal society only through his master, who
+represents him. The commonwealth knows him as only
+a life-long minor under the master's tutelage. The
+integers of which the commonwealth aggregate is made
+up, are not single human beings, but single families,
+authoritatively represented in the father and master.
+And this is the fundamental difference between the
+theory of the Bible, and that of radical democracy. The
+silence of our laws, then, concerning the marriage of
+slaves, means precisely this: that the whole subject is
+remitted to the master, the chief magistrate of the little
+integral commonwealth, the family. Obviously, therefore,
+the question whether our laws were defective
+therein, is in no sense a question between the living of
+the slaves in marriage or in beastly license; it is only
+a question whether, in the distribution of ruling functions,
+those of the master were not made too large and
+responsible, herein. And if error be admitted in this
+respect, it cannot be one which makes the relation of
+servitude sinful; for then the same crime must be fixed
+on all the patriarchs, notwithstanding their care in
+rightly ordering and preserving, as family heads, the
+marital relations of their children and slaves, because,
+forsooth, there happened to be no commonwealth law
+above them, as patriarchs, regulative of these marriages.
+This is nonsense. Where the modern patriarch, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span>
+Southern master, rightly ordered and protected the
+marriage relations of his slaves, the silence of the
+commonwealth no more made their connexions concubinage,
+than were those of Isaac, and of Abraham's
+steward, Eliezer of Damascus. What magistrate or
+legislature, other than Abraham, issued their marriage
+license? Who else enforced their marriage law or
+defined its rights? What civic agent solemnized the
+ceremonial for them? And this leads to another remark:
+that that ceremonial is wholly unessential to the validity
+of marriage. Of course, where the laws enjoin it for
+any class, every good citizen will observe it. But the
+absence of such ordained ceremonial does not make
+lawful marriage impossible. In this sense, <i>consensus
+facit nuptias</i>. It was thus that the holiest wedlock ever
+seen on earth was instituted, that of Adam and Eve;
+thus Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, were
+united. The fact that our laws pronounce the unions
+of Quakers and of Jews, legitimate marriage, although
+announced with different forms, and indeed almost
+without form, evinces this truth.</p>
+
+<p>Now, then, for the facts. These facts are, that marriage
+in its substance was as much recognized among
+our servants as among any other peasantry; that the
+union was uniformly instituted upon a formal written
+license of the two masters; that it was almost always
+sanctioned by a religious ceremonial conducted by a
+minister; that the regularity of the connexion was
+uniformly recognized by the master's assigning the
+husband and wife their own dwelling; that the moral
+opinion of both whites and blacks made precisely the
+same distinction between this connexion and the illicit
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span>
+ones, and between the fruits of it as legitimate, and
+the fruits of concubinage as illegitimate, which publick
+opinion establishes for white persons: and that even
+the criminal law recognized it as a regular connexion,
+by extending to the black man who slew the violator of
+his bed in heat of blood, the same forbearance which it
+extends to the outraged husband. How can it be said,
+in the face of these facts, that marriage did not exist
+among them?</p>
+
+<p>But, it is asked, did not the master possess power to
+separate this union at his will; and was not this power
+often exercised? They did. The power, relatively,
+was not often exercised; and when the separation was
+not justified by the crimes of the parties, it met the
+steady and increasing reprobation of publick opinion.
+The instances of tyrannical separation were, at most,
+far fewer than the harsh tyranny of destitution imposes
+on poor whites in all other countries; and the pretended
+philanthropy of the Yankees has, in five years,
+torn asunder more families than all the slave dealers
+of the South did in a hundred. But the power of separating
+was sometimes abused by masters; and the
+room for this abuse was just the defect in our laws,
+which nearly all Southern Christians deplored, and
+which they desired to repair. Justice requires the testimony,
+on the other hand, that the relaxed morals
+which prevailed among the Africans was not the result
+of their marital relations, as arranged among us, but
+the heritage of their paganism; that under our system
+the evil was decreasing; and that since their emancipation
+and nominal subjection to the marriage law of
+the whites, a flood of licentiousness, vagrant concubinage,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span>
+and infanticide, has broken out again among
+them. Clear proof this, that our abused system was
+better adapted to their character than the present.</p>
+
+<p>Anti-slavery men often talk as though the right of
+slave parents to the controul and education of their
+children, were so indefeasible and native, that it is a
+natural wrong to permit the authority of the master
+over them to override that of the parents. This we
+utterly deny. We have the authority of Locke himself
+for saying that the parental authority is correlative
+to the parental obligation to preserve and train
+the child; that it is, therefore, not indefeasible; that
+if the father is clearly incompetent to or unwilling for
+his duty, his authority often is, and of right ought to
+be, transferred by society to another. When, therefore,
+the civilized master uses his authority against
+and over that of the semi-civilized, or savage parent,
+to train the slave child to habits of decency, industry,
+intelligence, and virtue, which his degraded natural
+guardians are unable or unwilling to inculcate, he
+does no crime against nature, but an act just and
+beneficent.</p>
+
+<p>The most odious part of this charge is, that slavery
+made the chastity of the female slave the property of
+her master. We meet this with an emphatic denial.
+It is false. The laws of Virginia protect the virtue of
+the female slave by the very same statute which shields
+that of the white lady, even against her own master.
+The law of rape, until 1849, used these words:<a name='FNanchor_86'></a><a href='#Footnote_86'><sup>[86]</sup></a> "If
+any man do ravish <i>a woman</i>," &amp;c. The act of 1849 used
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span>
+the words:<a name='FNanchor_87'></a><a href='#Footnote_87'><sup>[87]</sup></a> "If any white person do carnally know
+<i>a female</i> of the age of twelve years or more, against
+her will, by force, or carnally know <i>a female child</i>, under
+that age," &amp;c. (If the ravisher were a negro the
+penalty was different.) The question is, whether the
+words "<i>a woman</i>," and "<i>a female</i>," were intended to
+include coloured persons and slaves. The answer uniformly
+given by Virginian lawyers to this question is
+affirmative. They say that the terms are the most
+general in our statutory vocabulary. The law of 1849,
+just quoted, clearly implies that the terms "a female,"
+in &#167; 15, are inclusive of coloured females, by expressly
+introducing the word "white," "a white female," in
+&#167; 16, when its purpose was to enact a special penalty
+for the forcible abduction of that class. The General
+Court has held that <i>female</i> is synonymous with <i>woman</i>,<a name='FNanchor_88'></a><a href='#Footnote_88'><sup>[88]</sup></a>
+and may be substituted for it even in an indictment.
+Is it asked, why the appeal is not made to judicial decisions,
+as conclusive authority of the true intent of
+the statute? We have caused a thorough search to be
+made by the most competent authority in Richmond;
+and while many indictments are found against black
+men for rape of white women, none exist, in the history
+of our jurisprudence, against white men for rape of
+black women. And this, not because there would have
+been any difficulty in making the indictment lie: <i>but
+because</i>, as the most experienced lawyers testify, <i>the
+crime is unheard of on the part of white men amongst us</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is undoubtedly true, that the moral sense of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span>
+Africans on this subject is low: that many voluntary
+breaches of chastity occur among themselves, and
+some between them and whites. But the latter are far
+less frequent than similar sins in Philadelphia, in
+Boston, in London. Notwithstanding the sad inheritance
+of vice drawn by the Africans from their pagan
+ancestors, Southern slavery had elevated them so far,
+that illegitimate births among them had become far
+fewer than among the boasted white peasantry of Protestant
+Scotland, with all its Bibles and churches, and
+parochial schools. This fact can be proved by Scotch
+statistics. The odious and filthy charge which the
+abolitionists make against the Southern people and
+against slavery, as a system of lust, also receives a
+terrible reply from the returns of the American census.
+When illicit cohabitation takes place between the
+whites and the blacks, nature tells the secret with infallible
+accuracy, in the yellow skin of the offspring.
+The census of 1850 distinguished the full blacks from
+the mulattoes, both among the slave and free. Of the
+slaves, one in twelve was mulatto, taking the whole
+United States together. Of the slaves in Virginia the
+ratio of mulattoes to blacks was about the same. In
+South Carolina there was only one mulatto to thirty-one
+black slaves! The explanation is, that the latter
+State, being less commercial and manufacturing than
+Virginia, and having a system of more perfect agricultural
+slavery, exposed her slaves less to intercourse
+with immigrant and transient whites. But taking the
+United States as a whole, the free mulattoes were more
+than half as numerous as the free blacks! In several
+of the slave States they are more numerous; and in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span>
+Ohio, the stronghold of Black Republicanism, there
+were fourteen thousand mulattoes to eleven thousand
+blacks. Since the regular marriage of free blacks to
+the whites was as unknown at the North as at the
+South, these figures tell a tale as to the comparative
+prevalence of this infamous and unnatural form of uncleanness
+among the Yankees, which should forever
+seal their lips from reproaches of us. They also show
+that at the South the state of slavery has been far
+more favourable to chastity among the coloured people
+than that of freedom.</p>
+
+<p>The reader probably feels by this time, that if we
+speak truth, then was slavery a very different thing
+practically from its usual picture abroad. He will perhaps
+feel with a shade of skepticism, that it is strange
+the world should have been so much mistaken. The
+chief explanation we offer of so strange a fact, is that
+trait of abolitionists, our interested and unscrupulous
+accusers, predicted by St. Paul: ("men of corrupt
+minds and destitute of the truth.") The world will
+find them out in due time: the statements made of the
+events of the late war have done much to unmask them.
+Still another cause is that Europeans, and even
+Yankees, are so ignorant of Southern society. Still
+another explanation is, that slavery in the British colonies,
+from which the people of that Empire have chiefly
+derived their conceptions, actually was far more harsh
+and barbarous than in this country. The reader is emphatically
+cautioned that he must not judge slavery in
+Virginia by slavery in Jamaica or Guiana. Whether
+the charge of the great Paley is correct, who accounts
+for this difference by the greater harshness of British
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span>
+character,<a name='FNanchor_89'></a><a href='#Footnote_89'><sup>[89]</sup></a> politeness may forbid us to decide. But
+the comparative fates of the Africans in the British colonies,
+and those in our States, tell the contrast between
+the humanity of our system, and the barbarity of theirs,
+in terms of indisputable clearness. If political science
+has ascertained any law, it is that the well or ill-being
+of a people powerfully affects their increase or decrease
+of numbers. The climate of the British Indies is salubrious
+for blacks. Yet, of the one million seven hundred
+thousand Africans imported into the British colonies,
+and their increase, only six hundred and sixty
+thousand remained to be emancipated in 1832. The
+three hundred and seventy-five thousand (the total) imported
+into the Southern States, had multiplied to four
+millions. Such is the contrast! How grinding and
+ruthless must have been that oppression which in the
+one case reduced this prolific race, in the most fertile and
+genial spots of earth, in the ratio of five to two! And
+how generous and beneficent that government which,
+in the Southern States, nursed them to a more than ten-fold
+increase, in a less hospitable and fruitful clime!
+Well may we demur to have the world take its conceptions
+of our slavery from the British.</p>
+
+<p>We trust that we shall proceed, then, to the remaining
+discussion of the moral character of slavery, with a
+just understanding of what is to be defended. It is
+simply that system which makes the involuntary labour
+of the servant the property of the master, and gives the
+latter such controul over the former's person, as will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span>
+secure his possession of the labour. We conclude this
+section with a few words touching the admitted abuses
+of the system. That such existed among us, both legislative
+and individual, is fully admitted. There were
+cruel masters. Slaves were sometimes refused that
+which the apostle enjoined masters to give them, as
+"just and equal." Some cruel punishments were inflicted.
+A few slaves have been tortured to death.
+Some wives and children were wickedly torn from their
+husbands and parents. And our laws in some points
+failed to secure to the slaves that to which their humanity
+entitled them. But we repeat, these things prove
+only the sinfulness of the individual agent, and not of
+the system of which they are incidents. Fathers have
+been known to maltreat, scourge, maim and murder
+their children; and husbands their wives; but no one
+dreams that these things evince the unrighteousness of
+the family relations. Wife-murder is doubtless more
+frequent in the State of New York, than slave-murder
+was in Virginia. The laws of the State of Indiana
+concerning divorce are, in some particulars, glaring
+violations of God's laws. Yet no one dreams of arguing
+thence, that to have a wife in those States is a sin.
+Unless the abuse can be shown to be an essential part
+of the system, it proves nothing against the lawfulness
+of the system itself. But that none of these crimes
+against slaves are essential parts of slavery, is proved
+by the fact, which we fearlessly declare, that the vast
+majority of slaves in our country never experienced
+any of them. The unfairness of this mode of arguing
+cannot be better stated than in the words of Dr. Van
+Dyke, of New York:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Their mode of arguing the question of slaveholding,
+by a pretended appeal to facts, is a tissue of misrepresentation
+from beginning to end. Let me illustrate
+my meaning by a parallel case. Suppose I undertake
+to prove the wickedness of marriage, as it exists in
+the city of New York. In this discussion suppose the
+Bible is excluded, or, at least, that it is not recognized
+as having exclusive jurisdiction in the decision of the
+question. My first appeal is to the statute law of the
+State.</p>
+
+<p>"I show there enactments which nullify the law of
+God, and make divorce a marketable and cheap commodity.
+I collect the advertisements of your daily
+papers, in which lawyers offer to procure the legal
+separation of man and wife for a stipulated price, to
+say nothing, in this sacred place, of other advertisements
+which decency forbids me to quote. Then I
+turn to the records of our criminal courts, and find
+that every day some cruel husband beats his wife, or
+some unnatural parent murders his child, or some discontented
+wife or husband seeks the dissolution of the
+marriage bond. In the next place, I turn to the orphan
+asylums and hospitals, and show there the miserable
+wrecks of domestic tyranny in wives deserted and
+children maimed by drunken parents. In the last
+place, I go through our streets, and into our tenement
+houses, and count the thousands of ragged children,
+who, amid ignorance and filth, are training for the
+prison and gallows.</p>
+
+<p>"Summing all these facts together, I put them forth
+as the fruits of marriage in the city of New York, and
+a proof that the relation itself is sinful. If I were a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span>
+novelist, and had written a book to illustrate this same
+doctrine, I would call this array of facts a 'Key.' In
+this key I say nothing about the sweet charities and
+affections that flourish in ten thousand homes, not a
+word about the multitude of loving-kindnesses that
+characterize the daily life of honest people, about the
+instruction and discipline that are training children at
+ten thousand firesides for usefulness here and glory
+hereafter;&mdash;all this I ignore, and quote only the statute
+book, the newspapers, the records of criminal courts,
+and the miseries of the abodes of poverty. Now, what
+have I done? I have not misstated or exaggerated a
+single fact. And yet am I not a falsifier and a slanderer
+of the deepest dye? Is there a virtuous woman
+or an honest man in this city whose cheeks would not
+burn with indignation at my one-sided and injurious
+statements? But this is just what abolitionism has
+done in regard to slaveholding. It has undertaken to
+illustrate its cardinal doctrine in works of fiction;
+and then, to sustain the creation of its fancy, has attempted
+to underpin it with an accumulation of facts.
+These facts are collected in precisely the way I have
+described. The statute books of slaveholding States
+are searched, and every wrong enactment collated,
+newspaper reports of cruelty and crime on the part of
+wicked masters are treasured up and classified, all the
+outrages that have been perpetrated 'by lewd fellows
+of the baser sort'&mdash;of whom there are plenty, both
+North and South&mdash;are eagerly seized and recorded;
+and this mass of vileness and filth, collected from the
+kennels and sewers of society, is put forth as a faithful
+exhibition of slaveholding. Senators in the forum, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span>
+ministers in the pulpit, distil this raw material into
+the more reined slander 'that Southern society is essentially
+barbarous, and that slaveholding had its
+origin in hell.'"</p>
+
+<p>Such are the words of one who is himself no advocate
+of slavery, but who is moved to utter them solely
+by his regard for truth. His reprobation is just. To
+take the exceptional abuses of any institution, and
+exhibit them as giving the ordinary state of society
+under it, is the very essence of slander.</p>
+
+<p>But the enemies of the South say, that still the system
+of slavery is unrighteous, even though the generosity
+of a majority of masters prevents its oppressions
+from being felt, because it confers a power which is
+irresponsible. We reply, that this is true, although to
+a vastly less degree than has been charged; but it is
+also true of every form of authority under heaven;
+and it is simply impossible to place authority in any
+human hands at all, without some degree of this risque
+of irresponsible abuse. The authority of the master is
+no more irresponsible than that of the husband, father,
+or mechanic, over his wife, child, or apprentice. The
+father, in order to have authority, must have discretion:
+and he may abuse it: for he is imperfect; and
+against this abuse the child has no legal remedy. For
+this imperfection in the family law there is no help, save
+by abolishing all family government; a remedy fraught
+with ten thousand times the mischief and misery which
+all the occasional severities of unnatural parents have
+caused. All human government must have this defect,
+for man, who administers it, is a sinner. So that the
+objection of the abolitionist amounts to this: that the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span>
+institution of slavery is unlawful, because it is not perfect;
+which nothing human can be. It is so true that
+any grant of power whatsoever confers some irresponsibility;
+that the fact remains even where the rights of
+free citizens are most carefully guarded under republican
+governments. See, for example, the courts of law,
+which judge concerning our lives and property. We
+attempt to limit the abuse of power of the lower courts,
+by passing their decisions in review before a higher;
+but there must be some highest, beyond which no appeal
+can go. Yet the judges of that highest court are
+also capable of wrong and error; and if they commit
+them, the victim has no human help; he must submit.
+All that just and humane legislation can do, then, is so
+to adjust and limit powers, that the chances of uncompensated
+wrong may be as small as possible. Now we
+shall see that in this case of employer and labourer,
+such as they are in Virginia, the chances of unredressed
+wrong were reduced to their <i>minimum</i> by our
+system of domestic slavery. For we thereby raised
+the most efficient motives, those of self-interest and
+affection, in the stronger party, to treat the weaker equitably.
+If the irresponsibility of a part of the master's
+power proved the relation sinful, all government would
+be wrong.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 3. <i>The Rights of Man and Slavery.</i></h3>
+
+<p>The radical objection to the righteousness of slavery
+in most minds is, that it violates the natural liberty
+and equality of man. To clear this matter, it is our
+purpose to test the common theory held as to the
+rights of nature, and to show that this ground of opposition
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span>
+to slavery rests upon a radical and disorganizing
+scheme of human rights, is but Jacobinism in disguise,
+and involves a denial of all authority whatsoever.
+The popular theory of man's natural rights, of
+the origin of governments, and of the moral obligation
+of allegiance, is that which traces them to a <i>social
+contract</i>. The true origin of this theory may be found
+with Hobbes of Malmesbury. It owes its respectability
+among Englishmen, chiefly to the pious John Locke, a
+sort of baptized image of that atheistic philosopher;<a name='FNanchor_90'></a><a href='#Footnote_90'><sup>[90]</sup></a>
+and it was ardently held by the infidel democrats of
+the first French revolution. According to this scheme,
+each person is by nature an independent <i>integer</i>,
+wholly <i>sui juris</i>, absolutely equal to every other man,
+and naturally entitled, as a "Lord of Creation," to exercise
+his whole will. Man's natural liberty was accordingly
+defined as <i>privilege to do whatever he wished</i>.
+True, Locke attempts to limit this monstrous postulate
+by defining man's native liberty as privilege to do
+whatever he wished within the limits of the law of nature.
+But this virtually returns to the same; because
+he teaches that man is by nature absolutely independent,
+so that he must be himself the supreme, original
+judge, what this law of nature is. According to the
+doctrine of the social contract, man's natural rights are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span>
+confounded with this so-called natural liberty. Each
+man's natural right is to protect his own existence, and
+to possess himself of whatever will render it more
+happy, (Locke again adds, within the limits of natural
+law.) And this scheme most essentially ignored the
+originality of moral distinctions. Hobbes explains
+them as the conventional results of the rules which
+man's experience and convenience have dictated to him.
+For, the experience of the mutual violences and collisions
+of so many independent wills, in this supposed
+"state of nature," induced men, in time, to consent to
+the surrender of a part of this native independence, in
+order to secure the remainder of their rights. To do
+this, they are supposed to have conferred together, and
+to have formed a compact with each other, binding
+themselves to each other to submit to certain stipulated
+rules, which restrained a part of their natural liberty,
+and to obey certain men selected to govern. The power
+thus delegated to these hands was to be used to protect
+the remaining rights of all. The terms of this compact
+form the organic law, or constitution. Subsequent citizens
+entering the commonwealth by birth or immigration,
+are assumed to have given an assent, express
+or implied, to this compact. And if the question be
+asked, why men are morally bound to obey magistrates,
+who naturally are their equals and fellows, the
+answer of this school is: because they have voluntarily
+bargained to do so in entering the social compact; and
+they receive a <i>quid pro quo</i> for their accession to it.
+Such is the theory of the origin of government, from
+which the natural injustice of slavery is deduced.
+For, obviously, if man's obligation to civil society
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span>
+originates in the voluntary social contract of independent
+integers, none can be rightfully held to a compulsory
+obedience, which enters into all servitude, both
+domestic and political.</p>
+
+<p>Some liberal writers, as Blackstone, and the great
+Swiss publicist, <i>Burlemaqui</i>, are too sensible not to see
+that this scheme is false to the facts of the case. But
+they still hold, that although individual men never, in
+fact, existed in the independent insulation supposed,
+and did not actually pass into a state of society by a
+formal social contract, yet such a transaction must be
+assumed as the implied and virtual source of political
+power and civic obligation. To us it appears, that if
+the contracting never occurred in fact, but is only a
+theoretical fiction, it is no basis for any thing, and no
+source of practical rights and duties. Civil society is
+a universal fact; and its existence must be grounded
+in something actual. We object, then, to this dream of
+a social contract preceded by a native state of individual
+independence, that it is false to the facts of the
+case. Human beings never rightfully existed, for one
+moment, in this state, out of which they are supposed
+to have passed by their own option. God never gave
+them such independency. Their responsibility to him,
+and to the civil society under which He has placed
+them, is as <i>native</i> as they are, being ordained by God
+to exist from the first. Men do not choose civic obligation,
+but are born to it, just as the child to his filial
+obligation. And the simple, conclusive proof is, that if
+any man were to claim this native option to assume or
+to decline civic obligations, (in the latter case relinquishing
+also their advantages,) there is not a government
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span>
+on earth, not the most liberal, that would not
+laugh his claim to scorn, and at once compel his allegiance.
+The very assumption of what this theory calls
+man's normal state, and the very attempt to exercise
+the option which, as it babbles, originated civil society,
+would constitute a man an outlaw, the radical enemy
+of civic society, and would give it a natural right, that
+of self-preservation, to destroy him. The scheme is not
+only fictitious, but absurd.</p>
+
+<p>Second: We object that it is atheistic, utterly ignoring
+the existence of a Creator, and his relations to, and
+proprietorship in, man. It affects to treat men as though
+their existence were underived, and independent of any
+Supreme Being. It boldly discards God's right to determine
+under what obligations man shall live, and
+quietly contemns the great Scriptural fact that He has
+determined man shall live under social law.</p>
+
+<p>Third: This scheme is thoroughly unphilosophical, in
+that whereas the science of government should be an
+inductive one, this theory is, and in its nature must be,
+purely hypothetical. No body, no history pretends to
+relate in a single instance, any such facts as it professes
+to rest upon. This Locke admits, and even claims,
+absurdly seeking in this mode to evade this vital objection.
+Hence we assert that it has no claims to be
+entertained <i>in foro scienti�</i>, even for discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Fourth: If man at first possessed that natural liberty,
+and passed from it under the obligation of constitutions
+and laws by a social contract, then sundry most inconvenient
+and preposterous consequences must logically
+follow. One of these is, that when once men had established
+their constitution, (in other words, their compact,)
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span>
+so long as its terms were observed by the magistrates
+and the minority, the majority could never righteously
+change it, no matter how inconvenient, or even
+ruinous, new circumstances might have made it, against
+the will of the minority or of the rulers. For when one
+has made a voluntary bargain, subsequent inconveniences
+of it do not justify its breach. The just man is
+one who changeth not, though he "sweareth to his own
+hurt." Another consequence would be, that it could
+never be settled what were the terms agreed upon in
+the original compact, and what part of existing laws
+were the accretions of unwarranted power, except in
+the case of written constitutions. Few nations have
+such. But a far worse consequence would be, that if
+the duty of allegiance originated in such compact, then
+any one unconstitutional act of the rulers or majority
+would dissolve it. For it is a covenant; but a covenant
+broken by one party is broken for both. Now, who
+believes that a single unconstitutional act of the ruler
+voids the whole allegiance of the aggrieved citizen?
+Where would be the government which would not be
+plunged into anarchy?</p>
+
+<p>Last, all commonwealths have found it necessary to
+arm the magistrate with some powers, which individuals
+could not have conferred by a social compact, because
+they never possessed them. One of these is the
+power of life and death. No man's life is his own: it
+belongs to God alone. One cannot bargain away what
+is not his own. Besides, it is absurd to represent men
+as bargaining away this tremendous power for some
+smaller advantages and securities; because life is the
+most precious of all. "What shall a man accept in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span>
+exchange for his life?" It is of no avail to say that the
+community is entitled, by the law of self-preservation,
+to assume this power; because, on this theory, there is
+no community as yet. There is only a number of independent
+integers, sovereignly treating with each
+other. The community cannot assume powers before
+it exists! It is, if possible, still more difficult to explain,
+on this theory, how political societies came by
+the power of capital punishment, against aliens who
+assail their members. But all governments hold aliens
+living among them, and invading enemies, subject to
+their capital penalties. How is this? The foreigner
+certainly has not assented to the social compact of this
+society; for he claims to be alien, and to owe no allegiance.
+His consent, the supposed fountain of all right
+over him, is utterly lacking. Once more, this theory
+draws a broad distinction between man's civil liberty
+as a subject of government, and his natural liberty.
+The latter it defines as <i>privilege to do whatever the man
+pleases</i>, within the limits of natural law as interpreted
+by himself. And his natural rights are just the same.
+Some of these he voluntarily surrenders to society, to
+secure the rest. All government, therefore, is not only
+of the nature of restraint; it is essentially <i>restraint
+upon one's rights</i>. The advocates of the theory distinctly
+represent government as of the nature of a natural
+evil and wrong, but adopted as an expedient against
+the worse evil, anarchy; and therefore the obligation
+to obey it has no higher source than expediency. But
+worse yet; if there is any such thing as intrinsic morality,
+government is an immoral restraint, for it is a
+<i>restraint upon rights</i>. Whatever good government may
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span>
+bring us, it is of that species which St. Paul reprobates,
+as "doing evil that good may come." The great
+Hobbes was therefore perfectly consistent, in teaching
+that there is no original morality in acts, and that there
+was at first no such thing as right, distinct from might.
+Morals are factitious distinctions invented under civil
+society for expediency. Let the thoughtful reader consider
+how this monstrous conclusion uproots all obligation,
+and order, and allegiance. No man can hold the
+theory of the origin of government in the social contract,
+unless he either holds, with Hobbes, this damnable
+error, or with some abolitionists, (who are thoroughly
+consistent here,) that <i>all government is immoral</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But its advocates urge that it does give the correct
+origin of government, because they can point to specific
+rights, which must have been natural in the individual,
+but which we now find vested in the government.
+The instance they most cite, is that of self-defence. We
+accept it, and assert that it confirms our view. For, if
+the right of self-defence means privilege of forcible
+resistance to violence at the time it is offered, we utterly
+deny that it has been surrendered by the individual, or
+can be justly limited one iota by government. If it
+means the savage privilege of retaliation after the
+collision has passed away, which claims to make the
+angry defendant accuser, judge, jury, and executioner
+in his own case, we utterly deny that nature ever gave
+such right to any man. "Vengeance is mine: I will
+repay, saith the Lord." Another instance alleged, is
+when the citizen is restrained by society from certain
+acts, moral <i>per se</i>: as selling his corn out of the country
+when there is dearth. Yet the good citizen obeys. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span>
+answer is, that if the restriction is not unjust, it is
+because there exists among the citizens such danger of
+suffering for corn, that the sending it out of the country
+would be a breach of the natural law of love and equity.
+Natural rights may change with circumstances, a simple
+truth often strangely forgotten on this subject.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it is from this vicious theory of human rights,
+that abolitionism sucks its whole life. The whole argument
+is but this: no restraint of government on man's
+will can be righteous, which is forcible and involuntary,
+because the obligation of all just government originates
+in the option of the individuals governed, who are by
+nature sovereign. Before we indicate the relationship
+of this conclusion with its disorganizing brood of kindred,
+we must pause to meet a question which arises.
+It is this: if this pet hypothesis is relinquished, on
+what basis shall we defend free government? Let us
+see if a better foundation for its blessings cannot be
+found.</p>
+
+<p>Political and ethical philosophers have been perpetually
+victims to the notion, that because theirs are
+natural sciences, as distinguished from revealed or theological,
+therefore they must banish from them all reference
+to God, his nature, his acts, and his will, and our
+relations to it. The true inference should be, only, that
+they must abstain from the introduction of those peculiar
+revealed facts, which belong to man as an object of
+redemption and subject of the Church of Christ. If we
+are not atheists, the facts that God is, that our being
+proceeds from his act, that we are his property, are as
+truly <i>natural</i> as man and his attributes are. They
+should therefore be embraced as a part of the facts of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span>
+the case, to be treated just as all other natural facts,
+save that these are the most rudimental of all. For,
+how can that treatment be truly scientific, which proceeds
+upon a partial induction of the facts of the case,
+leaving out the most primary? It is this illusion which
+has led so many moralists to attempt the discussion of
+the nature and origin of moral distinctions, without
+introducing a Creator, or a divine will. Whereas, a
+true science accepts God as the first fact in ethics; his
+attributes as the primary standard of the moral distinction;
+his will as the fountain of moral obligation.
+What wretched impotency and confusion has not this
+omission caused in ethical discussions!</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, this impotent and infidel theory of
+government sets out, (as was consistent with its atheistic
+inventors,) without reference to the fact that man's
+existence, nature, and rights originated in the personal
+will of a Creator, without reference to original moral
+distinctions, or to original responsibilities to God, or to
+the moral quality of God's will towards man. It quietly
+ignores the fact that man's will, if he is the creature of
+an intelligent and moral personal Creator, never could,
+by any possibility, be his proper rule of acting. It
+passes over, in the insane pride of human perfectionism,
+the great fact that man is also a naturally depraved
+creature. It falsely supposes a state of nature, in which
+man's will made his right: whereas no being, save an
+eternal and self-existent God, has a right to exist in that
+state for one instant. But all these are <i>facts of nature</i>,
+belonging to the case, ascertainable by experience and
+reason. If, then, we would have a correct theory of
+natural rights, all of them must be embraced in our
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span>
+view. And the proper account of the matter is simply
+this: Inasmuch as man did not make himself, <i>he enters
+existence the subject of God</i>. This subjection is not only
+of force, but also of moral right. Moral distinctions are
+original, being eternally expressed in God's perfections,
+and sovereignly revealed to the creature in his preceptive
+will; which is, to man, the practical source and
+rule of obligation. This moral obligation is therefore
+as <i>native</i> as man is. The rudimental relations to his
+God and his fellows imposed on man are binding on him
+<i>ab initio</i>; not at all by force of any assent of his will,
+but merely by the rightful force of God's will: man's
+virtue is to conform his will freely to God's. This will
+also defines his rights; by which we mean those things
+which other creatures are morally obliged to allow him
+to have and to do. Man, we repeat, enters existence
+with these moral relations resting upon him. And
+among them, are his social relations to his fellows; as
+is shown by the fact that he has a social nature. Now
+civil government is nothing more than the organization
+of a part of these social relations. God's will and
+providence, then, as truly as his word, has placed man
+naturally under civil government. It is as natural as
+man is. Again: the rule of action imposed by just
+government is <i>the moral rule</i>. That is to say, an equitable
+government enjoins on its members or subjects the
+doing of those things which are morally right, and the
+refraining from those things which are morally wrong.</p>
+
+<p>We trace civil government, then, not to any social
+contract, or other human expediency, but to the will
+and providence of God, and to original moral obligation.
+If asked, whence the obligation to obey the civil magistrate
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span>
+who, personally, is but our fellow, we answer,
+from God's will, which is the source and measure of
+duty. Man's will is wayward and depraved. Hence
+practical authority to enforce this rule of right upon
+him must be lodged in some hands; and since God
+does not rule statedly by miracle, it must be in human
+hands. Civil government is God's ordinance, and its
+obligations are those of original moral right. The
+advantage and convenience resulting illustrate and
+confirm, but do not originate, the obligation. This is
+the theory of government plainly taught by St. Paul
+(Rom. xiii. 1 to 7) and St. Peter (1 Ep. ii. 13 to 18.)
+For we are here told that the civil magistrate is God's
+minister, to uphold right and repress wrong; that obedience
+to him in this is not only of moral, but religious
+obligation; and that he who resists this function disobeys
+God.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, is man's natural liberty? We answer,
+that it is only <i>privilege to do whatever he has a moral
+right to do</i>. Freedom to do whatever a man wills, is
+not a liberty, either natural or civil, but an unnatural
+license, a natural iniquity; man's will being naturally
+depraved. What then is man's civil liberty? We reply,
+that under an equitable government, it is the same&mdash;the
+privilege to do whatever he has a moral right to do.
+No government is perfectly equitable: none are wholly
+unjust. Some withhold more, some fewer, of the citizen's
+moral rights. None withhold them all. Hence, under
+the most despotic government there are some rights left,
+and so, some liberty. A perfectly just government
+would be one which would allot to each citizen freedom
+to do all the things which he had a moral right to do, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span>
+nothing else. Such a government would not restrain
+the natural liberty of any citizen in any respect; each
+man's civil liberty would be identical with his natural.
+Government does not originate rights, neither can it
+justly take them away. But practically, it confirms,
+instead of impairing, our natural liberty; because it
+secures us in the exercise of it.</p>
+
+<p>But the friends of liberal government may feel a lurking
+suspicion of this plain statement; because it is on
+a theory of pretended 'divine right' that the arguments
+for legitimacy, passive obedience, and despotism repose.
+Let us, then, pause to inquire whether the true scheme
+looks in that direction. And we ask first: Whether it is
+not much more likely that tyrannical conclusions will be
+drawn from those principles which ignore God, the great
+standard of right, and original moral distinctions, which
+are the basis of all rights, and so of all liberty&mdash;from
+principles which make man's might his natural right;
+rather than from our principles, which solidly found
+man's rights in eternal moral distinctions, and in the will
+of a just and benevolent God, the common Father, before
+whom rulers and ruled are equal? And when we turn
+to the history of opinion, we see that while Locke illogically
+deduced from this theory of the social contract a
+scheme of liberal government, his greater master, Hobbes,
+inferred that the most complete despotism was the most
+consistent. And both the French and the Yankee Jacobins,
+deriving from it an impious deification of the
+will of the mob which happens to be the larger, as the
+supreme law, have reduced their theory to practice in the
+most violent, ruthless, and mischievous oppressions ever
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span>
+perpetrated on civilized communities. Let the tree be
+judged by its fruits.</p>
+
+<p>We repeat, that the glory and strength of the Christian
+theory of human government and liberty is this:
+that <i>it founds man's rights on eternal moral distinctions</i>.
+The liberty it grants each man is privilege of doing all
+those things which he, with his particular character
+and relations, is morally entitled to do. Privilege of
+doing all other things it retrenches; for what would
+this be but sin? Now the epitome of moral distinctions
+is, 'Love thy neighbour as thyself.' It is the same law
+expressed in the "Golden Rule." The meaning of this,
+as we saw, is, not that we must do to our fellow all that
+our caprice might desire, if our positions were inverted;
+but what we should believe ourselves morally entitled
+to require of him, in that case. Here, then, is the true
+basis of human equality. Men are all children of a
+common Father, brethren of the same race, each one
+entitled by the same right to his own appropriate share
+of well-being. Hence, by a single and conclusive step,
+as the foundation of civil government is moral, its proper
+object is the good of all, governors and governed. Government
+is not for the behoof of rulers, but of the ruled
+also. Subjects were not made for kings, but kings for
+subjects. Indeed, rulers are themselves subjects, owing
+allegiance to the universal law of right, and members
+of the brotherhood for whose common good this
+law reigns. In the sublime Words of Samuel Rutherford,
+<i>Rex, Lex</i>. Neither Scriptures nor providence give
+to rulers any of that paternal right over the people, of
+which the legitimatists prate. They neither have for
+their subjects the father's instinctive love, nor the father's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span>
+natural superiority in virtue, experience, or powers.
+The Scriptural governments over Israel were none
+of them legitimatist; and that to which Paul, Peter,
+and Christ owned conscientious allegiance, the Empire
+of the C�sars, was not hereditary, and was a recent
+novelty. Again: while it is God's ordinance that men
+shall live under governments, no one form of government
+is ordained. "The powers that be are ordained
+of God." The one which, in His providence, actually
+subsists, is the legitimate one to the individual conscience.
+Still less has God indicated the individuals
+who shall govern as His agents. There is no divine
+nomination of the particular person. Hence, as government
+is for the common good of all, the selection of
+these agents belongs to the common wisdom and rectitude
+of the whole. And it is in this sense, (and only
+this,) that the Christian holds that the power of rulers
+is delegated from the ruled. In the higher sense, it is
+delegated from God, who is our true, rightful, and literal
+despot. The despotism of perfect, infinite rectitude is
+the most perfect freedom.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is clear, that the several rights of different
+individuals in the same society must differ exceedingly,
+because the persons differ indefinitely in powers, knowledge,
+virtue, and natural relations to each other. From
+that very law of love and equity, whence the moral
+equality of men was inferred, it must also follow, that
+one man is not morally entitled to pursue his natural
+well-being at the expense of that of other men, or of
+the society. Each one's right must be so pursued, as
+not to infringe others' rights. The well-being of all is
+inter-connected. Hence equity, yea, a true equality itself,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span>
+demands a varied distribution of social privilege
+among the members, according to their different characters
+and relations. In other words, an equal government
+must confer very different degrees of power, and
+impose very different degrees of restraint, upon different
+classes of members. To attempt an identical and
+mechanical equality; to confer on those who are incompetent
+to use them, the same privileges granted to
+others who can and will use them rightfully, would be
+essential inequality; for it would clothe the incompetent
+and undeserving with power to injure the deserving and
+capable, without real benefit to themselves. Hence,
+the civic liberties of all classes in the same society
+ought not to be the same. Thus, of the adult members,
+half are females, inexorably separated by sex, strength,
+social relations, and natural duties. Hence different
+civic rights are properly given to the male, in some
+respects; not because it is right to empower him to
+consume upon the promotion of his natural well-being
+that of his sister, but because, on the whole, the well-being
+of both sexes is thus most promoted. Whether
+this result does follow, must be a question of fact, to be
+decided by experience, if not settled in advance by God's
+Word. There is in the society another class of members,
+the children, who are not only different from, but
+inferior to, the adults, in knowledge, strength, experience,
+and self-controul. Hence, it is equitable to withhold
+from them still other privileges of the full citizenship.
+Again: the amount of privileges properly conceded
+to the body of citizens of the first class, should
+vary in different commonwealths with their average
+character. If intelligence and virtue are, in the average,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span>
+more developed, the restraints of government should
+be fewer; if less cultivated, more numerous. Different
+frames of government may be best for different communities.</p>
+
+<p>Once more: If the society contains a class of adult
+members, so deficient in virtue and intelligence that
+they would only abuse the fuller privileges of other citizens
+to their own and others' detriment, it is just to
+withhold so many of these privileges, and to impose so
+much restraint, as may be necessary for the highest
+equity to the whole body, inclusive of this subject class.
+And how much restraint is just, must be determined by
+facts and experience. Any degree of it is righteous,
+which is necessary to the righteous end. This is so obvious,
+that even abolitionists admit it, when they lose
+sight for the moment of their hobby. Of this Dr. Francis
+Wayland, a prominent abolitionist, gives us a striking
+instance in his "Moral Science." (Boston, 1838, p.
+351.) He says: "Whatever concessions on the part
+of the individual, and whatever powers on the part of
+society, are <i>necessary</i> to the existence of society, must,
+by the very fact of the existence of society, be taken for
+granted." On p. 356, he adds: "If it be asked which
+of these" (hereditary, mixed, or republican) "is the
+preferable form of government, the answer, I think, must
+be conditional. The best form of government for any
+people, <i>is the best that its present social and moral condition
+renders practicable</i>. A people may be <i>so entirely surrendered
+to the influence of passion</i>, and so feebly <i>influenced
+by moral restraints</i>, that a government which relied
+upon moral restraints could not exist for a day. In
+this case a subordinate and inferior principle yet <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span>
+remains,&mdash;<i>the principle of fear</i>: and the only resort is to a
+government of force, or a military despotism."</p>
+
+<p>If then the necessities of order justify the subjection
+of a whole nation, with their labour, property, and lives,
+to one man, will not the same reasons justify the far
+milder and more benevolent authority of masters over
+their servants? If it appear that the Africans in these
+States were by recent descent pagans and barbarians,
+men in bodily strength and appetite, with the reason
+and morals of children, constitutionally prone to improvidence,
+so that their possession of all the franchises of
+a free white citizen would make them a nuisance to
+society and early victims to their own degradation; and
+if sound experience teaches that this ruin cannot be
+prevented without a degree of restraint approaching
+that proper for children; that is, by giving to a guardian
+the controul of their involuntary labour, and the
+expenditure of the fruits for the joint benefit of the
+parties; how can we be condemned for it? And that
+social welfare and order, and the happiness of the African
+himself, do call imperiously for this degree of controul,
+is confessed by all who have a practical knowledge
+of his character, as it is proved by the disasters
+resulting from his emancipation.</p>
+
+<p>Every government in the world acknowledges this
+necessity, and applies, in some form, this remedy. The
+abolition government of the United States, for instance,
+imposed compulsory restraints and labour upon multitudes
+of fugitive slaves, during the war. The only difference
+was, that whereas our system of domestic
+slavery placed this power in hands most powerfully interested
+to employ it humanely and wisely, the anti-slavery
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span>
+authorities placed it in hands which had every
+selfish inducement to abuse it to the misery of the slave,
+and the detriment of the publick interest. And the
+same government is to-day avouching every word of
+the above argument, by justifying itself, from a pretended
+political necessity, for placing the white race of
+the South under a much stricter bondage than that
+formerly borne by the negroes; a bondage which places
+not only labour and property, but life, at the irresponsible
+will of the masters. If slavery is wrong, then
+the abolitionists are the greatest sinners; for they have
+turned their own brethren into a nation of slaves.</p>
+
+<p>Domestic servitude, as we define and defend it, is but
+civil government in one of its forms. All government
+is restraint; and this is but one form of restraint. As
+long as man is a sinner, and his will perverted, restraint
+is righteous. We are sick of that arrogant and profane
+cant, which asserts man's 'capacity for self-government'
+as a universal proposition; which represents
+human nature as so good, and democratic government
+as so potent, that it is a sort of miraculous <i>panacea</i>,
+sufficient to repair all the disorders of man's condition.
+All this ignores the great truths, that man is fallen;
+that his will is disordered, and therefore ought not to
+be his rule; that God, his owner and master, has
+ordained that he shall live under authority. What
+fruit has radical democracy ever borne, except factious
+oppression, anarchy, and the stern necessity for
+despotism?</p>
+
+<p>It has been stated that each man's civil liberty, which,
+under a just government, is the same with his natural
+liberty, consists in the privilege of doing and having
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span>
+those things to which he is morally entitled. It has
+been shown, that as different persons in the same society
+differ widely in character, powers, and relations,
+their specific natural rights differ also. But under all
+forms of government, all still have some liberty. And
+under a perfectly equitable form, the different classes of
+persons would properly have different grades of liberty.
+So that, even in the relation of involuntary servitude
+for life, if it be not abused, there is an appropriate
+liberty. Such a servant has privilege to do those things
+which he is morally entitled to do. If there are certain
+things which he is restrained by authority from doing,
+which the superior grades may do, these things are not
+rights to him. His inferior character, ignorance, and
+moral irresponsibility, have extinguished his right to do
+them. And this properly, because his privilege of doing
+them would injure others and himself, and thus violate
+the law of equity. If his slavery restrains him
+from doing more things than these, then the laws do
+him injustice, and mar his rightful liberty.</p>
+
+<p>This degree of domestic servitude supposes that the
+end of the restraints it imposes is, to secure, on the
+whole, the best well-being of both parties to the relation,
+servant as well as master. Here we may notice a
+forensic trick practised by Dr. Wayland and the abolitionists.
+It is that of giving to the proposition which
+they wish to overthrow, such an exposition as makes it
+absurd in itself. Says this professed moralist, in his
+chapter on slavery: "Domestic slavery proceeds upon
+the principle that the master has a right to controul the
+actions, physical and intellectual, of the slave, for his
+own, that is, the master's individual benefit; and of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span>
+course, that the happiness of the master, when it comes
+in competition with the happiness of the slave, extinguishes
+in the latter the right to pursue it." If this
+were true, it would need no argument to show that
+slavery is a natural injustice. But slavery proceeds on
+no such principles. All men ought to know that our
+slave laws proved the contrary, in that they protected
+the slave, in many particulars, against the master's will,
+when it became unrighteous. All know that the publick
+sentiment of our people proved the contrary; in
+that the vast majority laboured and gave heartily for
+the welfare of their servants. And all men who have
+informed themselves know, that the grand result stamps
+the definition as a misrepresentation; in that domestic
+slavery here has conferred on the unfortunate black
+race more true well-being than any other form of society
+has ever given them. But it may be asked: Do
+not many masters selfishly use their slaves according to
+that definition? We reply: Do not many parents selfishly
+use their children according to that definition,
+neglecting their culture and true well-being, temporal
+and eternal, for the sake of gain? And is it not in the
+"thrifty" North that most of these instances of greedy,
+grinding parents are found? Yet who dreams of accusing
+the parental relation as therefore unrighteous
+and mischievous? This selfish tyranny is not the
+parental relation, but the abuse of it. So, every intelligent
+master defends his slaveholding, because it was,
+in the main, as preferable for the slave's interest as for
+his own.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 4. <i>Abolitionism is Jacobinism.</i></h3>
+
+<p>The promise was made above, to unmask some of the
+hideous affinities of the anti-slavery theory. This is
+now easy. If men are by nature sovereign and independent,
+and mechanically equal in rights, and if allegiance
+is founded solely on expressed or implied consent,
+then not only slavery, but every involuntary restraint
+imposed on a person or a class not convicted of
+crime, and every difference of franchise among the
+members of civil society, is a glaring wrong. Such are
+the premises of abolition. Obviously, then, the only
+just or free government is one where all franchises are
+absolutely equal to all sexes and conditions, where
+every office is directly elective, and where no magistrate
+has any power not expressly assented to by the
+popular will. For if inequalities of franchise may be
+justified by differences of character and condition, of
+course a still wider difference of these might justify so
+wide an inequality of rights as that between the master
+and servant. Your true abolitionist is then, of course,
+a Red-Republican, a Jacobin. Is not this strikingly
+illustrated by the fact, that the first wholesale abolition
+in the World was that enacted for the French colonies
+by the frantic democrats of the 'Reign of Terror?' And
+this hint may serve to explain to the aristocracy of
+Great Britain the popularity of the authoress of 'Uncle
+Tom's Cabin,' and of her slanderous book, among the
+masses there. It was not because Britain was so exempt
+from cases of social hardship and oppression at
+home, that its people had all its virtuous sympathies at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span>
+leisure and unoccupied, to pour forth upon the imaginary
+wrongs of Uncle Tom: but it was because the
+Jacobinism of the abolitionist theory awakened an
+echo in the hearts of the lower classes, still seething
+with the recent upheaval of 1848. The community of
+agrarian sympathies made itself felt. The noble Lords
+and Ladies, who patronized the authoress and her book,
+were industriously fanning the very fires which are
+destined to consume their vested privileges.</p>
+
+<p>Again, it follows of course from the premises of
+abolitionism, that hereditary monarchy, no matter how
+limited, is a standing injustice. A hereditary branch of
+the legislature is, if possible, still worse. Any such
+thing as a privileged class in the State is a fraud upon
+the others; for "all men are equal." The limitation of
+the right of suffrage, by property or sex, is a crime
+against human right; for the non-voting classes are
+ruled without their own consent; but consent is, according
+to them, the source of rightful authority. Thus are
+condemned at once the three branches of the hoary and
+honoured British constitution, kings, lords, and commons;
+under which men have enjoyed regulated liberty
+longer, and to a greater degree, than under any government
+on earth. And here it may be remarked that
+abolitionist ideas, so current in Great Britain, should
+have been as alien to the prevalent turns of thought of
+that people, as they certainly are to their welfare and
+the genius of their institutions. That a fantastic sciolist,
+intoxicated with vanity and dazzled by some glittering
+sophisms, should be an abolitionist, is natural. But Englishmen
+have ever been esteemed a solid and practical
+race. Their political conclusions have usually been, to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span>
+the credit of their good sense, historical rather than
+theoretical. Their temper has been rather to guard the
+franchises inherited from their fathers, and approved by
+the national experience, than to gape after visionary
+and abstract rights of man. But despite all this, Great
+Britain has also been leavened with this fell spirit. Her
+political managers imagined that they found in abolitionism
+the convenient 'apple of discord' to destroy the
+peace of a great rival, and they therefore fostered it.
+To this great injustice they have added the condemnation
+of the South unheard, upon the testimony of our
+interested accusers. And the majority of Englishmen,
+with a dogmatism as unjust as senseless, have refused
+to permit either explanation or defence, proudly wrapped
+in impenetrable prejudice, while an innocent and
+noble people were condemned and overwhelmed by
+baseless obloquy. But it requires no spirit of prophecy
+to see that Divine Providence is speedily preparing a
+retribution by means of their own sin, which will be
+tremendous enough to satisfy the resentment of any
+injured Southerner. Abolitionized America is manifestly
+to be the Nemesis of Britain, through her Jacobin
+ideas, or arms, or both. The principles of abolition are,
+as we have proved, destructive of the foundations of
+the British constitution. Her own statesmen have insanely
+taught them to her people. The masses do not,
+indeed, reason very continuously or consistently; yet
+principles once fixed in their minds always work themselves
+out, in time, to their logical results. The so-called
+"Liberal Party" of Great Britain, which draws
+its inspirations from the abolition democracy of America,
+is unveiling itself more and more, as a party of true
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span>
+Jacobinism; and other parties have now paltered and
+dallied so long, that it will speedily show itself irresistible.
+And when the policy of England is swayed by moneyless
+votes, instead of capital and land, the caution and
+forbearance, bred by financial interests, which has thus
+far scarcely kept the peace between her and the United
+States, will speedily be changed. The two Jacobinisms,
+now so sweetly fraternizing over the ruin of the
+South, will disclose their innate and uniform aggressiveness,
+and will rush at each other's throats. This
+the immemorial rivalries and opposition of dearest interests
+will insure. Then will England feel, in the disintegration
+of her whole social fabrick by radical
+American ideas, and the Yankee invasions of Canada
+and Ireland, the folly of her own policy.</p>
+
+<p>But other consequences follow from the abolitionist
+dogmas. "All involuntary restraint is a sin against
+natural rights," therefore laws which give to husbands
+more power over the persons and property of wives
+than to wives over husbands, are iniquitous, and should
+be abolished. The same decision must be made upon
+the exclusion of women, whether married or single,
+from suffrage, office, and the full franchises of men.
+There must be an end of the wife's obedience to her
+husband. Is it said that these subordinations are consistent,
+because women assent to them voluntarily, in
+consenting to become wives? This plea is insufficient,
+because the female sex is impelled to marriage by irresistible
+laws of their nature and condition. How tyrannous
+is this legislation which shuts woman up to the
+alternative of foregoing the satisfaction of the prime instincts
+of her existence; or else of submitting to a code
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span>
+of natural injustice! As to the disabilities of single
+women, this plea has no pretended application. Thus
+the abolitionists will reason, yea, are reasoning. What
+was the strange prediction of prophetic wisdom, a few
+years ago, is now already familiar fact. Female suffrage
+is already introduced in one State, and will doubtless
+prevail as widely as abolitionism. But when God's
+ordinance of the family is thus uprooted, and all the appointed
+influences of education thus inverted; when
+America has had a generation of women who were <i>politicians</i>,
+instead of <i>mothers</i>, how fundamental must be
+the destruction of society, and how distant and difficult
+must be the remedy!</p>
+
+<p>Once more: The same principles have consistently led
+some abolitionists to assail the parental relation itself.
+For although none can deny that, in helpless infancy,
+subjection should be the correlative of protection and
+maintenance, when once the young citizen has passed
+from the age of childhood, by what reason can the abolitionist
+justify his compulsory government by the father?
+Are not all men by nature equal?</p>
+
+<p>It has been currently asserted that the premises of
+the abolitionists were embraced in the Declaration of
+Independence; so that the United States have been committed
+to them from the beginning. The words usually
+referred to are the following: "That all men are created
+equal: that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
+inalienable rights: that among these are life, liberty,
+and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure
+these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving
+their just powers from the consent of the governed,"
+etc. If by these celebrated propositions it was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span>
+meant that there ever was, or could be, a government
+where all men enjoyed the same measure of privilege,
+then it is false. If it was meant that there ever was,
+or could be, a state of society in which all men could
+indulge their volitions to the same extent, and that, in
+every case, the full extent, it is false; for natural and
+unavoidable differences of persons must ever prevent
+this. If it were meant that all men are naturally equal,
+then it would be false; for men are born with different
+bodily and mental powers, different moral qualities, and
+different inheritances of rights. If it was meant that
+every person enters life free from just controul, it is
+false; for we all begin our existence rightfully subject,
+irrespective of our consent, to authority in family and
+State. Neither God nor nature makes it optional with
+us whether we will be subject to government. But if
+it be meant that all men are created equal in this sense,
+that all are children of a common heavenly Father, all
+common subjects of the law of equity expressed in the
+"Golden Rule," each one as truly entitled to possess
+the set of rights justly appropriate to him, (and by the
+same reason,) as any other is entitled to his set of
+rights; this is true, and a glorious truth. This is
+man's moral equality. It means that, under God, the
+servant is as much entitled to the rights and privileges
+of a justly-treated servant, as the master is to the
+rights of a master; that the commoner is as much entitled
+to the just privileges of a commoner, as a peer to
+those of a peer. It is the truthful boast of Englishmen,
+that in their land every man is equal before the
+law. What does this mean? Does it mean that Lord
+Derby has no other franchises and privileges than the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span>
+day-labourer? By no means. But the privileges allotted
+to the day-labourer by the laws are defended by the
+same institutions, and adjudicated by the same free
+principles, and made legally as inviolable, as the very
+different and larger privileges of Earl Derby. It is in
+this sense that a just and liberal government holds all
+men by nature equal. And if, when the Declaration of
+Independence says that the right of all men to their
+liberty is "inalienable," the proper definition of civil
+liberty is accepted, (that it only means privilege to do
+what each man, in his peculiar circumstances, has a
+moral right to do,) this also is universally true. But all
+this is perfectly consistent with differences of social
+condition, and station, and privilege; where characters
+and relations are different. As we have seen, the servant
+for life, who as a slave receives "those things
+which are just and equal," has his true liberty, though
+it is different from that of the free citizen; and the servant
+can no more be justly stripped of this his <i>modicum</i>
+of liberty, than the master of his. Last, when it is
+declared that "governments derive their just powers
+from the consent of the governed," there is a sense in
+which it is true, and one in which it is false. In one
+sense, they derive their just powers from God, his law,
+and providence. In the other sense, that the people are
+not for their rulers, but the rulers for their people, the
+selection of particular forms of constitution and of the
+individuals to execute the functions, belongs to the
+aggregate rectitude and intelligence of the commonwealth,
+expressed in some way practically fair. But by
+"the consent of the governed," our wise fathers never
+intended the consent of each particular human being,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span>
+competent and incompetent. They intended the representative
+commonwealth as a body, the "<i>populus</i>," or
+aggregate corporation of that part of the human beings
+properly wielding the franchises of full citizens. Their
+proposition is general, and not particular. The men of
+1776 were not vain <i>Ideologues</i>; they were sagacious,
+practical Englishmen. Thus understood, as every correct
+thinker does, they teach nothing against difference
+of privilege among the subjects of government; and
+consequently, nothing inconsistent with the servitude of
+those who are found incapable of beneficially possessing
+a fuller liberty.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the evidence that this only was their meaning
+is absolutely complete. Had their proposition been that
+of the Jacobin abolitionist, (that just claim on men's
+obedience to authority is founded on the individual's
+consent,) they must have ordered every thing differently
+from their actual legislation. They could not
+have countenanced limited suffrage, of which nearly all
+of them were advocates. They must have taught female
+suffrage, which the most democratic of them would have
+pronounced madness. Not only did they retain the
+African race in slavery, in the face of this declaration,
+but they refused to adopt full democratic equality, in
+reconstructing their constitutions. Were these men
+fools? Were they ignorant of the plain meaning of
+their own propositions? Did they, like modern Radicals,
+disdain the plainest obligations of consistency? Some
+attempt to evade their retention of slavery, by saying
+that they did not defend its consistency, nor contemplate
+it as a permanent relation; but the other facts
+are unanswerable. It may be true that Jefferson, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span>
+draughtsman of the Declaration, did heartily adopt his
+propositions in the sense of the advocates of the social
+contract; for it is well known that he was properly
+a Democrat, and not, like the other great Whigs of Virginia,
+only a Republican; that he had drank deeply
+into the spirit of Locke's political writings; and that
+he had already contracted a fondness for the atheistical
+philosophy of the French political reformers. But who
+can believe that George Mason, of Gunston, could fail
+to see the glaring inconsistency between these propositions,
+taken in the extravagant and radical sense now
+forced upon them by the abolitionists, and the constitution
+which he gave to the State of Virginia? According
+to that immortal instrument, our commonwealth
+was as distinctly contrasted with a levelling democracy,
+as any monarchy regulated by laws could possibly be.
+It was, indeed, a liberal, aristocratic republic. None
+could vote save the owners of land in fee-simple; and
+these were permitted to exercise their elective powers
+directly, only in one sole instance, the election of the
+General Assembly. This Assembly then exercised, without
+farther reference to the freeholders, all the powers
+of the commonwealth. The Assembly elected the Governor
+of the State. The Assembly appointed all judges
+of law, and executive officers of State. The county
+courts, to whom belonged the whole power of police,
+of local taxation, and of administration of local justice
+in cases beneath the grade of a felony, formed a proper
+aristocracy, serving for life, appointing their own clerks
+and sheriffs, and filling vacancies in their own numbers
+by a nomination to the Governor, which was always
+virtually imperative. Such was the government which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span>
+the statesmen of Virginia deliberately adopted, after
+signing the Declaration of Independence; than which
+none could have been devised by human wit, so well
+adapted to the character and wants of their people, and
+under which they exhibited the highest political stability
+and purity which our commonwealth has ever
+known. Any one who knows the British Constitution
+will see at a glance, that our Virginian frame of government
+was not the work of men led by the Utopian
+dream of "liberty, fraternity, and equality," but of
+practical statesmen, establishing for their posterity the
+historical rights of British freemen.</p>
+
+<p>But were the language of the Declaration of Independence
+as decisive as anti-slavery men suppose, it would
+concern us exceedingly little. We regard it as no
+political revelation. When we formed a part of the
+United States, it was no article of our constitution;
+and still less are we responsible for it now. If it should
+be even convicted of embodying some error, this would
+be neither very surprising, nor very disgraceful to its
+authors. For what more probable than that men inflamed
+by the spirit of resistance to tyranny, and surrounded
+by the excitements of a revolution, in the
+indiscreet effort to propound a set of abstract generalities
+as the basis of their action, should mix the
+plausible errors of the advocates of freedom with the
+precious truth?</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 5. <i>Labour of another may be Property.</i></h3>
+
+<p>By confounding the master's right to the slave's
+labour with a pretended property in his conscience,
+soul, and whole personality, abolitionists have attempted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span>
+to represent "property in man" as a self-evident
+wrong. But we shall show that, in the only
+sense in which we hold it, property in man is recognized
+by the laws of every commonwealth. The father has
+property in his child, the master in his apprentice, the
+husband in his wife, the wife in her husband, and the employer
+in his hireling. In every one of these cases, this
+property is recoverable by suits at law, and admits of
+being transmuted for money, just as any other possession.
+When the husband is killed by the culpable negligence
+of a railroad company which had engaged to transport
+him for hire, the wife sues and recovers money damages.
+When the daughter is seduced from her father's
+house, he may sue for compensation, and the court will
+assess the value of her remaining services until her
+majority, at such a sum as they judge proper. How is
+this to be explained, save by regarding the wife as
+having lawful property in the industry of her husband,
+and the father as having property in the labour of his
+daughter? The labour of a minor son is often sold by
+the father, and thus becomes the property of the purchaser.
+It is of no avail to say that this labour is voluntary,
+and that the property originates in the virtual
+compact between the parties; for this is not true of the
+parental relation. Still another striking instance of
+lawful property in the involuntary labour of a fellow-man,
+appears in the apprenticeship of the children of
+paupers. Pauperism is not a crime; yet these children
+are, with undisputed moral propriety, indentured
+to householders, during their minority; and the labour
+thus conveyed is hired, sold, bequeathed, just as any
+other property. Dr. Wayland argues that there cannot
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span>
+be ownership in man, because ownership as he defines
+it, consists in our "<i>right to use the property as we please!</i>"
+This definition was made to suit abolitionism, and is
+not the truth. May we, because we have property in
+our horses, use them living as we would our logs of
+wood, for fuel? The ethics of common sense, as that of
+all true science, (what Dr. W. should have known, if he
+had been fit to do what he assumed, teach science,)
+define ownership to be <i>a right to use our property according
+to its nature</i>. Thus defined, property in man
+presents no solecism whatever, inconsistent with righteousness.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 6. <i>The Slave Received due Wages.</i></h3>
+
+<p>But it is charged that the injustice of our system is
+apparent in this, that it takes the slave's labour without
+compensation. It is simply untrue. Southern
+slaves received, on the average, better and more certain
+compensation than any labouring people of their
+capacity in the world. It came to them in the form of
+that maintenance, which the master was bound by the
+laws,<a name='FNanchor_91'></a><a href='#Footnote_91'><sup>[91]</sup></a> as well as his own interests, to bestow upon
+them. During childhood, they were reared at his expense;
+in sickness they received maintenance, nursing,
+and the same medical advice which he provided
+for his own children; all at his expense. When they
+married and had children, (which all did, single-blessedness
+was unknown among them,) their families
+were provided for by the masters without one additional
+toil or anxiety on their part. When they died,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span>
+their orphans had, in the master's estate, an unfailing
+provision against destitution; and if old age overtook
+them, they received, without labour, the same supplies
+and comforts which were allotted to them in their
+prime. How many of the sons of toil in nominally free
+countries would seize with rapture the offer of such
+wages for their labour, if the name of slavery were detached
+from them? To be able to secure, by the moderate
+labours of their active years, a certain and liberal
+provision for their daily wants, for their families, however
+large, and for sickness and old age, would be a
+contract so advantageous, in comparison with the
+hardships and uncertainties of the peasant's usual life,
+that few thoughtful persons of that class would hesitate,
+from love of novelty or dim hope of a more lucky
+career, to embrace it. But this is just what our laws
+and customs gave to our slaves, as wages of their easy
+labour.</p>
+
+<p>But the anti-slavery man objects, that the adjustment
+of this compensation is made at the will of the master
+alone, while the slave has no power to influence it.
+This is precisely the same objection, in effect, with the
+one that the labour is involuntary. We have already
+shown that this circumstance alone does not make the
+claim on the labour unjust. And if the system makes
+for the slave, on the average, a better bargain than he
+could make for himself, where is his hardship? Is he
+injured by being restrained of the liberty of injuring
+himself? Surely, the fairness of any system should be
+judged by the fairness of its average results. If some
+masters withhold a part of the due wages, by failing
+to "render to their servants that which is just and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span>
+equal," this is their individual fault, not that of the
+system. St. Paul, in the passage quoted, manifestly
+thought that we might hold the involuntary labour of
+our slaves, and yet be no robbers.</p>
+
+<p>But our enemies return to the charge, urging that
+we robbed our slaves, because we engrossed to ourselves
+the lion's share of the bondsman's labour. The
+master and his family, say they, who did no work,
+rolled in luxury, while the poor slaves, who did all, got
+only such a pittance as was needed to preserve their
+capacity for toil. This is false in every part. Masters
+and their families were not idlers. Their life was not
+relatively luxurious. The slave's share was not a pittance,
+but much more like the lion's share. But, they
+exclaim: "Let the masters stand aside and allow the
+slaves to enjoy the whole fruits of the estates they cultivate:
+then only will the former cease to be robbers."
+This astonishing folly is exposed by simply asking,
+whether capital and superintending skill are not entitled
+to wages, as well as labour? The crops of the
+Southern plantation were the joint fruit of the master's
+capital, the master's labour and skill of oversight, and
+the slaves' labour. If capital be denied all remuneration,
+the wheels of productive industry would stop
+everywhere, to the especial ruin of the labouring
+classes. Does the anti-slavery manufacturer of Lowell
+or Manchester think it fair, after investing his
+thousands in fixtures and material, and bestowing his
+anxious superintendence, that his operatives should
+claim the whole profits of the factory, leaving him not
+a penny, because, forsooth, he never spun or wove a
+thread? Away with the nonsense! Southern slaves
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span>
+enjoyed a larger share of the proceeds of conjoined
+capital, superintending skill, and labour, than any
+operatives in the world. This is not only allowed, but
+virtually asserted, by anti-slavery men, when they
+reason that slavery is an economical evil, because the
+maintenance of slaves is more costly, in proportion to
+the value of their labour, than that of free labourers.
+Thus, in one place, they object that slaves receive too
+much compensation, and in another, that they receive
+too little. Nor is it true that Southern masters usually
+make no contribution of labour to the products of
+their farms. There is nowhere a population of equal
+wealth, more industrious than slaveholders. The master
+usually contributes far more to the common production
+than the strongest labourer on his estate; and
+the mistress more than the most industrious female
+servant, partly in the labours of superintendence, but
+also in actual toil.</p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 7. <i>Effects of Slavery on Moral Character.</i></h3>
+
+<p>It is argued by abolitionists, that slavery regularly
+exerts many influences tending to degrade the moral
+character of both masters and servants. Their charge
+cannot be better stated than in the Words of Dr.
+Wayland. ["Moral Science," Personal Liberty, Ch. I.,
+&#167; 2.]</p>
+
+<p>"Its effects must be disastrous upon the morals of
+both parties. By presenting objects on whom passion
+may be satiated without resistance, and without redress,
+it tends to cultivate in the master, pride, anger,
+cruelty, selfishness, and licentiousness. By accustoming
+the slave to subject his moral principles to the will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span>
+of another, it tends to abolish in him all moral distinctions,
+and thus fosters in him, lying, deceit, hypocrisy,
+dishonesty, and a willingness to yield himself up to
+minister to the appetites of his master. That in all
+slaveholding countries there are exceptions to this remark,
+and that there are principles in human nature
+which, in many cases, limit the effect of these tendencies,
+may be gladly admitted. Yet that such is the
+tendency of slavery as slavery, we think no reflecting
+person can for a moment hesitate to allow."</p>
+
+<p>This is a flattering picture of us, truly! By good
+fortune, it is drawn by one who knows nothing of us.
+Just such are the current representations which
+Yankees have made of Southern morals, down to the
+notable instance of Senator Sumner's speech on the
+"Barbarism of Slavery." The question whether the
+system of slave labour deteriorates the morals of master
+and servant, as compared with that of free labour, may
+be treated as one of deduction and reasoning, or one
+of fact. The latter is the more trustworthy way to
+decide it. Dr. Wayland undertakes to settle it solely
+by the former. And it is manifest to the first glance,
+that his whole reasoning begs the question. If the
+very relation is wicked, if every act of authority on the
+master's part is a wrong, and of submission on the
+servant's part is a surrender of his right, then the
+reasoning is plausible. But let us suppose, for argument's
+sake, (what may be true, as it is the very point
+undecided,) that the relation may be right, the authority
+exercised lawful, and the things our servants
+are usually enjoined to do, innocent acts. Then, the
+fact that there is authority on one side and obedience
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span>
+on the other, cannot tend, of itself, to degrade ruler
+and ruled: for if this were so, the parental relation
+itself (ordained by God as His school of morals for
+young human beings) would be a school of vice. But
+the argument is a sophism, in a yet more audacious
+and insulting sense. Its author argues the degradation
+of the slave, chiefly because his wicked master
+compels him by fear to do so many wicked things.
+But suppose the master to be a gentleman, and not a
+brute, so that the things he customarily compels the
+slave to do, are right things; where, then, is the argument?
+Which of the two characters masters usually
+bear, is the question to be solved at the conclusion of
+the reasoning, and, yet more, to be decided by the
+surer testimony of fact. But Dr. Wayland chooses to
+begin by presuming, <i>� priori</i>, that masters are generally
+rascals.</p>
+
+<p>Wisdom would infer, on the contrary, that the habitual
+exercise of authority, approved as righteous by
+the ruler's conscience, tends to elevate his character.
+He who would govern others must first govern himself.
+Hence, we should expect to find him who is compelled
+to exercise a hereditary and rightful authority, a man
+more self-governed, thoughtful, considerate, firm, and
+dignified, than other men. The habit of providing constantly
+for a number of persons, whom he is impelled
+by the strongest self-interest to care for efficiently,
+should render a man considerate of others, and benevolent.
+Experience will soon teach the head of such an
+estate, that his relation with his dependents must be
+any thing else than a carnival of self-indulgence,
+violence, and tyranny; for such a life will speedily leave
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span>
+him no servants to abuse. On the contrary, the very
+necessities of his position compel him to be, to a
+certain extent, provident, methodical, and equitable.
+Without these virtues, his estate slips rapidly away.
+And who, that knows human nature, can fail to see the
+powerful effects of the institution in developing, in the
+ruling caste, a higher sentiment of personal honour,
+chivalry, and love of liberty? This was asserted of
+the slaveholders of Virginia and the Carolinas by
+the sagacious Burke. It is very true, that if every
+man in the country were under the vital influence of
+Christian sanctification, he would not need these more
+human influences to elevate his character. But the
+wise statesman takes men as they are, not as they
+should be. Until the <i>millennium</i>, the elevating influences
+of social position will continue to be of great
+practical value. Yankeedom, at least, continues thus
+far to exhibit a great want of them.</p>
+
+<p>But now, in considering the actual influences of slavery
+on the morals of the Africans, let the reader remember
+what they actually were before they were
+placed under this tutelage. He may be sure they were
+not what abolitionism loves to picture them, a sort of
+Ebony Arcadians, full of simple, pastoral purity, and of
+what infidels vainly prate as the dignity of native virtue.
+It is not slavery which has degraded them from
+that imaginary elevation. On the contrary, they were
+what God's word declares human depravity to be under
+the degrading effects of paganism. Let the reader see
+the actual and true picture, in the first chapter of Romans,
+and in authentic descriptions of the negro in his
+own jungles, such as the invaluable work of Dr. John
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span>
+Leighton Wilson, on the tribes of the Guinea coast.
+And here, moreover, he will find proof, that the type of
+savage life brought to America originally by the slave
+trade, was far below that witnessed in Africa among
+the more noticeable tribes; because the great bulk of
+the slaves were either the Pariahs of that barbarous
+society, or the kidnapped members of the feeble fragments
+of bush tribes, who had nearly perished before
+the comparative civilization of the Mandingoes and
+Greboes, living but one remove above the apes around
+them. Now cannot common sense see the moral advantage
+to such a people, of subjection to the will of a
+race elevated above them, in morals and intelligence,
+to an almost measureless degree? Is it no moral advantage
+to be compelled to wear decent clothing, and
+to observe at least the outward proprieties which should
+obtain between the sexes? None to be taught industry,
+in place of pagan laziness; and methodical habits,
+in place of childish waste and unthrift? The destructive
+effects of the savage's common vices, lying, theft, drunkenness,
+laziness, waste, upon business and pecuniary
+interests, will of course prompt masters to repress those
+vices, if no higher motive does. Is this no gain for the
+poor pagan? Especially does the matter of drunkenness
+illustrate, in a splendid manner, the benign effects
+of our system on African character and happiness.
+Place any savage race beside a civilized and commercial
+people, and leave them free; and the speedy result
+is, that the "fire-water" consumes and depopulates them.
+Witness the North American Indians. But here was
+just such a race, in the midst of the temptation and
+opportunity, and yet preserved from all appreciable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span>
+evil from this source, and advancing in physical comfort,
+manners, and numbers, more rapidly than any
+white race in Christendom. While numbers of Africans
+exhibited just that weakness for ardent spirits,
+which is to be expected in people lately barbarians, yet
+so wholesome were the restraints of that regular and
+constant occupation enforced upon them, it was the
+rarest thing in the world that a farm-servant filled a
+drunkard's grave among us. But now the flood-gates
+are opened. Was not Dr. Wayland a temperance man?
+Southern slavery was the most efficient temperance
+society in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Once more, was it nothing, that this race, morally
+inferior, should be brought into close relations to a nobler
+race, so that the propensity to imitation should be
+stimulated by constant and intimate observation, by
+domestic affection, by the powerful sentiment of allegiance
+and dependence? And above all, was it
+nothing that they should be brought, by the relation of
+servitude, under the consciences and Christian zeal of
+a Christian people, in circumstances which most powerfully
+enlisted their sense of responsibility, and gave
+free scope to their labour of love? Let the blessed results
+answer, of a nation of four millions lifted, in four
+generations, out of idolatrous debasement, "sitting
+clothed, and in their right mind;" of more than half a
+million adult communicants in Christian churches!
+And all this glorious work has been done exclusively
+by Southern masters; for never did foreign or Yankee
+abolitionist find leisure from the more congenial work
+of slandering the white, to teach or bless the black
+man in any practical way. This much-abused system
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span>
+has thus accomplished for the Africans, amidst universal
+opposition and obloquy, more than all the rest of
+the Christian world together has accomplished for the
+rest of the heathen.</p>
+
+<p>It is the delight of abolitionists to impute to slavery
+a result peculiarly corrupting as to sins of unchastity.
+Witness the repetitions charges by Dr. Wayland, of
+these sins, as contaminating both masters and slaves, in
+consequence of slavery. The evidence of facts has
+been already given as to the comparative justice of this
+charge. But reason itself would suggest to the least reflection,
+that Southern households are not the only ones
+where young men and female domestics are thrown together,
+amidst all the temptations and opportunities of
+privacy and domestic intimacy; that the power of corporal
+punishment, unlawful here for this end, is not the
+only power which a superior may apply to an inferior to
+overcome her chastity, nor the most effective. But, on
+the other hand, reason would suggest that the employment
+of free persons of the same colour and race would
+greatly enhance the force of those temptations; while
+among us, the differences of colour, race, and personal
+attractions, would greatly diminish them; while the
+very sentiment of superior caste would render the intercourse
+more repulsive and unnatural.</p>
+
+<p>The testimony of facts, however, is the conclusive
+evidence on the question, whether our system is relatively
+more corrupting than that of free labour. In
+this department of the discussion, Providence has given
+us a refutation against the Yankees so terribly biting,
+as fully to satisfy any indignation which their arrogant
+railings may have excited in our bosoms. We were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span>
+placed together at the beginning of our national existence,
+under the same Federal government, and under
+similar religious and State institutions. Our union
+presented a common field for constant meeting and
+comparison. And what were the results disclosed? It
+has been shown that while the South, as a great section
+of the Union, never, in one single instance, made
+any general or united movement to pervert Federal
+laws and powers for unfair local purposes; while the
+South ever manifested a chivalrous patriotism against
+any assaults upon the common rights; the North has
+never failed, from the first year of the government, to
+use it as a machine for legislative extortion and local
+advantage; and the North has usually played the
+traitor to the common cause when assailed from without,
+even when, as in the second war with England, the
+interests assailed by the foreign enemy, and generously
+defended by the South, were more peculiarly her
+own. It has appeared that when at last legislative
+peculation grew so foul that the publick demanded inquiry,
+every member of the Congress convicted of that
+disgraceful iniquity, was from the North, and not one
+from the South. If we pass to personal comparisons,
+the publick men of the South have shown themselves,
+on the federal <i>arena</i>, superior, in general, in the talent
+of command, in personal honour, in dignity, in the
+amenities of life, in forbearance and self-controul; while
+that very petulance, wilfulness, and love of arbitrary
+power, which, abolition philosophers infer, must be the
+peculiar fruits of slaveholding, were exhibited in
+marked contrast, by the few Northern Presidents who
+had the fortune to reach that high position. Compare,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span>
+for instance, the benign Washington, a great slaveholder,
+with that petty tyrant, the elder Adams; or
+Jefferson, Madison and Monroe with his son, (worthy
+son of such a sire,) John Quincy Adams; or Jefferson
+Davis with Abraham Lincoln; or our Lee, Johnstons,
+Jackson and Beauregard, with a McNeill and a Butler!
+So well proved are the superior courtesy, liberality, and
+humanity of the Southern gentleman, that the very porters
+on the wharves, and waiters in the hotels, of Northern
+cities, recognize them by these traits. It has been
+the fashion of a certain type of poltroons among the
+Yankees, who wish to indulge the anger and malignity
+of the bully, along with the safety and impunity of the
+Quaker, to represent the resort of Southerners to the
+code of honour, as a peculiar proof of their uncivilized
+condition. They exclaim triumphantly that we fight
+duels, while Yankees do not. Now the code of honour
+is certainly irrational, unchristian, and wicked. But
+there is another thing that is greatly more wicked;
+and this is the disposition to inflict upon a fellow-man
+the injuries and insults which that code proposes to
+prevent; and then cloak one's self under the cowardly
+pretence of a conscience which forbids to fight. The
+duellist sins by anger and revenge: these sneaking
+hypocrites sin by anger and revenge, and cowardice and
+lying, at once. The truly good man is forbidden by his
+conscience from seeking retaliation; but the same conscience
+equally forbids him to inflict on others the injuries
+which provoke retaliation. The man who wilfully
+injures his fellow, has therefore no right to plead
+conscience, for refusing satisfaction. It is not conscience,
+but cowardice. While, then, we mourn the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span>
+crimes of violent retaliation which sometimes occur at
+the South, the citizens of the North have occasion for a
+deeper blush, at the crimes of malignant slander and
+vituperation which their people are accustomed to
+launch at us from the vile hiding-place of their hypocritical
+puritanism.</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen by every one, that the females of the
+ruling class must be very intimately concerned in the
+duties of the relation of master and servant. It is properly
+termed <i>domestic</i> slavery; and woman's functions
+are wholly domestic. If then, slavery is morally corrupting,
+Southern ladies should show the sad result very
+plainly. But what says fact? Its testimony is one
+which fills the heart of every Southern man with grateful
+pride; that the Southern lady is proverbially eminent
+for all that adorns female character, for grace, for purity
+and refinement, for benevolence, for generous charity,
+for dignified kindness and forbearance to inferiours,
+for chivalrous moral courage, and for devout piety.</p>
+
+<p>We might safely submit the comparative soundness
+of Southern society to this test: that it has never generated
+any of those loathsome <i>isms</i>, which Northern soil
+breeds, as rankly as the slime of Egypt its spawn of
+frogs. While the North has her Mormons, her various
+sects of Communists, her Free Lovers, her Spiritualists,
+and a multitude of corrupt visionaries whose names and
+crimes are not even known among us, our soil has never
+proved congenial to the birth or introduction of a single
+one of these inventions.</p>
+
+<p>But the crowning refutation of this slander against
+Southern morals, is presented by the great war lately
+concluded&mdash;a refutation whose glory repays us for long
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span>
+years of reproach. Dispassionate spectators abroad have
+passed their verdict of disgust upon the combination
+of feebleness in the field, boasting and falsehood at
+home, venality and peculation towards their own treasury
+and the property of private citizens, with ruthless
+violation of all the laws of humanity. Dispassionate
+spectators! No; there were none such: but from ignorant
+and prejudiced minds stuffed with misconceptions
+by our interested assailants, the splendid disclosure of
+civic and military genius, bravery, fortitude under incredible
+hardships, magnanimity under unspeakable
+provocations, and dignity under defeat, which appeared
+at the South, drew a general acclaim of admiration from
+the whole civilized world. This war, among its many
+evils, has done us this good, that it has settled for this
+century the charge of the "barbarism of Southern
+slavery."</p>
+
+<p>But it may not be amiss to reveal those vices which
+are peculiarly opposed to the Yankees' own boasts, as
+the inhabitants of "the land of steady habits." Our soldiers
+who have been prisoners of war among them, all
+report that their camps were <i>Pandemoniums</i>, for their
+resounding blasphemies and profanities. Nothing was
+more common than the capture from them of prisoners
+of war, too drunk to walk steadily. The mass of the
+letters found upon their slain, and about their captured
+camps, disclosed a shocking prevalence of prurient and
+licentious thought, both in their armies and at home.
+And our unfortunate servants seduced away by their armies,
+usually found, to their bitter cost, that lust for the
+African women was a far more prevalent motive, than
+their pretended humanity, for their liberating zeal. Such
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span>
+was the monstrous abuse to which these poor creatures
+were subjected, that decent slave fathers often hid their
+daughters in the woods, from their pretended liberators,
+as from beasts of prey.</p>
+
+<p>We freely avow that the line of argument which occupies
+this section is not to our taste; nor, as was intimated
+in the introduction, do we regard it as the safest
+means of ascertaining the moral influences of the two
+systems. But it has not been by our choice that it has
+been introduced. The slanders of our accusers have
+thrust it upon us. We now gladly dismiss it with this
+general concluding remark; that the comparative general
+virtue of Southern masters, and the purity of Southern
+Christianity, are a strong evidence that we were not
+living in a criminal relation, as to the African race. For
+sins are always gregarious. One sin, permanently established
+in the heart and life, always introduces its
+foul kindred. Sin is contagious. An unsound spot in
+the character ultimately taints the whole. The misguided
+gentleman who first yields to the passion of
+gaming, solely for its amusement and excitement, cannot
+continue a habitual gamester and a gentleman. The
+ingenuous youth who harbours the habit of intoxication,
+in due time ceases to be even ingenuous. These unhallowed
+passions, once established, introduce fraud, selfishness,
+meanness, falsehood. So, we argue, if slaveholding
+were a sin, its practice would surely tell upon the
+honour and integrity of those who continue in it. But
+Southern character exhibits no such general effect.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 8. <i>Slavery and the African Slave Trade.</i></h3>
+
+<p>It is a plausible ground of opposition to slavery, to
+charge it with the guilt of the slave trade. It is argued
+that unless we are willing to justify the capture of free
+and innocent men, on their own soil, and their reduction
+from freedom to slavery, with all the enormous injustice
+and cruelty of the African slave trade, we must acknowledge
+that the title of the Southern master to his slave
+at this day is unrighteous; that a system which had its
+origin in wrong cannot become right by the lapse of
+time; that, if the title of the piratical slave catcher on
+the coast of Africa was unrighteous, he cannot sell to
+the purchaser any better title than he has; and that an
+unsound title cannot become sound by the passage of
+time. It need hardly be said that we abhor the injustice,
+cruelty, and guilt of the African slave trade. It is justly
+condemned by the public law of Christendom&mdash;a law
+which not Wilberforce, nor the British Parliament, nor
+British, nor Yankee Abolitionists, have the honour of
+originating, but the slaveholding Commonwealth of
+Virginia. It is condemned by the law of God. Moses
+placed this among the judicial statutes of the Jews:
+"And he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be
+found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death."
+We fully admit, then, that the title of the original
+slave catcher to the captured African was most unrighteous.
+But few can be ignorant of the principle,
+that a title, originally bad, may be replaced by a good
+one, by transmission from hand to hand, and by lapse
+of time. When the property has been acquired, by the
+latest holder, fairly and honestly; when, in the later
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span>
+transfers, a fair equivalent was paid for it, and the last
+possessor is innocent of fraud in intention and in the
+actual mode of his acquisition of it, more wrong would
+be effected by destroying his title, than by leaving the
+original wrong unredressed. Common sense says, that
+whatever may have been the original title, a new and
+valid one has arisen out of the circumstances of the case.
+If this principle be denied, half the property of the
+civilized world will be divorced from its present owners.
+All now agree that the pretext which gave ground for
+the conquest of William of Normandy was wicked; and
+however just it might have been, by the laws of nations,
+the conquest of the government of a country ought not
+to disturb the rights of individuals in private property.
+The Norman Conquest resulted in a complete transfer of
+almost all the land in England to the hands of new
+proprietors; and nearly all the land titles of England, at
+the present day, are the legal progeny of that iniquitous
+robbery, which transferred the territory of the kingdom
+from the Saxon to the Norman barons. If lapse of
+time, and change of hands, cannot make a bad title
+good, then few of the present landlords of England
+have any right to their estates. Upon the same principles,
+the tenants leasing from them have no right to
+their leases, and consequently they have no right to
+the productions of the farms they hold. If they have
+no right to those productions, then they cannot communicate
+any right to those who purchase from them;
+so that no man eating a loaf of English bread, or wearing
+a coat of English wool, could be certain that he
+was not consuming what was not his own. Thus
+extravagant and absurd are the results of such a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span>
+principle. Let us apply to the abolitionists their own
+argument, and we shall unseat the most of them from
+the snug homes whence they hurl denunciations at us.
+It is well known that their forefathers obtained the
+most of that territory from the poor Indians, either by
+fraud or violence. If lapse of time and subsequent
+transfers cannot make a sound title in place of an unsound
+one, then few of the people of the North have any
+right to the lands they hold; and, as honest men, they
+are bound to vacate them. To this even as great a
+man as Dr. Wayland, the philosopher of abolitionism,
+has attempted an answer, by saying that this right,
+arising from possession, only holds so long as the true,
+original owner, or the inheritor of his right, does not
+appear; and that, when he appears, the right of possession
+perishes at once. But he argues, the original and
+true claimant to the ownership of the slave is always
+present, in the person of the slave himself; so that the
+right originating in possession cannot exist for a moment.
+Without staying to inquire whether the presence
+of the inheritor of the original right necessarily puts an
+end to this right of possession&mdash;a proposition worse
+than questionable&mdash;I would simply remark, that, to
+represent the slave himself as the possessor of the original
+right, is a complete begging of the question. It
+assumes the very point in dispute, whether the right of
+the master is sound or not. And we would add, what
+would the courts of New England, what would Dr. Wayland
+say, should the feeble remnants of the New England
+Indians, who are yet lingering in those States, claim
+all the fair domains of their tribe? And what would
+be said in England, if the people of Saxon descent
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span>
+should rise upon all those noble houses who boast a
+Norman origin, and claim their princely estates?</p>
+
+<p>But we carry this just <i>argumentum ad hominem</i> nearer
+home. If the Virginian slaveholder derived from the
+New England or British slave-trader, no valid title to
+the African, then the trader had no valid title to the
+planter's money. What can be clearer than this? And
+if continued possession, with lapse of time, and transmission
+from hand to hand, cannot convert an unsound
+title into a sound one, all the wealth acquired by the
+African slave trade, together with all its increase, is
+wrongfully held by the heirs of those slave dealers: it
+belongs to the heirs of the planters from whom it was
+unjustly taken. Now it is well known that the New
+England States, and especially the little State of Dr.
+Wayland, Rhode Island, drew immense sums from the
+slave trade; and it was said of the merchants of Liverpool
+and Bristol, that the very bricks of their houses
+were cemented with the blood of the slave. Who can
+tell how much of the wealth which now freights the
+ships, and drives the looms of these anti-slavery marts,
+is the fruit of slave profits? Let the pretended owners
+disgorge their spoils, and restore them to the Virginian
+planters, to indemnify them for the worthless and fictitious
+title to the slaves whom they have been called
+upon to emancipate; in order that means may be provided
+to make their new liberty a real blessing to them.
+Thus we should have a scheme for emancipation, or colonization,
+which would be just in both its aspects. But
+will abolitionism assent to this? About as soon as
+death will surrender its prey. Let them cease, then, for
+shame's sake, to urge this sophism.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If this principle of a right originated by possession
+can be sound anywhere, it is sound in its application to
+our slaves. The title by which the original slave
+catchers held them may have been iniquitous. But these
+slave catchers were not citizens of the Southern colonies;
+these slaves were not brought to our shores by
+our ships. They were presented by the inhuman captors,
+dragged in chains from the filthy holds of the slave
+ships; and the alternative before the planter was, either
+to purchase them from him who possibly had no right to
+sell them, or re-consign them to fetters, disease, and
+death. The slaves themselves hailed the conclusion of
+a sale with joy, and begged the planters to become their
+masters, as a means of rescue from their floating prison.
+The planters, so far as they were concerned, paid a fair
+commercial equivalent for the labour of the slaves; and
+the right so acquired passed legally through generations
+from father to son, or seller to purchaser. The relation,
+so iniquitously begun in those cases where the
+persons imported were not slaves already in Africa, has
+been fairly and justly transferred to subsequent owners,
+and has resulted in blessings to the slaves. Its dissolution
+is more mischievous to them than to the masters.
+Must it not be admitted that the injustice in which the
+relation originated no longer attaches to it? The difference
+between the title of the original slave catcher,
+and that of the late Virginian slave owner, is as great
+as between the ruffian Norman freebooter, who conquered his
+fief at Hastings, and his law-abiding descendant,
+the Christian gentleman of England.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3>&#167; 9. <i>The Morality of Slavery Vindicated by its Results.</i></h3>
+
+<p>To deny the mischievous effects of emancipation upon
+the Africans themselves, requires an amount of impudence
+which even abolitionists seldom possess. The
+experience of Britain has demonstrated, to the satisfaction
+of all her practical statesmen, that freedom among
+the whites is ruinous to the blacks. They tell us of the
+vast decline in the productiveness of their finest colonies,
+of the lapsing of fruitful plantations into the bush,
+of the return of the slaves, lately an industrious and useful
+peasantry, to savage life, and of the imperative necessity
+for Asiatic labour, to rescue their lands from a
+return to the wilderness. A comparison between the
+slaves of the South, and the freed negroes of the North,
+gives the same results. While the former were cheerful,
+healthy, progressive, industrious, and multiplying
+rapidly in numbers, the latter are declared by their
+white neighbours to be a social nuisance, depressed by
+indolence and poverty, decimated by hereditary diseases,
+and tending rapidly to extinction.</p>
+
+<p>We argue hereupon, that it cannot be a moral duty to
+bestow upon the slave that which is nothing but an injury.
+It cannot be a sin to do to him that which uniformly
+and generally is found essential to his well-being
+in his present condition. We certainly are not required
+by a benevolent God to ruin him in order to do him justice!
+No sober and practical mind can hold such an
+absurdity. Hence we may know, even in advance of
+examination, that the ethical premises, the theory of human
+rights, which lead to such preposterous conclusions,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span>
+must be false. To illustrate this argument, the humane
+effects of slavery upon the slave should be more fully
+exhibited. This we propose to attempt in another chapter.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.<br />
+
+ECONOMICAL EFFECTS OF SLAVERY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>We are not propagandists of slavery. The highest
+wish of Virginia with reference to it was, that now it
+had been fastened on her against her remonstrances by
+others, she should be let alone to manage it as she
+judged the best: a right which had been solemnly
+pledged to her by her present aggressors. We had no
+desire to force it on others, or to predict its universal
+prevalence, as the best organization of society. But
+having claimed that the Word of God and publick
+justice authorize it, we admit that it is reasonable we
+should meet those who assert economical and social
+results of it so evil, as to render it in credible that a
+wise and benevolent God should sanction such a mischief.
+We hope to show that slavery, instead of being wasteful,
+impoverishing, and mischievous, is so far useful
+and benevolent as to vindicate the divine wisdom in
+ordaining it, and to show that we were wisely content
+with our condition so far as this relation of labour and
+capital was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>We would also urge this preliminary remark: that
+the economical effects of American slavery have usually
+been argued from an amazingly unreasonable point of
+view. Our enemies persist in discussing it as an election
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span>
+to be made between a system of labour by christianized,
+enlightened, free yeomen of the same race, on
+one hand; and a system of labour by African slaves on
+the other; as though the South had any such election in
+its power! It was not a thing for us to decide, whether
+we should have these Africans, or civilized, free, white
+labour; the former were here; here, not by the choice of
+our forefathers, but forced upon us by the unprincipled
+cupidity of the slave-trading ancestors of the Abolitionists
+of Old and New England who now revile us;
+forced upon us against the earnest protest of Virginia.
+Did Abolitionists ever propose a practical mode of
+removing them, and supplying their places, which would
+not inflict on both parties more mischief than slavery
+occasion? They should have showed us some way to
+charm the four millions of Africans among us, away to
+some happy Utopia, where they might be more comfortable
+than we made them; and to repair the shock
+caused by the abstraction of all this productive labour.
+Until they did this, the question was not whether it
+would be wisest for a legislator creating a totally new
+community, to form it like Scotland or New England;
+or like Virginia. The true question was, these Africans
+being here, and there being no humane or practicable
+way to remove them, what shall be done with them?
+If the social condition of Virginia exhibited points of
+inferiority in its system of labour, to that of its rivals,
+the true cause of the evil was to be sought in the
+<i>presence</i> of the Africans among us, not in his <i>enslavement</i>.
+We shall indeed assert, and prove, that these
+points of inferiority were vastly fewer and smaller than
+our enemies represent. But, we emphatically repeat,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span>
+the source of the evils apparent in our industrial system
+was the presence among us of four millions of heterogeneous
+pagan, uncivilized, indolent, and immoral
+people; and for that gigantic evil, slavery was, in part
+at least, the lawful, the potent, the beneficent remedy.
+Without this, who cannot see that such an <i>incubus</i>
+must have oppressed and blighted every interest of the
+country? Such an infusion must have tainted the
+sources of our prosperity. It would have been a curse
+sufficient to paralyze the industry, to corrupt the morals,
+and to crush the development of any people on earth,
+to have such a race spread abroad among them like the
+frogs of Egypt. And that the South not only delivered
+itself from this fate, but civilized and christianized this
+people, making them the most prosperous and comfortable
+peasantry in the world, developed a magnificent
+agriculture, and kept pace with the progress of its
+gigantic rival, attests at once the energy of our people,
+and the wisdom and righteousness of the expedient by
+which all this has been accomplished</p>
+
+<h3>&#167; 1. <i>Slavery and Republican Government.</i></h3>
+
+<p>Intelligent men at the South found something to
+reconcile them to their condition, in the wholesome
+influence of their form of labour, upon their republican
+institutions. The effect of slavery to make the temper
+of the ruling caste more honourable, self-governed,
+reflective, courteous, and chivalrous, and to foster in
+them an intense love of, and pride in, their free institutions,
+has been already asserted, and substantiated by
+resistless facts. The testimony of these facts is concurrent
+with that of all history. But those qualities
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span>
+are just the ones which fit a people for beneficent self-government.
+Again: our system disposed, at one potent
+touch, of that great difficulty which has beset all free
+governments: the difficulty of either entrusting the full
+franchises of the ruling caste to, or refusing them to,
+the moneyless class. The Word of God tells us that
+the poor shall always be with us. Natural differences
+of capacity, energy, and thrift, will always cause one
+part to distance the other part of the society, in the
+race of acquisition; and the older and denser any
+population becomes, the larger will be the penniless
+class, and the more complete their destitution as compared
+with the moneyed class. Shall they be refused
+all participation in the suffrage and powers of government?
+Then, by what means shall the constitution
+make them secure against the iniquities of class-legislation,
+which wickedly and selfishly sacrifices their
+interests and rights to the ruling class? And yet more:
+by what argument can they be rendered content in their
+political disfranchisement, when they are of the same
+race, colour, and class, with their unauthorized oppressors,
+save as money makes an artificial distinction?
+The perpetual throes and reluctations of the oppressed
+class against the oppressors, will agitate and endanger
+any free government; as witness the strifes of the
+conservative and radical parties in England, and the
+slumbering eruptions which the ideas of the democrats
+of 1848 have kindled under every throne in Western
+Europe. But on the other hand, if the full franchises of
+the ruling class be conceded to the moneyless citizens,
+they seize the balance of power, and virtually hold the
+reins over the rights, property, and lives of the moneyed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span>
+classes. But the qualities which have made them continue
+penniless in a liberal government, together with
+the pressure of immediate hardship, destitution, ignorance
+and passion, will ever render them most unsafe
+hands to hold this power. The man who has "the wolf
+at his door," who knows not where to-morrow's dinner
+for his wife and babes is to be obtained, is no safe man
+to be entrusted with power over others' property, and
+submitted to all the arts and fiery passions of the
+demagogue. The inevitable result will be, that his
+passions will drive him, under the pressure of his destitution,
+to some of those forms of agrarianism or legislative
+plunder, by which order and economical prosperity
+are blighted; and society is compelled, like democratic
+France and New England, to take refuge from
+returning anarchy and barbarism, in the despotism of a
+single will. This truth cannot be more justly stated
+than in the language of Lord Macaulay, himself once
+an ardent advocate of British Reform. If the democratic
+States of America seemed, for a time, to offer an
+exception to these tendencies, it proves nothing; for in
+those States, the intense demand for labour, the cheapness
+of a virgin soil, and the rapid growth of a new and
+sparse population, rendered the working of the law, for
+a time, imperceptible. But even there, it had begun to
+work with a portentous power. Witness the violence
+and frightful mutations of their parties, the loathsome
+prevalence of demagogueism, and the great party of free-soil,
+which is but a form of agrarianism reaching out
+its plundering hand against the property class across
+Mason's and Dixon's lines, instead of the property
+class at home. So completely had the danger we have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span>
+described been verified, even in these new and prosperous
+communities, that the moment a serious strain
+came upon their institutions, the will of the mob burst
+over constitutions and publick ethics like a deluge, and
+the pretended republicks rushed into a centralized despotism,
+with a speed and force which astounded the
+world. All the pleas of <i>universal suffrage</i> have received
+a damning and final refutation, from the events of this
+revolution.</p>
+
+<p>But the solution which Southern institutions gave to
+this great <i>dilemma</i> of republicks was happy and potent.
+The moneyless labouring class was wholly disfranchised
+of political powers, and thus disarmed of its powers of
+mischief. Yet this was effected without injustice to them,
+or cruelty; because they were at the same time made
+<i>parts of the families</i> of the ruling class; and ensured an
+active protection and competent maintenance, by law,
+and by motives of affection and self-interest in the masters;
+which experience proved to be more beneficent in
+practice to the labouring class, than any political expedient
+of free countries. The tendency of our African
+slavery was to diminish, at the same time, the numbers
+and destitution of the class of white moneyless
+men, so as to render them a harmless element in the
+State. It did this by making for them a wider variety
+of lucrative industrial pursuits; by making acquisition
+easier for white people; by increasing the total of property,
+that is to say, of values held as property, vastly,
+through the addition of the labour of the Africans, and
+by diffusing a general plenty and prosperity. We very
+well know that anti-slavery men are accustomed to
+assert the contrary of all this: but we know also, that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span>
+they affirm that whereof they know nothing. The census
+returns of the anti-slavery government of the United
+States itself stubbornly refute them; showing that the
+number and average wealth of the property classes at
+the South were relatively larger, and that white pauperism
+and destitution were relatively vastly smaller, than
+at the North. But the violent abolition of slavery here
+has exploded into thin air every sophism by which it has
+been argued that it was adverse to the interests of the
+non-slaveholding whites. The latter have been taught
+by a hard experience, to know, with a painful completeness
+of conviction before which the old anti-slavery
+arguments appear insolent and mocking madness, that
+they are more injured than the slaveholders. They see,
+that while the late masters are reduced from country
+gentlemen to yeomen landholders, they are reduced from
+a thrifty, reputable middle class, to starving competitors
+for day labour with still more starving free negroes.
+The honest abolitionist (if there is such a thing) needs
+only to take the bitter testimony of the non-slaveholding
+whites of the South, to unlearn forever this part of
+his theory. Thus did African slavery among us solve
+this hard problem; and place before us a hopeful prospect
+of a long career of freedom and stability.</p>
+
+<p>The comparative history of the free and slaveholding
+commonwealths of the late United States substantiates
+every word of the above. The South, as a section, has
+never, from the foundation of the government, committed
+itself to any project of unrighteous class legislation,
+such as tariffs, sectional bounties, or agrarian
+plunderings of the public domain. The North has been
+perpetually studying such attempts. The South has
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span>
+ever been remarked, (and strange to say, often twitted,)
+for the stability and consistency of its political parties.
+The Northern States have been "all things by turns,
+and nothing long," save that they have been ever steady
+in their devotion to their plans of legislative plunder. The
+South has been a stranger to mobs, rebellions, and fanaticism.
+When, for instance, the wicked crotchet of Know-nothingism
+was invented, it seized the brains of the
+North like an infection. It carried all before it until it
+came to Virginia, the first of the Southern States which it
+essayed to enter, when the old Commonwealth quietly
+arose and placed her foot upon its neck, and the monster
+expired at once. From the day Virginia cast her
+vote against it, it never gained another victory, either
+North or South. But the crowning evidence of the superior
+stability of our freedom was presented during the
+recent war. While its stress upon Northern institutions
+crushed them at once into a pure despotism, the
+South sustained the tremendous ordeal with the combined
+energy of a monarchy and the equity of a liberal
+republick. There was no mob law; no terrorizing of
+dissentients, no intimidations at elections, nor meddling
+with their purity and freedom, no infringement of rights
+by class legislation, no riots nor mobs, save one or two
+small essays generated by foreigners, and no general
+suspension of the <i>Habeas Corpus</i>, until the pressure of
+the war had virtually converted the whole country into
+a camp: and this, even then, was only enacted by the
+constitutional authority of the Congress. The liberty of
+the press and of religion was untouched during the
+whole struggle. Let the contrast be now drawn. Shall
+the tree be known by its fruits?
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We believe, therefore, that we have no cause, in this
+respect, to lament the condition which Providence had
+assigned us, in placing this African Race among us.
+We do not envy the political condition of our detractors,
+Yankee and British radicals; of the former
+with their <i>colluvies gentium</i>, the off-scouring of all the
+ignorance and discontent of Europe, and their frantic
+agrarianism, which will turn, so soon as it has exhausted
+its expected prey from the homesteads of Southern
+planters, to ravage at home; and of the latter, with
+their disorganizing theories of human right, subversive
+of every bulwark of the time-honored British Constitution,
+and their increasing mass of turbulent pauperism.</p>
+
+<h3>&#167; 2. <i>Slavery and Malthusianism.</i></h3>
+
+<p>Taking mankind as they are, and not as we may desire
+them to be, domestic slavery offered the best relation
+which has yet been found, between labour and
+capital. It is not asserted that it would be best for a
+<i>Utopia</i>, where we might imagine the humblest citizen
+virtuous, intelligent, and provident. But there are no
+such societies on earth. The business of the legislator,
+whether human or divine, is with mankind as they are;
+and while he adapts his institutions to their defects, so
+as to avoid making them impracticable or mischievous,
+he should also shape them to elevate and reform as far
+as possible. The legislator, therefore, in devising a
+frame of society, should adapt it to a state in which
+the rich are selfish and the poor indolent and improvident.
+For, after all that has been boasted of human improvement,
+this is usually man's condition. Now, in
+adjusting social institutions, it is all-important to secure
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span>
+physical comfort; because in a state of physical misery
+and degradation, moral and intellectual improvement
+are hopeless; and the business of the legislator is more
+especially to take care of the weak: the strong will
+take care of themselves. Property is the chief element
+of political strength; it is this which gives to individuals
+power in society; for "money answereth all
+things;" it commands for its possessor whatever he
+needs for his physical comfort and safety. The great
+<i>desideratum</i> in all benign legislation is to sustain the
+class which has no property, against the social depression
+and physical suffering to which they always tend.
+That there will always be such a class, at least till the
+<i>millennium</i>, is certain, for reasons already stated. Now
+all civilized communities exhibit a natural law which
+tends to depress the physical condition of those who
+have no property, who are, usually, the laboring classes.
+That law is the tendency of population to increase.
+The area of a country grows no larger, while the number
+of people in it is perpetually increasing, unless that
+tendency is already arrested by extreme physical evils.
+The same acres have, therefore, more and more mouths
+to feed, and backs to clothe. Consequently, each person
+must receive a smaller and smaller share of the total
+proceeds of the earth. The demand perpetually increases
+in proportion to the supply; and therefore the
+price of those productions rises, as compared with the
+price of labour. Hence in every flourishing community,
+the relative proportion between the price of land, its
+rents, and the food and clothing which it produces, on
+the one hand, and the price of manual labour on the
+other, is perpetually, though slowly, changing. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span>
+former rises, the latter sinks. Improvements in agriculture
+and the arts, extensive conquests, emigrations,
+or some other cause, may for a time arrest, or even reverse,
+this process; but such is the general law, and
+the constant tendency. The very prosperity and growth
+of the community work this result. The owners of land
+become richer: those who live by labour become poorer.
+Physical depression works moral depression, and these
+overcrowded and under-fed labourers, becoming more
+reckless, are familiarized with a lower standard of comfort,
+and continue to increase. This law has wrought
+in every growing nation on the globe which is without
+domestic slavery. It is felt in Great Britain, in spite of
+her vast colonies, where she has disgorged her superfluous
+mouths and hands, to occupy and feed them on
+virgin soils: in spite of her conquests, which have centred
+in her lap the wealth of continents. It has begun
+to work in the Northern States of America, notwithstanding
+the development of the arts, and the proximity
+of the Great West. Every where it reduces the quantity
+or quality of food and raiment which a day's labour
+will earn, and perpetually tends to approximate that
+lowest grade at which the labouring classes can vegetate,
+multiply, and toil.</p>
+
+<p>What, now, is the remedy? Not agrarianism: this
+could only aggravate the evil by taking away the incentive
+to effort, in making its rewards insecure. Not
+conquest of new territory: the world is now all occupied;
+and conquest from our neighbours is unjust.
+We found the remedy in the much-abused institution of
+domestic slavery. It simply ended this natural, this
+universal strife between capital and labour, by making
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span>
+labour the property of capital, and thus investing it
+with an unfailing claim upon its fair share in the joint
+products of the two. The manner in which slavery
+effects this is plain. Where labour is free, competition
+reduces its price to whatever grade the laws of trade
+may fix; for labour is then a mere commodity in the
+market, unprotected, and subject to all the laws of demand
+and supply. The owner of land or capital pays
+for the labour he needs, in the shape of wages, just the
+price fixed by the relation of supply and demand; and
+if that price implies the severest privation for the labourer
+or his family, it is no concern of his. Should
+they perish by the inadequacy of the remuneration, it
+is not his loss: he has but to hire others from the
+anxious and competing multitude. Moreover, the ties
+of compassion and charity are vastly weaker than
+under our system; for that suffering labourer and his
+family are no more to that capitalist, than any other
+among the sons of want. But when we make the labour
+the property of the same persons to whom the land
+and capital belong, self-interest inevitably impels them
+to share with the labourer liberally enough to preserve
+his life and efficiency, because the labour is also, in the
+language of Moses, "their money," and if it suffers,
+they are the losers. By this arrangement also, a
+special tie and bond of sympathy are established between
+the capitalist and his labourers. They are members
+of his family. They not only work, but live, on
+his premises. A disregard of their wants and destitution
+is ten-fold more glaring, more difficult to perpetrate,
+and more promptly avenged by his own conscience
+and public opinion. The bond of domestic
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span>
+affection ensures to the labourer a comfortable share of
+the fruits of that capital which his labour fecundates.
+And the law is enabled to make the employer directly
+responsible for the welfare of the employed. Thus,
+by this simple and potent expedient, slavery solved the
+difficulty, and answered the question raised by the
+gloomy speculations of Malthus, at whom all anti-slavery
+philosophers have only been able to rail, while
+equally impotent to overthrow his premises, or to
+arrest the evils he predicts.</p>
+
+<p>Slavery also presented us with a simple and perfectly
+efficient preventive of pauperism. The law,
+public opinion, and natural affection, all joined in compelling
+each master to support his own sick and superannuated.
+And the elevation of the free white labourers,
+which results from slavery, by placing another
+labouring class below them, by assigning to them higher
+and more remunerative kinds of labour, and by diffusing
+a more general prosperity, reduced white pauperism
+to the smallest possible amount amongst us. In a Virginian
+slaveholding county, the financial burden of
+white pauperism was almost inappreciable. Thus, at
+one touch, our system solved happily, mercifully, justly,
+the Gordian knot of pauperism, a subject which has
+completely baffled British wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>The attempt may be made to evade these considerations,
+by saying that the same law of increase in population
+will at length operate, in spite of slavery; and
+that its depressing effects will reveal themselves in
+this form: that the labouring class will become so numerous,
+the same alteration between demand and supply
+of labour will appear, and the slave's labour will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span>
+be worth no more than his maintenance, when he will
+cease to sell for any thing. At this stage, it may be
+urged, self-interest will surely prompt emancipation,
+and the whole slave system will fall before the evil
+which it was expected to counteract.</p>
+
+<p>To this there are several answers. The argument
+implies that the slaves will be, at that stage, relatively
+very numerous. Then, the political difficulties of emancipation
+would be proportionably great. The political
+necessity would overrule the economical tendency, and
+compel the continuance of the beneficent institution.
+And while it subsisted, the tie of domestic affection, and
+the force of law and public opinion, would still secure
+for slaves a better share in the joint profits of labour
+and capital, than would be granted to depressed free
+labour. This was the case in the Roman Empire,
+where the population of Italy and Sicily was for
+several centuries as dense as in those modern States
+where the Malthusian law has worked most deplorably:
+and yet slavery did not yield, and emancipation did
+not follow.</p>
+
+<p>But the more complete answer is as follows. We
+will attempt now to point out an influence which enabled
+domestic slavery to resist and repair the evils of
+over-population, vastly better than any other form of
+labour. As population increases, the size of fortunes
+which are accumulated increases. Instances of accumulation
+are more numerous and far more excessive.
+Density of population, facility of large industrial operations,
+concentration of number of labourers, with other
+causes, ensure that rich men will be vastly richer than
+while population was sparse; and that there will be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span>
+many more rich men. While a few of these will be
+misers, as a general rule they will seek to expend their
+overflowing incomes. But as man's real wants lie
+within very narrow limits, and the actual necessaries
+and comforts of life are cheap, the larger part of these
+overgrown incomes must be spent in superfluities.
+The money of the many excessively rich men is profusely
+spent in expensive jewelry, clothing, equipage,
+ostentatious architecture, useless menials, fine arts,
+and a thousand similar luxuries. Now the production
+of all these superfluities absorbs a vast amount of the
+national labour, and thus diminishes greatly the production
+of those values which satisfy real wants. A
+multitude of the labourers are seduced from the production
+of those more essential values, by the higher
+prices which luxury and pride are enabled to pay for
+their objects. Now, although the manufacturers of these
+superfluities may, individually, secure a better livelihood
+than those laborers who produce the necessaries
+of life, yet the result of the withdrawal of so many producing
+hands is, that the total amount of necessaries
+produced in the nation is much smaller. There is,
+then, a less mass of the necessaries of life to divide
+among the whole number of the citizens; and some people
+must draw a smaller share from the common stock.
+Every sensible man knows that these will be the landless,
+labouring men. The wealth of the rich will, of
+course, enable them to engross a liberal supply for
+their own wants, however scant may be that left for
+the poor. The ability to expend in superfluities is,
+therefore, a <i>misdirection</i> of just so much of the productive
+labour of the country, from the creation of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span>
+essential values, to the producing of that which fills no
+hungry stomach, clothes no naked back, and relieves
+no actual, bodily want. And here, after all, is the
+chief cause why the Malthusian law is found a true
+and efficient one in civilized communities. For, were
+the increasing labour of a growing nation wisely and
+beneficiently directed to draw from the soil and from
+nature all that they can be made to yield, their fecundity
+would be found to be practically so unlimited,
+that the means of existence would keep pace with the
+increase of population, to almost any extent. The
+operative cause of the growing depression of the poor
+is, not that the same acres are compelled to feed more
+mouths, and clothe more backs, so much as this: that
+the inducements which excessive wealth gives to the
+production of superfluities, misdirects so much precious
+labour, that the fruitfulness of those acres is not made
+to increase with the increase of mouths. This is
+proved by the simple fact, that in all the old countries
+the misery of the lowest classes tends to keep pace with
+the luxury of the highest. It is proved emphatically
+by the industrial condition of Great Britain. There is
+no country in which production is so active; none in
+which agriculture and the arts are more stimulated by
+science and intelligence; and yet there is a growing
+mass of destitution, yearly approaching more frightful
+dimensions, and testing the endurance of human nature
+by lower grades of physical discomfort. The
+reason is not to be sought in her limited territory or
+crowded population; for if the British Islands have
+not acres enough to grow their own bread for so many,
+why is it that so productive a people are not able to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span>
+pay for abundance of imported bread? It is to be
+found in the existence of their vast incomes, and the
+excessive luxury practised by the numerous rich.
+True, these magnates excuse their vast expenditures in
+superfluities by the plea, that one of the motives is the
+"encouragement of industry." But they effect, as we
+have seen, not an encouragement, but a misdirection of
+industry. The reason why so many British poor have
+a scanty share of physical comforts is, that there are
+so many British rich men who, by their lavish expenditure,
+tempt and seduce so large a multitude of producing
+hands from the creation of actual comforts to
+the creation of superfluities.</p>
+
+<p>What safe remedy can the legislator propose for this
+evil? Not a violent, agrarian leveling of the larger
+estates. That, as we have shown, would be wicked
+and foolish. Nor can it be found in sumptuary laws.
+The world has tried them to its heart's content, and
+found them impracticable. It is true, that their adoption
+showed how clear a perception the ancients had of
+one truth, which modern political science pretends to
+ignore. That truth is, that luxury is a social evil. We
+have shown that it is as wasteful of social wealth as it
+is of morals. The ancients thought thus, and they
+were right. Legislators now-a-days, in exploding their
+remedy as no remedy, seem to desire to cheat themselves
+into the belief that the disease is no disease.
+But the ancients were not as stupid as men imagine.</p>
+
+<p>Now, we do not boast that we can offer a perfect
+remedy. But our system of labour certainly gave us a
+partial one of inestimable value. Where the rich man
+is a citizen of a hireling State, his accumulated wealth
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span>
+and profuse income are all spent in superfluities, except
+the small portion needed for the comforts of life
+for his own family. But when he is a citizen of a
+slave State, they are first taxed with the comfortable
+support of his slaves. The law, public opinion, affection
+for them, and self-interest, all compel him to make
+the first appropriation out of that profuse income, to
+feeding and clothing his slaves, before he proceeds to
+superfluities. Thus, the proceeds of the accumulations
+which dense population and social prosperity cause, are
+rescued from a useless and mischievous expenditure in
+those luxuries, the purchase of which misdirects public
+industry, and tempts to a deficient production of the
+necessaries of life; and are directed where benevolence,
+mercy, and the public good indicate, to the comfortable
+maintenance of the labouring people. That
+this is the effect of domestic slavery on the incomes of
+the rich, is proved by one familiar fact. It is well
+known at the South how slaveholders usually murmured
+when comparing their style of living with that of capitalists
+in the hireling States of equal nominal wealth.
+The planter who owned fifty thousand dollars worth of
+fertile lands, and a hundred slaves, while he lived in
+far more substantial comfort and plenty, displayed in
+Virginia far less ostentation and luxury than the merchant
+or manufacturer of the North who owns the same
+amount of capital. His house was plainly furnished
+with the old-fashioned goods of his fathers; his family
+rode in a plain carriage, drawn by a pair of stout nags
+which, probably, either did a fair share of ploughing
+also, or drew a large part of the fuel for the household.
+He himself was dressed partly in "jeans," woven under
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span>
+the superintendence of his wife; and his boys were at
+school in a log house, with homespun clothing, and, in
+summer, bare feet. It was not unusual to hear the
+slaveholder, when he considered this contrast, complain
+of slavery as a bad institution for the master. But this
+was its merciful feature, that it in some measure arrested
+superfluous luxury, and taxed superfluous income
+with the more comfortable support of the labourers. In
+a hireling State, these might be left half-starved on the
+inadequate compensation which the hard law of supply
+and demand in the labour-market would compel them
+to accept, while the capitalist was rioting in a mischievous
+waste of the overgrown profits of his capital.</p>
+
+<p>The question of the productiveness of slave labour
+may be anticipated, so far as to point out the fact, that
+this benevolent diversion of the large incomes from
+luxurious expenditures to the comfortable maintenance
+of the slaves, was a diversion from unproductive to
+productive consumption. The slaves were a productive
+class; and the increased comfort of their living added
+greatly to their increase, and their ability to labour.
+No student of political economy need be told how powerfully
+national wealth is promoted by any cause which
+substitutes productive consumption for unproductive.</p>
+
+<p>The truth of these views is confirmed by this fact,
+which is attested by all experienced slaveholders: that
+the slaves throughout the South lived in far more comfort
+than they did a generation ago. And this is truest
+of those Southern communities where population is
+densest, and the price and rents of land are highest.
+As these influences, elsewhere so depressing to the
+poor, advanced, the standard of comfort for our slaves
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span>
+rose rapidly, instead of falling. How can a more
+splendid vindication of the benevolence of our system
+be imagined? Our slaves generally ate more meat,
+wore more and better clothing, and lived in better
+houses, than their fathers did.</p>
+
+<p>That a palpable view may be given, to those who are
+not personally acquainted with our system, of its true
+working, the reader's indulgence will be asked for the
+statement of a few homely details. In Virginia, all
+slaves, without exception, had their own private funds,
+derived from their poultry, gardens, "patches," or the
+prosecution of some mechanic art, in what is termed
+"their own time." These funds they expended as they
+pleased, in Sunday-clothing, or in such additions to
+their diet and comfort as they liked. The allowances
+which we proceed to state, are strictly those which the
+master usually made out of his funds. The allowances
+fixed by usage in this State were generally these: for
+clothing of adults, one complete suit of stout woolens,
+two pair pantaloons of cotton or flax, two shirts, two
+pair of worsted half-hose, and a hat and a blanket, each
+year. For shoes, the old rule was, one pair each winter,
+of the quality of best army shoes or boots, to be
+replaced at harvest with new ones, in the case of
+ploughmen and reapers, while the "less able-bodied
+hands" only got their old shoes repaired. But in latter
+years, the prevalent custom had come to be, to issue
+shoes to all adults, as often as is required, to keep them
+shod throughout the year; while the children were universally
+shod during the winter only.</p>
+
+<p>For diet, the slaves shared jointly the garden-stuff,
+fruits and milk of the master's plantation and garden.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span>
+But their essential and preferred food was a certain
+daily or weekly allowance of corn meal and bacon,
+issued in addition to the above. The common rule in
+Virginia, where these were given in the form of rations,
+was to allow each adult a half-pound of bacon, and two
+quarts of meal per day. The meal of Indian corn, when
+uninjured by the mustiness of a sea-voyage, and properly
+baked at a bright wood-fire, is an excellent and
+nutritious food, as is shown by the fact that it fills
+more than an equal place with bread of wheat, on the
+tables of the richest planters. In many other families,
+the allowance of meal was unlimited; and the bacon
+was not issued in formal rations, the servants living at
+a common board. The supply laid in was then usually
+according to the following rule: one hundred and fifty
+pounds of pork per year, for every soul, white and
+black. When it is remembered that the sucklings and
+the white females used almost none of this supply, a
+simple calculation will show that it is equivalent to at
+least a half-pound per day for each adult. Such were
+the customary usages in Virginia. There were probably
+as many cases where the above rules were exceeded,
+as where the allowances fell below them. In
+the new States of the South West, where agriculture is
+still more profitable, it is said that the allowances were
+more liberal than in the old slave States.</p>
+
+<p>It happens that the census returns of the United
+States for 1860, published by our enemies themselves,
+more than confirm this view of the abundant and comfortable
+living of our labouring population. According
+to those returns the free States had in 1860, not quite
+nineteen millions of people, and the slave States twelve
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span>
+and a quarter millions. Of the cereals used by Americans
+for human food, the free States raised five hundred
+and sixty-one millions bushels; and the slave States
+four hundred and ninety-four millions bushels. That is,
+while the people of the free States had about <i>thirty</i>
+bushels each of these cereals, those of the slave States
+had <i>forty-one</i> bushels per head. Moreover, the North
+boasts that breadstuffs are her great export crops, while
+cotton and tobacco were ours. Our people, including
+our slaves, must therefore have used more than four
+bushels each, to their three. In neither country does
+each person eat either thirty or forty-one bushels per
+year; because horses and other live stock eat a part,
+which it is impossible accurately to estimate. Again: of
+the animals used for human food, (horned cattle, sheep,
+and swine,) then free States had about <i>forty</i> millions, or a
+little more than <i>two</i> per head to each inhabitant; while
+the slave States had forty and a half millions, or about
+<i>three and a half</i> to each inhabitant. But as bacon or
+pork is the flesh most commonly consumed by Americans,
+and especially by farm labourers, the proportion
+of swine is still more significant. The free States had
+not quite twelve millions of swine, and the slave States
+twenty millions six hundred thousand. This gives a
+little more than <i>six-tenths of one</i> swine to each inhabitant
+of the North, and <i>one and seven-tenths</i> to each inhabitant
+of the South. But this is not all,&mdash;for the
+North (especially the prairie States) exported vast
+quantities of the flesh of swine to the South, while the
+slave States exported none to the North. It should in
+justice be said, that the disparity is not so enormous
+as would thus appear, because the swine reared
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span>
+in the South are usually smaller than those of the
+North.</p>
+
+<h3>&#167; 3. <i>Comparative productiveness of Slave Labour.</i></h3>
+
+<p>From the days of Adam Smith, anti-slavery men have
+been pleased to consider it as a point perfectly settled,
+that slave labour is comparatively unfavourable to production,
+and thus, to publick wealth. So settled is this
+conviction among the enemies, and so often has it been
+admitted by the apologists of our system, it will probably
+be hard to secure even a hearing, while we review
+the grounds on which the common opinion is based.
+One would think that the fact that those grounds have
+usually been urged by men who, like Adam Smith, knew
+nothing of slavery themselves, should bespeak for us at
+least a little patience and candour.</p>
+
+<p>One of those grounds is, that slavery, by making
+manual labour the peculiar lot of a servile class, renders
+it disreputable. This, they suppose, together with
+the exemption from the law of necessity, fosters indolence
+in the masters. But, we reply, is manual labour
+the peculiar lot of the servile class alone, in slave
+States? Is not this the very question to be settled?
+Yet it is assumed as the premise from which to settle
+it. So that the reasoning amounts to no more than
+this ridiculous <i>petitio principii</i>: "Because the slaves
+do all the work, therefore the masters do none of the
+work." This should be made a question of fact. And
+we emphatically deny that Southern masters were an
+indolent class, as compared with the moneyed classes
+elsewhere. In fact, the general rule is that rich men
+do not work, the world over. It was less true, probably,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span>
+in Virginia, than in any other commonwealth.
+The wealthy man of the North, with his grown sons, is
+more indolent, and more a fine gentleman, than the
+wealthy slaveholder. If it be said that, in free States,
+a multitude of small farmers cultivate their lands with
+their own hands, it is equally true that a multitude of
+small planters in the South, who owned one, three or
+five slaves, laboured along with them. That the land
+shall be owned by the very persons who cultivate it, is
+an exceptional condition of things, resulting, to some
+extent in New England, from a very peculiar history,
+origin and condition of society, and not destined to
+continue general even there. It is as true of hireling
+as of slave States, that the tendency of civilized institutions
+is, and ever has been, and ever will be, generally,
+to collect the lands in larger properties, in the
+hands of a richer class than that which actually tills
+them. Nor is there one syllable of truth in the idea,
+that labour was among us more disreputable, because
+usually done by slaves. In all countries, there is foolish
+pride, and importance is attached, by the silly, to
+empty badges of station. But it was less so among
+slaveholders than among the rich, or the would-be rich,
+of other countries. The reason is obvious. In free
+States there is just as truly a servile class, bearing the
+servile inferiority of social station, as among us. That
+class being white, and nominally free, its addiction to
+manual labour is the only badge of its social condition.
+Hence whites of the superior class have a far stronger
+motive, in their pride, to shun labour. But the white
+master could freely labour among his black servants,
+without danger of being mistaken by the transient observer
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span>
+for one of the class, because his skin distinguished
+him: just as the man of unquestioned wealth
+and fashion can wear a plain coat, which would be
+shunned as the plague, by the doubtful aspirant to <i>ton</i>.
+We repeat: the planters of Virginia were more often
+seen performing, not only the labours of superintendence,
+but actual manual labour, than any wealthy class
+in America. They were proverbial for perseverance
+and energy. There is a fact which bears a peculiar
+testimony to this. While Yankee adventurers and immigrants
+have intruded themselves into every other
+calling among us, like the frogs into the Egyptian
+houses and their very chambers and kneading-troughs,
+those of them who have attempted to act the tobacco
+planter have, in almost every case, failed utterly. They
+lack the requisite energy for the calling.</p>
+
+<p>Another reason of the anti-slavery man is, that the
+free labourer, stimulated by personal interest in his
+own success, must be more thrifty, industrious, and
+economical than the slave, who is stimulated only by
+fear. We reply: both the premises are absolutely
+false. Slaves were not stimulated only by fear. They
+felt at least as much affection as the Red Republican
+or Chartist hireling. They comprehended their own interest
+in their master's prosperity as fully as hired labourers
+do. But, in the second place, the labour of free
+States is not usually performed by men who have a personal
+interest in their own success: it is performed, in
+the main, by a landless class, who are as very hirelings
+as our slaves were slaves; who need just as much the
+eye of an overseer, and who must be pricked on in their
+labour, at least as often, by the threat, not of the birch,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span>
+but of the more cruel penalty of discharge; which they
+know is their dismissal to starvation or the work-house.
+This delusive reasoning proceeds by comparing the
+yeoman landholder in fee-simple, tilling his own soil
+with his own hands, with the slave tilling the land of
+his wealthy master. But are the lands of hireling
+States prevalently tilled by their yeomen owners? Is
+this the system to which free society tends? The Englishman
+will not dare to say so, when he looks around
+him, and sees how rapidly the small holdings have been
+swallowed up into larger farms, which are now worked
+by capitalists with organized gangs of hirelings; nor
+the Scotchman, with the sight of an old tenant peasantry
+swept away before the ruthless Bothy-system of
+his country. And, as we have asserted, the class of yeomen
+landholders, labouring personally among their few
+slaves, was at least as large, and as permanent in the
+South, as in any civilized country.</p>
+
+<p>Here again, the actual experiment of abolition has
+ridiculously exploded all these baseless reasonings for
+the superior zeal of the white free labourer, and the
+thriftless eye-service of the slave. All intelligent men
+knew before that they were precisely contrary to fact;
+for they saw all hireling labour at the North obviously
+required a supervision much more constant and stringent,
+to prevent the hirelings from bringing the employers
+to bankruptcy by their worthless eye-service,
+than the labour of our own merry and affectionate servants.
+If the white hireling labour was aggregated in
+masses, we uniformly saw it distributed in gangs, to
+sturdy "bosses," who stood with their formidable
+bludgeons in their hands, from morning to night, with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span>
+just fourfold the persistency of any Southern "head-man"
+or "overseer," and actually indicted blows on his
+free white fellow-citizens, as frequently as our overseers
+on the servant children. If the white hireling labour
+was employed on their little farms, in small numbers,
+then the proprietors always informed us, that they must
+be present in the field all the time, to shame and encourage
+them by their example, or else their "help"
+would cheat them to their ruin. But in the South,
+nothing was more common than to see estates farmed
+by the faithful slaves, for widows, orphans, professional
+men, or non-resident proprietors, without any other
+superintendence than an occasional visit. Now, all this
+is at an end. The labourers are free hirelings, who,
+according to the anti-slavery argument, should be so
+superior in enlightened zeal and fidelity. But lo, the
+Southern people have found that eye-service has thereby
+increased ten-fold; and if there is any lesson which the
+South has effectually learned in these two years, it is,
+that perpetual and jealous supervision is the sole condition
+on which a meagre profit can be extracted from
+this wretched and grinding system; and that else, the
+impositions of the hired labourers inevitably result in
+speedy bankruptcy. Hard fact has demonstrated that
+the truth is precisely opposite to the pretty postulates
+of the anti-slavery philosophers, so called.</p>
+
+<p>It was currently asserted that one free white labourer
+did as much work as two or three slaves; and Southern
+gentlemen used often to be heard assenting to it.
+But here the reader should be reminded of what has
+been already shown; that if this industrial evil existed
+among us, that evil was not slavery, but the presence
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span>
+among us of four millions of recent pagans, characterized
+by all the listlessness, laziness, and unthrift of
+savages. Slavery did not make the intelligent and industrious
+worthless; nor does freedom turn the lazy
+barbarian into a civilized and diligent citizen. If there
+ever was any truth in this comparison of the efficiency
+of the African labourer with the free white, it doubtless
+existed when the former were newly brought into our
+country. The estimate then formed became traditionary,
+and prevailed after the partial training and civilization
+of the blacks had wholly removed its grounds.
+Several facts prove that no white agricultural labour
+was so efficient (especially under our ardent sun) as
+the Africans, had become. Of this, the crowning proof
+is, again, given us by the unfortunate experiences of
+actual abolition. Many Virginian proprietors, having
+still retained the old, but false prejudice, that the negro
+slave was a less efficient labourer than the white hireling,
+and being well assured that the labour of the
+slaves would be deteriorated by emancipation, procured
+white labour from the North. What was the result?
+An almost universal conviction that the freed negro,
+deteriorated as he was, proved still a better labourer
+than the white hireling! Consequently, the importation
+of white labour is totally relinquished. Another of
+these facts is, that in Middle Virginia, where the best
+free labour in America exists, and was once almost exclusively
+used, the slave population was, up to the war,
+steadily supplanting it in agriculture; and was more
+and more preferred by the most enlightened agriculturists.
+Another is, that the great contractors on our public
+works, many of them Northern men, who came to us
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span>
+provided with white labour, gradually convinced themselves
+that their works could be executed more cheaply,
+quickly, and quietly, by slaves. The third fact is, that
+along the line which separates Virginia and Pennsylvania,
+or Kentucky and Ohio, the lands immediately south
+of the line were more valuable than those immediately
+north of it. This is so well known that Senator Sumner,
+in his notorious libel on the South, admits its existence,
+and endeavours to evade its force by the following
+preposterous solution. He says: freedom, by its proximity,
+infuses something of its own vigour, virtue, and
+life, into the adjoining Southern community; so as to
+stimulate its prosperity; whereas, the blighting slave-power
+contaminates and palsies freedom along the line
+of its contact, so as to make it exhibit less than its
+usual happy effects. That is, we are invited to believe
+that the indirect influence of free labour is so potent
+that it can go across Mason's and Dixon's line, or the
+Ohio River, into the midst of the very blight and curse
+of slavery, and act so happily as to raise the price of
+slave-tilled lands to eighty dollars per acre; while its
+direct influences at home, on a soil uncursed with
+slavery, cannot sustain the price of exactly similar
+land at sixty dollars! And we are required to believe
+that while the mere shadow of slavery, falling across
+the border, sinks the price of land, otherwise blessed
+with the most profitable system, to sixty dollars, the
+actual incubus of the horrid monster on a soil unredeemed
+by the better system, raises it to eighty dollars!
+Common sense shows us the true solution. Two farms
+divided only by the imaginary line of the surveyor, of
+course differ nothing in the natural advantages of soil,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">324</a></span>
+climate and productions. Why, then, did the Virginian
+farm sell for twenty dollars more per acre? Because
+the owner could combine all the economy and efficiency
+of a system of slave labour, with the partial advantages
+of the system of free labour near him; and thus
+make his farm more profitable than his Pennsylvanian
+neighbour.</p>
+
+<p>But we are told that actual inspection showed the
+labour of the South to be wasteful, shiftless, and expensive,
+as compared with the free labour of the North.
+We reply, if it seemed so in any case, it is because the
+comparison is unfairly made. On the Northern side,
+the specimen is selected near some great city, in some
+"crack farming district," where the labour is stimulated
+by abundant capital, supplied with costly implements,
+and directed by the best skill of that section. On the
+Southern side, the specimen was taken from some ill-informed
+population, or some soil originally thin, and in
+a community depressed and depleted by the iniquitous
+taxation of Yankee tariffs. But let the best of each be
+compared; or the <i>medium</i> specimens of each; or the
+worst of each; and we fearlessly abide the test.
+Where slave labour was directed by equal skill and
+capital, it is shown to be as efficient as any in America.
+There was nowhere on our continent, more beautiful,
+more economical, or more remunerative farming, than
+in our densest slaveholding communities.</p>
+
+<p>A third argument against the economy of slave labour,
+is thus stated by Dr. Wayland: "It removes
+from both parties, the disposition and the motives to
+<i>frugality</i>. Neither the master learns frugality from the
+necessity of labour, nor the slave from the benefits
+which it confers," etc.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Now we emphatically and proudly admit that Southern
+society has not learned the frugality of New England;
+which is, among the middle classes, a mean, inhospitable,
+grinding penuriousness, sacrificing the very
+comfort of children, and the kindly cheer of the domestic
+board, to the Yankee <i>penates</i>, Mammon and Lucre;
+and among the upper classes a union of domestic scantiness
+and stinginess with external ostentation and profusion;
+a frugality which is "<i>rich in the parlour, and poor
+in the kitchen</i>." The idea of the Southern planter is the
+rational and prudent use of wealth to procure the solid
+comfort of himself, his children, and his servants at
+home, coupled with a simple and unostentatious equipage
+abroad, and a generous hospitality to rich and poor.
+But we fearlessly assert, and will easily prove to every
+sensible reader, that slavery was peculiarly favourable to
+the economical application of labour, and of domestic
+supplies and income. The attempt to carry the freehold
+tenure of land down to the yeomanry, subdivides
+land too much for economical farming. The holdings
+are too small, and the means of the proprietors too
+scanty, to enable them to use labour-saving machines,
+or to avail themselves of the vast advantages of combined
+labour. How can the present proprietor of a
+farm of five or ten acres in France or Belgium, afford a
+reaper, a threshing-machine, a three-horse plough, or
+even any plough at all? The spade, the wheel-barrow,
+the donkey, and the flail, must do his work, at a wasteful
+cost of time and toil. But the Southern system,
+by placing the labour of many at the direction of one
+more cultivated mind, and that furnished with more
+abundant capital, secured the most liberal and enlightened
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span>
+employment of machines, and the most convenient
+"division of labour." Moreover, the administration of
+the means of living for the whole plantation, by the
+master and mistress, secured a great economy of supplies.
+The mistress of Southern households learns far
+more providence, judgment and method in administering
+her stores, than are possessed by free labourers or
+by blacks. The world over, those who have property
+are more provident than those who have none. For,
+this providence is the chief reason why they have property;
+and the improvidence of the poor is the cause of
+their being poor. But even if the slaveholders had no
+more of these qualities, all can see that an immense
+saving is made by having one housekeeper for ten
+families, with one kitchen, store-house, and laundry, instead
+of ten kitchens, ten store-houses, and ten varying
+administrations of stores. A smaller supply of
+provisions secures a greater amount of comfort to all,
+and a great saving of labour is effected in preparation
+of food, and housekeeping cares. A system of slave
+labour is, therefore, more productive, because it is more
+economical.</p>
+
+<p>In all this argument, the anti-slavery men keep out
+of view a simple fact which is decisive of the absurdity
+of their position. They shall now be made to look it in
+the face. That fact is, that in free States, a large portion
+of all those who, from their moneyless condition,
+ought to pursue manual labour, are too lazy to do so
+voluntarily. But they must live, and they do it by
+some expedient which is a virtual preying on the means
+of the more industrious, by stealing, by begging, by
+some form of swindling, by perambulating the streets
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">327</a></span>
+with a barrel-organ and monkey, or by vending toys or
+superfluities. Their labour is lost to the community;
+and their maintenance, together with their dishonest
+arts and crimes, is a perpetual drain from the public
+wealth. But slavery made the lazy do their part with
+the industrious, by the wholesome fear of the birch.
+Slavery allowed no loafers, no swindlers, no "b'hoys,"
+no "plug-uglies," no grinders of hurdy-gurdies, among
+her labouring class. Who does not see that, even if
+the average slave in Virginia did only two-thirds of the
+day's work accomplished by the industrious free labourer
+in New York, yet, if all the idle classes in that
+great commonwealth, together with those now industrious,
+were compelled to do just the tasks of the average
+Virginia slave, there would be, on the whole, a vast
+and manifold gain to the public?</p>
+
+<p>Another potent source of the economy of the slave
+system in its influences upon publick wealth, is found in
+a fact which Northern men not only admit, but assert
+with a foolish pride. It is the far greater development
+of the local traffic of merchants among them. When
+your down-East commercial traveller, whose only conception
+of productive industry was of some arts of
+"living by his wits," saw this contrast between Northern
+and Southern villages and country neighbourhoods,
+he pointed to it with undoubting elation, as proof of the
+vastly superior wealth and productive activity of the
+North. But in fact, he was a fool; he mistook what
+was a villainous, eating ulcer upon the public wealth of
+the North, and on the true prosperity of the people, for
+a spring of profits. In a farming neighbourhood of the
+hireling States, he saw at every hamlet and cross-road,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span>
+pretentious shingle-palaces, occupied as large stores,
+where great accumulations of farm produce were paraded;
+sacks of meal, barrels of flour, bins of corn,
+packs of wool, garners of wheat, tubs of eggs, cans of
+butter, hogsheads of bacon, and even kegs of home-made
+soap, together with no little show of cheap finery.
+In the farming districts of the South, he rode along a
+quiet, shady road, with the country-seats of the planters
+reposing at a distance, in the bosoms of their estates;
+and found at long intervals a little country store, where
+a few groceries, medicines, and cloths were exposed for
+sale to sparse customers. Now this narrow trafficker,
+whose only heaven was buying and selling, very naturally
+jumped to the conclusion, that the South was so
+much poorer than the North, as she exhibited less local
+trade. Whereas in fact, she was just so much richer.
+And this unpopular assertion is, still, perfectly easy to
+demonstrate. The necessary labour of distributing commodities
+from producers to consumers, is a legitimate
+element of that fair market value, which they have when
+they finally reach the hand which consumes them. But
+political economists well know, and uniformly teach, that
+if any unnecessary middle-men interpose themselves between
+first producer and ultimate consumer, whose labour
+is not truly promotive of the economical distribution
+of commodities, then their industry is misdirected,
+the wages they draw for it in the shape of increased
+price of commodities passed through their hands is unproductive
+consumption, and they are a useless, a mischievous
+drain upon the common wealth. For instance,
+if a class of middle-men, retailers, or forwarding merchants,
+juggle themselves unnecessarily into the importing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span>
+dry-goods trade of the country; if they place themselves
+between the manufacturer in England, and the
+consumer in rural New York, grasping wages for their
+intervention, in the shape of an additional profit which
+falls ultimately upon the retail purchaser; while yet
+they really contribute nothing to the economical distribution
+of the dry-goods; every one sees that they are a
+nuisance; they grasp something for nothing; and are
+preying upon the publick wealth, instead of promoting
+it like the legitimate merchant. Honest men will speedily
+require legislation, to expel them and abate the nuisance.
+Apply now this well-known principle to the case
+in hand. The simple system of slaveholding distributed
+that part of the products of farms, which properly went
+to the labourers' subsistence, direct to the consumers,
+without taxing it unnecessarily with the profits of the
+local merchant. The master was himself the retail
+merchant; and he distributed his commodities to the
+proper consumers, at wholesale prices, without profit.
+The consumers were his own servants. He remarked,
+in the language of the country, that, for this part of
+his products, he "had his market at home." Now, is it
+not obvious that the consumer, the slave, got more for
+his labour, and that the system of hireling labour, by
+invoking this local storekeeper, instead of the master, to
+do this work of distribution to consumers, which the
+master did better without him, and without charge, has
+brought in a useless middle-man? And his industry
+being useless and unproductive, its wages are a dead
+loss to the publick wealth. This coarse fellow behind
+the counter, retailing the meal and bacon and soap,
+at extortionate retail prices, to labourers, should be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">330</a></span>
+compelled to labour himself, at some really productive
+task; and the labourers should have gotten these supplies,
+untaxed with his extortion, on the farms where
+their own labour produced them, and at the farmer's
+prices. Is not this true science, and true common
+sense? But this is just the old Virginian system.</p>
+
+<p>The justice of this view may be seen by a familiar
+case. A given landholder was, under our beneficent
+system, a slaveholder. He employed ten labourers;
+and for them and their families he reserved four hundred
+bushels of grain in his garners, which their labour
+and his capital jointly had produced. This grain
+is worth to him wholesale prices; and it is distributed
+by him to his servants, throughout the year, without
+charge. It is, in fact, a part of the virtual wages of
+their labour; and they get it at the wholesale price.
+But now, abolition comes: these ten labourers become
+freemen and householders. They now work the same
+lands, for the same proprietor; and instead of drawing
+their wages in the form of a generous subsistence at
+wholesale prices, they draw money. Out of that money
+they and their families must be maintained. One result
+is, that the landholder now has a surplus of four
+hundred bushels more than before. Of course it goes
+to the corn-merchant. And there must these labourers
+go, with their money wages, to buy this same corn, at
+the enhanced retail price. They get less for their labour.
+The local merchant, thus unnecessarily invited
+in, sucks a greedy profit; a vain show of trading activity
+is made in the community; and all the really producing
+classes are made actually poorer; while this
+unproductive consumer, the unnecessary retail trader,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">331</a></span>
+congratulates himself on his mischievous prosperity. It
+is most obvious, that when the advocate of the hireling
+system attempts to reply to this, by saying that his system
+has opened a place for an additional branch of industry,
+that of enlarged traffic, he is preposterous. The
+answer is, that the additional industry is a loss: it is
+unproductive. As reasonably might one argue that
+crime is promotive of publick prosperity, by opening up
+a new branch of remunerative industry,&mdash;that of police
+and jailors, (a well-paid class!)</p>
+
+<p>But sensible men ever prefer facts to speculations&mdash;the
+language of experience to that of theoretical assertion.
+Let us then appeal to the fact, as revealed by the
+statistics furnished of us, by the anti-slavery government
+of the United States. By the census of 1860, while
+the population of the Free States was not quite nineteen
+millions, their total of assessed values, real and personal,
+was $6,541,000,000: being three hundred and forty-six
+($346) dollars to each soul. The free white population
+of the South was a little more than eight and a quarter
+millions, and our total of assessed values was $5,465,808,000:
+being six hundred and sixty ($660) dollars to
+each soul; nearly double the wealth of the North. But
+if the four millions of Africans in the South be added,
+our people still have four hundred and forty-seven
+($447) dollars of value for each soul, black and white.</p>
+
+<h3>&#167; 4. <i>Effects of Slavery in the South, compared with those
+of Free Labour in the North.</i></h3>
+
+<p>The citations just made introduce a topic upon which
+anti-slavery men have usually abounded in sweeping
+assertion; the actual effects of our system on our industrial
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">332</a></span>
+concerns. A fair example of these assertions may
+be seen in Dr. Wayland, Moral Science, p. 210, (Boston,
+1838:) "No country, not of great fertility, can long
+sustain a large slave population. Soils of more than
+ordinary fertility cannot sustain it long, after the first
+richness of the soils has been exhausted. Hence, slavery
+in this country is acknowledged to have impoverished
+many valuable districts; and hence it is continually
+migrating from the older settlements to those new and
+untilled regions, where the accumulated manure of
+centuries of vegetation has formed a soil, whose productiveness
+may, for a while, sustain a system at variance
+with the laws of nature. Many of our free, and of our
+slaveholding States, were peopled about the same time.
+The slaveholding States had every advantage, both in
+soil and climate, over their neighbours; and yet the
+accumulation of capital has been greatly in favour of
+the latter," etc.</p>
+
+<p>The points asserted here are, that Northern men have
+grown rich faster than Southern men; that slavery has
+so starved itself out by its wasteful nature, as to be compelled
+to migrate from "many valuable districts," to
+virgin soils; and that it is slavery which exhausts those
+virgin soils. Each of these statements is absolutely
+false. That the first and most important of the three is
+so, we have just shown, by the overwhelming testimony
+of fact. Southern citizens have accumulated capital
+faster than Northern, in the ratio of six hundred and
+sixty to three hundred and forty-six. And the manner
+in which these thrice refuted lies are obtruded, may
+fairly illustrate the morality with which anti-slavery
+men have usually conducted their argument against us
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">333</a></span>
+That a conceited, pragmatical Yankee parson should be
+misled by rancourous prejudice around him, and by the
+concessions of foolish Southerners, to publish such statements
+thirty years ago, on a subject of which he knew
+nothing, is not very surprising. But surely Dr. Wayland,
+President of Brown University, Christian Divine,
+Instructor of youth, and <i>Teacher of Ethicks</i>,(<i>!</i>) would
+hardly have been expected to continue to print the
+falsehoods in successive editions of his work, after three
+successive <i>census returns</i> had utterly exploded them.</p>
+
+<p>The second statement we contradict by the <i>census</i>
+as categorically as the first. It is not true that slavery
+was compelled to emigrate, by its own exhaustion, to
+virgin soils in the South West. For, in fact, slavery
+has not emigrated at all. Slaves have emigrated, in
+large numbers; [as we presume, Yankees have.] But
+the institution has not receded, and, at the beginning
+of our war, was not receding from its old ground in
+Virginia and the Carolinas. The slave population of
+the old States has shown a steady increase at each
+decennial period, and except where the <i>penchant</i> of the
+Yankees for stealing them had rendered them insecure,
+they occupied substantially all the old counties, and
+spread into new ones, as they were settled.</p>
+
+<p>But we shall be asked: can it be possible that the
+representations so uniformly made by travellers, of the
+ragged, impoverished, and forlorn appearance of many
+districts of Eastern Virginia and the Carolinas, and of
+their poor and slovenly agriculture, are all mistaken?
+That there is much exhausted, and still more poor land,
+in these sections; that through extensive districts the
+soil and crops are now very thin, and the tillage rude,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">334</a></span>
+we explicitly admit. But this is by no means the same
+as admitting that it is slavery which has impoverished
+those regions. In the first place, of the larger part it
+is utterly false to say that they have ever been <i>impoverished</i>,
+by any cause; for they never had any fertility to
+lose. The statement usually made, as to the most of
+these old lands, is monstrously false. It has been
+usually represented that the Atlantic slope of Virginia
+was originally excessively rich, and has been brought
+to its present condition by slavery and tobacco. But
+in truth, this region, with the exception of limited spots,
+was naturally poor and thin; as every sensible person
+who has examined it knows. A vast proportion of it
+would scarcely have been judged susceptible of settlement
+at all, but for the attraction of its healthy climate,
+and the one or two crops of tobacco which its thin
+mould would produce. And it is only the thrifty industry
+of its inhabitants, together with the value of their
+staple, tobacco, which enabled them to live as plentifully
+as they did on so poor a soil.</p>
+
+<p>In the next place, the exhaustion is really far less
+than it appears to the Englishman or New Englander,
+and the tillage far more judicious and thorough. The
+agriculture of planting regions is, necessarily, very
+different from that of farming regions; and especially
+is the culture of the grasses to a very large extent precluded
+by the nature of the crops, the soil, and the
+climate. Hence, excellent lands in the South, especially
+during fall and winter, often lack that appearance
+of verdancy, which to the English eye is the chief
+measure of fertility. But to suppose those lands as
+exhausted as fields equally bare or brown would be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">335</a></span>
+correctly judged in grass regions, would be an amazing
+mistake. Nor is the management always indolent
+where it seems slovenly. The Southern planter is proverbially
+disinclined to consult mere appearances at the
+cost of substantial advantage. Though the fencing
+seem rough, and the farm ill kept in many respects,
+the accurate observer will find his cultivation of the
+valuable staples, cotton and tobacco, thorough and
+skillful. There is no neater culture than that of the
+tobacco fields of Virginia.</p>
+
+<p>Again: wherever the soil was originally fertile, in
+the Atlantic slope, as in the red lands of the Piedmont
+region, and the alluvial valleys of the great rivers, there
+the supposed decline of agriculture is unknown. All
+those lands which by nature were really fine, are now
+finer. The tillage was better, the yield per acre larger,
+the culture more remunerative, at the opening of the
+war, than at any date since the virgin forests were
+cleared away.</p>
+
+<p>But so far as there has been an actual exhaustion of
+Southern soil, [and that there has been is admitted,] it
+can be proved to be due to other causes than slavery.
+For an exhaustion precisely similar can be pointed out
+in many of the free States. In both regions, it has
+arisen from two causes: the proximity of new and cheap
+lands, to which the exhausting farmer could easily
+resort, and the possession of a valuable staple crop,
+whose profits powerfully stimulated large operations.
+Those free States which lay under the same circumstances,
+have undergone the same exhaustion, except in
+so far as a natural depth of soil has made the process
+slower. If any parts of our country have escaped the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">336</a></span>
+"skinning process" after their first settlement, it has
+been simply because they were not so fortunate as to
+possess any valuable staple, or else were too remote
+from a market. Western Vermont, sixty years ago,
+was resorted to as a fertile wheat growing district.
+Long ago it was so exhausted that the culture of wheat
+was nearly relinquished, and its inhabitants emigrated
+to the new lands of Western New York to raise wheat;
+while the wheat fields of Vermont are now sheep-walks,
+and her farmers buy their flour. But Western New
+York, in its turn, has declined, till its average crop per
+acre is only one-half the original; and its farmers have
+sought the fertile plains of Illinois and Michigan, to
+subject them in turn to the same exhaustion. Even
+Ohio, fertile Ohio, the boast of abolitionists, whose
+black loam seemed able to defy human mismanagement,
+is proved by the stubborn census tables to have declined
+one-half, already, in its yield per acre. And her own
+children acknowledge, that if the appearance of the
+older parts be compared with that of twenty years ago,
+the signs of exhaustion are manifest. This vicious
+system, then, is not traceable to slave labour, seeing it
+prevails just as often where no slave labour exists; but
+to the cheapness of new lands, and facility of emigration.</p>
+
+<p>Virginia presents other facts demonstrating the economy
+and efficiency of slave labour. The great Valley
+of Virginia (between the Blue Ridge and North Mountain
+Ranges,) is a farming and grazing region, of fertile
+soil and prosperous agriculture. In its great extent,
+some counties are occupied almost exclusively by free
+labour, and some have a large slave population. Now
+it is perfectly well known to all intelligent persons here,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">337</a></span>
+that precisely in those counties of this beautiful valley
+where there are most slaves, is the land highest in
+price, the agriculture most profitable and skillful, the
+farm buildings most elegant, and the community most
+prosperous and wealthy. Virginia east of the Blue
+Ridge is partly a farming and partly a planting region,
+having a mixed agriculture. Its soil is exceedingly
+different from that of the great valley, even where as
+fertile; and consequently the tillage is unlike. But
+there too, the neatest, most thorough and most profitable
+agriculture, and the highest priced lands, the finest farm
+stock, and the most prosperous landholders, are to be
+found precisely where the slave labour is most prevalent.
+And there is no agriculture in America superior
+to that of these favoured regions.</p>
+
+<p>But, in conclusion, even if the industrial pursuits of
+the South were in the unfavourable condition which the
+Yankees love to assert, the sufficient cause would be
+found, not in slavery, but in the exactions and swindlings
+of their own section, through sectional federal
+legislation. Let a sober statement of these exactions
+be weighed, and the wonder will be, not that the South
+should be depleted, but that she is not bled to death.
+In the first place, the Federal Government, at its foundation,
+adopted the policy of giving a fishing bounty,
+(to encourage, as it said, a school of sailors for the national
+marine,) which went wholly into the pockets of
+New Englanders. It is said that the bounties paid are
+yearly about one and a half millions. Supposing that
+half only of the sum thus taken from the Federal Treasury
+was paid in by the South, (which we shall see is
+less than the truth,) this bounty, with that part of its
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">338</a></span>
+increase which has accrued by simple interest alone,
+amounts now to one hundred and seventy-one millions,
+transferred by this unfair legislation from the South to
+the North. Next are to be mentioned the tonnage
+duties on foreign ships carrying between American
+ports, which, as the South had few ships, constituted a
+perpetual tax on us for the benefit of the North. Its
+amount cannot possibly be estimated with exactness,
+but it must have amounted to millions annually. Next
+came the oppression of a protective tariff, raising upon
+imports as high a revenue as sixty or seventy millions
+annually, in the last years of the government. As the
+South had few manufactures, and the North many, and
+as these duties, even where laid for revenue, were discriminating
+against the cheaper and better foreign
+manufactures which the South desired, in every case where
+discrimination was possible; it is manifest that the
+system constituted a simple robbery of the South of
+annual millions, for the benefit of the North. But we
+lost far more than the actual tariff on that portion of
+the national imports which were consumed at the South;
+because the restrictive policy, by throwing the balance
+of trade against the nations which took our grand
+staples of tobacco and cotton, deprived them of the
+ability to buy so freely, and at so large prices, as they
+would have done under a policy of free trade. Thus,
+the Southern planter not only paid the Northern manufacturer
+a profit on his goods equal to the protective
+tariff, but in the process of that robbery, lost several
+times as much more, in the prices which he should have
+received for his cotton or tobacco, had he been permitted
+to go with it to a free European market. This
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">339</a></span>
+method of legislative plunder was so wasteful, that the
+Yankee, in stealing one dollar from us, annihilated several
+other dollars of our values. Next may be mentioned
+the advantage which the North gained in the
+funding of the Federal debt incurred at the Revolutionary
+war. This was so juggled by the Hamilton party,
+as to give the avails of it chiefly to the North. The
+enjoyment of that fund, with its increase since, has
+made a difference of untold millions in favour of the
+North. Last: the North twice enjoyed the advantage
+of having the National Bank situated in its midst, and
+wielding for purposes of traffic a large part of the funds
+of the Government. This superior command of ready
+money, acquired in these various ways, enabled the
+North to develope commercial centres, and to fix the
+great markets in her territory, thus ensuring to her the
+countless profits of commissions, freights, etc., on Southern
+trade.</p>
+
+<p>Is it wonderful that the industry of a people thus
+swindled and plundered should languish? Who does
+not know the power of abundant capital, and especially
+of ready money, in stimulating enterprise and facilitating
+industry? Yet, under all this <i>incubus</i> the South
+has more than kept pace with its rapacious partner.
+When, therefore, the Yankee abolitionist points to any
+unfavourable contrasts in our condition, as evidence of
+the evil of slavery, he adds insult to falsehood: his own
+injustice has created the misfortune with which he
+taunts us, so far as that misfortune exists at all.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">340</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>&#167; 5. <i>Effects of Slavery on Population, Disease, and Crime.</i></h3>
+
+<p>But our enemies argue that slavery must be an obstacle
+to national growth and strength; for this is
+evinced by the very fact that they are nearly nineteen
+millions, and we only twelve and a quarter; when, at
+the beginning, the two sections were nearly equal in
+strength. Let us, therefore, look into this question.
+The increase of population is usually a sure test of the
+physical well-being of a people. Hardship and destitution
+repress population, by obstructing marriages,
+by breeding diseases, and by increasing the mortality
+of infants. If the population of the South be found to
+have a rapid natural increase, it will prove, therefore,
+the general prosperity of the people; and if the black
+race be found to multiply rapidly, it will be an evidence
+that their physical condition is happy, or in other words,
+that the institution of slavery is a humane one for
+them. Sufficient access being denied us to the statistics
+collected in 1860, our remarks must be based in
+part on the returns of 1850, and previous periods.
+These returns show that between 1840 and 1850, the
+whites of the free States increased thirty-nine and a
+half <i>per cent.</i>, (39.42,) and the whites of the slave States
+increased thirty-four and a fourth <i>per cent.</i>, (34.26.)
+The climate, the occupations, and the African labour of
+the South, repel almost the whole of that teeming immigration
+from Europe which has been rushing to our
+shores; so that making allowance for this source of
+population, it will be seen that the natural increase of
+Southern whites is as rapid as that of Northern.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">341</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In 1860, the whites in the free States had increased
+to about eighteen and a half millions; and in the slave
+States, to about eight and a quarter millions. The increase
+for the free States was, therefore, forty-two (42)
+<i>per cent.</i>, and for the slave States thirty-three <i>per cent.</i>,
+(33.) The census showed that in the decade between
+1840 and 1850, four-fifths of the foreign immigration,
+for the reasons mentioned, went into the free States.
+If we suppose the same ratio to have prevailed in the
+last decade, then the fact that the North has received
+four-fifths of the immense rush of Europeans who resorted
+to our shores in the last ten years, will abundantly
+account for this difference of increase. The
+South has grown as fast in white population, as the
+North would have done, left to itself.</p>
+
+<p>But the increase of the slave population of the South
+is obscured by no such disturbing cause. The South
+having magnanimously concurred, and even gone before,
+in suppressing the foreign slave trade, from a conviction
+of its immorality, the African race has received
+no accession whatever, in our day, from immigration.
+Between 1840 and 1850, the increase of the slave population
+solely from the excess of births over deaths, was
+twenty-eight and eight-tenths <i>per cent.</i>, (28.8,) and
+between 1850 and 1860, it was twenty-three and three-tenths
+(23.3) <i>per cent.</i> One cause for the diminished
+rate of increase in the latter decade, was doubtless the
+growing passion of the Yankees for the abduction of
+our slaves; which, towards the last, carried off thousands
+annually. But either rate of increase is more
+rapid than the whites, either North or South, ever attained
+without the aid of immigration. The <i>native increase</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">342</a></span>
+of the free States in ten years has probably been
+between eleven and fifteen <i>per cent.</i> So that tried by
+this well-established test, the physical well-being of the
+slaves is higher than of any race in the world. Meantime,
+the miserable free blacks of New England, in the
+midst of the boasted philanthropy of abolitionism, only
+increase at the rate of <i>one and seven-tenths</i> of one <i>per
+cent.</i> in ten years! Such is the stern and impartial
+testimony of fact. How calamitous must be that load
+of social oppression, of disease and destitution, which
+thus nearly annihilates the increase of this fruitful
+race! Yet this is the condition to which the benevolent
+abolitionist would reduce the prosperous servants
+of the South.</p>
+
+<p>This seems the suitable place to notice the most
+insulting and preposterous of the abolitionists' slanders.
+It is that expressed by calling Virginia the
+"slave-breeding commonwealth." What do these insolent
+asses mean? Do they intend to revile Virginia,
+because she did not suppress the natural increase of
+this peaceful and happy class of her people, by wholesale
+infanticide? Or because she did not, like the
+North, subject them to social evils so cruel and murderous,
+as to kill off that increase by the slow torture
+of vice, oppression, and destitution? It was the
+honour of Virginia, that she <i>was a man-breeding commonwealth</i>;
+that her benignant government made existence
+a blessing, both to the black man and the
+white, and, consequently, conferred it on many of both.
+If it has been proved, which we claim, that servitude
+was the best condition for the blacks, and that it promoted
+their multiplication, then this is a praise and not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">343</a></span>
+a reproach to Virginia. How perverse and absurd is
+the charge, that Virginia was actuated by a motive
+beastly and avaricious, in bestowing existence on
+many black men, and making it a blessing to them;
+because, forsooth, her wise government of them made
+them useful to the State and to themselves! By the
+same reason, the Christian parents who rejoice in children
+as a gift of the Lord, and a blessing to him "who
+hath his quiver full of them," are "slave-breeders," because
+they make their children useful, and hope to find
+them supports to their old age.</p>
+
+<p>But medical statistics have revealed the fact, that
+another sure test of the physical well-being and progress
+of a people may be found, in the <i>per-centage</i> of
+hereditary disease, idiocy, and lunacy among them.
+The hardships, destitution, and immoralities of a bad
+state of society have a powerful influence to propagate
+blindness, deafness, idiocy, scrofula, <i>cretinism</i>, and to
+harass the feebler minds into derangement; while the
+blessings of good government, abundant food and raiment,
+and social happiness, strengthen and elevate the
+"human breed." The returns of the census of 1850
+were collected by authority of Congress, on these
+points, and they show that of whites, North and South,
+about <i>one person in every thousand</i> is either deaf, dumb,
+blind, insane, or idiotic. Of free blacks in the North,
+<i>one person in every five hundred and six</i> was in one or
+the other of these sad conditions! Of the black people
+of the South, <i>one person among every one thousand four
+hundred and forty-six</i>, was thus afflicted. So that, by
+this test, Southern slaves are three times as prosperous,
+contented, happy, and moral as Northern free blacks,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">344</a></span>
+and once and a half times as much so as the whites
+themselves. The frightful proportion which these elemental
+maladies have reached among the wretched
+free blacks of abolitiondom, does more to reveal the
+misery of their condition there, than volumes of description.</p>
+
+<p>The statistics of crime and pauperism reveal results
+yet more astounding for our enemies, and triumphant
+for us. While the free States had, in 1850, about
+thirteen and a half millions, including a few hundreds
+of thousands of free blacks, and the South about nine
+and a half millions of whites and blacks, there were, in
+that year (23,664) twenty-three thousand six hundred
+and sixty-four criminal convictions in the North, and
+(2,921) two thousand nine hundred and twenty-one in
+the South. The same year, the North was supporting
+(114,704) one hundred and fourteen thousand seven
+hundred and four paupers; and the South (20,563)
+twenty thousand five hundred and sixty-three. One of
+the most remarkable things is the great excess of both
+crime and pauperism in the New England States, "the
+land of steady habits," not only as compared with the
+South, but as compared with the remainder of the
+North, except New York. In Boston and its adjacent
+county, in Massachusetts, the persons in jails, houses
+of correction or refuge, and alms-houses, bore, among
+the blacks, the ratio of <i>one to every sixteen</i>: and among
+the whites, of <i>one to every thirty-four</i>. In Richmond,
+Virginia, the same unhappy classes bore, among the
+blacks, the ratio of <i>one to every forty-six</i>, and among
+the whites, of <i>one to every one hundred and twelve</i>. By
+this test, then, the white people of Richmond are three
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">345</a></span>
+times as happy and moral as the white people of
+Boston, and the negroes of Richmond have proportionably
+one-third less crime than the white people of
+Boston, and are nearly three times as moral as the free
+blacks of that city.</p>
+
+<p>We have thus examined the testimony of facts, as
+given to us under the unwilling authority of the Congress
+of the United States. They show that, by all the
+tests recognized among statesmen, slavery has not
+made the South less populous, less rich, less moral,
+less healthy, or less abundant in the resources of
+living than its boastful rival, in proportion to its opportunities.
+On this evidence of experience we rest
+ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>In dismissing this head of our discussion, we would
+briefly touch two points. One is the annual production
+of the industry of the North and the South.
+Without burdening the reader with statistical details,
+it is sufficient to sum up the annual results of the three
+great branches, of agriculture, mining, and manufactures.
+The North exceeds the South in proportion to
+population, in wheat, hay, dairy products, and manufactures;
+while the South greatly exceeds the North in
+the great staples of Indian corn and tobacco, and surpasses
+it almost immeasurably in rice, cotton, and
+naval stores. Summing up the varied productions of
+each section, we find that the industry of the South is,
+on the whole, more productive than that of the North,
+relatively to its numbers. And of the great commodities
+which constitute the basis of foreign commerce,
+the South yields more than the North, in about the
+ratio of four to one!
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">346</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The other point is the relative improvement of the
+soil. According to the census of 1860, there were <i>four</i>
+acres of improved land to each inhabitant of the North,
+appraised, with their rateable proportion of stock and
+implements, at $223. This gives about $56 for each
+acre and its stock. In the South, on the other hand,
+each inhabitant claims <i>nine</i> acres of improved land,
+valued, with their stock and implements, at $322. This
+allows about $36 for each acre and its stock. It has
+been argued that this evinces the slovenly and imperfect
+agriculture of the slaveholding States, and the
+comparative exhaustion of their soils. It is said, their
+rude tillage is spread over a far wider surface, and
+conducted with inferiour appointments. And this depreciating
+result slavery has brought about, they assert,
+in spite of superiour natural advantages. We remark
+that, contrary to the usual assertion, the natural
+fertility was superiour in the free States. The soil of
+the Middle States had a better natural average than
+that of the old Atlantic slave States, and the North-western
+States had a vastly larger proportion of fertile
+lands than the South-western. In the next place, the
+agriculture of the South is of such a character that it
+requires a wider area; and yet this requirement argues
+nothing of its greater imperfection. It may require
+more space to fly a kite than to spin a top, and yet it
+does not follow that the kite-flying is less skillful sport
+than the top-spinning. An iron manufactory must necessarily
+cover more ground than a chemical laboratory;
+but no one argues thence, that the ironmonger is
+less a master of his trade than the manufacturer of
+drugs, of his. Last: the fact that the Southern planter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">347</a></span>
+accounts the labour of his farm as property, and so, as
+a part of his invested capital, causes a lower nominal
+valuation of his lands, though there be no inferiority of
+actual production. Grain and grass lands in the county
+of Rockingham have always sold higher than grain and
+grass lands in the county of Albemarle, which were
+actually yielding the same products annually. The
+former were tilled by free labour, and the latter by
+slave; but the Albemarle farming was confessedly as
+skillful, as economical, and as profitable, as the Rockingham.
+The explanation is the following: The Rockingham
+farmer, hiring his free labour, needed no more
+capital for this purpose than was sufficient to pay the
+wages of a few months in advance of the realization of
+his crop. The Albemarle farmer expended a large
+portion of his farming capital in the purchase of slaves,
+and afterwards paid no money in hire. The former, investing
+twenty thousand dollars in agriculture, could
+expend the whole sum in land, except what was required
+to stock it and pay wages for a few months.
+Thus he would begin by buying three hundred acres of
+land for eighteen thousand dollars. But the slaveholding
+farmer began by expending eight thousand dollars
+in the purchase of servants, leaving him but ten thousand
+to pay for the three hundred acres of land. For
+this reason land of the same actual value must be rated
+at a smaller nominal price among slaveholders than
+among farmers employing free labour. But the true
+profits of the farming are not reduced thereby, in the
+proportion of eighteen thousand to ten thousand. For
+the slaveholder no longer has to tax his crops, (equal
+in gross amount to those of the Rockingham farmer,)
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">348</a></span>
+with the hire of labourers. That tax he pays in the
+shape of the annual interest on the eight thousand dollars,
+which, in the first instance, he paid for his servants.
+Hence the facts do not argue that the land is
+intrinsically less productive or less profitable; they
+only argue a different distribution of capital between
+the two sources of production, land and labour. In
+consequence of that difference, the land must be represented
+by less money. This obvious explanation explodes
+much that has been taught concerning the comparative
+barrenness of Southern farming.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">349</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.<br />
+
+CONCLUSION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>These facts, then, have been established beyond
+question: That slavery was forced upon Virginia
+against her protests, by the cupidity of New England,
+and the tyranny and cupidity of Old England: That
+the African race being thus placed in the State without
+her agency, she adopted the remedy of domestic
+slavery, which is proved by the law of God in the Old
+and New Testaments to be innocent, and shown by
+events to be beneficent to the Africans: That, according
+to history, the laws of nations, and the laws of
+the British Empire inherited by the American States,
+slaveholding was lawful throughout the territories of
+the United States, save where it was restrained by
+State sovereignty: That it was expressly recognized
+and protected by the Constitution; such recognition
+having been an essential condition, without which the
+Southern States would never have accepted the Union:
+That every department of the government, and all
+political parties, habitually recognized the political
+equality of the slaveholding States, and of slaveholding
+citizens: That the Supreme Court, the authorized expounder
+of the Constitution, also recognized the equal
+rights of slaveholders in all the common territories:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">350</a></span>
+And that slavery proved itself at once, not only lawful,
+but eminently promotive of the well-being of the
+Africans, of the interests of the whole government, and
+of the publick wealth. Then the North, having ceased
+to find its own interest in the slave trade and slavery,
+changed its ground, and began to cast about, merely
+from a desire of sectional power in the confederacy,
+for means to destroy the institution. It is unnecessary
+to argue that the whole free-soil controversy, and the
+war which grew out of it, were really designed by
+them to destroy slavery in the States: for they themselves,
+in the pride of success, have long ceased to
+conceal that fact.</p>
+
+<p>Now, had slavery been intrinsically a moral and
+social evil, yet its protection was in the compact between
+the States; and to the honest mind, there was
+but one course for the North to adopt when she concluded
+that she could no longer endure her connexion
+with slavery. This was, to restore to the South the
+pledges, the fulfilment of which had become irksome;
+and to dissolve the Union peacefully and fairly, as it
+had been formed, leaving us in possession of our own
+country and rights, to bear our own sin, and pursue
+our own destiny. It was the federal compact alone,
+which gave the North any right to govern the South.
+If they repudiated that contract, it was annihilated
+equally for both parties. Thenceforward their claim
+to legislate for the South, or exercise any power over
+her, was baseless and iniquitous. No fair mind will
+dispute, that even though slavery had been an indefensible
+wrong, the South ought not to have permitted
+herself to be assailed for it, in an equal Union which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">351</a></span>
+she had sovereignly entered with this institution expressly
+recognized. But that basis of argument we
+utterly repudiate. We will not defend ourselves from
+such premises. We claim to have been justified, not
+only by the Constitution of the United States, but by
+God and the right, in our rights to slaves. Our <i>status</i>
+in the Federal Union was, so far, as equal, as honourable,
+as legal, as free from ethical taint, as that of
+any other States with their property in horses, ships,
+land, and factories.</p>
+
+<p>We have, in another place, (the Life of Jackson,)
+stated with sufficient fulness, the admitted facts and
+doctrines of the Constitution, which justified the Southern
+States in resuming their independence, when the
+compact, to which they had partially yielded it, was
+destroyed. The indisputable proofs (now fully admitted
+by anti-slavery men) might be cited, which showed
+that their election of a sectional President, with other
+aggressions, were intended to destroy the most acknowledged
+and vital rights of the States. Had Virginia
+assumed her attitude of resistance upon that
+event, she might have defended it by that maxim, so
+obvious to every just mind, that it is righteous and
+wise to meet the first clear aggression, even though its
+practical mischiefs be unimportant: that "a people
+should rather contend for their rights upon their
+threshold than upon their hearthstone." But we had
+stronger justification still. The aggression intended
+was practically vast and ruinous in its results. It has
+been shown in previous chapters, that the destruction
+of African slavery among us was vital to us, because
+emancipation by such means would be destructive of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">352</a></span>
+the very framework of society, and of our most fundamental
+rights and interests. All our statesmen, of all
+parties, had taught us, not only that the reserved
+rights of the States were the bulwarks of the liberties
+of the people, but that emancipation by federal aggression
+would lead to the destruction of all other rights.
+A Clay, as much as a Calhoun, proclaimed that when
+abolition overthrew slavery in the South, it also would
+equally overthrow the Constitution. Calhoun, and
+other Southern statesmen, with a sagacity which every
+day confirms, had forewarned us, that when once
+abolition by federal aggression came, these other sure
+results would follow: that the same greedy lust of
+power which had meddled between masters and slaves,
+would assuredly, and for the stronger reason, desire to
+use the political weight of the late slaves against their
+late masters: that having enforced a violent emancipation,
+they would enforce, of course, negro suffrage,
+negro eligibility to office, and a full negro equality:
+that negro equality thus theoretically established
+would be practical negro superiority: that the tyrant
+section, as it gave to its victims, the white men of the
+South, more and more causes of just resentment, would
+find more and more violent inducements to bribe the
+negroes, with additional privileges and gifts, to assist
+them in their domination: that this miserable career
+must result in one of two things, either a war of races,
+in which the whites or the blacks would be, one or the
+other, exterminated; or amalgamation. But while we
+believe that "God made of one blood all nations of
+men to dwell under the whole heavens," we know that
+the African has become, according to a well-known
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">353</a></span>
+law of natural history, by the manifold influences of
+the ages, a different, fixed <i>species</i> of the race, separated
+from the white man by traits bodily, mental and moral,
+almost as rigid and permanent as those of <i>genus</i>.
+Hence the offspring of an amalgamation must be a
+hybrid race, stamped with all the feebleness of the
+hybrid, and incapable of the career of civilization and
+glory as an independent race. And this apparently is
+the destiny which our conquerors have in view. If
+indeed they can mix the blood of the heroes of Manassas
+with this vile stream from the fens of Africa,
+then they will never again have occasion to tremble
+before the righteous resistance of Virginian freemen;
+but will have a race supple and vile enough to fill that
+position of political subjection, which they desire to
+fix on the South.</p>
+
+<p>But although Virginia well knew that the very existence
+of society was assailed by these aggressions, so
+strict was her loyalty to the Constitution, she refused to
+make the election of a sectional President the immediate
+occasion of resistance, because, outrage as it was,
+it was nominally effected by the forms of the Constitution.
+When her sisters, more advanced than herself in
+the spirit of resistance, resumed their independence,
+she refused to follow them. When, warned by thickening
+events, she assembled her Convention, immediate
+embodiment of her own sovereignty, it was not a convention
+of secessionists. Only twenty-five, out of the
+hundreds of members, advocated that extreme remedy.
+But she did by this Convention, what she had already
+done by her General Assembly: she repeated the assertion
+of the great principles on which the government
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">354</a></span>
+was founded; that it was built on the free consent of
+States originally sovereign, and not on force; that however
+wrongfully any State might resume its independence
+without just cause, the only remedy was conciliation,
+and not force; that therefore the coercion of a
+sovereign State was unlawful, mischievous, and must
+be resisted. There Virginia took her stand&mdash;on this
+foundation right, as essential to the well-being of assailant
+as of assailed. It was not for slavery that she
+deliberately resolved to draw the sword, cardinal as she
+knew circumstances rendered slavery at this time;
+but for this corner-stone of all constitutional liberty,
+North and South. And this, too, was a principle which
+she had always held against all assailants, in all ages
+of the Republick. She had asserted it firmly against
+her own favourite, Andrew Jackson, in the case of
+South Carolina, notwithstanding her disapproval of the
+nullifying doctrine then held by that State. She only
+asserted her time-honoured creed now. It was not
+until the claim to subjugate sovereign States was practically
+applied, that Virginia drew the sword; and then,
+not for slavery, but for the Constitution, and the liberties
+of a continent, which it had protected.</p>
+
+<p>It is therefore a great and an odious perversion of
+the truth, to say that the defensive movement of the
+South was a war to extend and perpetuate slavery.
+African slavery was not the <i>cause</i>, but the <i>occasion</i> of
+the strife, on either side. On the Northern side it was
+merely the pretext, employed by that aggressive section
+to carry out ambitious projects of domination. To
+the South, it was merely the circumstance of the controversy,
+that the right assailed was our right to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">355</a></span>
+labour of our servants. It was not the circumstance
+for which we contended, but the principle&mdash;the great
+cause of moral right, justice, and regulated liberty. It
+was therefore a gross injustice to burden our cause, in
+the minds of the rest of the world, with the <i>odium</i>
+which the prejudices of Christendom have attached to
+the name of slaveholder. Even those who are unable
+to overcome those prejudices, would, if just and magnanimous,
+approve our attempt to defend ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>Finally: the means by which this defence has been
+overpowered were as iniquitous as the attack. A war
+was waged, precipitated by treachery, aggravated by
+every measure of barbarity condemned by the laws of
+nations, by the agency of multitudinous hordes of foreign
+mercenaries, and semi-civilized slaves seduced
+from their owners; against captives, women, children,
+and private property; with the attempt to let loose
+upon our little community (which they found otherwise
+unconquerable) a servile insurrection and all the horrors
+of domestic assassination&mdash;an attempt disappointed
+only by the good feeling and good character which
+the servants themselves had learned from the humanity
+of their masters. The impartial and magnanimous
+mind which weighs these facts cannot but feel itself
+swelling with an unutterable sense of indignation. The
+Southern people feel little impulse to give expression to
+their sense of the enormous wrongs, in reproaches or
+vituperations of those who have thus destroyed them.
+When resistance was practicable, they gave a more expressive
+and seemly utterance to this sentiment, in the
+energy of their blows. Let the heroick spirit in which
+the soldiers of Virginia and the South struck for their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">356</a></span>
+liberties, and suffered, and died, represent our appreciation
+of this injustice. A righteous God, for our sins
+towards Him, has permitted us to be overthrown by our
+enemies and His. It is vain to complain in the ear of a
+maddening tempest. Although our people are now oppressed
+with present sufferings and a prospective destiny
+more cruel and disastrous than has been visited
+on any civilized people of modern ages, they suffer
+silently, disdaining to complain, and only raising to the
+chastening heavens, the cry, "How long, O Lord?"
+Their appeal is to history, and to Him. They well
+know, that in due time, they, although powerless themselves,
+will be avenged through the same disorganizing
+heresies under which they now suffer, and through the
+anarchy and woes which they will bring upon the
+North. Meantime, let the arrogant and successful
+wrongdoers flout our defence with disdain: we will
+meet them with it again, when it will be heard; in the
+day of their calamity, in the pages of impartial history,
+and in the Day of Judgment.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+
+<p class="center xxlarge">EDWARD J. HALE &amp; SON,</p>
+
+<p class="center">(<span class="smcap">Late of Fayetteville, North Carolina</span>,)</p>
+
+<p class="center large">Publishers &amp; Wholesale Booksellers &amp; Stationers,</p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>No. 16 MURRAY STREET, New York,</b></p>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>Publish the following works:&mdash;</p></blockquote>
+
+<table cellpadding="3" summary="ad1">
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">DEFENCE OF VIRGINIA, AND OF THE SOUTH. By Rev. Dr. <span class="smcap">Dabney</span>, author of a Life of Gen. (Stonewall) Jackson. 1 vol., 12mo, cloth</td>
+    <td class="tdr">$1&nbsp;50</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">DIARY OF A REFUGEE, DURING THE WAR. By a Lady of Virginia. 1 vol., 12mo, cloth</td>
+    <td class="tdr">2&nbsp;00</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">LIFE OF GEN. PAT. CLEBURNE. (In preparation.)</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA. By Rev. <span class="smcap">F. L. Hawks</span>, D.D., LL.D. 2 vols., 8vo, cloth</td>
+    <td class="tdr">5&nbsp;00</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">Library sheep</td>
+    <td class="tdr">6&nbsp;00</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">Half calf</td>
+    <td class="tdr">7&nbsp;00</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">DEVEREUX'S NORTH CAROLINA EQUITY REPORTS. New edition. Vol. 2.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">DEVEREUX AND BATTLE'S EQUITY REPORTS. New edition. 2 vols.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">DEVEREUX AND BATTLE'S NORTH CAROLINA LAW REPORTS. New edition. Vols. 1 and 2.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">IREDELL'S NORTH CAROLINA LAW REPORTS. Vols. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">IREDELL'S NORTH CAROLINA EQUITY REPORTS. Vols. 4, 5, 6, 7.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>They are prepared to furnish any of these, or complete sets
+of North Carolina Reports, as far as extant. Also, <span class="smcap">Battle's</span>
+New and Complete DIGEST of these Reports, brought down to
+1866, and superseding all former Digests. 3 vols.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+
+<p class="center xlarge p4">SOUTHERN SCHOOL BOOKS.</p>
+
+
+<p>The subscribers are prepared and will be pleased to supply
+their customers with School Books of all kinds in use, but are
+particularly desirous to extend the use of books prepared for
+Southern Schools, by Southern authors, and therefore free from
+matter offensive to Southern people. Most prominent among
+these may be mentioned the</p>
+
+<p class="hanging indent">NORTH CAROLINA READERS. By Rev. <span class="smcap">C. H. Wiley</span>, Superintendent
+of Common Schools in North Carolina, and Rev.
+Dr. <span class="smcap">Hubbard</span>, Professor in the University of North Carolina.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging indent">THE UNIVERSITY SERIES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE
+TEXT-BOOKS. By Professors <span class="smcap">Holmes</span>, <span class="smcap">Venable</span>, <span class="smcap">Gildersleeve</span>,
+<span class="smcap">De Vere</span>, and <span class="smcap">Le Comte</span>, of Southern Universities,
+and Captain <span class="smcap">M. F. Maury</span>, one of the most distinguished of
+living Geographers.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging indent">OUR OWN SERIES of Spellers, Readers, and Writing Books.
+By Rev. Professor <span class="smcap">Richard Sterling</span>, of Greensborough,
+N. C.</p>
+
+<p>Of the above, the following (wholesale prices annexed) are
+now, and others soon will be, ready:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table cellpadding="3" summary="ad2">
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">North</td>
+    <td class="tdc">Carolina</td>
+    <td class="tdc">Reader,</td>
+    <td class="tdr">No.&nbsp;1.</td>
+    <td colspan="3"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">30</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdr">2.</td>
+    <td colspan="3"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">50</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdr">3.</td>
+    <td colspan="3"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">75</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Holmes's</td>
+    <td class="tdc">Southern</td>
+    <td class="tdl" colspan="3">Pictorial Primer</td>
+    <td class="tdc">per&nbsp;dozen</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdr">75</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdl" colspan="3">Elementary Speller,</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><i>net&nbsp;cash</i></td>
+    <td class="tdr">1&nbsp;20</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdc">Pictorial</td>
+    <td class="tdr">1st</td>
+    <td class="tdc">Reader,</td>
+    <td class="tdl">each</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdr">20</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdr">2d</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td colspan="2"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">34</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdr">3d</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td colspan="2"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">45</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdr">4th</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td colspan="2"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">64</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdr">5th</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td colspan="2"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">1&nbsp;00</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Venable's</td>
+    <td class="tdl" colspan="6">First Lessons in Numbers</td>
+    <td class="tdr">24</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdl" colspan="6">Mental Arithmetic</td>
+    <td class="tdr">45</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">De Vere's</td>
+    <td class="tdl" colspan="6">Grammar in French</td>
+    <td class="tdr">1&nbsp;40</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Sterling's</td>
+    <td class="tdc">Southern</td>
+    <td class="tdc">Primer,</td>
+    <td class="tdl" colspan="2">paper,</td>
+    <td class="tdl">per dozen</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdr">90</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdl" colspan="2">stiff covers,</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdr">1&nbsp;08</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdl" colspan="3">Pictorial Primer,</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdr">2&nbsp;00</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdl" colspan="5">Speller, per dozen, <i>net cash</i></td>
+    <td class="tdr">1&nbsp;20</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdl">1st</td>
+    <td class="tdc">Reader,</td>
+    <td class="tdc">each</td>
+    <td colspan="2"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">25</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdl">2d</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td colspan="2"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">50</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdl">3d</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td colspan="2"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">60</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdl">4th</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td colspan="2"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">90</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdl">5th</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td colspan="2"></td>
+    <td class="tdr">1&nbsp;08</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl"><span style="margin-left:1.5em;">"</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc">"</td>
+    <td class="tdl" colspan="5">Writing Books, per dozen</td>
+    <td class="tdr">1&nbsp;80</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl" colspan="7">Bingham's Latin Grammar. By Col. W. Bingham, Principal of the celebrated Bingham School, Oaks, Alamance County, N. C. Each.</td>
+    <td class="tdr">1&nbsp;20</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl" colspan="7">Bingham's English Grammar. By the same. Each</td>
+    <td class="tdr">67</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl" colspan="7">Ross's Southern Speaker. By Professor Ross, of Louisiana</td>
+    <td class="tdr">1&nbsp;13</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl" colspan="7">Hill's Algebra (Gen. D. H. Hill, of "The Land we Love")</td>
+    <td class="tdr">1&nbsp;50</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>They respectfully invite orders for these or other School,
+Miscellaneous, and Standard Books, Stationery, &amp;c., &amp;c., from
+their friends and the Southern public. They believe that they
+supply Booksellers, Merchants, Teachers, and others, with goods
+quite as cheaply, for cash, as they can be bought in this city.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Address</p>
+<p class="center large">E. J. HALE &amp; SON,</p>
+<p class="center">No. 16 MURRAY STREET, NEW YORK.</p>
+
+<table summary="pointer finger">
+<tr><td><img src="images/pointingfinger.png" width="55" height="25" alt="pointer finger" /></td>
+    <td><i>Any Book, of their own or others' publications, will be sent
+by Mail, free of postage, on receipt of Publisher's advertised retail price.</i></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote">
+<h2>Footnotes:</h2>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Bancroft, Hist. U. S., vol. iii., p. 232. Com. Boutwell, Slave
+Trade. Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 414.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 415.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Ibid., vol. iii., pp. 411, 412.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Speeches of Pitt and Fox, in Clarkson's Hist., pp. 315, 339.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Herring, Stat. at Large, vol. ii., p. 516.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Campbell's Virginia, p. 304.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Winthrop's Journal, i., 254. Moore's Slavery in Mass., pp. 5, 6.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Moore's Slavery in Mass., p. 32.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Ibid., p. 38.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Ibid., p. 47.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> On the whole of above, see Moore, pp. 33-46.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Moore, p. 45.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Ibid., pp. 33, 34.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The following passage, from a late valuable letter of Thomas P.
+Devereux, Esq., of Halifax County, North Carolina, to the Governor
+of that State, gives us one <i>item</i> of evidence as to the extent of this
+abominable usage of the "Pilgrim Fathers." See Raleigh Daily Sentinel,
+Dec. 12th, 1866: "It is worthy of note that, amongst my slaves,
+there was a large intermixture of Indian blood from the Pequots,
+brought from Massachusetts and sold in North Carolina, in the early
+part of the 18th century, and, up to the act of emancipation, I could,
+with tolerable certainty, detect the mixed race by their addiction to
+liquor and its effects upon them."</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Herring, Stat. at Large, vol. i., pp. 395, 415, 456.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 231.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Moore's Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 6.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Moore, p. 68.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Idem, pp. 59, 60.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Moore, pp. 50, 51.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Bancroft, vol. iii., ch. 24, does justice to the crimes of England
+against the Africans, and against her own colonies; but is absolutely
+silent touching the complicity of New England! And, as though this
+<i>suppressio veri</i> were not enough, he proceeds to a studious <i>suggestio
+falsi</i>. Page 405th he says: "Of a direct voyage from Guinea to the
+coast of the United States, no journal is known to exist, though slave
+ships from Africa entered nearly every considerable harbour south of
+Newport." And, p. 410: "The English continental colonies, in the
+aggregate, were always opposed to the African slave trade." We
+have seen evidence, that Bancroft must have known that every American
+slaver which ever entered a port of the United States, was either
+from this same Newport, or other ports north of it. We shall see
+hereafter, that he must have known also, that Massachusetts was certainly
+not among that "aggregate" of the colonies which opposed the
+African slave trade. Yet, in this chapter, he endeavours expressly to
+produce that impression. See p. 408.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> St. Paul's description of Abolitionists, 1 Tim., vi., 1-5.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Felt's Salem, ii., 289, 290.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Code of Virginia, p. 36.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Madison Papers, iii., 1390.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Rev. P. Fontaine, Huguenot Family, pp. 348, 351.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Hening, Stat. at Large, vol. iii., p. 193.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Idem, pp. 212, 233.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Idem, pp. 346, 492.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Hening, vol. iv., p. 319.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Hening, iv., 394, and v., 29, 92, 160, 318.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Hening, viii., 336.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Idem, 531.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> House Journal.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Hening, v. ix., p. 471.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Moore, Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 227.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Jefferson's Correspondence, vol i., p. 15.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Madison Papers, v. i., pp. 422-425.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_39" id="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Ibid., v. ii., p. 1234.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_40" id="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Madison Papers, v. iii., pp. 1398 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_41" id="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> De Bow, Compend. of Census, 1850, pp. 83, 84.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_42" id="Footnote_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Com. Boutwell.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_43" id="Footnote_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> De Bow, p. 84.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_44" id="Footnote_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Journal do Commercio, (Rio,) May 26, 1856.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_45" id="Footnote_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 414.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_46" id="Footnote_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Moore's Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 162.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_47" id="Footnote_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Justice Campbell, in Howard, 19th, Dred Scott Case.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_48" id="Footnote_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Idem.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_49" id="Footnote_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> See, on all the following statements from Lord Mansfield, Lofft's
+Reports, 12th Geo. 3d, pp. 1, 8, 17, 18, etc.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_50" id="Footnote_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> What the <i>villein in gross</i> was, may be learned from the following,
+of Bracton, Lib. iv., 208:
+<br />
+<br />
+"Purum villenagium est, a quo pr�statur servilium incertum et
+indeterminatum; ubi scire non potest vespere, quale servitium fieri
+debet mane, viz., ubi quis facere tenetur quicquid ei pr�ceptum fuit."
+See also Blackstone, Lib. ii., 93.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_51" id="Footnote_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Justice Campbell, on Dred Scott case, 19th Howard, 109.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_52" id="Footnote_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Parliament, 15th Geo. 3d.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_53" id="Footnote_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Hening, Stat. at Large, vol. ii., p. 283.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_54" id="Footnote_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Hurd, Law of Freedom and Bondage, &#167; 216, i., 225.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_55" id="Footnote_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Moore, Slavery in Mass., pp. 12, 15.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_56" id="Footnote_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> 2d Haggard, p. 94.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_57" id="Footnote_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Letter to Lord Stowell.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_58" id="Footnote_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Justice Catron, 19th Howard, p. 131.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_59" id="Footnote_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Letter to Robert Walsh, Nov. 27, 1819.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_60" id="Footnote_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> 19th Howard, pp. 12, 33.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_61" id="Footnote_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> 19th Howard, p. 57.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_62" id="Footnote_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Ibid., p. 38, 58.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_63" id="Footnote_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> 19th Howard, p. 58.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_64" id="Footnote_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Law of Massachusetts, 1786, re�nacted 1836. Rhode Island, Laws
+of, 1822 and 1844.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_65" id="Footnote_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Code of New Hampshire, 1815. Acts of Congress, 1792.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_66" id="Footnote_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Federalist, No. 38. Letter to Walsh, 1819.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_67" id="Footnote_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> 19th Howard, pp. 40, 41.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_68" id="Footnote_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> 19th Howard, pp. 44, 45.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_69" id="Footnote_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Moore, Slavery in Mass., p. 242.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_70" id="Footnote_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Moore, Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 212.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_71" id="Footnote_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Ibid., p. 216, etc.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_72" id="Footnote_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Chief Justice Parsons, Mass. Rep., 4, Winchedon <i>v.</i> Hatfield.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_73" id="Footnote_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Rep. of C. J. Hoadly, State Librarian of Connecticut.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_74" id="Footnote_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Chancellor Kent.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_75" id="Footnote_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> Idem.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_76" id="Footnote_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Moore, Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 229.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_77" id="Footnote_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> The negroes freed by Virginians, with their increase in Ohio,
+Pennsylvania, Liberia, etc., are 100,000 at least. The maximum number
+of slaves freed by the above States was, New Hampshire 629,
+Massachusetts 6,000, Rhode Island 4,370, Connecticut 6,000, New York
+20,000, New Jersey 12,422, Pennsylvania 10,000. Total, 59,421. Such
+was the largest number of original freedmen made by those States of
+their own slaves. When we remember that the census has proved
+that in the Northern States their natural increase has almost ceased
+for several decades, and in some there has been an actual diminution,
+it appears very plain that they and their progeny do not now number
+100,000. Meantime, the votes of the New England States assisted to
+add more than 600,000 to the number of slaves in Carolina!</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_78" id="Footnote_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> From April 31st, 1860, to May 31st, 1862, two years and one month,
+there were <i>two</i> criminal convictions of negroes by Prince Edward
+Court. From April 31st, 1865, to April 31st, 1867, a less period by one
+month, there were, in the same court, thirty-five criminal indictments
+of negroes, and fifteen convictions, leaving thirteen cases over to be
+tried at subsequent terms. And this aggregate of crime has already
+accumulated in our once peaceful little community, notwithstanding
+that the jurisdiction of our courts over negroes was totally suspended
+by our conquerors for a number of months after April 31st, 1865.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_79" id="Footnote_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Names and places are suppressed in this publick statement, for
+obvious reasons of regard for meritorious survivors. But the official
+records are at hand, and will be furnished any gainsayer.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_80" id="Footnote_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Code of 1849, Ch. 191, &#167; 9. Edit. 1860, p. 784.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_81" id="Footnote_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Code of 1849, Ch. 208, &#167; 30.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_82" id="Footnote_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Chapple's case, I. Virginia cases, 184. Carver's case, 5th Randolph's
+Rep., 660.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_83" id="Footnote_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> 7th Grattan, 673, etc.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_84" id="Footnote_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Code of Va., 1849, Chap. 191, &#167; 17. The same may be found at its
+appropriate place in the Code of 1860, which is little more than a
+reprint of the Code of 1849.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_85" id="Footnote_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Code of Va., 1849, Chap. 106.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_86" id="Footnote_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Code, 1819, p. 585, Ch. 158.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_87" id="Footnote_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Code, 1849, p. 725, Ch. 191, &#167; 15.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_88" id="Footnote_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> Burnett's case, 2 Va. cases, 235. And this was an indictment
+for rape.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_89" id="Footnote_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Moral Philosophy, Bk. 3, p. 2, Ch. 3: "The inordinate authority
+which the plantation laws confer upon the slaveholder, is exercised
+by the <i>English</i> slaveholder, especially, with rigour and brutality."</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_90" id="Footnote_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Notwithstanding Locke's amiable and pious spirit, the history of
+philosophic opinion has shown that he is but a disguised follower of
+the philosopher of Malmesbury. His psychology is but a system of
+sensationalism, and his ethics lead to the denial of original moral
+distinctions. Locke is chargeable with the germs of all the mischievous
+and atheistical doctrines developed by Hume in Great
+Britain, and Cordillac in France.</p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_91" id="Footnote_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> See Code of Va., 1849, Chap. 10 &#167; 6.</p>
+
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<h2>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:</h2>
+
+
+<p>Apparent printer's errors and inconsistent spellings have been kept,
+including inconsistent use of hyphen (e.g. "church-members" and "church members").</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Defence of Virginia, by Robert L. Dabney
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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