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.
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.
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.
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 Judœus 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.
§ 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.
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.