Part 2

In this state of things, it is in vain to appeal to the fact that Mr. Jefferson, though a profound statesman, and to some extent a logician, was neither a divine nor a metaphysician; and that no people on the globe have shared more largely in the blessings of a bountiful Providence than those of the Southern States of this Union. In the progress of civilization and religion, they have advanced more rapidly than any communities in the country. Still, Mr. Jefferson’s name does not lose its enchantment; and having already learned to despise the unexampled blessings of Providence, many of the Southern people actually believed--until railroad communications began to dispel the illusion--that their own happy States were really falling back in civilization to the darkness of the middle ages. Add to all this, the halls of legislation continue to echo the opinion that “domestic slavery is a great moral, political, and social evil.” In this connection, the phrase, moral evil, is restricted to its appropriate meaning, _sin_. No doubt, Messrs. Doddridge, Rives, Clay, Webster, and many others--illustrious names!--who have substantially used this language in various connections, only meant to deprecate the evils of slavery in strong terms, that they might propitiate a more favorable consideration of what they had to say in its defence. But if we be correct in the position already postulated, it is quite time our politicians, no less than our ecclesiastics, had learned to chasten their language on this subject. The fountains of public thought and feeling have, to a great extent, been poisoned: that is, the abstract opinions and religious sentiments of the people have been corrupted and perverted.

The three great Protestant denominations[1] of the country have been torn asunder. The flags of their time-honored unions are trailing in the dust; and they have ceased to operate as bonds to our political union. A secret suspicion of the morality of African slavery in the South, occupies the minds of many of our best citizens--citizens who are at a vast remove from the fanaticism which stigmatizes those who are known as the ultra abolitionists of the country. The great family of Methodists in the District of Columbia, the slave States of Delaware and Maryland, in Western Virginia, and a part of Missouri, retain their connection with the abolition division of the M. E. Church. All along the line of division between the M. E. Church, North, and the M. E. Church, South,--running through Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri,--the evils resulting from the conflict and strife of opinions on this subject are daily multiplying. The experiment of abolition fanaticism is progressing; and the souls as well as the bodies of men are in the crucible. It is clear that “whilst we have slept, an enemy hath sown these tares,” in our literature, our politics, and our theology.

[1] The Methodists and Baptists, it is well known, divided directly upon the subject of slavery; and the Presbyterians mediately upon a question of constitutional law; but there is reason to believe that the slavery agitation in the Presbyterian Church precipitated a division, which otherwise would probably have been averted.

Two striking phenomena remain to be noticed and accounted for. Amid all the conflict of opinion and feeling upon this subject,--which was inseparable from doctrines so utterly at war with the practices of the country--a conflict which at an early period found its way into the halls of legislation, civil and ecclesiastical, and has not ceased to the present time to modify the federal politics of the country,--the African population has yielded only to certain physical and moral laws as to the place of its location; whilst the institution of slavery, which embodies the great mass of that population in the country, has held on the even tenor of its way, unchecked in the slightest degree by the antagonistic doctrines and sentiments which have warred so fiercely against it, and which at so many periods have threatened the country with a legion of disastrous consequences. In the first place, the African population has gradually receded to those sections of the Union which, from their climate and soil, were better adapted to slave labor. Why did not the abstract opinions and sentiments set forth by Mr. Jefferson and the M. E. Church, and which are supposed to have given birth to the emancipation laws of the Northern States, operate to retain within those States the large portion of slave population then held, and secure their practical freedom? Why did they escape the supposed charity of these doctrines, and find their way, not as freemen, but as slaves, to a climate and soil more congenial to their nature and destiny? Are these doctrines real abstract truths, as their advocates profess to believe them to be? Then they are fundamental--they are vital--they are life-giving, and can never fail to impress their own essential character upon every system to which they are applied. The citizens of the Northern States adopted these doctrines. Then it was an affair of conscience. Emancipation laws were said to be the result. But that these laws, supposed to be founded in the belief of certain great abstract truths, which secured to the African his civil freedom, should operate only to transfer him to a climate and soil better suited to his condition as a slave, is a phenomenon for which the hypothesis does not account. And again, the institution itself, of domestic slavery, by reason of causes which are evidently, though mysteriously, at work, is this day more firmly grounded in the confidence of the great mass of the Southern people, and more extensively ramified and interlocked with other civil institutions of the whole country, than at any former period of its history! How is this? The abstract opinions and sentiments in question, pervading our literature, our politics, and our theology, have been adopted by so many of our citizens as to entitle the doctrine to be regarded as a kind of national belief--the sentiment a kind of national feeling. We are told that all men _believe_ slavery to be wrong in principle; that is, wrong in itself! and that all men feel that it is wrong! And certain it is, there is more truth than fiction in all this! It is strictly true, as to the citizens of the so-called free States. The same doctrine is not without advocates at the South; whilst many more, as we have before stated, who may not be said to believe it, are nevertheless often the subjects of painful misgivings. They _fear_ it may be true. The causes to which we have traced this, fully account for it; and we need not fear to state the truth. But then again, the question recurs--How is this, that the institution itself, a great practical truth, should daily, for a long series of years, become more and more practical--a fixed fact in the country? Truly, this is a phenomenon for which the philosophy of the day will not account. If those who believed this doctrine were ruthless fanatics--ultra abolitionists in the strictest sense--if those who oppose it were really “pro-slavery” men, in the bad sense in which certain persons understand this phrase, that is, men who, on the subject of slavery, wickedly do what they know and feel to be wrong: on either hypothesis we could account for the phenomenon in question. But these are not the men with whom I deal in these lectures. I lay all such out of the account. They are men not to be reasoned with. No: the men of whom I speak, both North and South, are candid, honest men. I personally know many of them at the North. I have met them on great battle-fields, where more than blood was shed! I know them to be good men and true, and I believe the same of the large class they represent. With many of those at the South who affiliate with them in opinion as firm believers in Jefferson’s doctrine, or whose embryo opinions excite painful misgivings of mind, I have often communed freely, and have equal confidence in their integrity and honesty. The whole taken together form a very numerous class, and may be safely regarded as embodying the national belief and feeling on the subject of slavery. And yet we find that slavery is a great practical truth, a fixed fact in the country. Now, can it be true that this opinion and feeling embodies a great abstract truth--a fundamental, vital, immutable principle, which never did and never can fail to hold practical error in check, because it takes hold of the conscience of an honest people--and whose tendency, therefore, is always to an ultimate practical triumph, with all those who honestly receive it? We dare not affirm this.

It is not mere belief, nor is it mere honesty, that produces results in practice; but it is the _reception of the truth in an honest heart_, which can never fail to result in practice. Now in this case the people are honest, and the people believe; and if it be essential truth which they thus believe, then, we say, the fact that in all those States of this republic in which climate and soil are adapted to African labor--that precisely there the institution of domestic slavery should be rooted in the practice of a large portion of this believing and honest people, and that it should strike its roots into the federal constitution, and penetrate deeper and deeper every year into the legislation of the whole country, and thus implicate more and more the whole mass of this believing people in the sin of it, is a phenomenon, for which the postulate, that it is the truth they believe, does not account--nor can it be made to account.

A false principle may be believed to be the truth. And a false principle believed, has its results, because it is believed; and they very much resemble the results of truth believed. But we dare not admit that error can take hold of the conscience as pure principle, essential truth will do it. But, again, there is another great psychological fact, which is often overlooked. A false principle may be honestly believed by minds which, at the same time, adopt antagonistic principles that are essential truths; but, owing to various causes calculated to confuse the ideas, the inconsistency is not perceived. Now, in such a case as this, the principle of essential truth is really brought into practical antagonism with essential error, and that in the same minds and upon the same subject. And as truth is more powerful than error in the minds of all honest people, the truth holds its way in practical results, in defiance of false principle, which is relatively powerless in the presence of truth. The antagonism between the false principle and the practical results of things may be perceived and acknowledged; whilst the antagonism of the false principle with the true principle, which underlies and produces these practical results by a law of its own operation, is not only not perceived, but actually denied to exist. Now so long as this false principle is honestly believed to be true, and clearly perceived to be in conflict with the _practice_, but not perceived to be in conflict with other and more latent principles, which are in themselves _truths_, and admitted to be _truths_, and which produce this _practice_, just so long will this false principle wage war, by the simple law of belief, against this _practice_. But as this war is not sufficiently potent to overturn this practice, because it is founded on the belief of principles _true_ in themselves, the practice will remain; and so long as this false belief remains, the strife with the practice must remain. Hence, if this be the state of the public mind in this country on the subject of African slavery, and it find no efficient remedy, we can see nothing awaiting us but interminable strife--men against themselves--the country against the country! We forbear to sketch the future.

But, young gentlemen, I submit if this psychology may not furnish a solution of the phenomena I have brought to your notice, and also a remedy against that otherwise interminable strife which has already done so much to impair the moral power and blight the fairest hopes of the country. May it not be that in admitting the great abstract doctrine of Mr. Jefferson, that the principle of African slavery is, _per se_, sinful, and that, as such, the attributes and providence of Deity are opposed to all who practice it, we have most unwisely admitted a false doctrine? And as this false doctrine, though honestly believed by a number sufficiently large to designate it as the national belief and the national feeling, has utterly failed to abolish or even to modify the institution of African slavery, does it not afford a strong and clear presumption, to say the least, that this system which has held unbroken dominion over the African race in this country for over two centuries, and which continues to strike its roots deeper and deeper into all the relations of society, North and South--that this system, so potent in practical results, and so heedless of the fierce war that is waged against it, is, after all, _underlaid_ somewhere by a _vast mine of principles_--_pure essential truths_--which are firmly rooted in the belief of all civilized and honest men, and which, all along, have imparted a spontaneous being and activity to the system, and will continue to do so perhaps as long as any considerable portion of the race shall remain in the country?

If this hypothesis shall prove true, the sovereign remedy for the otherwise interminable strife, so potent for mischief, is at hand. Let us then free ourselves, let us free the country, of the dominion of Mr. Jefferson’s philosophy, because it is false. In doing this, we shall terminate the conflict which now rages with so much violence. We shall be free to address ourselves to any modifications in the system of African slavery which may be demanded to adapt it to the progress of civilization.

Regarding the whole subject in this light, the duty of thoroughly investigating it seems to me to be laid upon the country as a moral necessity. It is useless to talk of “delicacy and humiliation,” in the presence of such fruits as a false philosophy has already borne plentifully throughout the land.

As your chosen instructor, I owe you a service. I dare not give up your minds to the dominion of Wayland’s Philosophy, (your text,) nor to any other text on this subject, now known to the country. I propose to lead your way in _exploring the mine of truth_ which we may assume to underlie the system of African slavery. We may look with confidence to reach these results:

1. That the philosophy of Jefferson is false, and that the opposite is true, namely, that the great abstract principle of domestic slavery is, _per se_, RIGHT; and therefore it is not in the use but in the abuse of this principle that we are liable to sin, and thereby incur the Divine displeasure.

2. That we should have a Southern literature. Our schools must be supplied with correct text-books on this subject. The poison which our texts now contain must be distilled from them by the learned of the land. The Church should not only right herself as she has done in the South, but her voice should be heard in the pulpit enforcing _right principles_, as well as right duties, upon this subject. Truth is at all times intolerant of any abuse. Her voice should certainly be heard under circumstances so urgent as the present. It is due to many in Southern communities whose minds are, more or less, disturbed by the long-continued abuse of the pulpit, and the social influence of mistaken ministers of religion in private life. It is due to the interests of our common country. We have lost much already in suppressing the truth. We have much to gain by boldly asserting her claims--for “truth is great, and will prevail.”

“Truth crushed to earth will rise again: The eternal years of God are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies amid her worshippers.”

LECTURE II.

THE ABSTRACT PRINCIPLE OF THE INSTITUTION OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY.

If the system be sinful, _per se_, the sin of it must be found in the principle--Is the principle sinful?--The principle defined--Objections to the term submission answered--The effect of Mr. Jefferson’s doctrine upon many conscientious persons in the Southern States.

I now propose to enter directly upon the inquiry, _Is the institution of domestic slavery sinful?_ My plan will make it necessary, in this lecture, to limit the inquiry to the _principle_ of the institution. If the institution be sinful, it must be so either in the abstract principle it involves, or in the specific form under which it embodies that principle, or in both. In either case, Mr. Jefferson’s doctrine is verified; for if the _abstract principle_ be wrong, then the institution which envelops the principle, and from which it derives its character, is of course wrong. It certainly is never right to act upon a wrong principle. Injustice, as a principle, is confessedly wrong in itself, according to the ideas of all mankind. No form which an action can take will make it right, if it proceed upon an unjust principle. Hence, no circumstances can justify any man in knowingly doing an act of injustice. If the institution of domestic slavery envelops the idea of injustice, or any similar element, as its generic or abstract principle, in such case it would certainly be wrong both in principle and in practice; that is, wrong in itself; and we should, without scruple, abandon the controversy. But a similar conclusion will not follow from a contrary proposition; that is, it will not follow, that if the abstract principle of the institution be right, the institution itself is right; because the truth of a conditional proposition does not turn on the hypothesis, but on the _consequent_, as both true in itself and dependent upon the antecedent condition. That this is not the case in this instance is developed by the fact that the _affirmative_ proposition involved in this conditional is, in itself, an absurdity, viz., “An _abstract principle_ of action being right, the _action itself_ is right.” This is absurd. For instance, justice, in itself, is a _right principle_ of action, according to the ideas of all mankind; but it does not follow that all actions which proceed upon the principle of _justice_ are _right_ actions. A. justly owes B. one hundred dollars: now, to enforce the payment of this money would be in itself a just act, because the money is honestly owed by A.; but if, in doing this, B. should take the last bed from under the wife and children of A., and deprive them of the last morsel of bread, the _act itself_ would be a very wicked one, and he would be judged by mankind as but little less guilty than a highway robber, because this is a case in which the claims of _benevolence_ march before the claims of mere _justice_. Not to respect the claims of benevolence in such a case is to act upon the _principle_ of pure _selfishness_. This act, then, would envelop also a wrong principle--selfishness; and it is the nature of a wrong principle to spread the hue and poison of guilt over every act into which it enters. Truth, and its opposite, as principles, are striking examples. If we speak at all, we should speak the truth. Every utterance into which, in its proper, generic sense, the _lie_ enters, even in the least degree, is a poisoned act; and he who does this, is to that extent a basely wicked man, however smooth his tongue or winning his manners. Guilt has poisoned his utterance; and if this vice be not speedily arrested in its progress, it will spread itself through the whole mass, and break down his entire moral constitution. But it does not certainly follow that all utterances which are in themselves _truths_, are right utterances. There are many facts, to which, if we were to give utterance, we should only speak the truth, but at the same time we all know that they should lie buried (perhaps for ever) in the depths of our own hearts. To injure our neighbor by speaking the truth when no claim of paramount justice demanded it, and the claims of charity or kindness forbade it, would be a wicked act. For a child in a similar way to injure a parent would be the conduct of a demon. All such acts, though they envelop a right principle--truth--do at the same time envelop a wrong principle--_malevolence_; and it is the nature of wrong principle to stamp every act into which it enters with the character of guilt--_it is wrong_.

The conclusion we reach is this: If the abstract or generic principle of an action be _wrong_, the action itself is therefore _wrong_; but that, if the abstract principle be _right_, it does not follow that the action is therefore _right_, but that the action itself is _either right or wrong_, as may be determined by the presence or absence of certain other coincident principles; or, as we usually say, as may be determined by the circumstances.

If, then, the abstract principle of the institution of domestic slavery be wrong, the institution itself is wrong, and ought to be abolished; but if the principle be correct, the institution itself is or is not _right_, just as the circumstances of the case may or may not require that it be maintained; as in the case of any other act involving correct principle. The points to be settled, then, are--

I. Is the abstract or generic principle of domestic slavery _right or wrong_? And if it be right, then,

II. Is the system (so far as it is a system, simply) of domestic slavery, enveloping this abstract principle, justified by the circumstances of the case? If so, the system itself is also _right_. Whether many slaveholders or few, or any at all, are themselves doing right in the exercise of the legal functions of that relation, are questions foreign from the present inquiries, even on the hypothesis that the system itself is right. Their conduct, be it right or wrong, (and in many cases it is right, and in many others it is no doubt wrong,) does not at all affect the truth or error of the questions now before us. It is not with the conduct of individual men that we now deal; but with the act of that great being, the State--the system of African slavery established by law in the country--and with that profound principle of truth or error which not only makes it a _system_, but makes it a right system or a wrong system, as the case may be.

The philosophy which prevails on the question before us has originated two schools--the _abolitionist_ and the _anti-slavery_. The abolitionist maintain that the _abstract principle of the system is wrong_, and that therefore the system itself is wrong under all circumstances. The anti-slavery school agree with the abolitionist that the _principle is wrong_, but divide among themselves as to the conclusion they draw. Some hold that the institution itself is not wrong under all circumstances, and that therefore slaves may be held under it in given cases without guilt; and others, that the institution _is wrong in itself_, and should be abolished by the State, but that the holding of slaves under this _wrong_ system is not an act in itself _wrong_ in all cases.