Part 9

4. A thief, if he had not money to pay the fine laid on him by the law, was to be sold for his profit whom he had robbed. Ex. xxii. 3: “_If he have nothing, then he shall be sold for the theft_.”

5. A Hebrew was liable to be taken in war, and sold for a slave. 2 Chron. xii. 8.

6. A Hebrew slave who had been ransomed from a Gentile by a Hebrew, might be sold by him who ransomed him to one of his own nation.

All who became slaves under this system were emancipated in the seventh year, except those who should refuse to accept liberty. Ex. xxi. 2-6. They were emancipated in the year of jubilee.

But then, the law further provided for domestic slaves _in perpetuity_.

“Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the _heathen_ that are round about you: of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession; and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession: they shall be your bondmen for ever; but over your brethren, the children of Israel, ye shall not rule over one another with rigor.” Lev. xxv. 44-46.

The attempts which are sometimes made to prove that δοῦλος, of the Septuagint, and _servus_, of the Vulgate version, translated indifferently _servant_ or slave, means only a _hired servant_, need only to be mentioned to be refuted. That these terms defined an actual state of slavery among the Greeks and Romans, no one acquainted with the facts will deny. But whatever might be their original meaning, they are to be understood, as Bible terms, in the sense of the original Hebrew, which they are employed to express. Now, nothing is more certain than this, that the Hebrew Bible (and the same is true of the English translation) speaks of _servants_, _hired_ servants, and _bond_ servants. The term servant is the generic form, and evidently means, a person who is controlled by the will of another: _hired_ servant is one who serves in that way by contract for a definite period; whilst _bond_ servant is one who has either contracted to do so through his whole life, or who, by the usages of war, or by inheritance, or by purchase from another, was so bound to service--(such as Paul calls a “servant under the yoke.” 2 Tim. vi. 1.) These different relations are distinctly marked by the use of these terms in the Bible, and especially the meaning of BOND SERVANT, in distinction from a HIRED SERVANT: “_If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shall not compel him to serve as a_ BOND SERVANT, _but as a_ HIRED SERVANT, _and as a sojourner, shall he be_.” Lev. XXV. 39, 40.

Thus we find that the Jewish constitution provided to protect the right of property in servants or slaves in the generic sense: that is, whether in the one form or the other; and that He who gave them their civil institutions, also provided under their constitution for the organization of a regular system of domestic slavery, in two distinct forms: the _one_, the enslavement, in the true generic sense, of Hebrews in given circumstances, for a definite period; and the _other_, the enslavement, in the same sense, of the neighboring heathen, _in perpetuity_.

Such was the legal origin of domestic slavery among the Jews. During all the calamities that have befallen that people, this constitution and these laws have known neither repeal nor modification. At no period of their history were they without domestic slaves; and when the Saviour dwelt among them, the whole land was filled with such slaves. No State in this Union can with more propriety be regarded a slaveholding community, than was that of the Jewish people in the days of the Saviour. In every congregation which he addressed, bond slaves may have mingled. The hospitalities of every family of which he partook, were probably ministered to him, more or less, by domestic slaves. And in all this time, and under all these circumstances, not a word is known to have escaped him, either in public or in private, declaring the relation of master and slave to be sinful! But, on the contrary, Paul’s denunciation--1 Tim. vi. 3--of the teachers of abolition doctrines, that they “_consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ_,” is sufficient reason to believe that he was always understood to approve of the relation, and to condemn in express terms all attempts to abolish it as a duty of the religion which he taught. And certain it is, that this relation is made the subject of some of his most eloquent allusions, and the basis of some of his most instructive parables: “One is your Master, even Christ,” Matt. xxiii. 10: “Good Master, what shall I do?” Mark x. 17: “No man can serve two masters,” Matt. vi. 24--are specimens of the former; whilst the parable, Matt. xiii. 24-28, “And the servants said, Wilt thou that we go and gather them up?”--of the vineyard, Matt. xxi.; of the talents, Matt. xxv.; and others of a similar nature, are striking examples of the latter. And yet, young gentlemen, the author of your text says, the doctrines of the Bible, and especially the teachings of the Saviour, are “diametrically opposed to both the principle and the practice of domestic slavery.” If this be true, it is really passing strange that Jehovah himself should provide, in the organic law of the Jewish commonwealth, for the working of a system of domestic slavery, and, by a series of laws drawn up under this constitution, set such a system in actual operation; and that the Saviour of mankind should also give, according to every legitimate interpretation that can be put, either upon his language or his conduct, his unqualified approbation to that which was so flatly opposed to all his doctrines! It is saying but little of all this to affirm that it is grossly absurd! It can appeal to no doctrine that we are aware of for its defence, unless it be the kindred absurdity that the _will of God_ is not the rule of right, in this sense, that it always conforms to that which, _in itself, is right_, i. e., good; but that it is the rule of right in this other sense, that it is absolutely, in itself, the only rule of right; and that, in the case under consideration, domestic slavery was right for the Jews, because God so willed it, but the same thing in principle, and under similar circumstances, would be wrong for any other people, because in regard to them God had willed differently: thus assigning to Deity the power to make _the wrong the right, and the right the wrong_! We regret to know that this absurd view of the Divine volitions has found its way beyond the pages of Dr. Paley. It is countenanced by some writers of eminent distinction in theology. But to give it a definite application in any case, is all that is required for its entire refutation. We rely with confidence on the conclusion that what God thus provided for in the Jewish constitution, was right in principle in itself, and that, under the circumstances of the Jewish people, it was right in practice.

Among the strange, if not wholly unaccountable, misconceptions, if not gross misrepresentations, of the fundamental ideas of domestic slavery, we may place those of Dr. Channing and Prof. Whewell. The latter, in his “Elements of Morality,” states that “slavery converts a person into a thing--a subject merely passive, without any of the recognized attributes of human nature.” “A slave,” he further says, “in the eye of the law which stamps him with that character, is not acknowledged as a man. He is reduced to the level of a brute;” that is, as he explains it, “he is divested of his moral nature.”

Dr. Channing, the great apostle of Unitarianism in America, says, “The very idea of a slave is that he belongs to another: that he is bound to live and labor for another; to be another’s instrument, that is, in all things, just as a threshing-machine, or another beast of burden; and to make another’s will his habitual law, however adverse to his own.” He adds, in another place, “We have thus established the reality and sacredness of human rights; and that slavery is an infraction of these, is too plain to need any labored proof. Slavery violates not one, but all; violates them not incidentally, but necessarily, systematically, from its very nature.”

These, together with your text, young gentlemen, are leading authorities on this subject. Following these, we should adopt the belief that the principle of slavery in question is, as they express it, “an absorption of the humanity of one man into the will of another;” or, in other words, that “slavery contemplates him, not as a responsible, but a mere sentient being--not as a man, but a brute.”

If this be so, the wonder is not, as they affirm, that the civilized world is so indignant at its outrageous wrongs, but that “it has been so slow in detecting its gross and palpable enormities: that mankind, for so many ages, acquiesced in a system as monstrously unnatural as would be a general effort to walk upon the head or to think with the feet!” We need have no hesitation in flatly denying the truth of this description, and pronouncing it a caricature. For if this be a faithful description, we can safely affirm that no instance of slavery ever existed under the authority of law in any nation known to history.

In the first place, the state of things so rhetorically described is a palpable impossibility. The constitution of the human mind is in flat contradiction to the idea of the absorption of the will, the conscience, and the understanding of one man into the personality of another! This is a state of things which the human mind cannot even conceive to be possible, but does intuitively perceive to be utterly impossible. In the next place, we affirm that the idea of _personal rights_ and _personal responsibility_ pervades the whole system. Both the Divine and human laws which recognize the system assume the personality and responsibility of the slave. Even under the Roman and Grecian codes--which recognized far more stringent forms of slavery than that of the African in this country, at any period of its history--this view of the system will find no support. Paul and Peter, who wrote with special allusion to slaves under these laws, so far from regarding this personality as lost and swallowed up in the humanity of the master, expressly assumed their personality and responsibility. For whilst they _recognize him as a servant_, they treat him as a man: they declare him possessed, though a slave, of certain rights, which it was injustice in the master to disregard, and under obligation to certain duties, as a slave, which it would be sinful in him to neglect; and, moreover, that it was the office of that religion whose functions they filled, to protect these rights and duties with its most solemn sanctions. Hence they enjoin upon masters the moral obligation of rendering to their bondmen “_that which is just and equal_,” and upon servants to “_be subject to their masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward_. _For this is thankworthy, if a man, for conscience toward God, endure grief, suffering wrongfully._” Was this treating them as beings whose wills were absorbed in the humanity of the master, who therefore was the only accountable person for all their conduct! Nothing could be more alien from truth, and significant of falsehood! No: obedience is never applied, except as a figurative term, and especially by the apostles, to any but rational and accountable beings. And with such inspired requisitions before us--“_obedience from the one, and justice from the other_”--it is grossly absurd to affirm that the relation of master and slave regards the slave as a brute, and not as an accountable man. “The blind passivity of a corpse, or the mechanical obedience of a tool,” which Channing and Whewell regard as constituting the essential idea of slavery, seems never to have entered the minds of the apostles. They considered slavery as a social and political economy, in which relations involving reciprocal rights and duties subsisted, between moral, intelligent, and responsible beings, between whom, as between men in other relations, religion held the scales of justice.

The right of property in man, as man, is nowhere taught in Scripture, although it distinctly recognizes the relation of master and slave. The right which the master has in the slave, according to the Scriptures, is, _not to the man_, but to so much of his time and labor as is consistent with his rights of humanity. The master who disregards these claims, denies his slave that which is “just and equal.” The duty which the slave owes, is the service which, in conformity with these rights, the master exacts. A failure in either party is a breach of Scripture.

The only difference between free and slave labor is, that the one is rendered in consequence of a contract, and the other in consequence of a command. Each is service rendered according to the will of another; and each may, or may not, be according to the consent of the party rendering service. The former is often as _involuntary_, in point of fact, as the latter. Hirelings _assent_ to it, in most cases, as a necessity of their condition. They do not _consent_ to it--they are far from choosing it. A few persons reach that high attainment of a pure Christianity, in which they learn in every state in which they are placed, in the providence of God, “therewith to be content”--they choose it. But in the general, hired service is, in point of fact, as involuntary as slave labor.

A right, therefore, to the time and labor of another to a definite extent, by no means involves the right to his humanity. Such right is a mere fiction, to which even the imagination can give no significance or consistency. “It is the miserable cant of those who would storm by prejudice what they cannot demolish by argument.”

Thus, young gentlemen, that the abstract principle of the institution of slavery, and the principles of natural rights, coincide, and that both have the unqualified approbation of Holy Scripture, cannot be successfully controverted. Natural rights and the principle of slavery do not conflict. No man has a natural right to do wrong. That wherein the principle of slavery is in itself _right_, is that, when carried out in the form of civil government, it furnishes an instance in which the subjects of government who are liable to injure society by doing wrong, are placed under such disabilities, or in such circumstances, in which they cannot or are not likely to do this wrong, but to do that which they have a natural right to do, that is, do good. In all cases in which this principle enters into the government in such ratio or modification as to secure these ends, it coincides with natural rights, and insures to the subject the highest amount of freedom of which his moral condition will admit; it is to him essentially a free government, although, in adapting itself to his moral condition, it may assume an extreme form of despotism.

Whether the Southern States of this Union have wisely adapted this principle to the moral condition of the African population residing within their borders, and thereby secured to them an essentially free government, remains to be considered.

LECTURE VII.

THE INSTITUTION OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY.

The question stated--The conduct of masters a separate question--The institution defined--The position of the abolitionists and that of the Southern people--The presumption is in favor of the latter--Those who claim freedom for the blacks of this country failed to secure it to those on whom they professed to confer it--The doctrine by which they seek to vindicate the claim set up for them, together with the fact of history assumed to be true, is false.

Having proved that the abstract principle of the institution of domestic slavery is a legitimate principle, both in itself, and in this, that it coincides with the great fundamental principle of _right_, and does not necessarily conflict with the _right_, and is therefore in itself _good_, and _not evil_; the next inquiry that arises is this: “_Is the institution of domestic slavery, existing among us, and involving this principle, justified by the circumstances of the case, and therefore right?_”--according to the doctrine evolved in the second lecture, namely, that the principle of an action, being itself _right_, the action is right, _provided_ other and coincident principles justify the action, or, as we usually say, provided the circumstances require it.

Let it be observed, that the conduct of individual slaveholders, in the exercise of any discretion conferred on them by the nature of their relation as masters, is still a separate question, and not here to be taken into the discussion. We inquire as to the propriety of the institution: Is it demanded at all by the circumstances of the case? This is eminently a practical question, and is the only one which involves the morality of the _institution_ itself, now that the abstract principle is shown to be legitimate.

Domestic slavery is one of the subordinate forms of civil government. It may be defined an _imperium in imperio_--a government within a government: one in which the subject of the inferior government is under the control of a master, up to a certain limit defined by the superior government, and beyond which both the master and the slave are alike subject to control by the superior government. The question now arises, Is this a suitable government for the negro race in America? Without doubt, this question is to be settled on the same general principles by which we should settle a similar question in regard to the suitableness of any other form of government for any other people. For example, the same principles which determine the fitness of a military despotism, a constitutional monarchy, or a democratic republic, to any particular community of white persons, will determine the suitableness of this form of government to the African race in this country. They are all different forms of control, belonging to the same genus--government; and pervaded by the same generic elements--the principles of slavery and liberty combined in different ratios, in order to secure the greatest amount of happiness to those communities to which they are fitly applied. The claims of the African might be separately examined in regard to each of these forms of government; but this course is not demanded by the interests of this discussion. Nor need we stop to inquire, how the Africans came into this country: whether lawfully or unlawfully--whether by their own act, or the act of another. These are in truth side issues, and do not necessarily attach to this discussion. They will be treated as incidental to the main question; for although it were allowed that they are here unlawfully, and that it is our duty to remove them, yet it is still true that they are here, and cannot be immediately removed, and must therefore be subjected, as human beings, to some one of the known forms of civil government. What form of government shall this be? According to principles well established, and admitted on all sides, it should be such a form of government as, from its adaptation to their intellectual, moral, relative, and physical condition, is best calculated to promote their happiness and the happiness of those with whom they are necessarily associated. But what form of government is it which will most probably accomplish this object?

The anti-slavery party, as well as the abolition faction, claim for the Africans a democratic republic: that is, that they should have equal political privileges with the whites, and only be subject with them to the same modified form of slavery! On the contrary, we of the South maintain that, from their _present state_ of mental imbecility, moral degradation, and physical inferiority, they should be placed under that more decided form of control called domestic slavery. _Who is right?_

In discussing this question, we take the ground, first, that, in advance of all direct argument, we are entitled to the full benefit of the _presumption_ in argument--the burden of proof lies upon those who dispute our position; and, secondly, that we are right in fact--that the circumstances of the case demand this form of government on behalf of the race, as _their right, their blessing_; because this form of government, duly and properly administered, as it _may_ be, and _ought_ to be, is calculated to afford them the _highest_, if not the only amount of political freedom and happiness to which their humanity is at present adapted, and especially in view of their existing relations to a higher form of civilization, in the case of those among whom they dwell.

1. We are _presumptively_ right. The _onus_ lies wholly upon those who oppose our position.

In taking this ground, we readily waive the _presumption_ founded upon the _mere_ fact that domestic slavery is an existing institution, and is entitled to stand as good, until the contrary is made to appear. We go back of this. We throw ourselves upon original ground. We say, that if this were now an original question in the country, the _presumption_ would be, that this was the appropriate form of government for the African race in this country.

As an original case, it would be an undisputed fact that the race was in an uncivilized state. We have demonstrated, in a former lecture, that an uncivilized people is not adapted to a state of political freedom. To such a people dwelling in the midst of a civilized people, it could not be a _right_, because it would not be a _good_, but _an evil_, _a curse_. There is no reason to assume that to place them in this condition would elevate them at once to such fitness as would make it a blessing, but there is every reason to _presume_ that the reverse would follow an elevation to political freedom. If any think otherwise, the burden of proof lies upon him.

This presumption is greatly strengthened by the fact that they who claim political freedom for the Africans now in the country, have signally failed to secure it for those upon whom they have professed to confer it. Essential freedom is inseparably interlaced with _social equality_. Without the latter, the former cannot possibly exist. The Northern States have long since conferred the forms of civil freedom upon the African portion of their population, but to the present hour they have denied them _social equality_. Herein, they extinguish all the lights and comforts of essential freedom. They settle upon them a suffocative anhelation, which is truly the most oppressive form of slavery. The social inequality of the races, it is well known, exists in a much more modified form at the South than at the North. That those who have made, as we allow, an honest effort to confer essential freedom upon them, have signally failed, greatly strengthens the _presumption_ that we are right in believing that the end they proposed was impracticable, and that we need not be so unwise as to imitate their folly.

But this _presumption_ is still further strengthened by the fact that the basis argument upon which the abolitionists usually rest the claims of the African, is entirely sophistical. It is this: Slave property was originally acquired by robbery and violence, and therefore can never become lawful property. Hence we should confer upon them political freedom, regardless of whatever consequences may follow; seeing that an act of robbery can never extinguish the original right of the person robbed, or confer original title upon the robber.