Chapter 8

I will not dwell longer on these milder forms of slavery, but read to you the clear and unmistakable command of the Lord in Leviticus xxv. 44, 46:--"Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they beget in your land: and they shall be your possession: and ye shall take them for an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; and they shall be your bondmen forever."

Sir, the sun will grow dim with age before that Scripture can be tortured to mean any thing else than just what it says; that God commanded the Israelites to be slave-holders in the strict and true sense over the heathen, in manner and form therein set forth. Do you tell the world that this cannot be the sense of the Bible, because it is "a violation of the first principles of the American Declaration of Independence;" because it grates upon your "instinct of liberty;" because it reveals God in opposition to the "spirit of the age;" because, if it be the sense of the passage, then "the Bible neither ought to be, nor can be, received by mankind as a divine revelation"? _That_ is what you say: _that_ is what Albert Barnes affirms in his philosophy. But what if God in his word says, "Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you"? What if we may then choose between Albert Barnes's philosophy and God's truth?

Or will you say, God, under the circumstances, _permitted_ the Israelites _to sin_ in the matter of slave-holding, just as he permitted them _to sin_ by living in polygamy. _Permitted_ them _to sin!_ No, sir; God _commanded_ them to be slave-holders. He _made it_ the law of their social state. He _made it_ one form of his ordained government among them. Moreover, you take it for granted all too soon, that the Israelites committed sin in their polygamy. God sanctioned their polygamy. It was therefore not sin in them. It was right. But God now forbids polygamy, under the gospel; and now it is sin.

Or will you tell us the iniquity of the Canaanites was then full, and God's time to punish them had come? True; but the same question comes up:--Did God punish the Canaanites by placing them in the relation of slaves to his people, by express command, which compelled them to sin? That's the point. I will not permit you to evade it. In plainer words:--Did God command the Hebrews to make slaves of their fellow-men, to buy them and sell them, to regard them as their money? He did. Then, did the Hebrews sin when they obeyed God's command? No. Then they did what was right, and it was right because God made it so. Then _the Hebrew slave-holder was not a man-stealer_. But, you say, the Southern slave-holder is. Well, we shall see presently.

Just here, the abolitionist who professes to respect the Scriptures is wont to tell us that the whole subject of bondage among the Israelites was so peculiar to God's ancient dispensation, that no analogy between that bondage and Southern slavery can be brought up. Thus he attempts to raise a dust out of the Jewish institutions, to prevent people from seeing that slaveholding then was the same thing that it is now. But, to sustain my interpretation of the plain Scriptures given, I will go back five hundred years before the existence of the Hebrew nation.

I read at that time, (Gen. xiv. 14:)--"And when Abraham heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them even unto Damascus," &c. (Gen. xvii. 27:)--"And all the men of his house, born, in the house, and bought with the money of the stranger, were circumcised." (Gen. xx. 14:)--"And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and men-servants and women-servants, and gave them unto Abraham." (Gen. xxiv. 34, 35:)--"And he said, I am Abraham's servant; and the Lord hath blessed my master greatly, and he is become great; and he hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and men-servants and maid-servants, and camels and asses."

_Was Abraham a Man-Stealer?_

Sir, what is the common sense of these Scriptures? Why, that the slave-trade existed in Abraham's day, as it had long before, and has ever since, in all the regions of Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt, in which criminals and prisoners of war were sold,--in which parents sold their children. Abraham, then, it is plain, bought, of the sellers in this traffic, men-servants and maid-servants; he had them born in his house; he received them as presents.

Do you tell me that Abraham, by divine authority, made these servants part of his family, social and religious? Very good. But still he regarded them as his slaves. He took Hagar as a wife, but he treated her as his slave,--yea, as Sarah's slave; and as such he gave her to be chastised, for misconduct, by her mistress. Yea, he never placed Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, on a level with Isaac, the son of the freewoman. If, then, he so regarded Hagar and Ishmael, of course he never considered his other slaves on an equality with himself. True, had he been childless, he would have given his estate to Eliezer: but he would have given it to his slave. True, had Isaac not been born, he would have given his wealth to Ishmael; but he would nave given it to the son of his bondwoman. Sir, every Southern planter is not more truly a slave-holder than Abraham. And the Southern master, by divine authority, may, to-day, consider his slaves part of his social and religious family, just as Abraham did. His relation is just that of Abraham. He has slaves of an inferior type of mankind from Abraham's bondmen; and he therefore, for that reason, as well as from the fact that they are his slaves, holds them lower than himself. But, nevertheless, he is a slave-holder in no other sense than was Abraham. Did Abraham have his slave-household circumcised? Every Southern planter may have his slave-household baptized. I baptized, not long since, a slave-child,--the master and mistress offering it to God. What was done in the parlor might be done with divine approbation on every plantation.

So, then, Abraham lived in the midst of a system of slave-holding exactly the same in nature with that in the South,--a system ordained of God as really as the other forms of government round about him. He, then, with the divine blessing, made himself the master of slaves, men, women, and children, by buying them,--by receiving them in gifts,--by having them born in his house; and he controlled them as property, just as really as the Southern master in the present day. I ask now, _was Abraham a man-stealer?_ Oh, no, you reiterate: but the Southern master is. Why?

_Is the Southern Master a Man-Stealer_?

Do you, sir, or anybody, contend that the Southern master seized his slave in Africa, and forcibly brought him away to America, contrary to law? That, and that alone, was and is kidnapping in divine and human statute. No. What then? Why, the abolitionist responds, The African man-stealer sold his victim to the slave-holder; he, to the planter; and the negro has been ever since in bondage: therefore _the guilt_ of the man-stealer has cleaved to sellers, buyers, and inheritors, to this time, and will through all generations to come. That is the charge.

And it brings up the question so often and triumphantly asked by the abolitionist; _i.e._ "You," he says to the slave-holder,--"you admit it was wrong to steal the negro in Africa. Can the slave-holder, then, throw off wrong so long as he holds the slave at any time or anywhere thereafter?" I answer, yes; and my reply shall be short, yet conclusive. It is this:--_Guilt_, or criminality, is that state of a moral agent which results from _his_ actual commission of a crime or offence knowing it to be crime or violation of law. _That_ is the received definition of _guilt_, and _you_, I know, do accept it. The _guilt_, then, of kidnapping _terminated_ with the man-stealer, the seller, the buyer, and holders, who, knowingly and intentionally, carried on the traffic contrary to the divine law. THAT GUILT attaches in no sense whatever, as a personal, moral responsibility, to the present slave-holder. Observe, I am here discussing, _not the question of mere slave-holding,_ but whether the master, who has had nothing to do with the slave-trade, can _now_ hold the slave without the moral guilt of the man-stealer? I have said that _that_ guilt, in no sense whatever, rests upon him; for he neither stole the man, nor bought him from the kidnapper, nor had any _complicity_ in the traffic. Here, I know, the abolitionist insists that the master _is_ guilty of this _complicity_, unless he will at once emancipate the slave; because, so long as he holds him, he thereby, personally and _voluntarily, assumes the same relation which the original kidnapper or buyer held to the African_.

This is Dr. Cheever's argument in a recent popular sermon. He thinks it unanswerable; but it has no weight whatever. It is met perfectly by adding _one_ word to his proposition. Thus:--_The master does_ NOT _assume the same relation which the original man-stealer or buyer held to the African_. The master's _relation_ to God and to his slave is now _wholly changed_ from that of the man-stealer, and those engaged in the trade; and his obligation is wholly different. What is his relation? and what is his obligation? They are as follows:----

The master finds himself, with no taint of personal concern in the African trade, in a Christian community of white Anglo-Americans, holding control over his black fellow-man, who is so unlike himself in complexion, in form, in other peculiarities, and so unequal to himself in attributes of body and mind, that it is _impossible, in every sense_, to place him on a level with himself in the community. _This is his relation to the negro_. What, then, does God command him to do? Does God require him to send the negro back to his heathen home from whence he was stolen? That home no longer exists. But, if it did remain, does God command the master to send his Christianized slave into the horrors of his former African heathenism? No. God has placed the master under law entirely different from his command to the slave-trader. God said to the trader, _Let the negro alone_. But he says to the present master, _Do unto the negro all the good you can; make him a civilized man; make him a Christian man; lift him up and give him all he has a right to claim in the good of the whole community_. This the master can do; this he must do, and then leave the result with the Almighty.

We reach the same conclusion by asking, What does God say to the negro-slave?

Does he tell him to ask to be sent back to heathen Africa? No. Does he give him authority to claim a created equality and unalienable right to be on a level with the white man in civil and social relations? No. To ask the first would be to ask a great evil; to claim the second is to demand a natural and moral impossibility. No. God tells him to seek none of these things. But he commands him to know the facts in his case as they are in the Bible, and have ever been, and ever will be in Providence:--that he is not the white man's equal,--that he can never have his level--that he must not claim it; but that he can have, and ought to have, and must have, all of good, in his condition as a slave, until God may reveal a higher happiness for him in some other relation than that _he must ever_ have to the Anglo-American. The present slave-holder, then, by declining to emancipate his bondman, does not place himself in _the guilt_ of the man-stealer or of those who had complicity with him; but he stands _exactly_ in that NICK _of time and place_, in the course of Providence, where _wrong_, in the transmission of African slavery, _ends_, and _right begins_.

I have, sir, fairly stated this, your strongest argument, and fully met it. _The Southern master is not a man-stealer._ The abolitionist--repulsed in his charge that the slave-owner is a kidnapper, either in fact or by voluntarily assuming any of the relations of the traffic--then makes his impeachment on his second affirmation, mentioned at the opening of this letter. That the slave-holder is, nevertheless, thus _guilty_, because, in the simple fact of being a master, he _steals_ from the negro his unalienable right to freedom.

This, sir, looks like a new view of the subject. The crime forbidden in the Bible was stealing and selling a man; _i.e._ seizing and forcibly carrying away, from country or State, a human being--man, woman, or child--contrary to law, and selling or holding the same. But the abolitionist gives us to understand this crime rests on the slave-holder in another sense:--namely, that he steals from the negro a metaphysical attribute,--his unalienable right to liberty!

This is a new sort of kidnapping. This is, I suppose, _stealing the man from himself_, as it is sometimes elegantly expressed,--_robbing him of his body and his soul_. Sir, I admit this is a strong figure of speech, a beautiful personification, a sonorous rhetorical flourish, which must make a deep impression on Dr. Cheever's people, Broadway, New York, and on your congregation, Washington Square, Philadelphia; but it is certainly not the Bible crime of man-stealing. And whether the Southern master is _guilty_ of this sublimated thing will be understood by us when you prove that the negro, or anybody else, has such metaphysical right to be stolen,--such transcendental liberty not in subordination to the good of the whole people. In a word, sir, this refined expression is, after all, just the old averment that the slave-holder is guilty of _sin per se!_ That's it.

I have given you, in reply, the Old Testament. In my next, I propose to inquire what the New Testament says in the light of the _Golden Rule_.

F.A. Ross.

Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 31, 1857.

The Golden Rule.

This view of the Golden Rule is the only exposition of that great text which has ever been given in words sufficiently clear, and, with practical illustrations, to make the subject intelligible to every capacity. The explanation is the truth of God, and it settles forever the slavery question, so far as it rests on this precept of Jesus Christ.

No. IV.

Rev. Albert Barnes:--

Dear Sir:--The argument against slave-holding, founded on the Golden Rule, is the strongest which can be presented, and I admit that, if it cannot be perfectly met, the master must give the slave liberty and equality. But if it can be absolutely refuted, then the slave-holder in this regard may have a good conscience; and the abolitionist has nothing more to say. Here is the rule.

"Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." (Matt. vii. 12.)

In your "_Notes_," on this passage you thus write:--"This command has been usually called the Savior's _Golden Rule_; a name given to it on account of its great value.--_All that you_ EXPECT or DESIRE _of others, in similar circumstances_, DO TO THEM."

This, sir, is your exposition of the Savior's rule of right. With all due respect, I decline your interpretation. You have missed the meaning by leaving out ONE word. Observe,--you do not say, All that you OUGHT to _expect_ or _desire_, &c., THAT _do to them_. No. But you make the EXPECTATION or DESIRE, _which every man_ ACTUALLY HAS _in similar circumstances_, THE MEASURE _of his_ DUTY _to every other man_. Or, in different words, you make, without qualification or explanation, the MERE EXPECTATION or DESIRE which every man,--with no instruction, or any sort of training,--wise or simple, good or bad, heathen, Mohammedan, nominal Christian,--WOULD HAVE _in similar circumstances_, THE LAW OF OBLIGATION, _always binding_ upon him TO DO THAT SAME THING _unto his neighbor!_

Sir, you have left out _the very idea_ which contains the sense of that Scripture. It is this: Christ, in his rule, _presupposes_ that the man to whom he gives it _knows_, and from the Bible, (or providence, or natural conscience, _so far as in harmony_ with the Bible,) the _various relations_ in which God has placed him; and the _respective duties_ in those relations; _i.e._ The rule _assumes_ that he KNOWS what he OUGHT to _expect_ or _desire_ in similar circumstances.

I will test this affirmation by several and varied illustrations. I will show how Christ, according to your exposition of his rule, speaks on the subject,--of _revenge, marriage, emancipation_,--_the fugitive from bondage_. And how he truly speaks on these subjects.

_Revenge--Right according to your view of the Golden Rule_.

Indian and Missionary--Prisoner tied to a tree, stuck over with burning splinters.

Here is an Indian torturing his prisoner. The missionary approaches and beseeches him to regard _the Golden Rule_. "Humph!" utters the savage: "Golden Rule! what's that?" "Why" says the good man, "all that you _expect_ or _desired_ other Indians, in similar circumstances, do you even so to them." "Humph!" growls the warrior, with a fierce smile,--"Missionary--good: that's what I do now. If I was tied to that tree, I would _expect_ and _desire him_ to have _his_ revenge,--to do to me as I do to him; and I would sing my death-song, as he sings his. Missionary, your rule is Indian rule,--good rule, missionary. Humph!" And he sticks more splinters into his victim, brandishes his tomahawk, and yells.

Sir, what has the missionary to say, after this perfect proof that you have mistaken the great law of right? Verily, he finds that the rule, with your explanation, tells the Indian to torture his prisoner. Verily, he finds that the wild man has the best of the argument. He finds he had left out the word OUGHT; and that he can't put it in, until he teaches the Indian things which as yet he don't know. Yea, he finds he gave the commandment too soon; for that he must begin back of that commandment, and teach the savage God's ordination of the relations in which he is to his fellow-men, before he can make him comprehend or apply the rule as Christ gives it.

_Marriage--Void under your Interpretation of the Golden Rule_.

Lucy Stone, and Moses--Lady on sofa, having just divorced herself--Moses, with the Tables of the Law, appears: she falls at his feet, and covers her face with her hands.

This woman, everybody knows, was married some time since, after a fashion; that is to say, protesting publicly against all laws of wedlock, and entering into the relation so long only as she, or her husband, might continue pleased therewith.

Very well. Then I, without insult to her or offense to my readers, suppose that about this time she has shown her unalienable right to liberty and equality by giving her husband a bill of divorcement. Free again, she reclines on her couch, and is reading the Tribune. It is mid-day. But there is a light, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about her. And _he_, who saw God on Sinai, stands before her, the glory on his face, and the tables of stone in his hands. The woman falls before him, veils her eyes with her trembling fingers, and cries out, "Moses, oh, I believed till now that thou practised deception, in claiming to be sent of God to Israel. But now, I know thou didst see God in the burning bush, and heard him speak that law from the holy mountain. Moses, I know ... I confess.".... And Moses answers, and says unto her, "Woman, thou art one of a great class in this land, who claim to be more just than God, more pure than their Maker, who have made their inward light their God. Woman, thou in '_convention_' hast uttered _Declaration of Independence_ from man. And, verily, thou hast asserted this claim to equality and unalienable right, even now, by giving thy husband his bill of divorcement, in thy sense of the Golden Rule. Yea, verily, thou hast done unto him all that thou _expectedst_ or _desiredst_ of him, in similar circumstances. And now thou thinkest thyself free again. Woman, thou art a sinner. Verily, thine inward light, and declaration of independence, and Golden Rule, do well agree the one with the other. Verily, thou hast learned of Jefferson, and Channing, and Barnes. But, woman, notwithstanding thou hast sat at the feet of these wise men, I, Moses, say thou art a sinner before the law, and the prophets, and the gospel. Woman, thy light is darkness; thy declaration of equality and right is vanity and folly; and thy Golden Rule is license to wickedness.

"Woman, hast thou ears? Hear: I, by authority of God, ordained that the man should rule over thee. I placed thee, and children, and men-servants, and maid-servants, under the same law of subjection to the government ordained of God in the family,--the state. I for a time sanctioned polygamy, and made it right. I, for the hardness of men's hearts, allowed them, and made it right, to give their wives a bill of divorcement. Woman, hear. Paul, having the same Spirit of God, confirms my word. He commands _wives_, and children, and servants, after this manner:--'Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord; children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord; servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God.' Woman, Paul makes _that rule_ the same, and _that submission_, the same. The _manner_ of the rule he varies with the relations. He requires it to be, in the _love_ of the husband, even as Christ loved the church,--in the _mildness_ of the father, not provoking the children to anger, lest they be discouraged,--in _the justice and equity_ of the master, knowing that he also has a master in heaven: (Colossians.) Woman, hear. Paul says to thee, the man _now_ shall have one wife, and he _now_ shall not give her a bill of divorcement, save for crime. Woman, thou art not free from thy husband. Christ's Golden Rule must not be interpreted by thee as A. Barnes has rendered it; Christ _assumes_ that thou _believest_ God's truth,--that thou _knowest_ the relation of husband and wife, and the _obligations and rights_ of the same, _as in the Bible; then_, in the light of this _knowledge_, verily, thou art required to do what God says thou _oughtest_ to do. Woman, thou art a sinner. Go, sin no more. Go, find thy husband; see to it that he takes thee back. Go, submit to him, and honor him, and obey him."

_Emancipation--Ruin--Golden Rule, in your meaning, carried out_.

Island in the Tropics--Elegant houses falling to decay--Broad fields abandoned to the forest--Wharves grass-grown--Negroes relapsing into the savage state--A dark cloud over the island, through which the lightning glares, revealing, in red writing, these words:--"_Redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation"_.--[Gospel--according to Curran--and the British Parliament.]