The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 · Chapter 13* * * * * THIRD EDITION. Price 6 1-4 cents single, 62 1-2 cents per dozen, $4 per hundred. No. 3. THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. * * * * * LETTER OF GERRIT SMITH TO REV. JAMES SMYLIE, OF THE STATE OF MISS
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
1st. Is not Southern slavery guilty of a most heaven-daring crime, in substituting concubinage for God's institution of marriage?
2d. Would not that slavery, and also every theory and modification of slavery, for which you may contend, come speedily to nought, if their subjects were allowed to marry? Slavery, being an abuse, is incapable of reformation. It dies, not only when you aim a fatal blow at its life principle—its foundation doctrine of man's right to property in manB—but it dies as surely, when you prune it of its manifold incidents of pollution and irreligion.
B: I mean by this phrase, "right to property in man," a right to hold man as property; and I do not see with what propriety certain writers construe it to mean, a property in the mere services of a man.
But it would be treating you indecorously to stop you at this stage of the discussion, before we are a third of the way through your book, and thus deny a hearing to the remainder of it. We will proceed to what you say of the slavery which existed in the time of the New Testament writers. Before we do so, however, let me call your attention to a few of the specimens of very careless reasoning in that part of your book, which we have now gone over. They may serve to inspire you with a modest distrust of the soundness of other parts of your argument.
After concluding that Abraham was a slaveholder, you quote the following language from the Bible; "Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws." You then inquire, "How could this be true of Abraham, holding as he did, until he was an old man, more slaves than any man in Mississippi or Louisiana?" To be consistent with your design in quoting this passage, you must argue from it, that Abraham was perfect. But this he was not; and, therefore, your quotation is vain. Again, if the slaveholder would quiet his conscience with the supposition, that "Abraham held more slaves than any man in Mississippi or Louisiana," let him remember, that he had also more concubines (Gen. 25: 6), "than any man in Mississippi or Louisiana;" and, if Abraham's authority be in the one case conclusive for slaveholding, equally so must it be in the other, for concubinage.
Perhaps, in saying that "Abraham had more concubines than any man in Mississippi or Louisiana," I have done injustice to the spirit of propagation prevailing amongst the gentlemen of those States. It may be, that some of your planters quite distance the old patriarch in obedience to the command to "multiply and replenish the earth." I am correctly informed, that a planter in Virginia, who counted, I know not how many slaves upon his plantation, confessed on his death-bed, that his licentiousness had extended to every adult female amongst them. This planter was a near relative of the celebrated Patrick Henry. It may be, that you have planters in Mississippi and Louisiana, who avail themselves to the extent that he did, of the power which slaveholding gives to pollute and destroy. The hundreds of thousands of mulattoes, who constitute the Southern commentary on the charge, that the abolitionists design amalgamation, bear witness that this planter was not singular in his propensities. I do not know what you can do with this species of your population. Besides, that it is a standing and deep reproach on Southern chastity, it is not a little embarrassing and puzzling to those who have received the doctrine, that the descendants of Africa amongst us must be returned to the land of their ancestors. How the poor mulatto shall be disposed of, under this doctrine, between the call which Africa makes for him, on the one hand, and that which some state of Europe sends out for him on the other, is a problem more difficult of solution than that which the contending mothers brought before the matchless wisdom of Solomon.
In the paragraph, which relates to the fourth and tenth commandments, there is another specimen of your loose reasoning. You say, that the language, "In it (the Sabbath) thou shalt do no work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man servant, nor thy maid servant," "recognises the authority of the master over the servant." I grant, that it does: but does it at all show, that these servants were slaves? Does it recognise any more authority than the master should exercise over his voluntary servants? Should not the head of a family restrain all his servants, as well the voluntary as the involuntary, from unnecessary labor on the Sabbath? You also say, that the tenth commandment "recognizes servants as the property of their masters." But how does it appear from the language of this commandment, that the man servant and maid servant are property any more than the wife is? We will proceed, however, to the third section of your book.
Your acquaintance with history has enabled you to show some of the characteristics and fruits of Greek and Roman slavery. You state the facts, that the subjects of this slavery were "absolutely the property of their masters"—that they "were used like dogs"—that "they were forbidden to learn any liberal art or perform any act worthy of their masters"—that "once a day they received a certain number of stripes for fear they should forget they were slaves"—that, at one time, "sixty thousand of them in Sicily and Italy were chained and confined to work in dungeons"—that "in Rome there was a continual market for slaves," and that "the slaves were commonly exposed for sale naked"—that, when old, they were turned away," and that too by a master, highly esteemed for his superior virtues, to starve to death"—that they were thrown into ponds to be food for fish—that they were in the city of Athens near twenty times as numerous as free persons—that there were in the Roman Empire sixty millions of slaves to twenty millions of freemen mind that many of the Romans had five thousand, some ten thousand, and others twenty thousand.
And now, for what purpose is your recital of these facts?—not, for its natural effect of awakening, in your readers, the utmost abhorrence of slavery:—no—but for the strange purpose (the more strange for being in the breast of a minister of the gospel) of showing your readers, that even Greek and Roman slavery was innocent, and agreeable to God's will; and that, horrid as are the fruits you describe, the tree, which bore them, needed but to be dug about and pruned—not to be cut down. This slavery is innocent, you insist, because the New Testament does not show, that it was specifically condemned by the Apostles. By the same logic, the races, the games, the dramatic entertainments, and the shows of gladiators, which abounded in Greece and Rome, were, likewise, innocent, because the New Testament does not show a specific condemnation of them by the apostlesA. But, although the New Testament does not show such condemnation, does it necessarily follow, that they were silent, in relation to these sins? Or, because the New Testament does not specifically condemn Greek and Roman slavery, may we, therefore, infer, that the Apostles did not specifically condemn it? Look through the published writings of many of the eminent divines, who have lived in modern times, and have written and published much for the instruction of the churches, and you will not find a line in them against gambling or theatres or the slave-trade;—in some of them, not a line against the very common sin of drunkenness. Think you, therefore, that they never spoke or wrote against these things? It would be unreasonable to expect to find, in print, their sentiments against all, even of the crying sins of their times. But how much more unreasonable is it to expect to find in the few pages of the Apostles' published letters, the whole of which can be read in a few hours, their sentiments in relation to all the prominent sins of the age in which they lived! And far greater still is the unreasonableness of setting them down, as favorable to all practices which these letters do not specifically condemn.
A: Prof. Hodge says, if the apostles did abstain from declaring slavery to be sinful, "it must have been, because they did not consider it as, in itself, a crime. No other solution of their conduct is consistent with their truth or fidelity." But he believes that they did abstain from so doing; and he believes this, on the same evidence, on which he believes, that they abstained from declaring the races, games, &c., above enumerated, to be sinful. His own mode of reasoning, therefore, brings him unavoidably to the conclusion, that these races, games, &c., were not sinful.
It may be, that the Saviour and the Apostles, in the course of their teachings, both oral and written, did specify sins to a far greater extent, than they are supposed to have done. It may be, that their followers had much instruction, in respect to the great sin of slavery. We must bear in mind, that but a very small part of that Divine instruction, which, on the testimony of an Apostle, "the world itself could not contain if written," has come down to us. Of the writings of our Saviour we have nothing. Of those of his Apostles a very small part. It is probable, that, during his protracted ministry, the learned apostle to the Gentiles wrote many letters on religious subjects to individuals and to churches. So also of the immense amount of instruction, which fell from the lips of the Apostles, but very little is preserved. It was Infinite Wisdom, however, which determined the size of the New, as well as of the Old Testament, and of what kinds and portions of the Saviour's and the Apostles' instructions it should consist. For obvious considerations, it is made up, in a great measure, of general truths and propositions. Its limited size, if no other reason, accounts for this. But, these general truths and propositions are as comprehensive as the necessity of the case requires; and, carried out into all their suitable applications they leave no sin unforbidden. Small as is the New Testament, it is as large as we need. It instructs us in relation to all our duties. It is as full on the subject of slavery, as is necessary; and, if we will but obey its directions, that bear on this subject, and "love one another," and love our neighbors as ourselves, and, as we would that men should do to us, do "also to them likewise," and "remember them, that are in bonds as bound with them," and "give unto servants, that which is just and equal"—not a vestige of this abomination will remain.
For the sake of the argument, I will admit, that the Apostles made no specific attack on slaveryA; and that they left it to be reached and overthrown, provided it be sinful, by the general principles and instructions which they had inculcated. But you will say, that it was their practice, in addition to inculcating such principles and instructions, to point out sins and reprove them:—and you will ask, with great pertinence and force, why they did not also point out and reprove slavery, which, in the judgment of abolitionists, is to be classed with the most heinous sins. I admit, that there is no question addressed to abolitionists, which, after the admission I have made for them, it is less easy to answer; and I admit further, that they are bound to answer it. I will proceed to assign what to me appear to be some of the probable reasons, why the Apostles specified the sins of lying, covetousness, stealing, &c., and, agreeably to the admission, which lays me under great disadvantage, did not specify slavery.
A: This is no small admission in the face of the passage, in the first chapter of Timothy, which particularizes manstealing, as a violation of the law of God. I believe all scholars will admit, that one of the crimes referred to by the Apostle, is kidnapping. But is not kidnapping an integral and most vital part of the system of slavery? And is not the slaveholder guilty of this crime? Does he not, indeed, belong to a class of kidnappers stamped with peculiar meanness? The pirate, on the coast of Africa, has to cope with the strength and adroitness of mature years. To get his victim into his clutches is a deed of daring and of peril demanding no little praise, upon the principles of the world's "code of honor." But the proud chivalry of the South is securely employed in kidnapping newborn infants. The pirate, in the one case, soothes his conscience with the thought, that the bloody savages merit no better treatment, than they are receiving at his hands:—but the pirate, in the other, can have no such plea—for they, whom he kidnaps, are untainted with crime.
And what better does it make the case for you, if we adopt the translation of "men stealers?" Far better, you will say, for, on the authority of Othello himself,
"He that is robb'd——— Let him not know it, and he's not robbed at all."
But, your authority is not conclusive. The crime of the depredation is none the less, because the subject is ignorant or unconscious of it. It is true, the slave, who never possessed liberty—who was kidnapped at his birth—may not grieve, under the absence of it, as he does, from whose actual and conscious possession it had been violently taken: but the robbery is alike plain, and is coupled with a meanness, in the one case, which does not disgrace it in the other.
1st. The book of Acts sets forth the fundamental doctrines and requirements of Christianity. It is to the letters of the Apostles we are to look for extended specifications of right and wrong affections, and right and wrong practices. Why do these letters omit to specify the sin of slaveholding? Because they were addressed to professing Christians exclusively; who, far more emphatically then than now, were "the base things of the world," and were in circumstances to be slaves, rather than slaveholders. Doubtless, there were many slaves amongst them—but I cannot admit, that there were slaveholders. There is not the least probability, that slaveholding was a prevalent sin amongst primitive ChristiansB. Instructions to them on that sin might have been almost as superfluous, as would be lectures on the sin of luxury, addressed to the poor Greenland disciples, whose poverty compels them to subsist on filthy oil. No one, acquainted with the history of their lives, believes that the Apostles were slave-holders. They labored, "working with (their) own hands." The supposition, that they were slaveholders, is inconsistent with their practice, and with the tenor of their instructions to others on the duty of manual labor. But if the Apostles were not slaveholders, why may we suppose, that their disciples were? At the South, it is, "like people, like priest," in this matter. There, the minister of the gospel thinks, that he has as good right to hold slaves, as has his parishioner: and your Methodists go so far, as to say, that even a bishop has as good right, as any other person, to have slaves
B: How strongly does the following extract from the writings of the great and good Augustine, who lived in the fourth century, argue, that slaveholding was not a prevalent sin amongst primitive Christians! "Non opurtet Christianum possidere servum quomodo equum aut argentum. Quis dicere audeat ut vestimentum cum debere contemni? Hominem namque homo tamquam seipsum diligere debet cui ab omnium Domino, ut inimicos diligat, imperatur." A Christian ought not to hold his servant as he does his horse or his money. Who dares say that he should be thought as lightly of as a garment? For man, whom the Lord of all has commanded to love his enemies, should love his fellow-man as himself.
"———to fan him while he sleeps, And tremble when he wakes."
Indeed, they already threaten to separate from their Northern brethren, unless this right be conceded. But have we not other and conclusive evidence, that primitive Christians were not slaveholders? We will cite a few passages from the Bible to show, that it was not the will of the Apostles to have their disciples hold manual labor in disrepute, as it is held, in all slaveholding communities. "Do your own business, and work with your own hands, as we commanded you." "For this we commanded you, that, if any would not work, neither should he eat." "Let him that stole, steal no more; but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." In bringing the whole verse into this last quotation, I may have displeased you. I am aware, that you slaveholders proudly and indignantly reject the applicableness to yourselves of the first phrase in this verse, and also of the maxim, that "the partaker of stolen goods is as bad as the thief." I am aware, that you insist, that the kidnapping of a man, or getting possession of him, after he has been kidnapped, is not to be compared, if indeed it can be properly called theft at all, with the crime of stealing a thing. It occurs to me, that if a shrewd lawyer had you on trial for theft, he would say, that you were estopped from going into this distinction between a man and a thing, inasmuch as, by your own laws, the slave is expressly declared to be a chattel—is expressly elevated into a thing. He would say, however competent it may be for others to justify themselves on the ground, that it was but a man, and not a thing, they had stolen; your own statutes, which, with magic celerity, convert stolen men into things, make such a plea, on your part, utterly inadmissible. He would have you as fast, as though the stolen goods, in your hands, were a bushel of wheat, or some other important thing, instead of a mere man.
But, if you are not yet convinced that primitive Christians were not slaveholders, let me cite another passage to show you, how very improbable it is, that they stood in this capacity:—"all, that believed, had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need." Now I do not say, that all the primitive believers did so. But if a portion of them did, and met with the Apostles' approbation in it, is it at all probable, that a course, so diverse from it, as that of slaveholding in the Church, met likewise with their approbation?
2d. I go on to account for the Apostles' omission to specify slavery.
Criminality is not always obvious, in proportion to its extent. The sin of the traffic in intoxicating liquors, was, until the last few years, almost universally unfelt and unperceived. But now, we meet with men, who, though it was "in all good conscience," that they were once engaged in it, would not resume it for worlds; and who see more criminality, in taking money from a fellow man, in exchange for the liquor which intoxicates him, than in simple theft. However it may be with others, in this employment, they now see, that, for them to traffic in intoxicating liquors, would be to stain themselves with the twofold crime of robbery and murder. How is it, that good men ever get into this employment?—and, under what influences and by what process of thought, do they come to the determination to abandon it? The former is accounted for, by the fact, that they grow up—have their education—their moral and intellectual training—in the midst of a public opinion, and even of laws also, which favor and sanction the employment. The latter is accounted for, by the fact, that they are brought, in the merciful providence of God, to observe and study and understand the consequences of their employment—especially on those who drink their liquor—the liquor which they sell or make, or, with no less criminality, furnish the materials for making. These consequences they find to be "evil, only evil, and that continually." They find, that this liquor imparts no benefit to them who drink it, but tends to destroy, and, oftentimes, does destroy, their healths and lives. To continue, therefore, in an employment in which they receive their neighbor's money, without returning him an equivalent, or any portion of an equivalent, and, in which they expose both his body and soul to destruction, is to make themselves, in their own judgments, virtually guilty of theft and murder.
Thus it is in the case of a national war, waged for conquest. Christians have taken part in it; and, because they were blinded by a wrong education, and were acting in the name of their country and under the impulses of patriotism, they never suspected that they were doing the devil, instead of "God, service." But when, in the kind providence of God, one of these butchers of their fellow beings is brought to pause and consider his ways, and to resolve his enormous and compound sin into its elements of wickedness,—into the lies, theft, covetousness, adultery, murder, and what not of crime, which enter into it,—he is amazed that he has been so "slow of heart to believe," and abandon the iniquity of his deeds.
What I have said to show that Christians, even in enlightened and gospelized lands, may be blind to the great wickedness of certain customs and institutions, serves to introduce the remark; that there were probably some customs and institutions, in the time of the Apostles, on which it would have been even worse than lost labor for them to make direct attacks. Take, for example, the kind of war of which we have been speaking. If there are reasons why the modern Christian can be insensible to the sin of it, there are far stronger reasons why the primitive Christian could be. If the light and instruction which have been accumulating for eighteen centuries, are scarcely sufficient to convince Christians of its wickedness, is it reasonable to suppose that, at the commencement of this long period, they could have been successfully taught it? Consider, that at that time the literature and sentiment of the world were wholly on the side of war; and especially, consider how emphatically the authority of civil government and of human law was in favor of its rightfulness. Now, to how great an extent such authority covers over and sanctifies sin, may be inferred from the fact, that there are many, who, notwithstanding they believe slavery to be a most Heaven-daring sin, yet, because it is legalized and under the wing of civil government, would not have it spoken against. Even Rev. Dr. Miller, in certain resolutions which he submitted to the last General Assembly, indicated his similar reverence for human laws; and the lamented Dr. Rice distinctly recognises, in his letter to Mr. Maxwell, the doctrine that the Church is bound to be quiet about every sin which the civil government adopts and whitewashes. That the Christian Spectator should indorse the Doctor's sentiments on this point is still more worthy of remark than that he should utter them. Indeed, I judge from what you say on the 68th and 69th pages of your book, that you are yourself opposed to calling in question the morality of that which civil government approves. But, to doubt the infallibility of civil government,—to speak against Caesar,—was manifestly held to be quite as presumptuous in the time of the Apostles as it is now.
Another reason why an Apostle would probably have deemed it hopeless to attempt to persuade his disciples, immediately and directly, of the sin of war, is to be found in the fact of their feeble and distorted perception of truth and duty. We, whose advantage it is to have lived all our days in the light of the gospel, and whose ancestors, from time immemorial, had the like precious advantage, can hardly conceive how very feeble and distorted was that perception. But, consider for a moment who those disciples were. They had, most of them, but just been taken out of the gross darkness and filth of heathenism. In reading accounts which missionaries give of converted heathen—of such, even, as have for ten, fifteen, or twenty years, been reputed to be pious—you are, doubtless, often surprised to find how grossly erroneous are their moral perceptions. Their false education still cleaves to them. They are yet, to a great extent, in the mould of a corrupted public opinion; and, as far from having a clear discernment of moral truth, as were the partially unsealed eyes which saw "men, as trees, walking." The first letter to the Church at Corinth, proves that the new principles implanted in its members had not yet purged out the leaven of their old wickedness; and that their conceptions of Christian purity and conduct were sadly defective. As it was with the Corinthian Christians, so was it to a great extent with the other Christians of that age. Now, if the Apostles did not directly teach the primitive believers that wars, and theatres, and games, and slavery, are sinful, it is because they thought it more fit to exercise their ignorant pupils chiefly in the mere alphabet and syllables of Christianity. (Acts xv, 28, 29.) The construction of words and sentences would naturally follow. The rudiments of the gospel, if once possessed by them, would be apt to lead them on to greater attainments. Indeed, the love, peace, truth, and other elements of holy living inculcated by the Apostles, would, if turned to all proper account, be fatal to every, even the most gigantic, system of wickedness. Having these elements in their minds and hearts, they would not fail of condemning the great and compound sin of war whenever they should be led to take it up, examine it, resolve it into its constituent parts, and lay these parts for comparison, by the side of those elements. But, such an advance was hardly to be expected from many of these heathen converts during the brief period in which they enjoyed Apostolic instruction; and it is but too probable, that most of them died in great ignorance of the sin of national wars. Converts from the heathen, in the present age, when conviction of the sinfulness of war is spreading in different parts of Christendom, would be more likely to imbibe correct views of it.
The Apostles "fed with milk" before they fed with meat, as did our Saviour, who declared, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." In every community, the foundation principles of righteousness must be laid, before there can be fulcrums for the levers to be employed in overthrowing the sins which prevail in it. You will doubtless, then, agree with me, that it is not probable that the Apostles taught their heathen converts, directly and specifically, the sinfulness of war. But slaves, in that age, with the exception of the comparative few who were reduced to slavery on account of the crimes of which they had been judicially convicted, were the spoils of war. How often in that age, as was most awfully the fact, on the final destruction of Jerusalem, were the slave-markets of the world glutted by the captives of war! Until, therefore, they should be brought to see the sinfulness of war, how could they see the sinfulness of so direct and legitimate a fruit of it as slavery?—and, if the Apostles thought their heathen converts too weak to be instructed in the sinfulness of war, how much more would they abstain from instructing them, directly and specifically, in the sin of slavery!
3d. In proceeding with my reasons why the Apostles did not extend their specification of sins to slavery, I remark, that it is apparent from the views we have taken, and from others which might have been taken, that nothing would have been gained by their making direct and specific attacks on the institutions of the civil governments under which they lived. Indeed, much might have been lost by their doing so. Weak converts, with still many remains of heathenism about them, might in this wise have been incurably prejudiced against truths, which, by other modes of teaching,—by general and indirect instructions,—would probably have been lodged in their minds. And there is another point of view in which vastly more, even their lives, might have been lost, by the Apostles making the direct and specific attacks referred to. I know that you ridicule the idea of their consulting their personal safety. But what right have you to do so? They did, on many occasions, consult the security of their lives. They never perilled them needlessly, and through a presumptuous reliance on God. It is the devil, who, in a garbled quotation from the Scriptures, lays down, in unlimited terms, the proposition, that God will keep his children. But, God promises them protection only when they are in their own proper ways. The Saviour himself consulted the safety of his life, until his "time" had "full come;" and his command to his Apostles was, "when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another." If you suppose me to admit for a moment, that regard for the safety of their lives ever kept them from the way of their duty, you are entirely mistaken; and, if you continue to assert, in the face of my reasoning to the contrary, that on the supposition of the sinfulness of slavery, their omission to make direct and specific attacks on it would have been a failure of their duty, then I can only regret that this reasoning has had no more influence upon you.