Qass 
 
 Book^ 
 
SLAVERY 
 
 DISCUSSED IN 
 
 OCCASIOIAL ESSAYS, 
 
 FROM 1833 TO 1846 
 
 LEONARD BACON, 
 
 PASTOR OF THE FIHST CHUIiOH IN NEW HAVEN, 
 
 ON>-^VofCo. 
 
 "^o^Washlr.^^^" 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 BAKER AND SCRIBNER, 
 
 145 Nassau Street and 36 Park Row. 
 
 18 4*6 
 
 / 
 
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by 
 
 LEONARD BACON, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the DisUict of 
 Connecticut. 
 
 EDWARD O . J E .N K KN S , P R I .N T L ] 
 
 Hi Nassau street. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Several years before the commencement of the 
 Anti-Slavery agitation on this side of the Atlantic, 
 it so happened that I was led to consider, with some' 
 care, the condition and prospects of the enslavecj^ 
 class in the United States. From that time to 
 the present, no subject not immediately connected 
 with my official duties or my professional studies, 
 has occupied so much of my attention. When 
 the British Anti-Slavery Societies began their la- 
 bors, in 1823, I entered into their views as then 
 exhibited ; and I learned much from the reports of 
 those Societies, and from the pamphlets published by 
 Stephens, Clarkson, Wilberforce and others. When 
 the Rev. Joshua Leavitt, now so emineiit among 
 American abolitionists, made his first appearance 
 as a writer on slavery, in 1825, I agreed generally 
 with his views, and was instructed by his arguments ; 
 for his views, at that time, were substantially the 
 same with those which the British abolitionists were 
 then urging upon Parliament. From him I learned 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 to make certain distinctions wliicli still seem to me 
 essential to any just view of the subject, widely as 
 he and others have since departed from them.* 
 
 * After the lapse of one and twenty years, it cannot seem indelicate 
 to refer to Mr. Leavitt as the author of the articles above alluded to. 
 They were published in the Christian Spectator for 182.5, pp. 130-138, 
 ^39-246. I well remember the violent sensation which they produced 
 in "Charleston, where the Christian Spectator was immediately put upon 
 the Indcx,^ librorum proldhitorum of his holiness Judge Lynch. Yet 
 those articles were far from containing the modern Anti-Slavery doc- 
 trine. Witness such passages as th-ese : 
 
 " The right of personal liberty is not, in all circumstances, an abso- 
 lute right. If it were so, slavery would have never been recognized 
 in the Word of God. Yet it was permitted and regulated in the laws 
 given by God himself Lev. xxv. 44, 45." *' Neither has Christianity 
 interfered in this respect to abolish slavery. Paul has given directions 
 for the mutual deportment of masters and servants, or slaves, as they 
 were in those days." — p. 131. 
 
 *' Our own laws recognize involuntary servitude whenever the public 
 good and the interest of the individual require it. Such is substantially 
 the case of minors, of idiots, of spendthrifts, of drunkards. The right 
 of personal liberty, therefore, is not one which may be lawfully vindi- 
 cated «i o/^iarartZs. Salus 2^o2n'.Ii, suprcma lex. l^ie public good, the 
 interest of all classes, both whites and blacks, is the supreme laiv. 
 Slaves have no more an abstract absolute right to rise and kill their 
 masters, and involve the whole community in destruction, than the son 
 or apprentice has to revolt from the control under which the laws have 
 placed him. The very idea is most preposterous, that a part of the 
 community have a right, which they may assert to the destruction of 
 the peace and happiness of the whole. The right of the master, there- 
 fore, to the services of his slave, maj/ be as perfect as to the services 
 of his apprentice. But this right depends, in either case, wholly on 
 the assumed fact, that in existing circumstances the pubUc good re- 
 quires the existence of servitude. It is a mere creature of society, 
 and depends entirely upon the laws."— pp. 131-132. 
 
PREFACE. y 
 
 In the year 1830, or soon after, a new doctrinej or 
 what seemed such, began to be current. The Eng- 
 lish Anti-Slavery Societies, in the heat of their con- 
 
 *'I have had three objects in view, in thus going into the nature of 
 slavery as a legal institution. In the first place, I wish it to appear 
 that the relation between the master and slaves, is a proper subject of 
 legislation. It is a conventional right and depends entirely upon the 
 laws"— ibid. 
 
 " The second object was to relieve slavehDlders from a charge, or 
 an apprehension of criminality, where in fact there is no oflfehce. 
 There can be no palliation for the conduct of those who first brought 
 the curse of slavery upon poor i:\frica, and America too. But the body 
 of the present generation are not liable to this charge. Posterity are 
 not answerable for the sins of their fathers, unless they approve their 
 deeds. They found the negroes among them, in a degraded state, in- 
 capable either of appreciating or enjoying liberty. They have, there- 
 fore, nothing to answer for on this score, because they have no other 
 alternative, «f^;rcscnf, but to keep them in subjection. There is no- 
 thing so destructiveto the moral sense, as to be forced, by our principles, 
 to the acknowledgment of guilt, in that which we at the same time be- 
 lieve to be absolutely unavoidable, and in which, therefore, it is impos- 
 sible really to feel self-reproach." "A Christian J7^a^/ hold slaves, and 
 exact their services, without any occasion to feel a pang of self- 
 reproach merely on account of his holding slaves." — p. 133. 
 
 " The third object aimed at, was to fasten the charge of criminality 
 on the very spot where such a charge will lie, and where it ought to be 
 felt; and where alone reformation is practicable. There are no duties 
 without corresponding rights, and no rights without corresponding du- 
 ties. While it is the duty of the slave to submit himself to his own 
 master so long as the laws of this country make him a slave, it is his 
 right to be protected by the laws, in the enjoyment of life, health, chas- 
 tity, good name, and every blessing which he can enjoy consistently 
 with the pubhc welfare." 
 
 "Christianity enforces this dictate of sound reason. ' Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself,' is as much the law between master and 
 1* 
 
YJ PREFACE. 
 
 tlict with the ^^ West India interest," being most rea- 
 sonably disgusted with the resistance of the colonial 
 authorities to every measure that had any tendency 
 towards freedom, had begun to renounce all further 
 dependence upon such measures, and to demand of 
 Parliament the immediate abolition of slavery. '^ Im- 
 mediate abolition " had become the popular doctrine 
 among philanthropists; and '^ gradualism " or the 
 notion of a process of abolition, was scouted as an 
 obsolete idea. Accordingly the doctrine of immedi- 
 ate abolition began to be current here ; but here it 
 was necessarily, to some extent at least, another thing 
 from what it was m Great Britain. There it was a 
 demand that a new constitution of society, a new 
 body of lav/s, a new system of relations between 
 capital and labor, and between the landholder and 
 the peasant, should be imposed upon dependent and 
 vassal colonies by the omnipotence of the Imperial 
 Parliament. Here it became the doctrine of "• imme- 
 
 slave, as between any other members of the human family. This is so 
 obvious as to appear ahnost Ukc a truism. And yet this is the very 
 thing that has always been lost sight of among slaveholders. It has 
 been wholly disregarded in our own nation.'-' ** We do not answer 
 to this indictment unless we either plead guilty, or show that our laws, 
 our customs, our modes of thinking and acting, recognize the human- 
 ity of the negroes."— pp. 133, 134. 
 
 Some of these statements are no doubt unguarded. Cut the leading 
 principles and distinctions carried conviction to my mind at the time ; 
 and it still seems to me that there can be no just reasoning on the sub- 
 ject without them. 
 
niEFACE. ^,- 
 
 diatc emancipation '^ by individual masters, '' at all 
 hazards," and without regard to consequences; the 
 doctrine that slavery is a sin on the part of the mas- 
 ter, always and in all circumstances, and that he 
 must immediately renounce his authority without 
 asking what is expedient for the commonwealth, or 
 what for the welfare of the slave. All who re- 
 fused to receive that doctrine and its corollaries, 
 were denounced as '' pro-s]avery," and as sacrificing 
 duty to expediency. 
 
 Such was the occasion on which I felt myself called 
 to publish the first of the following essays. A criti- 
 cal examination of the subject in the light of the Scrip- 
 tures, seemed to be necessary at that time ; and I did 
 what I could. The two or three years that followed, 
 were years of great excitement in respect to slavery. 
 The most extravagant views were presented on both 
 sides. On the one hand, the Anti-Slavery party, 
 including the no-government element from which it 
 has now in some measure disengaged itself, seemed 
 to aim at irritating public opinion into phrenzy. 
 On the other hand, the southern people were demand- 
 ing that the discussion of slavery in the free States 
 should be put down by mobs ; and there were found 
 nortliern men base enough to lend themselves to 
 such a demand. The dates of several of these es- 
 says, will show that they were written during that 
 period of excitement. 
 
VUl 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Ten years ago, I thought that I had done all that 
 it was my duty to do in this way. But within a few 
 months past, a sort of necessity seems to he laid 
 upon me. The suhject came up, last summer, 
 in the General Association of the Congregational 
 Pastors of Connecticut. And there, as I have al- 
 ways been wont to do wherever an opportunity 
 has arisen, I expressed very freely the same vieAVS 
 which I had formerly uttered through the press. 
 What I said, in the freedom of fraternal debate, was 
 reported, not very accurately, in several newspapers; 
 and some of those reports were commented upon 
 with severity in the '' Christian Observer," a Pres- 
 byterian newspaper, which, though published in 
 Philadelphia, seems to be designed chiefly for a 
 southern circulation. Thus summoned before the 
 public, I could not well refuse to answer for myself. 
 Then came the proceedings in tlie American Board 
 of Foreign Missions ; and the extent to which I 
 found myself involved in that debate, and in the 
 newspaper discussions which followed, seemed tore- 
 quire that I should not excuse myself from one more 
 attempt to vindicnte what is manifest to my mind as 
 truth. 
 
 Nothing is more likely, than that some differences 
 may be discovered between the earlier essays and 
 the later, for the Author has intended to regard truth 
 rather than his own consistency, and he will not 
 
PREFACE. [^ 
 
 undertake to maintain that, in thirteen years he has 
 learned nothing-. The only changes made, besides 
 the removal of some verbal inaccuracies, incident to 
 the haste of writing for a periodical publication, are 
 the correction of one pas^sage which when first pub- 
 lished, gave unintentional offence, and the omission 
 of two or three allusions, in the earlier essays, to the 
 controversy which the Anti-Slavery Society was then 
 maintaining v/ith the friends of African colonization. 
 That conU'oversy, since our Anti-Slavery friends 
 have done so much at colonization in Canada, seems 
 to be at rest ; and I have no wish to revive it. 
 
 Some of my friends have expected that I w^ould 
 reply to the address issued against the American 
 Board of Missions, by a convention lately held at 
 Syracuse. That address, I doubt not, is capable of 
 most abundant refutation, but I do not conceive that 
 it devolves on me to reply to it. In the details of 
 such a reply, and the numberless questions of fact 
 which it would be necessary to consider, the original 
 question of principle, the question of the relations of 
 Christianity to slavery, the question whether a mas- 
 ter of slaves may in any instance be recognized as a 
 Christian, w^ould be quite forgotten. 
 
 It is no part of the object, in any of these essays, to 
 prove that the slavery which exists in these American 
 States is wrong. To me it seems that the man who 
 needs argument on that point, cannot be argued with. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 What elementary idea of right and wrong can that 
 man have ? If that form of government, that system 
 of social order is not wrong — if those laws of the 
 southern states, by virtue of which slavery exists 
 there, and is what it is, are not wrong — nothing is 
 wrong. Such a book as Wheeler's " Law of Sla- 
 very," leaves no room for any argument to prove 
 that our southern slavery is wrong, if only the reader 
 is gifted with a moral sense. It is, therefore, taken 
 for granted in these essays, from first to last, that 
 every man has rights, and that our American slavery 
 — which denies all rights to some two millions of 
 human beings, and decrees that they shall always 
 be held at the lowest point of degradation — is too 
 palpably wrong to be argued about. The wrong of 
 that slavery, however, is one thing, and the way to 
 rectify that wrong, is another thing. The wrongful- 
 ness of that entire body of laws, opinions and prac- 
 tices is one thing ; and the criminality of the indivi- 
 dual master, who tries to do right, is another thing. 
 These essays, therefore, treat chiefly of the way in 
 which the wrong can be set right. 
 
 New Haven, April 24th, 1846. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Slavery, [Quarterly Christian Spectator, 1S35.] . . 13 
 
 The Abolition of Slavery, [Quarterly Christian Spectator, 
 1S34.] 57 
 
 Present State of the Slavery Question, [Quarterly 
 Christian Spectator, 1S36.] SO 
 
 Slavery in Maryland, [Quarterly Christian Spectator, 
 1&36.] 107 
 
 Letter to the Editor of the Philadelphia Christian 
 Observer, 1S45, [New York Observer, 1S45.] . . 123 
 
 The Collision between the Anti-Slavery Society and 
 the American Board, [New York Evangelist, 1846.] . 13i 
 
 No. I. — The Question Stated, 131 
 
 No. II. — The Action of the Board, .... 144 
 
 No. III. — What has Church Government to do 
 with Slavery ? What is Slavery in the United 
 States.? 1G3 
 
 No. IV. — What has Church Government to do with 
 Slavery ? 173 
 
 No. V. — Shall we follow the Apostles in their Ad- 
 :aiiNisTRATioN of Church Government or shall 
 
 WE TRY TO DO BETTER ? ISS 
 
 No. VI. — Christianity and the Church counter- 
 acting Slavery. How ? 204 
 
 No. VII. — Duty of the Churches in the Free 
 States, ......... 217 
 
 No, VIII.— Explanations, 236 
 
OCCASIONAL ESSAYS 
 
 SLAVERY.* 
 
 [quarterly christian spectator, 1S33.] 
 
 The author of this book is an intelligent and able 
 minister of the gospel, in the Presbyterian Church. 
 A few years ago, he was pastor of a congregation in 
 Prince Edward County, Virginia. Born and edu- 
 cated in that State, and having spent more than 
 forty years there, in the midst of a slaveholding 
 population, he entertained those views of slavery, 
 which, we believe, are common to pious and reflect- 
 ing men in all parts of the country; he believed in 
 " the moral evil of slavery, and the duty of Chris- 
 tians to let no selfish interest prolong the sin and 
 injustice, but, in the fear of God, to do all they can, 
 in consistency with duty, to fit for and restore to 
 freedom those in bondage." This view led him to 
 favor the Colonization Society, to take up contribu- 
 tions for that object, and to attempt founding an 
 
 * Letters on Slavery : Addressed to the Cumberland Congregation^ 
 Virginia. By J. D, Paxton, their former Pastor. Lexington, Ky., 
 1833. 12mo. pp. 207. 
 
 2 
 
14 SLAVERY. 
 
 auxiliary society among- his people. Occasionally 
 he made some little reference to the subject in his 
 public preaching ; but, as there were usually slaves 
 in the congregation, and as he knew how readily 
 some persons might take offence, his allusions to the 
 '' delicate subject," as the Southrons call it, were 
 few and slight. By marriage he had become the 
 master of one or two families of slaves. He felt it 
 to be his duty — and his wife's views were entirely 
 coincident with his — to make those persons free, as 
 soon as it could be done wnth a fair prospect of im- 
 proving their condition. Accordingly, he says, ' ' we 
 watched the progress of the Colony at Liberia for 
 several years; and, in the mean time, used means 
 to prepare our slaves for freedom. As soon as we 
 were satisfied that they had better prospects there of 
 doing well for themselves, than they could have 
 with us, we encouraged them to go ; gave them such 
 an outfit as our means afforded, and sent them to the 
 Colony.'^ These slaves, eleven in number, sailed 
 from Norfolk, on board the Indian Chief, in Febru- 
 ary, 1826 ; and were among the first of the slaves 
 manumitted for the purpose of sending them to Af- 
 rica. 
 
 Not long after the going forth of these freed-men, 
 and while the excitement, naturally produced in the 
 neighborhood by such an event, had not yet entirely 
 subsided, our author commenced a series of essays 
 on slavery, in the Family Visitor, a religious paper, 
 which had some circulation among the families of 
 his charge. The tliird number of this series con- 
 tained an energetic exposition of the inconsistency 
 between slavery, as constituted by the statutes of 
 
SLAVERY. J5 
 
 Virginia, and the requisitions of the law of love. It 
 gave great offence to those members of the congre- 
 gation, who had been previously dissatisfied with 
 their pastor's liberating his own slaves ; and as Mr. 
 Paxton was well understood to be the author, great 
 efforts were made to create a general disaffection to- 
 wards him. Immediately on receiving official in- 
 formation that an opposition had been organized 
 against him, he resigned his charge, " leaving the 
 Cumberland congregation to obtain a pastor whose 
 opinions might agree with their own.'' 
 
 Such was the occasion of the letters before us. 
 They were written soon after the author's resigna- 
 tion of his pastoral charge, but have remained un- 
 published these six years, because the author, unwil- 
 ling to do anything rashly, yielded to the advice of 
 certain friends, who thought ^' that on account of 
 existing excitement, some little time should be al- 
 lowed to pass before they were given to the public." 
 We confess that our judgment differs from that of 
 Mr. Paxton's cautious friends. To us it seems that 
 this little book could have done no great harm, and 
 might have done great good in the six years during 
 which it has been shut up in the author's deslc. To 
 us it seems, too, that the excitement of the occasion 
 would have caused the book to be read with interest 
 by many who now may never read it at all. 
 
 The first of these letters contains a narrative of 
 facts, relating to the occasion on which the book 
 was written. The second treats of ministerial pru- 
 dence, and exposes the folly of supposing, that when- 
 ever offence is taken at a minister's preaching or 
 conduct, he is of course to be regarded as having 
 
16 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 acted imprudently. The third refutes the notion, so 
 common at the South, that all discussion on such a 
 subject is to be avoided as dangerous, and shows that 
 the danger of slavery itself is such as cannot be aug- 
 mented by temperate and candid discussion. The 
 fourth exhibits the origin and nature of negro slavery 
 in the United States, and compares it with the sla- 
 very which formerly existed in England. The fifth 
 shows how slavery violates the principles on which 
 all our boasted political institutions are founded ; 
 and inquires what sentence is pronounced upon 
 it by the law of nature. The five following are an 
 investigation of the teachings of Scripture in respect 
 to the morality of slavery. The eleventh and twelfth 
 exhibit some of the evil tendencies of slavery ; and 
 argue very strongly that no Christian, of enlightened 
 views, can lend the sanction of his example to a 
 system fraught with such tendencies. The thirteenth 
 refutes some of the arguments most commonly of- 
 fered in vindication of slavery. The fourteenth and 
 fifteenth are devoted to the inquiry, '' What must 
 we do with our slaves ?'' Our author's own exam- 
 ple has shown the favorable opinion with which he 
 regards the efforts of the Colonization Society ; yet, 
 he is far from thinking, as some seem to think, that 
 nothing ought to be done except as the emancipated 
 are carried to Liberia. He proposes several plans 
 for the removal of the colored population, and obvi- 
 ously regards tlie separation of the two races as im- 
 portant to the well-being of both ; yet he doubts 
 whether the removal of all is practicable, and brings 
 arguments to show that the emancipated slaves 
 might become, in time, even in the midst of the 
 
SLAVERY. I'j 
 
 country which they now occupy, industrious and 
 happy free laborers. He shows, with much clear- 
 ness, what can be done by individual slaveholders 
 to promote the general abolition of the system ; and, 
 in the sixteenth letter, concludes with an eloquent 
 array of " motives to immediate effort," drawn from 
 the doctrine of God's retributive dispensations, and 
 from the certainty that dreadful judgments must fall 
 upon a country so laden as ours with the guilt of 
 slavery, unless they are averted by a speedy repent- 
 ance. 
 
 This book is a fair specimen of that sort of dis- 
 cussion on the subject of slavery, which we wish to 
 see more of. The author does not bluster, like some 
 eminent philanthropists in our part of the country ; 
 he does not attempt to mystify and madden the minds 
 of inflammable readers, with the stereotype talk about 
 '^ immediate abolition ;" he writes like a man who 
 knows whereof he affirms, and who knows precisely 
 what prejudices and errors he has undertaken to 
 combat ; he aims directly at the instruction and con- 
 viction of those slaveholders who imagine that there 
 is no w^rong in slavery, and that nothing is to be done 
 but to hand down the system, just as it is, to other 
 generations ; — and such is the coolness and clearness, 
 and at the same time the pungency, of his statements 
 and arguments, that slaveholders, meeting with the 
 book, cannot refuse to read, and reading, cannot 
 easily avoid being convinced. We hope the book 
 may have a wide circulation in that part of the 
 country for which it was especially designed. We 
 hope it may be replied to ; and that the author may 
 thus have occasion to come out again, with his 
 
23 SLAVERY. 
 
 Strong appeals to undeniable facts and self-evident 
 principles. 
 
 In saying all this, however, we do not make our- 
 selves responsible for everything which the author 
 has said. Here and there, if it were worth our 
 while, we might find fault with a position or an 
 argument; but those slips and errors — if they are 
 such — do not affect the great conclusions to which 
 he wishes to conduct his readers. For example : we 
 have our doubts whether the exegesis by which he 
 would get rid of some passages of Scripture often ad- 
 duced in defence of slavery, is in every instance cor- 
 rect. Yet the general position, that the Bible does 
 not justify or authorize slavery, he defends success- 
 fully ; for he brings forward the great principles of 
 Christian morality, and applies them to the question 
 in such a manner as leaves no doubt on the mind of 
 the unbiased reader, that, whatever difficulties there 
 may be with the exegesis of particular passages, the 
 Bible is irreconcilably at war with such a constitution 
 of society. 
 
 Taking leave, now, of Mr. Paxton and his book, 
 but not of the subject, we propose to occupy a few 
 pages with a scriptural inquiry respecting the moral- 
 ity of slavery. 
 
 To many who will read these pages, the question 
 is one of direct practical importance. We have 
 readers, not a few, who are the hereditary masters 
 of bondmen, or who live in tlie midst of a slavehold- 
 ing community. And besides these, many of our 
 readers in our own part of the country, will probably 
 be living, by and by, where the laws establish slavery, 
 and where every man, whose circumstances permit 
 
SLAVERY. 19 
 
 him to employ a servant, is called upon to decide for 
 himself, whether he will be a slaveholder or not. 
 Thousands of the natives of the north — young men, 
 and men more advanced — men in every business 
 and profession — are continually becoming citizens 
 of the south, and there find that the question of the 
 morality of slavery is to them a question personally 
 and immediately practical. 
 
 The subject is important to us all, in another as- 
 pect. We at the north, are fellow-citizens with 
 slaveholders ; and between us and them, as fellow- 
 citizens, there is, and must be, a constant intercourse. 
 We and they not only meet by our representatives 
 in the national legislature, but meet personally, both 
 in our part of the country and in theirs. Many slave- 
 masters are associated with us, in our various benevo- 
 lent and Christian enterprises. Often individuals from 
 among them, brought hither by business, or in pursuit 
 of health, come and worship with us in our temples, 
 or as members of sister churches, sit down with us 
 at the table of the Lord. Not less often, one and 
 another from among us, finds himself carried by his 
 business, or is driven by disease, into those parts of 
 the country where slavery prevails ; and there slave- 
 holders not only offer him the civilities of ordinary 
 hospitality, but, if he is a professor of religion, invite 
 him to worship with them in their families and in 
 their temples, and to commune with them in all re- 
 ligious ordinances. Thus, it is an important ques- 
 tion to all, how ought we to regard these fellow- 
 citizens 1 And this is only another form of the ques- 
 tion respecting the morality of slavery. On the one 
 hand, we are urged to believe that they are without 
 
20 SLAVERY. 
 
 any responsibility, in relation to tlie existence and 
 continuance of slavery among them. On the other 
 liandj we are visited by traveling lecturers on slaver}^, 
 and inundated with pamphlets and papers, urging 
 us to believe that every slave-master is, as such, a 
 criminal of tlic deepest die, a ''felon in heart and 
 deed," whose crime is only inferior ''to intentional 
 and malignant murder," a " thief," a " robber," a 
 " tyrant," who deserves to be regarded as the common 
 enemy of the human race. These circumstances 
 certainly give great importance to the inquiry respect- 
 ing the morality of slavery. 
 
 First of all, in this inquiry, it is necessary to 
 define distinctly the subject in debate. What is 
 slavery ? 
 
 Before attempting a direct answer to this question, 
 it is to be remarked, that there are many varieties 
 of slavery ; that the laws of different countries and 
 ages limit and modify the relation of master and 
 slave, in many different degrees ; and that, there- 
 fore, the answer ought to include slavery in all its 
 forms. There may be slavery, where the master 
 has, by the law, an absolute irresponsible power over 
 the persons and lives of his slaves ; and there may 
 be slavery, where the master has no powder to put 
 his slave to death, and if he inflicts an}^ punishment 
 beyond a certain measure of severit}^, he must be 
 called to account at a public tribunal. There may 
 be slavery, where the slave is by the law incapal)le 
 of acquiring property, incapable of marriage, inca- 
 pable of testifying in a coinl of justice, incapable of 
 complaining to a magistrate against the cruelty of 
 his master or of any other person ; and there may 
 
SLAVERY. 21 
 
 be slavery, where the slave is invested with all 
 these rights, and protected in them. There may be 
 slavery, where the slave is allowed to be sold like a 
 horse, at the pleasure or necessity of his master, and 
 to be torn away by force from all the objects of his 
 natural affection ; and there may be slavery, where 
 the slave cannot be transferred from one proprietor 
 to another, except with his own consent. There may 
 be hereditary slavery, entailed upon unborn genera- 
 tions ; and there may be slaves, whose children are 
 free-born. There may be a slavery for life ; and 
 there may be a slaver}^ limited to a term of years. 
 We say, therefore, the definition of slavery ought to 
 include all the varieties of servitude which the word 
 slavery properly denotes, and ought to exclude 
 everything else. 
 
 Shall it be said, then, as is often said by those who 
 talk most on this subject, that, for a man to have 
 property in his fellow-men, is slavery? How are 
 w^e to understand this definition ? Has not the mas- 
 ter a property in his apprentice — the father in his 
 children — not to say the husband in his wife, and 
 the wife in her husband ? Is all the property which 
 one human being may have in another, slavery 7 
 Who is he that would abolish slavery, by proclaim- 
 ing it as an axiom, that it is a crime for one human 
 being to claim property in another 1 Let him preach 
 that doctrine, if he will be consistent, to his ap- 
 prentices, or to the apprentices of his neighbor, and 
 exhort them to make the application for themselves. 
 Will it be said, that the master cannot sell his ap- 
 prentice as the slaveholder can sell his slave 1 We 
 ask in reply, Is there no slavery where the slave 
 2* 
 
22 SLAVERY. 
 
 cannot be transferred from one master lo another^ 
 without his own consent ? Suppose a law to be en- 
 acted, forbidding the master to sell his slave, except 
 with the slave's consent, and making the slave's 
 voluntary signature in the presence of a magistrate 
 essential to the validity of the transfer : — is that the 
 immediate, unconditional, and unqualified abolition 
 of slavery ? Is it said that the master has no pro- 
 perty in the person of his apprentice, but only a 
 property in his time and labor, a title to his services 1 
 We ask in reply. Is it necessary to the existence of 
 slavery, that the slaveholder shall have any other 
 kind of property in his slave than what the master 
 mechanic has in his indented apprentice 1 Suppose 
 it to be declared by legislation, or by some judicial 
 decision, that the master's property in his slave is 
 simply a property in his time and labor, and not in 
 his blood and bones, and that the slave is only a 
 '^ person held to service or labor" for his lifetime, 
 and transmitting the same condition to his chil- 
 dren : — would that be the immediate and complete 
 abolition of slavery ? 
 
 Shall it be said, then, that slavery consists in the 
 obligation to work without wages ? But is not the 
 apprentice bound to work without wages? The 
 apprentice has indeed a compensation for his labor; 
 he does not work for nothing; he receives, ordina- 
 rily, his food and clothing, and he receives instruc- 
 tion in his trade. And so the slave may have a 
 compensation. It is not essential to his condition 
 that he shall work for nothing ; it may be that he 
 has his daily food, his cabin and his clothing ; it is 
 not impossible to imagine that he has food and cloth- 
 
SLAVERY. 23 
 
 ing for his children, and even a shelter and the 
 comforts of animal existence for his aged and dis- 
 abled parents ; nay more, he may be provided with 
 medical attendance in sickness, and with religious 
 instruction on the Sabbath ; and the master may re- 
 gard all this as due to him in consideration of his 
 services ; while yet his service is the service of a 
 slave. Will it be said that his compensation is in- 
 adequate 1 We admit it; but are all men slaves 
 who work for an inadequate compensation ? In 
 how many parts of the world may men be hired, by 
 thousands, to work for no other compensation than 
 bare shelter and support 1 
 
 Shall we adopt Paley's definition, that '' slavery 
 is an obligation to labor for the benefit of the mas- 
 ter, without the contract or consent of the servant V^ 
 But may not a man sell himself into slavery 1 Did 
 not the Hebrew servant, who, at the end of his sixth 
 year of servitude declined the privilege of becoming 
 free, consent and contract to be a slave forever ? 
 
 We know not how to define slavery more ac- 
 curately than by saying. It is that artificial relation, 
 or civil constitutiojiy by which one man is invested with 
 a property in the labor of another, to whom, by virtue 
 of that relation, he owes the duties of protection, sup- 
 port, and government, and who owes him, in return, 
 obedience and suhmission. The right which a father 
 has in his children, is a natural right ; the relation 
 which involves it, is a relation instituted by the 
 Author of nature. The right which the master has 
 in his apprentice, is the right of the father trans- 
 ferred, within certain limits, and for the convenience 
 and by the consent of the parties, to another person. 
 
24 SLAVERY. 
 
 But the relation of master and slave has no founda- 
 tion in nature ; it is altogether the work of human 
 legislation. It is a relation entirely artificial ; it is 
 an unnatural constitution of society, arbitrarily in- 
 vesting one party with authority and property, and 
 binding the other party to obedient and submissive 
 labor. 
 
 Now there are those, Ave have reason to believe, 
 who think they find in the Scriptures a full justifica- 
 tion of slavery ; and who bring proof texts to quiet 
 their consciences w^hile they hold their fello^v-men, 
 and are resolved to hold them always, in a most de- 
 grading bondage. On the other hand, there are men 
 who profess to regard it as one of the plainest points 
 of revelation, that no man can exercise the owner- 
 ship and government of a slave, in any circumstances 
 for a single hour, without the most atrocious 
 and horrible guilt. The inquiry before us has been 
 undertaken with reference to both these opinions. 
 In pursuing it, then, we are to examine chiefly what 
 light the Scriptures throw on the subject. 
 
 A full investigation of the Scriptures in relation to 
 this matter, naturally divides itself into two branches ; 
 first, the Mosaic legislation and religion, and secondly, 
 the principles and conduct of Christ and his apostles. 
 
 The first point, then, to be examined, is the le- 
 gislation of Moses on the subject of slavery. Did the 
 great lawgiver of Israel, legislating by Divine inspi- 
 ration, approve and sanction slavery 1 If not, did 
 he forbid and abolish it on the plan of immediate 
 abolition'? The following positions, we think, will 
 be found too plain to need much illustration, and too 
 well supported to be denied. 
 
SLAVERY. 
 
 26 
 
 1. Moses did not introduce slavery among the Jews. 
 It was even in his time, as it has been ever since, in 
 all the countries of the east, an ancient and estab- 
 lished institution, incorporated with all the habits of 
 the people, and with the entire structure of society. 
 As long ago as when Abram and Lot departed out 
 of Haran, about four centuries after the flood, they 
 took with them, not only '^ the substance which they 
 had gathered," but " the souls which they had got- 
 ten in Haran."* The patriarch, sojourning and 
 wandering in the land of promise, was not a solitary 
 traveler ; he was respected as the master and propri- 
 etor of a body of servants, of whom ^' three hundred 
 and eighteen " were able to bear arms.f And as to 
 the nature of the servitude of the souls which he had 
 gotten, and the tenure by which they were held, 
 the story of Hagar, the '^ bondwoman," seems to be 
 a sufficiently palpable illustration.]: The w^ealth of 
 Isaac consisted not only in flocks and herds, but in 
 " great store of servants. "§ When Jacob returned 
 from Padanaram, his wealth was '' oxen and asses, 
 flocks, and men-servants, and women-servants. "|| 
 Whether the servants of those days were bought and 
 sold as merchandise, and at what price, let those 
 judge who have read of the sale of Joseph to a 
 caravan of Arab traders — a transaction exactly like 
 what now takes place in Africa, not to say in this 
 country, every day. Such were the ideas and habits 
 of the Hebrews, when Moses undertook to give them 
 laws. 
 
 * Genesis xii. 5. t Genesis xiv. 14. 
 
 t Genesis xvi. 1-9; xxi. 9-11. § Genesis xxvi. 14. 
 
 II Genesis xxxii. 5. 
 
25 SLAVEltY. 
 
 2. In these circumstances did the inspired legis- 
 lator peremptorily prohibit slavery? No. He ex- 
 pected that the people for whom he was legislating 
 would continue to hold bond-servants as property; 
 and he framed his laws accordingly. Indeed, we 
 may say, that slavery is as important a title in his 
 laws, as it is in the statute-book of any State in this 
 Union. He defines several modes in which persons 
 might become slaves. (1.) The man convicted of 
 theft, and unable to make a double or fourfold or 
 fivefold restoration of the property stolen, was to be 
 sold to make out the compensation.* (2.) Some- 
 times a man through poverty sold himself or his 
 children, or perhaps, was sold, with his family, for 
 the payment of his debts ; a wiser method, surely, 
 than our Gothic practice of imprisoning the debtor. 
 This mode of enforcing the payment of debts, was 
 probably an ancient custom. The legislator takes 
 it for granted that this will be done, and makes pro- 
 vision for it.f (3.) Captives in war, especially \vo- 
 men and children, were held as slaves. J (4.) In 
 connection with a law protecting the Israelite, who 
 through poverty had sold himself, against the rigor- 
 ous treatment to which slaves Avere ordinarily sub- 
 ject, and providing for his emancipation at a fixed 
 period, it is said, " Both th)^ bondmen and thy bond- 
 maids 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 
 
 * Exodus xxii. 1-4. 
 
 t Levit. XXV. 39, 47 ; Exod. xxi. 7 ; Nehem. v. 4. 5. See Michaelis 
 on the laws of Moses, vol. ii. pp. 160-163, 306-308. 
 t Deut. XX. 14 
 
SLAVERY. 27 
 
 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 in- 
 heritance for your children after you, to inherit them 
 for a possession."* Such legislation as this, proves 
 beyond debate that Moses did not peremptorily pro- 
 hibit slavery as a crime. Other particulars are equal- 
 ly remarkable. It is enacted, that if a master should 
 so strike a slave with a rod, as to cause his immediate 
 death, the crime should be punished as murder; but 
 the exception is added — strange, not to say shocking, 
 to our sensibilities — that if the slave survive the in- 
 jury a day or two, the master's pecuniary loss shall 
 be considered punishment enough, '' for he is his 
 money."! The law — of late made so familiar to 
 half the population of this country, by an ingenious 
 temperance tract. — which held the owner of a dan- 
 gerous ox responsible with his life, if through his 
 neglect the ox should cause the death of a man or 
 woman, contains a similar exception. If the ox 
 " has killed ii man or a woman," — '^ if he have gored 
 a son or daughter," the owner is to be put to death 
 unless his life be redeemed by a sum of money, at 
 the discretion, doubtless, of the magistrate. But, 
 ^' if the ox shall push a man-servant or maid -servant, 
 he (the owner) shall give to their master thirty 
 shekels of silver. "| Such a distinction between a 
 
 * Levit. XXV. 44-46. t Exod. xxi. 20, 21. 
 
 X Exod. xxi. 28, 32. See Michaelis on the laws of Moses, vol. iv. 
 p. 260. 
 
28 SLAVERY. 
 
 freeman and a slave, seems to have been necessary 
 in making laws for the stiff-necked Israelites; but 
 our feelings revolt at it. 
 
 3. Did Moses sanction slavery 1 Not at all. He 
 dealt with it as he dealt with polygamy, with arbi- 
 trary divorce, with the levirate law, and with the 
 old bloody law of the goel or blood-avenger. Legis- 
 lating for a people, in many respects barbarous, and 
 never remarkably tractable, he wisely considered 
 what was practicable in such a case, rather than 
 what was simply desirable. Many were the pro- 
 visions of the Jewish law, of which Christ might 
 have said, as he said of that which permitted arbi- 
 trary divorces, ''Because of the hardness of your 
 hearts, Moses wrote you this precept." The pro- 
 fessed Christian, then, who would set up a justifica- 
 tion for slavery, on the ground that the civil laws 
 of Moses did not peremptorily forbid it, ought to 
 remember, that, b}^ the same reasoning, he may 
 justify polygamy, and concubinage, and the divorce 
 of a wife at the pleasure of her husband. By the 
 same reasoning, he may make it the duty of the 
 brother of a deceased husband, to receive as his own 
 wife the childless widow, for the sake of perpetuat- 
 ing the family and name of the deceased. By the 
 same reasoning, he may prove that in every case of 
 homicide, from the most malicious to the most acci- 
 dental, the nearest relative of the person slain, may 
 pursue the slayer, guilty or innocent, and may smite 
 him to death wherever he finds him. The only 
 question on this point is — Did Moses, with the au- 
 thority of an inspired legislator, sanction as right, 
 everything which his code did not prohibit and pun- 
 
SLAVERY. 29 
 
 ish as criminal ? And among Christians, surely, 
 that is no question at all. 
 
 4. The Mosaic statutes respecting the relation of 
 master and slave, are obviously modifications and 
 amendments of a previously existing jus consiLetudi- 
 nariuviy^ or common law, and are designed to 
 meliorate the condition of the slave, to ^^rotect him 
 from oppression, and to promote the gradual disuse 
 and abolition of slavery. Here, for the benefit of 
 such as have never given their attention distinctly 
 to this point, we will state a few particulars. 
 
 (1.) No Hebrew could continue a slave, except 
 by his own free consent, for a longer period than 
 six years ; and while he continued such, he was to 
 be treated only as a hireling, whose wages for the 
 six years had been paid in advance. In the year of 
 jubilee, too, every Hebrew who had fallen into 
 poverty, was to regain his hereditary lands, and 
 was, of course, to go free, that he might take pos- 
 session of them. t 
 
 * Michaelis on the laws of Moses, vol. i. pp. 9-15. 
 
 t Exod. xxi. 2-6; Deut. xv. 12-18; Levit. xxv. 39-55 ; Mr. Pax- 
 ton, pp. 79—84, labors hard to make it out, that these provisions 
 applied to all the slaves which the Israelites were permitted to hold. 
 His aigument, in brief, is, that all their slaves were to be circumcised ; 
 and that, by being circumcised, they became naturalized in Israel, and 
 were placed on a level with the descendants of Jacob. But was a cir- 
 cumcised slave, therefore, a naturalized Israelite 1 We answer. No ; 
 for Moses has given a particular law of naturalization, Deut. xxni.3-9. 
 By that law, it was granted to Edomites and Egyptians, as a peculiar 
 favor, that the grandchildren of such as should settle in Palestine, might 
 " enter into the congregation of the Lord ;" and in regard to the Am- 
 monites and Moabites, it is declared, that to the tenth generation, and 
 forever, they should be incapable of becoming Israelites. Yet the 
 Edomites, not to say the Egyptians, were circumcised ; and it would 
 seem, that any stranger who desired to eat the passover, might do so 
 
30 SLAVERY. 
 
 (2.) The master, who in correcting his slave, 
 even with a proper instrument of correction, should 
 cause his immediate or speedy death, was to be 
 punished, as guilty of homicide. Such a law, 
 phrased as it is, cannot easily be understood as any- 
 thing else than a limitation of the previously allowed 
 power of masters over the persons and lives of their 
 servants.* 
 
 (3.) A slave, maimed by his master, was to be- 
 come free. The language of the law, indeed, in- 
 cludes expressly only two cases of maiming : '' If 
 a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his 
 maid, that it perish, he shall let him go free for his 
 eye's sake ; and if he smite out his man-servant's 
 tooth, or his maid-servant's tooth, he shall let him 
 go free for his tooth's sake."t But, as Michaelis 
 has remarked, the lawgiver, by naming the noblest 
 of our organs on the one hand, and on the other, 
 one of those organs that can most easily be dispensed 
 with, and that are naturally lost as old age ap- 
 proaches, plainly intimates that all the other organs 
 are to be considered as included. It is not unfre- 
 quently the case in the laws of Moses, that a general 
 principle, instead of being abstractly announced, is 
 inculcated by being involved in two or three par- 
 ticulars. 
 
 after being circumcised, Exod, xii. 48. So tiiat it is, at least, doubtful 
 whether the circumcision of a slave, and his eating of the passover- 
 feast, was designed to make him a Hebrew, in the sense of the law 
 now in question. 
 
 Mr. P. also argues that, at any rate, the foreign slave went out free 
 in the year of jubilee. But the law of the jubilee, which is found in 
 Leviticus XXV., makes a distinction between the foreign servant and 
 the Hebrew, expressly in that particular.— See verses 39-46. 
 
 * Exod. xxi 20. t Exod. xxi. 26, 27. 
 
SLAVERY. 31 
 
 (4.) A female slave, in certain cases, became en- 
 titled to the privileges of a wife, or in default of 
 these, to her freedom.* The laws here referred to, 
 tended in part to protect the chastity of female ser- 
 vants, and, in part, to increase the number of free- 
 born children. No master who became a father by 
 his female slave, increased, in that way, the number 
 of persons doomed to bondage. 
 
 (5.) The religious institutions of the Jewish na- 
 tion were, in many respects, calculated to afford re- 
 lief and privileges to the slave. Being circumcised, he 
 was no longer regarded as a heathen, but was bound 
 to the worship of the God of Israel. The weekly 
 rest of the Sabbath was for him no less than for his 
 master ; and the master was expressly enjoined, in 
 reference to this privilege of his servants, to remem- 
 ber the toilsome bondage of Israel in Egypt.f In 
 all the sacred festivals, '' the servant and the hand- 
 maid " were to partake, no less than '' the son and 
 the daughter," and Israel was to remember, '' thou 
 wast a bondman."! The tendency of all these 
 things was to create sympathy and kind affection 
 between the master and his servants, and to prepare 
 the latter for the privileges and honors of freemen. 
 
 (6.) Kidnapping, or the stealing of men to make 
 them slaves, was punished with death. § If laws 
 affect public sentiment, then such a law against the 
 crime of reducing men to slavery, was calculated, 
 not only to prevent that particular crime, but also 
 to inspire a horror against slavery itself. 
 
 * Exod. xxi. 8-11 ; Deut. xxi. 10-14. t Deut. v. 14, 15. 
 
 t Deut. xvi. 11, 12. § Exod. xxi. 16. 
 
32 SLAVERY. 
 
 (7.) Runaway slaves from a foreign country 
 were not to be given up to their masters, but were 
 to be allowed to dwell in the land, wherever they 
 could find a home.* One effect of this law would 
 be, reciprocal, or rather retaliatory, laws, among 
 the neighboring nations, in regard to fugitive slaves 
 from Palestine ; so that, whenever the slave of an 
 Israelite master should find his condition intolerable, 
 a flight of one or two days would almost always 
 carry him to some country from which he could not 
 be reclaimed. Another effect of this law would be 
 to impress strongly on the popular mind, that great 
 truth on which the law is founded, namely, the 
 truth that every man ought to he a freeman. 
 
 To all these considerations it is to be added, that 
 the religious teachings and ethical maxims of Moses 
 and the prophets were, in principle and tendency, 
 if not in terms, opposed to slaver)'. Let it be re- 
 membered, that the law of love is the basis of Mo- 
 saic, no less than of Christian morality ; that it was 
 expressly enjoined on the Hebrews, as a religious 
 duty, to treat strangers and foreigners with kindness;! 
 that God, in his revelations, made himself known to 
 them, especially as the protector of the poor, and 
 the avenger of the oppressed ;| and that, among the 
 duties most forcibly urged by indignant prophets, in 
 times of sin and judgment, was the duty of letting 
 the oppressed go free, and breaking every yoke ;§ 
 and it cannot be doubted, that among the Jews the 
 influence of their religion conspired with the influ- 
 
 * Deut. xxiii. 15, 16. f Deut. x. 17-19; Exod. xxli. 21. 
 
 i Eccle. V. 8 ; Exod. ii. 23 ] iii. 9. § Isaiah, Iviii. 6. 
 
SLAVERY. 33 
 
 ence of their laws, to mitigate the character of sla- 
 very, and to promote its gradual extinction. 
 
 But, after all, we have exhibited only in part, the 
 tendency of the Mosaic institutions, as it respects 
 slavery. These institutions ought to be considered 
 as a whole, in all their bearings on the increase of 
 a homogeneous Hebrew population ; on the industry, 
 and social and moral habits of the people ; on their 
 mode of agriculture ; on their intercourse with for- 
 eign nations ; on the augmentation of wealth among 
 ihem, and its distribution into small estates ; in a 
 word, on all their character and condition as a peo- 
 ple. This most important branch of the inquiry we 
 can only hint at. He who can examine it in detail, 
 will find, we are sure, that, as these institutions were 
 designed to civilize a rude pastoral people, to fix 
 them on the soil, and form them into a peaceful agri- 
 cultural community, and gradually to extirpate from 
 among them all those barbarous usages which could 
 not be abolished at a blow ; so, in particular, they 
 were fitted to fill the land of Israel with a popula- 
 tion who would have no room for foreign slaves, 
 and no use for that kind of '^ machinery," and whose 
 feelings and habits w^ould be opposed to slavery. 
 
 Accordingly, it is worthy of notice, that as Pales- 
 tine became filled with an industrious and peaceful 
 Jewish population, the practice of employing bond- 
 servants fell into comparative disuse. n the times 
 of our Saviour, we find no very distincr. traces of the 
 existence of slavery among the Jews of the holy 
 land. The only " servants " mentioned in the nar- 
 ratives of the four evangelists, except where the 
 word occurs in Christ's parables, are the centurion's 
 
34 SLAVERY. 
 
 servant miraculously healed,* who was most proba- 
 bly a slave under the Roman law, and the servants 
 of the high priest's palace,! who may have been 
 hired servants, but more likely w^ere Jew^s engaged 
 for a six years' term of service, according to the Mo- 
 saic statute. 
 
 What then are the results of our inquiry respect- 
 ing the legislation of the great author of the Hebrew 
 polity? Did Moses, legislating for Israel by Divine 
 authority, approve and sanctify slavery as an insti- 
 tution, or slaveholding as a practice ? By no means. 
 Did he peremptorily forbid and abolish it, on the 
 plan of immediate abolition? We answ^er. No; if 
 he did the Bible is a book past all understanding. 
 
 Before proceeding to an examination of the prin- 
 ciples and conduct of the apostles in respect to this 
 subject, we pause, that we may ask our southern 
 readers to compare their code noir with the slave 
 laws of Moses. Is it not true, without any consi- 
 derable exception that your laws on the subject 
 are all designed for the advantage of the master ; 
 to secure him from the loss of his property ; to 
 guard him against insurrection ; to strengthen him 
 in the exercise of a power so absolute, so odious, 
 that nature stands horror-struck at the bare descrip- 
 tion ; and to fortify the system, as far as possi- 
 ble, against everything that tends to its abolition? 
 Is not the only considerable limitation of the power 
 of the master a limitation in the wrong direction — 
 a limitation against righteousness, against compas- 
 sion, against religion ? Is not almost any cruelty 
 
 * Matt. viii. 5-13. t Mark xiv. 65; Luke xxii. 50. 
 
SLAVERY. 35 
 
 in a slaveholder less offensive — we do not say to 
 public sentiment, but to the law — than the kind- 
 ness that would give them their freedom, or that 
 would even teach them to read the Word of God 1 
 Has not every new law, from year to year, pushed 
 the same line of policy a little farther '? How con- 
 trary to all this were the statutes of the great He- 
 brew lawgiver ! His laws affecting the relation of 
 master and slave are designed, not to afford the 
 strong new advantages and a more perfect impunity 
 in oppression, but to relieve the helpless and pro- 
 tect the defenceless ; not to construct new entrench- 
 ments around a barbarous system, at war with 
 human happiness, but rather to cast down its bar- 
 riers, and to lay it open to the entrance of improving 
 and transforming influences. 
 
 At the same time, it may be remarked, that there 
 is a lesson here for those extra-zealous abolitionists 
 who permit themselves to be led into denunciations 
 against the constitution of the United States, and 
 against the memory of all the framers of that august 
 compact, on the ground that it does not prohibit 
 slavery, but allows to slaveholders the power of 
 representing their bondmen in the national legisla- 
 ture. Undesirable indeed it is, that slavery should 
 exist under the banner of the great republic; — still 
 more undesirable that the representatives of slaves 
 should sit in the capitol ; but shall we, therefore, 
 curse the constitution, and curse the memory of the 
 men who framed it and consented to it '? Is not the 
 constitution, as it is, the very best that could have 
 been framed in those circumstances 1 Is it not far 
 
36 SLAVERY. 
 
 better than any sane man could hope for, if the 
 work were now to be done over again? Were not 
 these undesirable concessions necessary, '' because 
 of the hardness of the hearts" of the people for 
 whom the constitution was to be framed 1 It is 
 well known that tlie federal compact has been de- 
 nounced, on this account, by certain agitators, in no 
 measured terms ; and, unfortunately, certain habits 
 of reasoning, prevalent in these days, are calculated 
 to give effect to that sort of denunciation. No mat- 
 ter how much the peaceful and prosperous union of 
 these states has done for the cause of liberty and 
 human happiness over all the earth — no matter 
 what wars and implacable enmities would have 
 raged perpetually between the rival powers of the 
 north and south, the east and west, had the plan of 
 union under one government been permitted to 
 fail — no matter, though all the blood of tlie revolu- 
 tion had been in vain, and the enemies of liberal 
 institutions had found, in the hopeless anarchy of 
 the American republics an irresistible argument 
 against popular governments — no matter what des- 
 tiny would have been entailed on us and our pos- 
 terity, or what darkness would have settled on all 
 the hopes of oppressed and fainting nations, had the 
 convention of 1788 broken up without forming a 
 constitution, or had the constitution formed been re- 
 jected by the people — all these things are not even 
 the dust of the balance, in the estimation of the 
 agitators ; all these things are mere matters of " ex- 
 pediency ;" notwithstanding all these things, the 
 constitution is to be execrated as a compromise with 
 
SLAVERY. 37 
 
 slaveholders, and an '' agreement to act in opposi- 
 tion to the principles of justice."* Let these de- 
 nouncers be consistent ; let them hold up, for the 
 execration of philanthropists, the concessions to a 
 hard-hearted and stiff-necked people, which are in- 
 terwoven with the law given to the Hebrews by the 
 inspiration of the God of love. 
 
 We come nov/ to the second branch of the inves- 
 tigation which we have undertaken. What was 
 the conduct of Christ and his apostles, in relation to 
 slavery? Here, as before, we have a twofold in- 
 quiry. Did the apostles, in any way, sanction or 
 justify slavery ? If not, did they everywhere preach 
 to slaveholders, as an essenti I point of religion, the 
 duty of instant and unqualified emancipation] 
 
 In regard to the conduct of our Saviour, little 
 need be said ; for, as we have already intimated, it 
 does not appear that he lived in a slaveholding 
 
 * We are happy to see that some of the immediate abolitionists, as 
 they choose to be called, are beginning to take am.^v^ rational and more 
 loyal view of the Federal Constitution. In the recently published " Ad- 
 dress of the New York City Anti-Slavery Society"- a pamphlet which, 
 though written generally in a much better spirit than most of the pub- 
 lications of that school, contains some statements quite too uncandid 
 to be worthy of refutation— it is stated, with much truth, (1) That the 
 clause in the Constitution, under which fugitive slaves are reclaimed 
 from the free States, is necessary to reclaim a runaway apprentice, 
 and will be indispensable after slavery shall have been abolished. 
 And (2) that the provision allowing three-fifths of the slaves to be 
 represented in Congress, is in fact a motive to tlie abolition of slavery, 
 inasmuch as the slave States, by abolishing slavery, would be enabled 
 to represent in Congress five-fifths, instead of three-fifihs of their ne- 
 groes. This is a motive which will one day have a powerful op'^ra- 
 tion. The abolition of slavery throughout the United States would 
 enable the now slaveholding States to send into Congress, imme- 
 diately, fifteen or twenty additional representatives. 
 
 3 
 
38 SLAVERY. 
 
 country, and there is nothing in his personal history 
 that can he considered as positively touching the 
 subject. If the centurion's servant, healed by 
 Christ, was a slave, under the Roman law, as we 
 suppose him to have been ; and if the Saviour had 
 designed to preach the modern doctrine of imme- 
 diate emancipation, surely we should find, in con- 
 nection with the record of the miracle, something 
 on the subject of setting the servant at liberty. If 
 one of our modern abolitionists had been there, 
 among the disciples, the centurion surely would 
 not have escaped without a hot rebuke. But, does 
 all this prove that the Saviour of the world has 
 sanctioned, and acknowledged as right, the practice 
 of holding innocent men in bondage? Because he 
 did not interfere to dissolve the relation of master 
 and servant, in that particular instance, does it fol- 
 low that he approved of the relation, and that his 
 disciples may buy and sell slaves without fear of 
 offending him, or of dishonoring his gospell If it 
 is said that this servant was not a slave ; we answer, 
 that is a possible case : but if we admit it to be a 
 fact, the admission only removes the incident out of 
 the range of our present inquiry. 
 
 In relation to the apostles, the inquiry is not to 
 be so summarily disposed of. As soon as their mis- 
 sion carried them out of Palestine, the moment they 
 entered into any of the great cities of the empire, 
 whether in Syria or Asia, in Greece or Italy — they 
 were in the midst of slavery, rank and flourishing. 
 It is, of course, to be expected that many allusions 
 to slavery will be found in their writings. It is to 
 
SLAVERY. 39 
 
 be expected that on such a subject their opinions will 
 be expressed, and that not indistinctly. 
 
 But, here it is proper to inquire, before examin- 
 ing the references to slavery in the apostolic writ- 
 ings, What was the slavery which then existed 1 
 Did it resemble at all the negro slavery of modern 
 times ? The question is not a difficult one to be an- 
 swered. Doubtless the laws and usages were various 
 in different parts of the empire, according to the 
 character of the various subject nations, and their 
 ancient civil institutions ; doubtless the lot of the 
 slave was less miserable in some provinces than in 
 others ; but we presume no scholar will deny that 
 slavery, as it existed at the metropolis, and as it 
 was practiced by Roman citizens, may fairly be 
 taken as a specimen of the slavery which the apos- 
 tles encountered in their labors, and to which refer- 
 ence is had in their writings. 
 
 The following particulars, respecting Roman 
 slavery, are familiar to every schoolboy w^ho has 
 studied Adam's Roman Antiquities. 
 
 1. Slaves were held, not as persons, but as things; 
 and were bought and sold like any other merchan- 
 dise. Fathers might sell their free-born children 
 into slavery. 
 
 2. The children of a female slave were the pro- 
 perty of her master. There was no regular mar- 
 riage among slaves ; but man and woman lived to- 
 gether by the permission of the master, in a con- 
 nection altogether like the unlegalized and unpro- 
 tected marriage of slaves in this country. 
 
 3. The power of the master over his slaves wms 
 absolute. He might scourge them, or put them to 
 
40 SLAVERY. 
 
 death,* at bis pleasure. The lash was the common 
 instrument of punishment; but sometimes slaves 
 were branded in the forehead ; and sometimes they 
 were made to wear a piece of wood, like a yoke, 
 around their necks. Sometimes, too, they were 
 punished by confinement in a workhouse, or house 
 of correction. When slaves were whipped, they 
 were suspended with a weight tied to their feet. 
 
 4. If a master was slain at his own house by one 
 of his slaves, or if the murderer was not discovered, 
 all the slaves in his family were liable to be put to 
 death. Tacitusf records a tragedy of this kind, in 
 v/hich a family of four hundred slaves, of whom all 
 but one were probably innocent, were publicly exe- 
 cuted. That affair occurred not far from the time 
 when Paul was dwelling in his own hired house at 
 Rome. 
 
 5. Slaves could not appear as witnesses in a court 
 of justice. Nor could they inherit anything, or make 
 a will, except with the consent of their masters. In 
 a word, a slave was incapable of possessing proper- 
 ty, save as his master gave him the privilege of lay- 
 ing aside a peculiuin from the monthly or daily al- 
 lowance on which he subsisted, or from the money 
 which he might happen to receive in other w^ays. 
 
 6. Slaves were often treated with great cruelty. 
 Some, indeed, were educated, and employed as 
 clerks, or as teachers of children. Some were the 
 
 * Pone crucem servo—' Meruit quo crimine servus 
 Supplicium 1 Quis testis adest \ Quis detulit V Audi. 
 Nulla unquam dc morte hominis cunctatio longa est, 
 O demens, ita servus homo est 1 Nil fecerit, esto. 
 Hocvolo, sic jubeo,sitproratione voluntas.— Juven. Sat. vi. t. 218. 
 
 t Tacit. Annal. xiv. 42, 45. 
 
SLAVERY. 41 
 
 personal attendants, and humble companions of 
 their masters. Not a few, perhaps, were kindly 
 and atfectionately treated ; and were permitted to 
 cherish the hope of becoming free, and sharing in 
 all the immunities and honors of Roman citizenship. 
 But the condition of others, and those not few, was 
 the lowest to which human nature can be degraded. 
 Some served in chains, as the doorkeepers of their 
 masters' houses. Some, in chains, were compelled 
 to'dig upon a soil, the fruits of which were never to 
 be their own. Others toiled in subterranean work- 
 houses. 
 
 7. The number of slaves was very great. Great 
 the number must have been, when four hundred, 
 the inmates of one house, were publicly butchered, 
 to expiate a single murder. A wealthy Roman was 
 sometimes the proprietor of several thousands. 
 
 These particulars, which are only a part of a 
 grammar-schoolbo)^'s learning, are sufficient to show 
 what was understood, in Paul's time, by the words 
 master and servant, and what was then the differ- 
 ence between bond and free. Who will not ac- 
 knowledge that the state of things in the Roman 
 empire at that time was, at least, almost as bad as 
 the state of tilings at present in this Federal Republic? 
 The question is, how did the apostles express them- 
 selves, and conduct themselves, in respect to the re- 
 lation of servitude, as it then existed? 
 
 Passing by, as unimportant, all those allusions 
 which merely show the fact, that the first preachers 
 of Christianity had to do with a slaveholding people, 
 we notice, first, Paul's advice to the slaves who 
 were members of the Corinthian Church. ^'Lct 
 
42 SLAVERY. 
 
 every man abide in the same calling wherein he was 
 called: [that is, let ever}^ man be satisfied to con- 
 tinue in the same social and secular engagements in 
 which he was when he became a Christian.] Art 
 thou called, being a servant? care not for it; but if 
 thou mayest be made free, use it rather. For he 
 that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the 
 Lord's freeman ; likewise, also, he that is called, 
 being free, is Christ's servant. Ye are bought with 
 a price ; be not ye the servants of men."* The 
 slave is here exhorted to perform the duties of his 
 station without repining at his lot, inasmucli as bond 
 and free, who believe in Christ, are alike the ser- 
 vants and the freed-men of the Lord ; and yet, he is 
 reminded, in language which shows that the apostle 
 was thinking how God had forbidden the children of 
 Israel to hold each other in bondage, tliat if he may 
 be made free, it is unworthy of his dignit}^, as the 
 Lord's redeemed freeman, to be any longer the slave 
 of a fellow-man. t Nothing is said, in this epistle, 
 respecting the duty of masters. Is it because there 
 were no masters among the Corinthian Christians? 
 
 In addressing the Church at Ephesus, the apostle 
 exhorts not only slaves but slaveholders. ''Ser- 
 vants, be obedient to them that are your masters ac- 
 cording to the flesh, with fear and trembling, [with 
 the utmost respect,] in singleness of heart, as unto 
 Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but 
 
 * 1 Cor. vii. 20-23. 
 
 ■f The language of the apostle evidently shows that he was thinking 
 how God had forbidden tlie children of Israel to liold each other as 
 bondmen, Levit. xxv. 42. JMr. Paxton remarks, (p. 122,) that the words 
 of Paul might well pass for a quotation from Moses. 
 
SLAVERY. 43 
 
 as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from 
 the heart; with good will doing service, as to the 
 Lord and not to men ; knowing, that whatsoever 
 good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive 
 of the Lord, whether he he hond or free. And ye, 
 masters, do the same things to them, [conduct your- 
 selves towards 3^our servants with the same conscien- 
 tiousness,] forbearing threatening, knowing that your 
 Master also is in heaven ; neither is there respect of 
 persons with him."* 
 
 A passage, entirely parallel to that just cited, oc- 
 curs in the Epistle to the Colossians. '^ 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 ; and whatever ye 
 do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, 
 knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the re- 
 ward of the inheritance, [the wages of future bles- 
 sedness,] for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that 
 doeth wrong, shall receive for the wrong which he 
 hath done ; and there is no respect of persons. 
 Masters, give to your servants that which is just and 
 equal, [or equitable,] knowing that ye also have a 
 Master in heaven."! In both these passages it is 
 implied, first, that the writer felt slavery to be at best 
 a hard and painful condition; and, secondly, that in 
 his view, the idea of a master governing his slaves 
 conscientiously, equitably, and on Christian princi- 
 ples, was not a contradiction. 
 
 It is to be remarked, that one of the bearers of the 
 epistle last referred to, was Onesimus, a fugitive ser- 
 
 * Eph. vi. 5-9. -f Col. iii. 22-35; iv. 1. 
 
44 SLAVERY. 
 
 vant, who, coming to Rome, bad been converted 
 under the ministry of Paid, and was now sent back 
 by the apostle to bis master Philemon, one of the 
 Colossian Christians. The epistle which the return- 
 ing fugitive carried to his old master from the im- 
 prisoned apostle, cannot but afford some clue to that 
 apostle's views of slavery. *' Though I might be 
 much bold in Christ, to enjoin thee that which is 
 convenient, [proper,] yet for love's sake, I rather 
 beseech thee. I beseech thee for m}'^ son, Onesimus, 
 whom I have begotten in my bonds ; who in time past 
 was to thee unprofitable, but now is profitable to thee 
 and to me : whom I have sent again ; thou, therefore, 
 receive him, that is my own bowels. Whom I would 
 have retained with me, that in thy stead he miglit 
 have ministered to me in the bonds of the gospel, 
 [in my imprisonment for the gospel.] But without 
 thy mind, [consent,] would I do nothing, that thy 
 benefit, [kindness,] should not be as it were of ne- 
 cessity, but willingly. For, perhaps, he therefore 
 departed for a season, that thou shouldst receive him 
 forever ; not now as a servant, but above a servant, 
 a brother beloved, especially to me, but how much 
 more to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord ? If, 
 therefore, thou count me as a partner, receive him 
 as myself. If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee 
 aught, put that on mine account. I, Paul, have 
 written it with mine own hand, I will repay it.'** 
 Onesimus was evidently not of the lowest rank of 
 slaves, but an educated and intelligent man — ^just 
 such a man as the apostle needed to assist him while 
 
 * Philem. 10-19, 
 
SLAVERt. 45 
 
 a prisoner. Paul, sending him back after bis con- 
 version, to Philemon, speaks of the new relation of 
 brotherhood which is hereafter to subsist between 
 the master and the servant, and prefers a request for 
 the emancipation of the converted slave, and offers 
 to become responsible for whatever losses Philemon 
 may have sustained by his former unfaithfulness. 
 
 Peter, in his epistle to the Christians of ''Pontus, 
 Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia," countries, 
 some of which were the Guinea — the very slave- 
 coast* — of the Roman empire, is naturally led to al- 
 lude to the hard condition of slaves, which he does 
 in language indirectly expressive of much sympathy. 
 The passage need not be quoted. It is of much the 
 same tenor with Paul's exhortations to the same 
 class of Christians.! He enjoins it upon them, by 
 Christian motives, to be conscientiously obedient 
 and respectful towards their masters, and to submit 
 patiently to the unkindest treatment. 
 
 This kind of preaching to slaves is, in Paul's epis- 
 tles to Titus and Timothy, made a part of the duty of 
 Christian ministers. To Timothy it is said, ''Let as 
 
 * ' Cappadocian,' was with the Romans another name for slave. 
 Cicero says of one of his enemies, ' Ca2:>padocc7n modo abreptum de grege 
 vcnalium diceres ' — an expression nearly equivalent with the phrase 
 sometimes used at the South, ' He is as stupid as a new negro.' It is 
 remarkable that Juvenal, alluding to the degradation of society, occa- 
 sioned by the honors and privileges bestowed on emancipated slaves, 
 enumerates, as the native provinces of those slaves converted into 
 knights, the same countries mentioned by Peter in the inscription of 
 his epistle, with the exception of Pontus. 
 
 Faciant equites Asiani, 
 Quanquam et Cappadoces faciant equitesque Bithyni, 
 Altera quos nudo traducit Gallia td.\o.—Sat. vii. 14. 
 t 1 Pet. ii. 18-21. 
 
 3* 
 
46 SLAVERY. 
 
 many servants as are under the yoke^ ccaint their own 
 masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God 
 and his doctrine be not bLasphcmed. And they that 
 have believing masters, let them not despise them, 
 because they are brethren ; but rather do them ser- 
 vice, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers 
 of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If 
 any man teach otherwise, and consent not to Avhole- 
 some words, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is 
 proud, knowing nothing, doting [diseased] about 
 questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, 
 strife, railing, evil surmisings, etc— from such with- 
 draw thyself.''^* Here we see, first, that there were 
 bond-servants among the Christians in the region 
 where Timothy, as an evangelist, was to superin- 
 tend tlie organization of churches, and w^as to put 
 in operation the entire system of apostolic institu- 
 tions ; secondly, that some of those bondmen had 
 masters who were recognized as believers ; thirdly, 
 that even at that early period, there were some who 
 undertook to infer from the gospel the abolition of 
 slavery as a civil institution ; txndi fourthly , that Paul 
 advised Timothy to have no partnership with such 
 teachers. 
 
 The reader has now before him a full view of 
 what the apostles have said respecting slavery, and 
 the duties of master and slave. So far as our pre- 
 sent inquiry is concerned, the whole may be sum- 
 med up in the following remarks : 
 
 1. The apostles have said nothing in vindication 
 
 * 1 Tim. vi. 1-5 ; Titus ii. 9, 10. 
 
SLAVER V. 47 
 
 of slavery. In all the allusions of the New Testa- 
 ment writers to this subject, not a word is found 
 which seems as if they approved of one man's hold- 
 ing another in bondage ; not a word to encourage 
 the master in perpetuating the degraded condition 
 of his servants ; not a word to caution him against 
 the '^ mistaken philanthropy" of giving them their 
 freedom. 
 
 2. It is manifest that the apostles regarded the 
 condition of slaves with compassionate sympathy. 
 Their language, when they inculcate on servants 
 the duties of their station, breathes always the spirit 
 of condolence. They enjoin it on every slave who 
 may be made free, to accept the higher responsibili- 
 ties of a freeman, as more worthy of one redeemed 
 by the blood of Christ. We find in their w^ritings 
 no pictures of the happiness of servitude ; none of 
 the sickening common-places of southern philan- 
 thropy about the contentment of slaves, their exemp- 
 tion from care, the lightness of their tasks, and the 
 superiority of their condition over that of a free pea- 
 santry. Every word in the New Testament, that 
 touches on slavery, is in a very different tone. 
 
 3. Immediate emancipation on the part of slave- 
 holders, was not a condition of membership in the 
 apostolic churches. Philemon, a man of consider- 
 ation among the saints at Colosse, was a slaveholder, 
 Paul expected that Timothy, in fulfilling his office 
 of an evangelist, would have occasion to exhort some 
 slaves, at least, that had believing masters, ('jtKfrovg 
 (^stf-TTora^.) In the church at Ephesus, as well as in 
 that of the Colossians, there were so many masters, 
 that it seemed proper to address them as a distinct 
 
48 SLAVERY. 
 
 class. All these men must have been acknowledged 
 as credible professors of Christianity. Yet, not one 
 word is said by way of enjoining upon them the im- 
 mediate emancipation of their servants ; not one 
 word which implies that to live in the relation of a 
 master, even for an hour, is to live in high-handed 
 iniquity ; not one word which intimates any sympa- 
 thy with a certain Address to the Presbyterian 
 Church, which has been widely circulated at the ex- 
 pense, we presume, of some of the leading aboli- 
 tionists, (so called,) in the city of New York. 
 ^' Slaveholding," says that address, '^under every 
 possible modification, is man-stealing. Man-steal- 
 ing, as combining impiety in principle, falsehood in 
 claim, injustice and cruelty without intermission and 
 without end, is the most flagrant iniquity which a 
 sinner can perpetrate. All profession of religion, 
 by a man who thus acts, is a gross deception." Such 
 is the modern doctrine of immediate emancipation. 
 The master of a slave, U7ider every possible modifica- 
 tion of that relation, is guilty of the most flagrant 
 iniquity possible ; his crime is one in which impiety 
 and falsehood, injustice and cruelty unremitting and 
 interminable, are all combined ; and if he attempts 
 to make a profession of religion, he is a gross de- 
 ceiver. Such were the nidroi bcdnfoTon of whom Paul 
 speaks to Timothy. Such was Philemon, wliom 
 the great apostle styled, ''our dearly beloved, and 
 fellow-laborer." Such . were the ''masters " in the 
 churches at Ephesus and Colosse. The apostles 
 did not teach immediate abolitionism, nor did they 
 form their churches on that basis. 
 4. The apostles seem to have taken it for granted, 
 
SLAVERY. 49 
 
 that the Christian master would do for his slaves all 
 that was consistent with their welfare and the pub- 
 lic good. So Paul acted in the case of Philemon 
 and Onesimus. The slave is sent back to his mas- 
 ter, and the master's legal claim is distinctly recog- 
 nized. Yet it is taken for granted, that Philemon 
 will act with other views than a regard to his own 
 pecuniary interest; that he will look on Onesimus 
 not as an article of merchandise, but as a man, a 
 brother, and will treat him accordingly. It is taken 
 for granted that now, since the grace of God has 
 taken effect on the once unprofitable slave, and has 
 fitted him to be happy and useful under the respon- 
 sibilities of freedom, his Christian master will not 
 only forgive his past offences, but will send him 
 forth free, to be the helper of Paul, or in any other 
 way to advance the kingdom of the Saviour. So 
 to masters generally, the command was, ' Render to 
 your servants that which is right and equitable ;' 
 and it was left to an enlightened conscience to 
 decide, in each instance, what the principles of 
 right and equity required. Of course it was taken 
 for granted, that the slave would be treated as an 
 intelligent and immortal being ; and that, whenever 
 the great rule of equity, the golden rule of love, re- 
 quired the slave to be put upon his own resources, 
 and set to act under his own guidance, he would be 
 emancipated. 
 
 We find the discussion extending itself beyond 
 our expectation, and the printer warns us to bring 
 it to a conclusion. Let us look, then, at some points 
 of Christian duty in regard to slavery, as we have 
 to do with it in this country at the present day. 
 
50 SLAVERY. 
 
 1. Ought the naked fact, that a certahi man is 
 the master of slaves, to exclude him, without farther 
 inquiry, from the communion of the churches 1 
 We answer. No. It may be that he came into that 
 relation Avithout any act of his own. It may be that 
 he is doing for the welfare of those slaves, conscien- 
 tiously and diligently, the most that existing cir- 
 cumstances will allow. It may be that if he eman- 
 cipates them from under his hand, the sheriff will 
 immediately arrest them, and sell them to the highest 
 bidder. It may be that he is prosecuting a course 
 of measures, which, after less than a seven years' 
 " apprenticeship," will result in their real emanci- 
 pation. The mere fact that he is invested with a 
 certain legal power over the persons of these indi- 
 viduals, implying a certain legal title to their ser- 
 vices, is not necessarily a crime. The author of 
 these letters enslaver}^, while he, was educating his 
 servants to take care of themselves, and providing 
 their outfit to Liberia, was not a criminal, though 
 he w^as still their master, and as such, responsible 
 for their good government. The question, in each 
 individual instance, is, Whence did this man obtain 
 his power over these his fellow-men ? and to what 
 ends is he employing it 1 On the answer to this 
 question will depend the propriety of allowing his 
 claims to be considered as a servant of Christ. If 
 he makes it a business to breed slaves for market — 
 if he treats rational and immortal beings only as if 
 they were cattle — nay, if he does not see carefully, 
 not only that their physical wants are supplied, but 
 that they are restrained from vice, and properly in- 
 structed, especially in the things of their everlasting 
 
SLAVERY. 5 1 
 
 peace ; and if, after due admonition, he will not 
 repent of his iniquity, then treat him as a heathen 
 man and a publican. 
 
 2. Ought the mere buying of a slave to exclude 
 the buyer from Christian communion? Not the 
 mere act of buying. The question is, To what end, 
 and with what vie\vs, was the purchase made? A 
 friend of ours in the District of Columbia, once 
 bought a negro woman with a family of children. 
 ^ Away with him !' cry the abolitionists — ^ Excom- 
 municate him !' But, ^' good friends, sweet friends, 
 let us not stir you up to such a sudden rage ;" — 
 take your fingers from your ears, and hear the story. 
 That woman and her children were for sale, and, 
 by the operation of the internal (or, as the word is 
 sometimes spelled, not incorrectly, infernal) slave- 
 trade, w^ere about to be transported to the extreme 
 south. There are philanthropists who would have 
 stood by to witness the transaction, and would have 
 eased their burthened minds, by letting off a volley 
 of execrations. But our friend has taken no de- 
 grees in their college. Though not worth a dollar 
 beyond his daily earnings, he bought the whole 
 family, borrowed the money on his own responsi- 
 bility, with the endorsement of a friend, and, if we 
 mistake not, owes for it, and pays seven per cent, 
 interest for it, to this day. Those slaves are now 
 free, not in Liberia, but in America ; and their 
 benefactor, a standing mark for the obloquy of some 
 who think themselves the only abolitionists, toils on 
 in the great cause of suffering humanity, burthened 
 with the debt of that purchase. When any of those 
 who have arrayed themselves as his enemies, shall 
 
52 SLAVERY. 
 
 have been guilty of a similar imprudence, we will 
 give them credit for being warm-hearted as well as 
 hot-headed. But to the question, Shall this man, 
 for biiying slaves, be excluded from the commimion 
 of the saints ? Often may we commune with him 
 in Christian ordinances here ; and be it ours to sit 
 down with him at the '^ marriage-supper of the 
 Lamb." 
 
 Take another case. Suppose some wealthy indi- 
 vidual undertakes to demonstrate, by a public ex- 
 periment, the practicability and good economy of 
 converting slaves into free laborers. He purchases 
 a tract of land in Florida, where no State govern- 
 ment can forbid philanthropy to exert itself, but the 
 laws and liberties of the Union are his protection. 
 Next, he goes into the slave-markets of Virginia, 
 and buys fifty or a hundred slaves. These he trans- 
 ports to his new plantation ; as their legal master, 
 invested with all the powers of government over 
 them, he establishes such regulations as he deems 
 necessary to their order, their industry, their im- 
 provement, and sets them at work, intending to make 
 them, as fast as they will indemnify him for the ex- 
 pense of the undertaking, the free proprietors of the 
 soil on which they labor. Shall such a man be ex- 
 communicated for buying slaves? We earnestly 
 wish that some of the gentlemen who are expending 
 thousands of dollars in a conscientious, (we dare 
 say,) but still most unprofitable crusade against 
 African colonization, might be induced to divert a 
 part of that expenditure to buy slaves for such an 
 experiment. 
 These cases are stated for the sake of showing that 
 
SLAVERY. 53 
 
 the crime does not consist in the act of buying, 
 but in the purposes and views with which the pur- 
 chase is made. The man who, born free and among 
 the free, makes himself a slaveholder for the sake 
 of gain ; (shame to New England that there are so 
 many such,) the man who buys his fellow men, as 
 he would buy oxen, simply with a view to his own 
 interest, that he may have them to sell again if he can 
 sell them at a bargain, or that he may enrich himself 
 by their reluctant toil, and when he has done with 
 them, leave them to 'heirs he knows not who;' the 
 man who buys slaves with any other design than to do 
 them all the good he can, is most manifestly an of- 
 fender against the law of love, and ought to be dealt 
 with as such, by all the churches. He is not only 
 guilty of wrong towards the individuals whom he 
 purchases, but he gives the full support of his exam- 
 ple to the entire system of slavery, and voluntarily 
 makes himself a partaker in all the sins which that 
 system, by its natural tendency, diffuses through 
 society. 
 
 3. What ought the slaveholder to do? What 
 ought he to do in regard to his own slaves'? Obvi- 
 ously, he ought to do for them just what, on a care- 
 ful consideration of their character and all their cir- 
 cumstances, he sees will be most for their good ; we 
 do not speak here of the public good, because their 
 good and the 'public good are, in reference to this 
 question, inseparable. Let him consider, not only 
 their actual condition, but their liabilities. Be it 
 that their master is kind and attentive to all their 
 wants ; be it that they are well governed, and sup- 
 plied with religious instruction ; be it even that they 
 
54 SLAVERY. 
 
 are contented with their present lot, and are nnwil- 
 ling to change phices with the free blacks around 
 them ; all this w^eighs but little in the scale against 
 their liabilities. They are liable, as chattels, to be 
 attached and sold for their master's debts; and, 
 whatever commercial revolution, whatever accident, 
 involves him in pecuniary embarrassment, is likely 
 to bring on them a distress, compared with which 
 bankruptcy and poverty are nothing. So, on the 
 death of their master, when his estate comes to be 
 settled and divided, they are liable to the same fate ; 
 all their connexions may be sundered; and, torn from 
 all that is home to ihem, they ma}^ be consigned to 
 a condition the more terrible for the former allevia- 
 tions of their lot. What, then, does a wise regard 
 for their welfare — what does imperative justice to- 
 wards them — demand of their master? Ought he 
 not, if possible, and as soon as possible, to secure 
 them against such contingencies 1 Against such 
 contingencies they cannot be secured, as the laws 
 now are, but by being made free. Does he ask. How 
 can I make them free? We answer. You can edu- 
 cate them for liberty ; and, as fast as the}^ beconie 
 at all competent to take care of themselves, you can 
 put them in the way of earning a passage to Africa, 
 or let them choose their own course to whatever 
 country will open its doors to receive them. 
 
 But w^hat ought the slaveholder to do in regard to 
 the system of slavery? First of all, lie ought, on 
 every fit occasion, to bear his testimony against it, 
 and against the legislation which creates and sup- 
 ports it. He ought to declare himself, fearlessly, 
 the enemy of slaverv, and the friend of whatever 
 
SLAVERY. 55 
 
 will mitigate the curse, or promote its peaceful abo- 
 lition. Where such an evil pervades society, offend- 
 ing the heavens with its atrocity, and cursing the 
 very soil with its afflictive influences, if any indivi- 
 dual has a right to be silent, that individual is not 
 the slaveholder. His silence respecting such an evil, 
 is approbation ; his neutrality, is partisanship. The 
 timidity which seals his lips, makes him, in fact, an 
 abettor and supporter of all those laws, the mere di- 
 gest of which is enough to make the brow of an 
 American crimson with shame. If all those men in 
 the southern States, who are, in conscience and in 
 judgment, dissatisfied with slavery — who are con- 
 vinced that it must be abolished, and desire to see 
 that consummation peacefully acconiplished — would 
 but speak out like freemen, there would soon be in 
 those States such a demonstration of public opinion, 
 as would make the advocates of slavery cower and 
 hide their heads for shame. 
 
 Yet, in order that the slaveholder's testimony 
 against slavery may be complete and effectual, his 
 example must accord with it. If, on his own plan- 
 tation, he perpetuates the system just as he received 
 it from his predecessors ; if his slaves, born, living, 
 dying, in the lowest condition to which humanity 
 can be degraded, transmit that condition unmitigated 
 to their children ; if he does not set himself in earn- 
 est, and like a working-man, to the work of ele- 
 vating and blessing those whose destiny is commit- 
 ted to his hands — no matter what opinions he may 
 express hostile to the system — the testimony of his 
 example is recorded for slavery, slavery as it is, sla- 
 very forever. The man who emancipates his slaves, 
 
56 SLAVERY. 
 
 and places them where they will be free indeed, 
 whether in Liberia or in Hayti, whetlier in the Brit- 
 ish West Indies or on the prairies of Illinois, bears a 
 testimony against slavery, w^hich the consciences of 
 his neighbors cannot resist, and which he may think 
 of with pleasure on his dying bed. 
 
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.* 
 
 [quarterly christian spectator, 1S33.] 
 
 It cannot be doubtedj that much of the dispute 
 which exists at the present time among- those who 
 are seeking the extinction of slavery, is to be as- 
 cribed to some mutual misunderstanding in regard 
 to the import of terms. One class of philanthropists, 
 among whom the author of this book has recently 
 become a standard-bearer, insist on Avhat they call 
 the immediate, unqualified, complete abolition 
 of slavery. Another class, whose philanthropy is 
 equally unquestionable, think that though the imme- 
 diate and universal emancipation of two millions of 
 slaves may be better than the perpetuity of slavery, 
 a progressive and gradual subversion of the fabric 
 of society now existing in the southern States would 
 be much more desirable, as respects the well-being 
 of both the slaves and their masters, and as respects 
 all those great interests of the human race, which 
 are confessedly involved in the result. Between 
 these two classes — strange to tell — has arisen con- 
 tention, such as turns the very temple of our reli- 
 
 * Lectures on Slavery and its Rebiedy. By Amos A. Phelps, 
 Pastor of Pine street Church, Boston. Published by the New England 
 Slavery Society, 1834. ISmo. pp. 284. 
 
58 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 gioiis anniversaries into a scene of clamor and vio- 
 lence. 
 
 We set up no claim to be considered peculiarly dis- 
 interested or impartial in this controversy. It is not 
 for us to pretend to act as umpires. Our readers all 
 know, that our sympathies are neither with the ad- 
 vocates and apologists of slavery, nor with the cru- 
 saders for immediate and universal emancipation. 
 We have taken our ground with that class of Chris- 
 tian philanthropists, who, reasoning not from the 
 abstract equality of all men, as to political rights, 
 but from the great law of love, believe, first, that abo- 
 lition in almost any form, is better than perpetual 
 and immitigable slavery; and secondly, that the 
 immediate emancipation of two millions of slaves in 
 the United States, would be far less beneficent, and 
 therefore far less equitable towards the slaves them- 
 selves — whose interests and rights in the matter are 
 first to be consulted— than some more progressive 
 change of their relations to the other classes of soci- 
 ety. Yet, unless we deceive ourselves, we are not 
 committed on this subject, so as to be unwilling to 
 learn. The subject has been much in our thoughts 
 for years; and as we are sure, that we understand it 
 now better than when we began to study it, so we 
 confidently expect to learn more and more in years 
 to come. Our discussions of this subject, as of every 
 other, are pursued, we trust, for truth rather than 
 for victory. And though we may be sometimes ex- 
 cited — unduly excited, perhaps, by the treatment we 
 receive from men of whom we have a right to expect, 
 if not the courteous bearing of gentlemen, that Chris- 
 tian candor and kindness which is far better — we 
 
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 59 
 
 Still hope, that no personal feelings of ours will lead 
 us to pervert clear testimony, or will hinder us from 
 acknowledging the force of argument. 
 
 The first thing necessary to the adjustment of the 
 controversy, between the two parties of those who 
 cherish a common enmity against slavery, is, that 
 we have a distinct and right understanding of the 
 terms ' abolition' and ' emancipation,' as they are 
 used in this controversy. It is common with im- 
 mediate abolitionists, in their arguments on the sub- 
 ject, to describe in the strongest terms, some of the 
 horrors of that slavery which exists in the southern 
 States ; to deal out certain aphorisms about inalien- 
 able rights ; and to infer, that every slave in the 
 United States ought to be emancipated instanta- 
 neously, and that all slavery ought to be instanta- 
 neously abolished. What do they mean? is the 
 first question. Do they make a right use of lan- 
 guage 1 is another question. 
 
 To take an example — the authenticity of which 
 will not be called in question — the ^ National Anti- 
 Slavery Convention,' in their declaration of prin- 
 ciples, argue as follows : — 
 
 ' Those, for whose emancipation we are striving — constituting 
 at the present time at least one-sixth part of our countrymen — 
 are recognized by the law, and treated by their fellow-beings as 
 marketable commodities — as goods and chattels — as brute beasts ; 
 are plundered daily of the fruits of their toil without redress ; 
 really enjoying no constitutional nor legal protection from licen- 
 tious and murderous outrages upon their persons ; are ruthlessly 
 torn asunder — the tender babe from the arms of its frantic mo- 
 ther — the heart-broken wife from her weeping husband — at the 
 caprice or pleasure of irresponsible tyrants. For the crime of 
 having a dark complexion, they suffer the pangs of hunger, the 
 
60 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 infliction of stripes, and the ignominy of brutal servitude. They 
 are kept in heathenish darkness, by laws expressly enacted to 
 make their instruction a criminal offence. * * * 
 
 No man has a right to enslave or imbrute his brother — to hold 
 or acknowledge him, for one moment, as a piece of merchandise 
 — to keep back his hire by fraud — or to brutalize his mind by de- 
 nying him the means of intellectual, social, and moral improve- 
 ment. 
 
 The right to enjoy liberty is unalienable. To invade it, is to 
 usurp the prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right to his 
 own body — to the products of his own labor— to the protection 
 of law — and to the common advantages of society. It is piracy 
 to buy or steal a native African, and subject him to servitude. 
 Surely the sin is as great to enslave an American as an Afri- 
 can. 
 
 Therefore we believe and affirm— That there is no difference, 
 in principle, between the African slave-trade and American sla- 
 very ; 
 
 That every American citizen, who retains a human being in 
 involuntary bondage as his property, is, according to scripture, a 
 man-stealer ; 
 
 That the slave ought instantly to be set free, and brought under 
 the protection of law ^ * * * * * 
 
 That all those laws which are now in force, admitting the 
 right of slavery, are therefore before God utterly null and void ; 
 being an usurpation of the Divine prerogative, a daring infringe- 
 ment on the law of nature, a base overthrow of the very founda- 
 tions of the social compact, a complete extinction of all the rela- 
 tions, endearments, and obligations of mankind, and a presump- 
 tuous transgression of all the Holy Commandments— and that 
 therefore they ought to be instantly abrogated.' 
 
 We quote this passage, not to argue with it, but 
 to inquire, What do these people mean by imme- 
 diate emancipation 1 Take the fi st paragraph, on 
 which, if wc mistake not, the whole argument waS 
 supposed by the signers of that address, to depend. 
 That paragraph seems to be the definition of that 
 
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. Qi 
 
 state of things which ought to be immediately abol- 
 ished — the description of that slavery from which 
 the slaves ought to be immediately delivered. Sup- 
 pose, then, the abolition of that state of things to 
 have taken place. Suppose the slaves to have been 
 actually delivered from the wrongs above recited. 
 What is the changed The slaves are no longer 
 
 * recognized by the law, or treated by their fellow- 
 beings, as marketable commodities, as goods and 
 chattels, as brute beasts ;' they are henceforth 
 " PERSONS held to service,^' They are no longer 
 
 * plundered of the fruits of their toil ;' the law takes 
 care effectually that they shall have such guardian- 
 ship, support, and comfort, as shall be a full equiva- 
 lent for their labor. They are no longer ' destitute 
 of constitutional and legal protection from licentious 
 and murderous outrages on their persons ;' the law, 
 through the ministration of courts and officers insti- 
 tuted for the purpose, guards them, as effectually as 
 other subjects of the law are guarded against vio- 
 lence and abuse. They are no longer ' ruthlessly 
 lorn asunder — the babe from its mother, the wife 
 from her husband — at the caprice or pleasure of ir- 
 responsible tyrants;' it is provided by law, that 
 every master shall be held responsible for all his 
 treatment of his servants — that families of slaves 
 shall not be separated without their own consent — 
 and that no slave shall be transferred from one mas- 
 ter to another, without his own voluntary subscrip- 
 tion (if he be an adult, or the subscription of his 
 parents, if he be an infant,) to the instrument of 
 transfer. They no longer ' suffer the pangs of hun- 
 ger, the infliction of stripes, and the ignominy of 
 
 4 
 
62 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 brutal servitude, simply for the crime of having a 
 dark complexion ;' they are well fed ; their rations 
 are forfeited only by the apostolic rule, as a punish- 
 ment for indolence ; stripes are inflicted on them 
 only for evil-doing, at the sentence of a magistrate, 
 or if you please, other more civilized penalties have 
 superseded the infliction of stripes ; their servitude 
 has ceased to be brutal. They are no longer '' kept 
 in heathenish darkness, by laws expressly enacted 
 to make their instruction a criminal offence ;" — the 
 face of legislation has been turned the other v;ay ; 
 strong and thorough enactments have provided for 
 their instruction at the public expense ; and the 
 master, whose slaves are found untaught, is held 
 guilty of a crime against the prosperity and safety 
 of the State. Suppose all this to be a reality. Is 
 this what is meant by emancipation, immediate and 
 complete? Is this the instant and unqualified abo- 
 lition of slavery? Tell us not, that this must of 
 course result in sweeping away the last vestiges of 
 servitude. The question is not, what will it grow 
 to — but what is it? Is it immediate abolition — in- 
 stantaneous, universal emancipation? 
 
 We answer. No. Emancipation — abolition, means 
 more than all this. All this may be, while yet the 
 slaves have not begun to be their own masters. 
 There is no emancipation till the slave is made a 
 free man. All short of this, is the improvement of 
 his condition, the alleviation of his bondage. To 
 say, that the slave is ''brought under the protection 
 of the law," is something short of saying, that he 
 is '^ instantly set free." To make the slave an ap- 
 prentice for life, or for a term of years, or for a single 
 
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. ^3 
 
 year; to establish, that he is not a chattel, but a 
 person ; to secure for him an equitable compensation 
 for his toil ; to protect him against abuse ; to legal- 
 ize and guard his domestic relations ; to provide 
 for his moral and religious instruction, and for the 
 education of his children, is not of course to make 
 him instantaneously a free man. All this is not all 
 that the convention mean by emancipation, when 
 they get among their abstractions. There they de- 
 mand for the slave, not merely a legal personality, 
 not merely protection, compensation for labor, do- 
 mestic rights, and the means of instruction ; but 
 liberty — inalienable liberty — liberty which is his al- 
 ready, and always has been, save as he has been 
 and is precluded from the enjoyment of it by *' laws 
 which before God are utterly null and void." Do 
 they understand the extent of their demand ? Do 
 they intend to denounce, as an '^ usurpation of the 
 prerogative of Jehovah," any law which, regard- 
 ing the slave as a minor, an infant, incompetent 
 for the present to control himself, should provide 
 employment for him, and forbid him to stroll away 
 from it — should declare him incapable of making 
 contracts, except under the direction and advice of 
 his conservator — should regulate the application and 
 expenditure of his earnings, and should make ar- 
 rangements for his being '' gradually" introduced 
 into the privilege of self-employment, of self-con- 
 trol, and of disposing of his own earnings at his 
 own pleasure ? Is the immediate emancipation for 
 which they contend, the emancipation inferable 
 from their abstract principles % Or is it merely the 
 
54 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 abolition of those particulars enumerated in their 
 description of slavery 7 
 
 We have before us, in the '^ Preamble and Con- 
 stitution of the Anti-Slavery Society of Lane Semi- 
 nary," the following '' exposition of immediate 
 emancipation," given for the very purpose of '' pre- 
 venting misapprehensions." *' It has been exten- 
 sively adopted," say the writers of that document, 
 ''as expressing the views of abolitionists, and em- 
 bodies substantially our own." We doubt not, that 
 it was intended to express fearlessly all that they 
 mean, and all that they do not mean, by immediate 
 emancipation : — 
 
 ' "By immediate emancipation, we do not mean that the slaves 
 shall be turned loose upon the nation, to roam as vagabonds and 
 aliens — nor 
 
 That they shall be instantly invested with all political rights 
 and privileges — nor 
 
 That they shall be expelled from their native land to a foreign 
 clime, as the price and condition of their freedom. 
 
 But we do mean — that instead of being under the unlimited 
 control of a few irresponsible masters, they shall really receive 
 the protection of law ; 
 
 That the power which is invested in every slaveholder, to 
 rob them of their just dues, to drive them into the field like 
 beasts, to lacerate their bodies, to sell the husband from his wife, 
 the wife from her husband, and children from their parents, shall 
 instantly cease ; 
 
 That the slaves shall be employed as free laborers, fairly com- 
 pensated and protected in their earnings; 
 
 That they shall be placed under a benevolent or disinterested 
 supervision, which shall secure to them the right to obtain secu- 
 lar and religious knowledge, to worship God according to the 
 dictates of their consciences, and to seek an intellectual and 
 moral equality with the whites." ' 
 
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 65 
 
 In this definition, or, as the young men of the 
 Lane Seminary choose to call it, this " exposition 
 of immediate emancipation," the only particular 
 which implies emancipation at all, in the sense of 
 investing the slaves with freedom, is the demand, 
 " that the slaves shall be employed as free labor- 
 ers." That expression, taken by itself, might be 
 understood to mean, that they are to be immediate- 
 ly free to labor or not to labor at their pleasure, free 
 to find employment for themselves according to their 
 liking, and free to dispose of their earnings accord- 
 ing to their own discretion. But against such a con- 
 struction, the writers seem to have guarded at the 
 outset, by saying, '' We do not mean, that the 
 slaves shall be turned loose upon the nation, to 
 roam as vagabonds and aliens." In other words, 
 they do not mean, that the slaves are to be imme- 
 diately invested with self-control. 
 
 This, if we understand the meaning of words, is 
 not immediate emancipation. The slave, we re- 
 peat, is not emancipated, till he becomes a free man. 
 You may make the master responsible, and limit 
 his power. You may take the slave out of the power 
 of his master entirely, and put him under an over- 
 seer appointed by the public. You may do for his 
 physical comfort, for his protection, for his instruc- 
 tion, whatever seems needful. But he is not eman- 
 cipated, till he goes forth, like the freed apprentice 
 at the expiration of his indentures, his own master, 
 'Moose to roam" whithersoever he pleases. 
 
 No man can tell what abolition is, till he can first 
 tell what slavery is. The immediate abolition of 
 slavery, is the immediate annihilation of that state 
 
66 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 of things which the word slavery denotes. Mr. 
 Phelps, in the book before us, is the first immediate 
 abolitionist whom we remember to have met with, 
 who was not too immediate — in too much haste for 
 abolition, to undertake a distinct definition of the 
 thing to be abolished. '^ Slaver}^," he tells us, '^ is 
 an assumed right of property in man; or, it is the 
 principle, admitted in theory, and acted on in prac- 
 tice, that in some cases, each individual being his 
 own judge in the case, it is lawful to hold property 
 in man.'' He accompanies this definition with 
 several pages of explanation, from which we learn, 
 that, in his view, wherever a man holds his fellow- 
 man as property, as not a person but a thing, ' such 
 as an ox or a horse,' there is slavery, and there 
 only. It would be unfair, after his explanations, to 
 infer from the expression, " property in man," that 
 he condemns as slaveholding, the legal property of 
 the master in the time, strength, and skill, acquired 
 or acquirable, of his apprentice. By '^ holding 
 property in man," he means simply, '^ holding man 
 as property" — simply holding and treating a rational 
 and accountable creature of God, a brother of the 
 human family, as a thing without rights, a mere 
 article of merchandise. The thing, then, which is 
 to be immediately abolished, and the extinction of 
 which is all that is necessarily meant by immediate 
 abolition, if Mr. Phelps' definition of slavery is a 
 true one, is nothing else than the practice of own- 
 ing men, or rather of assuming and claiming to own 
 them, as chattels. 
 
 This definition of slavery is a very compendious 
 method of proving, that the relation of the slave- 
 
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 57 
 
 holder to his slaves is invariably, simply, and inex- 
 cusably sinful. Our objection to it is, that it is not 
 a definition of all servitude, but only of that servi- 
 tude which implies sin on the part of the master. 
 It was obviously framed with a view to the propo- 
 sition — All slaveholdingis criminal. It was framed 
 by a mind desirous of giving to its own positions a 
 fair aspect, at least, of reason and consistency, and 
 seeking a basis on which to construct the doctrine 
 of immediate emancipation — a doctrine that shall 
 make every master of slaves, in all conceivable cir- 
 cumstances, and without any possibility of explana- 
 tion or defence, an oppressor, a man-stealer, a pirate, 
 an enemy of the human race. If we understand 
 the meaning of terms, a man may be constituted by 
 law the master of slaves, and may exercise over 
 them all the duties of guardianship and government, 
 without considering them or treating them as pro- 
 perty, and may yet be a slaveholder — the master of 
 slaves, in the common acceptation of those terms 
 among all w4io speak the English language. Those 
 slaves are slaves, so long as they are not emanci 
 pated. They are not emancipated, as common 
 sense understands emancipation, till they cease to 
 be under the control and guardianship of another. 
 
 Mr. Phelps' definition of emancipation corre- 
 sponds, as we might expect, with his definition of 
 slavery. In answer to the question, '' What does 
 your immediate emancipation mean 1" he says : — 
 
 < It is simply, that the slaves be at once delivered from the 
 control of arbitrary and irresponsible power, and, like other men, 
 put under the control of equitable laws, equitably administered. 
 Slavery, as I have shown, is the principle, that man, in some 
 
68 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 cases, at his own discretion, may hold his fellovv-man as pro- 
 perty. This, adopted as a practical principle, is slavery ; rejected 
 as s. practical principle, is slavery rejected. Immediate Emanci- 
 pation, then, means that slaveholders, as individuals, and as a 
 community, should at once give up this as a principle of action, 
 and so doing, give up all that treatment which is based upon 
 it, and thus put their slaves on the footing of men, and under 
 the control of motive and law. It is, for example, that England 
 should at once yield the principle of taxing us at pleasure, 
 ^vithout our consent; and in this one act yield, of course, all 
 the treatment growing out of, and based upon that principle. 
 Or more specifically, immediate emancipation means. 
 
 1. That the slaveholder, so far as he is concerned, should 
 cease at once to hold or employ human beings as property, 
 
 2. That he should put them at once, in h:s regard and treat- 
 ment of them, on the footing of men, possessing the inalienable 
 rights of man. 
 
 3. That instead of turning them adrift on society, uncared 
 for, he should offer to employ them as free hired laborers, giv- 
 ing them, however, Hberty of choice, whether to remain in his 
 service or not :* 
 
 4. That from this starting point — this emancipation from sla- 
 very itself, he should at once begin to make amends for the past, 
 by entering heartily on the -nvork of qualifying them for, and 
 elevating them to all the privileges and blessings of freedom and 
 
 * Suppose some of them are children, without parents, boys at fifteen 
 years of age. Ought he to give them that " liberty of choice 1" Sup- 
 pose one of them, at the age of thirty, is but a boy of larger growth, as 
 ignorant, as unfitted to employ himself, as incompetent to take care of 
 and use his own earnings, as a child. Ought he to give to such a one 
 that liberty of choice 1 Again, what does that liberty of choice amount 
 to, as the laws are in the Southern States 1 To what but a free choice 
 between going forth and being arrested and sold by the sheriff, on the 
 one hand, and on the other hand, a continuance under the government 
 and protection of his old master 1 Not to leave an unfair impression 
 respecting Mr. Phelps' meaning, we add, that he himself says, on the 
 preceding page, " We would not turn the slaves adrift on society, if we 
 could. So far from it, we are opposed to such a measure. We insist, 
 even, that the master has no ktght thus to set them afloat on soci- 
 ety, unlocked after and uncared for." 
 
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. ^9 
 
 religion ; — thus doing what he can to emancipate them from their 
 ignorance, degradation, &c. — in other words, from the conse- 
 quences of slavery, as well as from the thing itself. 
 
 Thus much in respect to the individual. In respect to the 
 community, as such, the scheme means, 
 
 1. That, in its collective capacity, it should yield the principle 
 of property in man, and thus cease to recognize any human heing 
 as the property of another. 
 
 2. That, by wise and equitable enactments, suited to the vari- 
 ous circumstances of the various classes of its members, it should 
 recognize them, all alike, as men— as subjects of equal law, 
 under its, and only its, control, to be deprived of ' life, liberty and 
 the pursuit of happiness,' on no account but that of crime, and 
 then, by due and equitable process of law. 
 
 And farther, in respect to those slaves who might be disposed 
 to leave their master's service, and become idle vagrants in soci- 
 ety, the scheme means, 
 
 1. That they should come under the control of vagrant laws- 
 just as white vagrants do. 
 
 2. That, if they commit crimes, they should be tried and con- 
 demned like other criminals, by due process of law.' 
 
 We understand by abolition, much that is not in- 
 cluded in Mr. Phelps' description of it. Slavery, 
 according to our definition, is that artificial relation^ 
 or civil institution^ hy which one man is invested with 
 a property in the labor of another^ to ivhoin, hy virtue 
 of that relation^ he owes the duties of protection^ sup- 
 port and government') and who owes him^ in return^) 
 obedience and submission. Our notion of the aboli- 
 tion of slavery, is the entire destruction of that 
 artificial constitution of society, which takes away 
 from one man the power of self-control, and puts 
 him under the protection and control of another. 
 The immediate emancipation of a slave by his mas- 
 ter, is the instantaneous dissolution of the relation 
 4* 
 
70 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 in that individual instance. The immediate aboli- 
 tion of slavery, in a state or country, is the instan- 
 taneous dissolution of that relation between all the 
 masters and all the slaves, by some sudden violence, 
 or by some act of legislation. While the slave is 
 passing through a period of pupilage, controlled by 
 the discretion of another, his emancipation may be 
 in progress, but it is not complete. While the slaves 
 of a country are considered by the law as not yet 
 fully competent to the responsibility of directing their 
 own movements and employments, so long — though 
 the process of abolition may be going forward with 
 great rapidity, and though the result may be as sure 
 as the progress of time, and though the statute-book 
 may have fixed the date at which the slaves shall 
 be left to their own discretion — slavery is not com- 
 pletely abolished. 
 
 In taking our stand, then, against immediate 
 emancipation, as the duty of the individual master, 
 and against immediate abolition as the duty of the 
 Legislature, we do not oppose what Mr. Phelps, and 
 men like him, of logical and calculating minds, ar- 
 gue for, under those names. As for the thing wdiich 
 alone they profess to recognize as slavery, we hold 
 it to be invariably sinful. As for the thing, which, 
 when they attempt to speak accurately, they call 
 emancipation, we hold it to be the plainest and first 
 duty of ever}?- master. As for the thing, which they 
 describe as the meaning of immediate abolition, we 
 hold it to be, not only practicable and safe, but the 
 very first thing to be done for the safety of a slave- 
 holding country. The immediate abolition against 
 which we protest, as perilous to the Commonwealth 
 
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. >Jl 
 
 and unjust to the slaves, is a different thing from that 
 which the immediate abolitionists think they are 
 urging on the country. 
 
 Why, then, dispute about words? Why not let 
 these men state their object, and call it by what 
 name they choose ? We answer, because words in 
 such a case are not mere breath, but things, and 
 things of great importance in their effect on the pub- 
 lic mind, and in their effect on those who use them. 
 ''In questions of philosophy or divinity, that have 
 occupied the learned, and been the subject of many 
 successive controversies, for one instance of mere 
 logomachy," says Coleridge, " I could bring ten in- 
 stances of logodcedaly, or verbal legerdemain, which 
 have perilously confirmed prejudices, and withstood 
 the advancement of truth, in consequence of the ne- 
 glect of verbal debate, that is, the strict discussion of 
 terms." This sagacious remark is, at least, as true 
 respecting questions of political right, and of practi- 
 cal morality, as it is respecting questions of abstract 
 philosophy, or scientific theology. In the present 
 instance, it is not mere logomachy to dissent strongly 
 from these immediate abolitionists ; there is, in their 
 use of terms, a certain logical sleight-of-hand, which 
 perplexes, irritates and inflames the public, and the 
 influence of which on their own minds, combining 
 with the exciting character of the subject, and with 
 the peculiar temperament of some among their lead- 
 ers, tends to embitter their philanthropy, and to turn 
 their sense of right into something too much like 
 rancor. 
 
 The sophism by which they unwittingly impose 
 on their own minds, and inflame the minds of others, 
 
72 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 is this: the terms ^'slavery," ^^slaveholding," '^im- 
 mediate emancipation," Slc, having one meaning 
 in their definitions, and, to a great and unavoidable 
 extent, another meaning in their denunciations and 
 popular harangues. Thus they define a slaveholder 
 to be one who claims and treats his fellow-men as 
 property — as things — as destitute of all personal 
 rights ; one, in a word, whose criminality is self-evi- 
 dent. But the moment they begin to speak of slave- 
 holders in the way of declamation, the word, which 
 they have strained from its proper import, springs 
 back to its position, and denotes any man who stands 
 in the relation of overseer and governor to those 
 whom the law has constituted slaves ; and conse- 
 quently every man who, in the meaning of the laws, 
 or in the meaning of common parlance, is a slave- 
 holder, is denounced, with unmeasured expressions 
 of abhorrence and hate, as an enemy of the species. 
 "What is the effect of this on their own minds ? What 
 — on the minds of those who happen, from one cause 
 or another, to be ripe for factious and fanatical ex- 
 citement against the south 1 What — on the minds 
 of those who, without unraveling the sophistry of 
 the case, know that many a slaveholder is conscien- 
 tious, and does regard his slaves as brethren ? What 
 — on the minds of those slaveholders themselves, 
 who are conscious of no such criminality? So of 
 immediate emancipation. They define that to be an 
 immediate cessation from the sin of claiming and 
 treating men as chattels ; but when they begin to 
 urge this duty, in appeals to popular feeling, the 
 phrase ''immediate emancipation," cannot be hin- 
 dered from meaning an immediate discharge of the 
 
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 73 
 
 slave from all special guardianship and government, 
 and his immediate investiture with the power of 
 self-control. This, they are understood to mean by 
 the great mass of those who hear them, and this 
 they do actually imply in many of their appeals, not- 
 withstanding their definitions and restrictions. And 
 what is the effect 1 The public understands them as 
 demanding immediate and complete emancipation, 
 in the obvious meaning of the terms ; and the public 
 at large, north and south, east and west, denounces 
 them as visionary and reckless agitators. Hence 
 it is, that even in those States where the hatred of 
 slavery is most pervading and most intense, the call 
 for an immediate abolition meeting, is so often the 
 signal for some demonstration of popular indigna- 
 tion. What is the effect on themselves ? Convinced, 
 as they are, by their definition, of the self-evident 
 duty of immediate emancipation, as they define it, 
 and of the indispensable necessity of that emancipa- 
 tion, as preliminary to any other effort for the ben- 
 efit of the slaves, they forget that immediate eman- 
 cipation, in the ordinary acceptation of terms, is not 
 equally a self-evident duty, and equally indispensa- 
 ble, as preliminary to other efforts ; and so they look 
 with contempt, with dislike, and, unless they are 
 very watchful over their own spirits, with something 
 akin to malignity, on the efforts now made at the 
 south, by Christians of various denominations, for the 
 thorough religious instruction of those held in bond- 
 age. They ^' must husband their strength." They 
 " have no energies to waste in the chase of phan- 
 toms." They ^'cannot afford to be diverted from 
 the main object by eloquent speeches, and touching 
 
74 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 appeals, about plans of instruction." They declare, 
 peremptorily, that '•' all attempts at instruction are 
 a real evil." Those attempts may, indeed, inform 
 the mind of the slave with ^* truths which are essen- 
 tial to his salvation," but still they are to be depre- 
 cated as "« real evil,^^ inasmuch as slavery without 
 instruction is so much more fertile in horrors, where- 
 withal to garnish the appeals of abolitionists, and to 
 rouse the public mind to action. If such a man as 
 Mr. Phelps, (see p. Ill of the work before us,) a 
 minister of the gospel, with a mind gifted by nature, 
 and disciplined by education, can be deluded by this 
 ^'verbal legerdemain" into the expression of such 
 sentiments, what may we not expect from men of a 
 lower order as to intellect and spirit. 
 
 We say, then, we cannot consent to be enrolled 
 among the doctors or disciples in this school of im- 
 mediate abolition. Though their immediate abolition 
 may be a harmless thing, as they define it, they in- 
 sist on arming that harmless thing with a most harm- 
 ful name. Their well-intended definitions, unable 
 to overcome that intrinsic power by which words re- 
 tain their popular signification, define only to mystify, 
 and mystify only to irritate. 
 
 We know it is often said, that any doctrine short 
 of immediate emancipation, puts the conscience of 
 the slaveholder asleep, and justifies him in trans- 
 mitting slavery unmitigated to another generation. 
 But nothing can be more unwarranted than such an 
 assertion. The duty of immediate emancipation is 
 one thing. The immediate duty of emancipation is 
 another thing. That duty, the present duty of begin- 
 ning the emancipation of his slaves, the instant duty of 
 
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 75 
 
 commencing a process Avith them, which shall infalli- 
 bly result in their complete liberation, at the earliest 
 date consistent with their well-being-, may be urged 
 at once on every slaveholder as a direct and indis- 
 putable corollary from the great law of love. Such a 
 process, under whatever form it may be commenced, 
 must imply at the outset, that, in the estimation of the 
 master at least, the slave is no longer a chattel, but 
 a person ; no longer a thing, but a man, invested 
 with the majesty of God's image, and endowed with 
 the rights that belong to God'sintelligent and account- 
 able creature. 
 
 Here, then, let the public sentiment of the country 
 speak out for the emancipation of slaves, and for the 
 abolition of slavery. This is the gradual abolition 
 which we stand ready always to advocate, without 
 the liability to mean one thing when we define it, 
 and another thing when we urge it. Let it be ever}^- 
 where insisted on, as the first point to be carried, 
 that to hold men as property, to claim them, and use 
 them, and dispose of them, as things without person- 
 ality, and without rights, is a sin, with which neither 
 humanity nor religion can have any compromise. 
 On this point, the north can be made to speak through 
 all the organs of public sentiment, as with the voice 
 of many thunders. On this point, the feeling in 
 the free states is unanimous, and has been for these 
 forty years. The preachers of immediate abolition 
 often profess, that a great battle must be fought, be- 
 fore even New England will come out against sla- 
 very. A battle must be fought, indeed, before New 
 England will fall in with their measures, or adopt 
 their style ; but it is nothing better than a libel on 
 
76 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 New England, to affirm, that there is here one parti- 
 cle of sympathy witli slavery, or any feeling adverse 
 to its abolition. Where, in New England, can even 
 the repulsive power of immediate abolitionism drive 
 New England men from their avowed abhorrence of 
 slavery, in all its forms and operations 1 Nothing is 
 wanting but the occasion and call, to bring out the 
 public sentiment of all the north in one loud cry of 
 reprobation against the practice of making merchan- 
 dise of men. 
 
 Nor will it be found impracticable to discuss this 
 point at the south, or to convince even slaveholders 
 of the wrong of claiming their slaves as ' property, 
 in the same sense with their brood mares.'* It is 
 not impracticable ; for there are hundreds of masters 
 there, who are convinced already, and who act on 
 the conviction, that they stand to their slaves, not 
 in the relation of ownership over property, but in 
 the relation of guardianship and government over 
 men, intelligent, and invested by the God of nature 
 with the rights of humanity, yet ignorant, depend- 
 ent, and, but for the master, defenceless. By the 
 power, not indeed of heat, and smoke, and fury, but 
 of light and love, that conviction may be made to 
 spread, till, having first pervaded the churches there 
 of every denomination, it shall become the strong 
 conviction of the popular mind ; and till the majesty 
 of the people, speaking by distinct enactments, shall 
 pronounce that the slaves are persons, having hu- 
 man rights, and, as such, subject to the law, and 
 
 * It seems incredible that such a comparison should have been made 
 by an advocate of slaver}^ within a few months past, in the Legislature 
 of proud Virginia. Yet such is the fact. 
 
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 77 
 
 under its protection. Then will the keystone of the 
 mighty fabric of oppression have been taken away ; 
 and legislation will have begun, effectually, the abo- 
 lition of slavery. 
 
 We appeal, therefore, earnestly, to all the rational 
 philanthropists of the so-called Anti-Slavery party, 
 to cease from the bewildering cry for an immediate 
 emancipation, which, as defined by them, is either 
 not immediate, or not emancipation ; and for an im- 
 mediate abolition, which, as they explain it, is to 
 leave slavery mitigated, indeed, but not yet abol- 
 ished. We call on them to forsake all fraternity 
 with those who insist on thus blinding themselves, 
 and abusing the public. We call on them hence- 
 forth to use language in its proper acceptation ; and 
 when they mean to demand that men shall no longer 
 be held and treated as merchandise^ to demand it 
 only in terms that shall convey their meaning clear- 
 ly to every mind. Let them go with this point to 
 the General Assembly, and all the Synods of the 
 Presbyterian Church, to the General Associations of 
 New England, to the Conferences of Methodism, to 
 every assembly and convention by which public 
 sentiment, on a point of morals, can be directed, or 
 through which such sentiment can find fit utterance. 
 Let them persuade every ecclesiastical tribunal in 
 the land, to fix it as a principle, that he who buys, 
 or sells, or treats, his fellow -men as merchandise, is 
 to be dealt with as a sinner. We will go with them ; 
 our voice shall be lifted up as loud in the demand 
 as theirs. Let them employ the press in all its forms 
 of influence, till first the buying and selling, and then 
 the owning and treating of men as merchandise, shall 
 
78 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 be infamous throughout the land. We will be their 
 hearty coadjutors. It needs no long-continued ef- 
 fort — it needs only wise and vigorous effort — to make 
 the traffic in human beings, and the claim on which 
 that traffic rests, infamous, utterly infamous, even 
 among slaveholders. Make that traffic infamous ; 
 waken the public conscience at the south, to decide 
 upon it as it is ; and then the spirit, first of indivi- 
 dual emancipation, next of general abolition, will 
 come in like a resistless flood. What is that which, 
 at the present time, stands more than anything else 
 in the way of abolition ? It is the domestic slave- 
 trade. It is the fact that slaves have a market price, 
 and can be exchanged for money, at the pleasure or 
 necessity of the proprietor. The market for slaves, 
 in the recently settled cotton and sugar States, is the 
 only cause which makes the slaves of Maryland and 
 Virginia, of Kentucky and Tennessee, worth hold- 
 ing as property. The value of slaves in Maryland, 
 depends entirely on their value at New Orleans. 
 Shut up the southern market, and the Maryland 
 slaveholder is richer without his slaves tlian with 
 them, so that his pecuniary interest is on the side of 
 emancipation. Make him feel that he has no right 
 to sell his slaves — make him see that he cannot sell 
 them without infamy — and to him the market is 
 shut up already ; nothing but l)enevolence can hin- 
 der him from the most immediate emancipation, un- 
 less the laws forbid him. 
 
 We are confident that the appeal which we here 
 make to rational abolitionists, will not be in vain. 
 We entreat them in behalf of our common country, 
 and in behalf of all those interests of mankind, which 
 
THE ABOLITIO^r OF SLAVERY, 79 
 
 depend on the internal peace and continued pros- 
 perity of this nation ; we entreat iheni in behalf of 
 the slaves, the objects of their sympathy ; we entreat 
 them as men of soberness and reason, as friends of 
 man, as friends of Him who came to preach deliver- 
 ance to the captives — we beg them not to reject this 
 appeal, without a candid and serious consideration. 
 
PRESENT STATE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE SLAVERY QUESTION.* 
 
 [quarterly christian spectator, 1S36.] 
 
 This little book will do more for its author's repu- 
 tation, with that portion of mankind Avhose favor- 
 able opinion is most to be desired, than any other 
 one thing- which has come from his pen. We have 
 read it with almost nnmingled satisfaction. The 
 chapter of '' explanations," that on the " evils of 
 slavery," that on the '' means of removing slavery," 
 and the short concluding chapter on the " duties of 
 the free States," are the best parts of a book in 
 which almost every page is very good. A fine and 
 lofty moral spirit breathes through the whole. The 
 only portion which betrays at all the habits of the 
 Unitarian theologian, is the chapter in refutation of 
 '' the argument which the Scriptures are thought to 
 furnish in favor of slavery." Not that there is 
 Unitarianism in that chapter ; indeed the whole 
 book is orthodox in its air and spirit; and there are 
 passages which, read with evangelical views, and 
 construed as an evangelical reader would construe 
 
 * Slavery. By William E. Channing. Boston : 1835. 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 81 
 
 them, have a higher meaning, and a still greater 
 cogency, than they could have had in the mind of 
 their eloquent author. The seven pages in which 
 the Scriptural argument is dispatched, betray the 
 Unitarian only as they show that Dr. Channing is 
 in the habit of reasoning from what he conceives to 
 be the genius of Christianity, rather than from the 
 inspired record of Avhat Christianity is. 
 
 Dr. Channing's ground is, briefly, that so far as 
 slavery divests its victims of all personal rights ; so 
 far as it reduces human beings to the rank and con- 
 dition of cattle; so far, in a Avord, as it converts men 
 into property, it is sin, simple, unqualified sin. He 
 discriminates justly between the w^rong of slavery, 
 that is, the wrongfulness of those laws which make 
 the negro a chattel, and refuse to recognize him in 
 any other relation — and the guilt attached to the in- 
 dividual, who, not seeing how to lay down the au- 
 thority committed to him by those laws, exercises 
 that authority, not for his own emolument, but for 
 the w^elfare of his servants. Upon those masters 
 who hold the slave '^ not for his own good or for the 
 safety of the State, but with precisely the same 
 views with which they hold a laboring horse, that 
 is, for the profit they can wiring from him," he 
 pours a torrent of eloquent indignation ; while he 
 freely acknowledges, that all masters are not thus 
 guilty. In regard to the means of removing slavery, 
 he holds, that the best, safest, happiest remedy, is in 
 the hands of the masters ; that the institution of new 
 relations between the master and the servant, with- 
 out the master's full consent, though it may be far 
 better than the perpetuity of the relations now exist- 
 
g2 PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 ing-j cannot but be attended with disaster ; that 
 while the recognition of the slave as a man entitled 
 to the benefits of good government ought to be im- 
 mediate, his emancipation must be a gradual pro- 
 cess ; that the slave ought to be trained for self-sup- 
 port, by being taught to labor under the impulse of 
 other and manlier motives than the mere terror of 
 the lash, by seeing new privileges and honorable 
 distinctions awarded to the honest and industrious ; 
 by being made to feel, that he has a family whose 
 happiness depends on his industry, integrity and 
 prudence, and by being imbued with the truths and 
 motives of the Gospel of Christ. We need not say 
 how entirely ihese views coincide with our own. 
 
 One chapter is devoted to abolitionism in the now 
 technical meaning of that word. The author, while 
 exhibiting his objections to the spirit and proceed- 
 ings of the anti-slavery societies, vindicates them 
 from the charge of designing to promote insurrec- 
 tion among the slaves, and denounces with great 
 solemnity and earnestness the parricidal attempts 
 that have been made to suppress their proceedings 
 "oy violence. His greatest objection seems to be 
 against the system of agitation^ by which the anti- 
 slavery men have sought to compass their ends. Of 
 this system of agitation he says : 
 
 * From the beginning it created alarm in the considerate, and 
 strengthened the s3-mpathies of the free States with the slave- 
 ^ jlder. It made converts of a few individuals, but alienated 
 multitudes. Its influence at the south has been evil without 
 mixture. It has stirred up bitter passions and a fierce fanaticism, 
 which have shut every ear and every heart against its arguments 
 and persuasions. These effects are the more to be deplored, be- 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 33 
 
 cause the hope of freedom to the slave lies chiefly in the disposi- 
 tion of his master. The abolitionist proposed, indeed, to convert 
 the slaveholders ; and for this end he approached them v^rith vitu- 
 peration and exhausted on them the vocabulary of abuse ! And 
 he has reaped as he sowed. His vehement pleadings for the 
 slaves have been answered by wilder ones from the slaveholder ; 
 and, what is worse, deliberate defences of slavery have been sent 
 forth, in the spirit of the dark ages, and in defiance of the moral 
 convictions and feelings of the Christian and civilized world. 
 Thus, with good purposes, nothing seems to have been gained. 
 Perhaps (though I am anxious to repel'the thought) something has 
 been lost to the cause of freedom and humanity.' — pp. 141, 142. 
 
 On this text we offer a few comments, illustrating 
 the recent history and present bearings of the slavery- 
 question in this country. What Dr. Channing says, 
 is for the most part truly said, and well said; yet 
 in some points it is far from being the whole truth. 
 
 The system of agitation pursued by the abolition- 
 ists has '^strengthened the s)^mpathies of the free 
 States with the slaveholder." True; yet this in- 
 creased sympathy with slaveholders, is not produced 
 by the system of agitation alone. It is by their 
 schemes of agitation, taken in connection with their 
 doctrine of immediate freedom, and their usurpation 
 and perversion of the name of abolitionist, that the 
 anti-slavery societies have produced in the free States 
 so considerable a reaction favorable to slavery. Dr. 
 Channing finds himself compelled, by the persecu- 
 tions and the mobs which have been got up against 
 these societies, to take sides with a party whose doc- 
 trine of immediate emancipation he renounces, whose 
 system of agitation he deprecates, and whose spirit 
 of denunciation he abhors. Just so, thousands of 
 
84 PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 the best of men, struck with the ferocity of the de- 
 nunciations indiscriminately launched against all 
 slaveholders in all possible circumstances, have been 
 constrained to take sides with slaveholders, and to 
 say, whatever may be true of slavery, slaveholding 
 is not necessarily so bad as you represent it. Those 
 who have demurred at the new doctrine of immediate 
 emancipation, or its corollaries — such as the exclu- 
 sion of every slave-owner from all Christian commu- 
 nion, have been vilified in the publications of these 
 reformers, as ^^dough-faces," ^'pro-slavery advo- 
 cates," " apologists for oppression and man-steal- 
 ing;" and by suffering the same reproaches with 
 the slaveholder from the same quarter, have been 
 compelled thus far to S3anpathize with him. The 
 name of abolitionist, which justly belongs, as a name 
 of honor, to all those States which have provided for 
 the extinction of slavery within their own territory, 
 and to every citizen of those States who approves 
 and honors such a policy, has been perverted and 
 degraded by being claimed as the distinctive name 
 of a bitter, contentious, and therefore obnoxious par- 
 ty ; till many who once would have gloried in such 
 a name, and who, when it shall have regained its 
 legitimate meaning, will glory in it again, having 
 lost their sympathy with the name, have uncon- 
 sciously become less interested in the thing. Under 
 such influences, it is not strange that there has been 
 a temporary reaction in the public sentiment of the 
 free States ; nor is it strange, that political editors 
 and others at the north, presuming on the force and 
 permanancy of this reaction, and having an object 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 35 
 
 to gain, have even ventured to defend the whole 
 theory and practice of slavery and the slave-trade, 
 as they exist in the southern States. 
 
 At the south, this system of agitation '^ has stirred 
 up bitter passions and a fierce fanaticism, which have 
 shut every ear and every heart against its arguments 
 and persuasions." So says Dr. Channing, and we 
 cannot deny that it is so. Yet if any suppose, that 
 the furious fanaticism of southern demagogues has 
 all been created by the anti-slavery societies, they 
 entirely misunderstand the matter. The direct in- 
 fluence of the immediate abolitionists has been far 
 less at the south ; their publications have had a far 
 more limited circulation there, than is implied in 
 such a supposition. Besides, others who discussed 
 the subject of slavery before tlie modern doctrine of 
 immediate emancipation was broached, before the 
 present system of agitation was dreamed of, found, 
 as Dr. Channing has found since the publication of 
 this book, that it is not the doctrine of immediate 
 abolition only, nor the scheme of northern agitation 
 only, nor a fierce denunciatory temper only, nor the 
 combination of all these things only, that is odious 
 at the south ; but that ever}^ discussion of slavery in 
 whatever quarter, and in whatever form ; every pro- 
 posal for the abolition of slavery, whatever the spirit 
 in which it may be conceived, and whatever the ar- 
 guments by which it may be enforced, is sure, if only 
 it attracts attention at the south, to be met with a 
 growl of fanatical defiance. 
 
 As we understand the matter, the most important 
 effect of the anti-slavery agitation thus far, has been 
 its influence on the feelings, opinions, and party 
 6 
 
§6 PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 sympathies of that small portion of the southern com- 
 munity Avhich was predisposed to favor the abolition 
 of slavery. The great majority of active ministers of 
 the gospel at the south, seeing, as they were com- 
 pelled to see, the disastrous obstacles which slavery 
 rears in the way of the gospel, by its influence on 
 the master, on the slave, on the form and spirit of 
 society ; very many of the more devoted and intelli- 
 gent members of the various Christian churches, 
 becoming gradually more and more associated with 
 the churches of the free States in philantln'opic and 
 Christian enterprises, and continually receiving reli- 
 gious intelligence and religious papers and books 
 from the north ; many thinking and sober men, con- 
 sidering the subject in the light of politics and politi- 
 cal econom}^, and imbued with the free spirit which 
 breathes through all modern literature ; were not 
 only ashamed of slavery, but were ready to receive 
 more light on the question of its moral character, and 
 to ask, how can it be abolished? — These classes gen- 
 erally have been somewhat acquainted with the 
 movements of the immediate abolitionists, and have 
 read enough of their publications to know something 
 of their doctrines, their proposals and their spirit. 
 On these persons, the influence of the anti-slavery 
 societies has indeed been '^ evil without mixture." 
 The idea of immediate and unqualified emancipation 
 they could not entertain for a moment. Moved by 
 their abhorrence of a doctrine which seemed to them 
 so extravagant ; by an excusable indignation at the 
 denunciations hurled against them and their fellow- 
 citizens ; by the fear of being thought to entertain 
 some sympathy with '' the fanatics of the north ;" 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 87 
 
 and by the natural yielding of each individual mind 
 to the current of public sentiment ; they have taken 
 sides with the most tborough defenders of slavery, 
 and to some extent, with the most fanatical denounc- 
 ers of the liberty of speech and thought. Thus it is, 
 that while a spirit as malignant as ever thirsted for 
 blood, has blazed over the southern States, there has 
 hardly been in all the south, one whisper of protes- 
 tation. Such is the triumph of the anti-slavery soci- 
 eties. They have silenced, they have annihilated 
 for the time, that party in the southern States which 
 was opposed to slavery, at least, in theory, and 
 which was inclined to promote inquiry respecting a 
 safe and righteous abolition. 
 
 But what is the cause of that excitement of '^bitter 
 passions and fierce fanaticism" which is now raging 
 at the south 1 We have already intimated, that the 
 cause is not to be found in the operations of our anti- 
 slavery friends ; and Ave know it will be put to us to 
 say, Whence all this excitement'? Whence these 
 outrageous proceedings'? Whence the before un- 
 heard of claim, that Congress has no power to make 
 laws for the protection of the ^^inalienable rights" of 
 some five or six. thousand persons under its ^' ex- 
 clusive jurisdiction" in the District of Columbia? 
 Whence the demands, so fatal to liberty, that the 
 right of petitioning Congress shall be trampled un- 
 der foot, and peaceful and respectful petitioners 
 treated with insult by the national legislature ; that 
 the entire post-ofiice establishment shall become a 
 literary inquisition ; that the free States shall make 
 laws to abridge the freedom of the press, the freedom 
 of the pulpit, the freedom of voluntary association ? 
 
gg PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 Whence the preposterous claim, that in a country 
 where no other subject is too high or sacred for dis- 
 cussion ; where the atheist may assail Christianity 
 with ribaldry in taverns and steamboats ; where 
 agrarians may hold public meetings to discuss and 
 plan the philanthropic scheme of abolishing pro- 
 perty ; where a brazen-fronted woman may lecture 
 in the theatres against the slavish institution of mar- 
 riage ; free men in the free States shall not speak, 
 nay, shall not think, on the subject of slavery 1 To 
 us, the cause of all this mad excitement seems to lie 
 quite on the surface of passing events. When were 
 the votes of the south given to make a northern man 
 President of the United States'? When was there 
 any danger of their being thus given, till the can- 
 vassing for the now coming election was commenced. 
 We will speak more distinctly. Was it not quite 
 certain, some two or three years ago, in consequence 
 of the overwhelming influence and popularity of the 
 present administration, that unless some desperate 
 experiment should be made upon the public mind, 
 many southern votes, not to say a great majority of 
 the southern votes for the presidency, would be 
 given to a citizen of the north ? Is it not notorious, 
 that at that time a newspaper in the city of Wash- 
 ington, representing and leading a certain party in 
 the southern States, began in concert with associated 
 presses still farther south, to address the fears, preju- 
 dices and pride of the slaveholding States, on this 
 very subject of northern interference with slavery? 
 Was it not a manifest and leading object of the ap- 
 peal then commenced, to make the question of sla- 
 very entirely a political question with every southern 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 89 
 
 man? And can there be any doubt that this was 
 done — this excitement kindled, this agitation kept 
 up, month after month — simply with a view to re- 
 vive and aggravate that intense sectional feeling 
 which heretofore has always been strong enough to 
 direct the votes of southern men ? What is it that 
 is going on in Congress at this very time, in relation 
 to the anti-slavery memorials 1 Are not the southern 
 leaders continually urging their extravagant de- 
 mands with a view to compel the friends of that 
 northern candidate either to take some position that 
 shall ruin their candidate at the south, or to make 
 some cowardly and servile concession that shall dis- 
 grace him at the north 1 How are the people con- 
 tinually abused by the demagogues of all parties, 
 who play upon their ignorance, their prejudices, 
 their basest passsions, to gain the power or the emol- 
 uments of office ! 
 
 Of all parties, we say — What more affecting illus- 
 tration of the degradation of the political press can 
 be demanded, than the fact that at the north, while 
 partisans of the administration have attempted to 
 throv/ upon their opponents the odium of an alliance 
 with the anti-slavery societies, the equally unprinci- 
 pled attempt has been made on the other side, and 
 has been persevered in with infinite effrontery by 
 journals of great authority and wide circulation, to 
 fix the same odium on the friends of the administra- 
 tion? 
 
 In our judgment, then, the immediate abolition- 
 ists are only to a limited extent responsible for the 
 excitement in the slaveholding States. They have 
 been the occasion rather than the cause or source of 
 
90 PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 the mischief. Political men, having- political ends 
 in view, have taken advantage of their ill-advised 
 operations, to blow the unquenchable fanaticism of 
 the south into a devouring flame. 
 
 Another unfortunate result ascribed to the system 
 of agitation pursued by the anti-slavery societies, is, 
 that " deliberate defences of slavery have been sent 
 forth in the spirit of the dark ages, and in defiance 
 of the moral convictions and feelings of the civilized 
 world." These defences of slavery, the atrocity of 
 which surpasses even Dr. Channing's power of ex- 
 pression, are to be traced, we apprehend, to several 
 causes, among which the anti-slavery agitation is by 
 no means the most considerable. 
 
 No man has forgotten, that in the summer of 1831 
 there was an insurrection of slaves in Southampton 
 County, Virginia, in the sudden fury of which some 
 sixty or seventy white people were murdered. The 
 eyes of the southern people were opened for a mo- 
 ment to the horrors of that condition of society in 
 Avhich they live. In Virginia, particularly, it was 
 felt that something must be done ; and when the 
 Legislature of that great State met, in the winter fol- 
 lowing, memorials were presented, praying that mea- 
 sures might be taken for the abolition of slavery. 
 At once it appeared, that in the Legislature of old Vir- 
 ginia there was a powerful abolition party. The 
 whole subject of slavery — its injustice, its impolicy, 
 its perils, the practicability of its removal — all was 
 discussed with open doors, in the presence of crowd- 
 ed and excited auditories ; and speeches, -worthy of 
 the best days of Virginian eloquence, were reported 
 for the newspapers, and ^vere scattered over all the 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. Ql 
 
 south, to be read in every family. The session closed 
 without any decisive action on the subject ; yet not 
 without the expectation, that in the progress of an- 
 other year some plan would be matured which should 
 secure the removal of slavery from that common- 
 wealth which gave birth to Washington, and the soil 
 of which is hallowed by the ashes of the father of 
 his country. 
 
 In tliis emergency, it became necessary that some- 
 thing should be done to convince the people of Vir- 
 ginia of the safety, the profitableness, the republican- 
 ism, and the respectability of slavery. Not a little 
 was done by speeches in the capitol, and by essays 
 in the newspapers ; but the champion of slavery, 
 who appeared just in time to turn the tide of public 
 opinion, was one '^ Thomas R. Dew, Professor of 
 History, Metaphysics and Political Law, in William 
 and Mary College." This gentleman, whose name 
 we trust will be duly honored by posterity, was the 
 author of an article on the debate in the Virginia 
 Legislature, which having been first published, with 
 much curtailment, in the American Quarterly Re- 
 view, was soon afterwards published entire at Rich- 
 mond, forining a pamphlet of one hundred and 
 thirty-three large pages. We have read the pam- 
 phlet diligently, and with no little admiration. The 
 learned professor of history, metaphysics and political 
 law, '^ boldly grapples with the abolitionists on the 
 great question." He argues, that the practice of 
 enslaving captives taken in war is the first step which 
 marks the departure of mankind from primeval bar- 
 barism ; and that inasmuch as it is perfectly just for 
 two nations or tribes, in a state of mutual hostility, 
 
92 PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 to kill each other to the greatest possible extent, the 
 men, women and chilrlren who, instead of being- mur- 
 dered outright, arc reduced to perpetual and absolute 
 slavery, have nothing to complain of, but everything 
 to be thankful for. He argues further, that where 
 all the property is in the hands of a particular class, 
 or where the government through w^eakness or inef- 
 ficiency fails to afford protection, there the holders 
 of property will be the masters, and the others will 
 necessarily, and therefore of course righteously, be 
 held as slaves. Not stopping even here, he urges 
 the argument, that in many barbarous or over- 
 crowded countries people are reduced to such ex- 
 tremity of suffering, that they will consent to be 
 slaves for the sake of having a slave's food and rai- 
 ment, and, in some savage tribes, '' a father will sell 
 his son for a knife or a hatchet." And lest any 
 doubt should remain in respect to the perfect equity 
 of absolute and hereditary slavery, such as exists in 
 Virginia, the striking and conclusive position is taken 
 that '' all governments, even those of the States of 
 our confederacy, have ever been considered as per- 
 fectly justifiable in enslaving for crime." All this 
 he considers as proving that " slavery is the neces- 
 sary result of the laws of mind and matter ;" and 
 hence he infers, '' that it was intended by our Cre- 
 ator for some useful purpose." Proceeding to set 
 forth the advantages which have resulted to the world 
 from slavery, he insists that this benignant institution, 
 which by some unaccountable fatality is everywhere 
 spoken against, ''has been perhaps the principal 
 means for impelling forward the civilization of man- 
 kind." In particular, he shows by the conjoined 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 93 
 
 light of history, metaphysics and political economy, 
 that it diminishes the frequency and the honors of 
 war; that it makes the migratory man domestic, 
 and the indolent man industrious, and should have 
 been seasonably applied to save the Pequots, the 
 Mohawks and the Cherokees from extinction ; and 
 that it raises woman (listen, ye fanatics, and be 
 forever silent) from the condition of a mere beast of 
 burden to her proper station, and endows her with 
 graces and accomplishments. The African slave- 
 trade next comes under consideration ; and here the 
 ingenious author seems to think, with Sir Roger De 
 Coverly, that ^'much may be said on both sides;" 
 though, as the revival of that trade, under the sanc- 
 tion of the laws, would seriously interfere with the 
 profits of the Virginia slave-breeders, he is on the 
 whole not disposed to reverse the judgment which 
 the conscience of the civilized world has pronounced 
 upon this traffic. Next he undertakes to expose the 
 futility of all possible plans for the abolition of 
 slavery. Through this part of his book, which is 
 by far the most considerable in extent and in ability, 
 we have no time to trace the progress of his argu- 
 ment. One or two points, however, in that argument, 
 must be mentioned, to illustrate the cold-bloodedness 
 with which the subject is treated. He shows that in 
 Virginia the slaves are worth in market one hundred 
 millions of dollars ; and he infers that this property, 
 being nearly one-third of all the property existing in 
 that great State, would be annihilated by any scheme 
 of abolition, leaving Virginia a desert. He shows 
 that negro slaves are the great staple of Virginia, 
 inasmuch as «' upwards of six thousand are yearly 
 5* 
 
94 PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 exported to other States," so that the chivah-oiis 
 commonwealth of Virginia receives from the sale of 
 human beings, born under its own motto of sic sem- 
 per tyrannis, not less than $1,200,000 every j^ear. 
 In the professor's own words: ''Virginia is in fact 
 a negro-raising State for other States. She produces 
 enough for her own supply, and six thousand for 
 sale." He shows, furthermore, that so long as the 
 planters of tlie more southern States can buy negroes 
 from abroad at a cheaper rate than the cost of raising 
 them at home, so long comparatively few slaves will 
 be raised on those plantations ; and so long the slave- 
 holders in Virginia will be able to realize their mill- 
 ions by the exportation of negroes. " The slaves in 
 Virginia," he says, "multiply more rapidly than in 
 most of the southern States ; the Virginians can raise 
 cheaper than thc)^ can buy ; in fact, it is one of their 
 greatest sources of profit." He brings his work to a 
 conclusion, by considering distinctly the alleged in- 
 justice and evils of slavery : and in refutation of the 
 vulgar errors on this subject, he maintains that slavery 
 is not wrong in the abstract; that its moral effects 
 are not pernicious, but, on the contrary, the more 
 absolute the slavery the more magnanimous will be 
 the master, and tlie more contented and happy will 
 be the slave ; that slavery is a powerful promoter of 
 the spirit of liberty ; that there is no danger from 
 plots and insurrections, but the more nimierous and 
 compact the population the greater the safety ; and 
 finally, that the notorious and lamented decay of old 
 Virginia is owing not to slavery, but to " the exac- 
 tions of the federal government." 
 ;^ This pamphlet — to the ability of which our rapid 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 95 
 
 sketch has by no means done justice, for arguments 
 in support of slavery must needs suffer by being con- 
 densed — produced a powerful impression upon the 
 State of Virginia. Nor can it be considered strange 
 that such was the fact. Professor Dew himself re- 
 membered, and inadveitently quoted, as a great 
 truth, the saying of Hobbes, '' that men might easily 
 be brought to deny that things equal to the same 
 thing are equal to each other, if their fancied inter- 
 ests were opposed in any way to the admission of 
 this axiom.'' It Avas easy then to make tlie people 
 of Virginia believe, that while their slaves were worth 
 one hundred millions of dollars, and while the ex- 
 portation of a part of the annual increase was bring- 
 ing into the State one million two hundred thousand 
 dollars yearly, slavery could not be so bad a thing 
 as it had seemed, under the excitement which fol- 
 lowed the Southampton massacre. Accordingly, 
 when the Legislature came together again, and a 
 whole year had passed without another insurrection, 
 there seemed to be no occasion for any farther dis- 
 cussion, and Professor Dew's book was thenceforth 
 considered to be perfectly unanswerable. 
 
 Since that time defences of slavery have been 
 multiplied at the south. Formerly, southern men 
 v/ere generally in the habit of acknowledging that 
 slavery is in some sense an evil, and excused it b}^ 
 pleading the difficulties in the way of abolition. But 
 now they as generally take the ground that the state 
 of society in which the working-class are held as 
 slaves is the very heau ideal of a well-regulated com- 
 munity ; that this institution is the nurse of patriot- 
 ism, of refinement, of all heroic and generous senti- 
 
96 PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 ments ; an excellent, promoter of good morals, of 
 public tranquillity and domestic happiness ; and that 
 all the religion which does not teach that God made 
 negroes on purpose to be slaves, is sheer fanaticism. 
 All the unqualified and shameless defences of slavery 
 that have been uttered at the south since 1832, seem to 
 us to have been derived directly or indirectly from the 
 great repository of doctrines and arguments found in 
 Professor Dew's '^ Review of the Debate in the Vir- 
 ginia Legislature.'' And that which first put the 
 southern orators and essay writers upon this barba- 
 rian defence of one of the most barbarous institutions 
 on earth, was not the anti-slavery agitation at the 
 north, but rather that agitation so much nearer the 
 seat of the evil, which ensued upon the Southampton 
 massacre, and which, for one whole winter, thun- 
 dered in the capitol at Richmond. 
 
 Undoubtedly this now prevalent practice of de- 
 fending slavery in the abstract, has been promoted, 
 as Dr. Chaaning intimates, by the measures of the 
 anti-slavery societies. Yet it is not to be imagined 
 that such arguments are designed exclusively or 
 chiefly for northern readers. The design is to ope- 
 rate upon the southern public, to put down entirely 
 those ideas of the insecurity, the impolicy, and the 
 injustice of slavery, which so lately threatened the 
 oldest and greatest of the slave States with abolition, 
 and to aid in those political agitations to which we 
 have already referred. 
 
 '^ Perhaps something has been lost to the cause of 
 freedom and humanity." Certainly the good cause 
 has lost ground within the last four years. Yet we 
 enjoy the consolation of believing, that the evils 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 97 
 
 which Dr. Channing deplores, and which are indeed 
 to be lamented as great evils, will be only temporary, 
 and under the benignant providence of Him who can 
 make the wrath of man to praise him, will be, in 
 the end, productive of good. It is not to be expected 
 that public sentiment, in respect to a subject so in- 
 volved with innumerable interests, and entangled 
 with all the complications of prejudice and passion, 
 can be reformed in the southern States, without con- 
 tinued conflicts, and the liability to frequent reaction. 
 Such a reaction we are just now witnessing. But 
 that reaction will react again. Every high-wrought 
 excitement, especially every excitement got up by 
 extra agitation, is essentially transitory. And Avhen 
 the hour of this present excitement in the south shall 
 have passed, there will be found men at the south, 
 who will dare to think for themselves, and who, not 
 having the fear of Lynch-law before their eyes, will 
 dare to say, that an arrangement which puts one- 
 half of the population of a State under the most ab- 
 solute despotism, leaving them without any legal 
 protection for one of the rights of their human na- 
 ture, and which does all that can be done to hinder 
 them from outgrowing their original barbarism, or 
 becoming in any manner capable of freedom, is nei- 
 ther safe, nor politic, nor just. In other words, dis- 
 cussion, debate, free inquiry on the subject of slavery, 
 now suppressed everywhere beyond the Potomac, 
 will break out again. None can tell how near the 
 occasion is, that shall put a new aspect upon all 
 these discussions. Another massacre like that of 
 Southampton might not do it. The burning of a city 
 might not do it. But a reduction of the prices of 
 
98 PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 cotton and sugar some twenty-five per cent., for two 
 successive seasons, would operate resistlessly to en- 
 lighten public sentiment in all the slaveholding 
 States ; and at v/hatever time such an event may 
 take place, the men will be found who, in the name 
 of the commonvrealth, and in the names of human- 
 ity and justice, will demand that something be done 
 for the removal of slavery. Nay, without any such 
 occasion, it must ere long appear, that the extreme 
 doctrines and measures now urged in support of .^la- 
 very, are not received unanimously, even at the 
 south. 
 
 What then is in brief, the present state of the sla- 
 very question? It is just this. The anti-slavery 
 societies, by their doctrine of immediate and unqual- 
 ified abolition, and by the peculiar measures which 
 they have adopted for the propagation of that doc- 
 trine, have divided the north and united the south. 
 The southern agitators, by their doctrine of the su- 
 perlative excellence and inviolable sacredness of sla- 
 very, and by their audacious demands in Congress 
 and elsewhere, are rapidly making the north unani- 
 mous, and will ere long produce a division at the 
 south. Then, when the voice of the north shall be 
 again distinct, manly, true to its principles ; and 
 when some southern men shall again dare to main- 
 tain, that slavery is not the perfection of civilization 
 — it will be found, that the cause of truth, of freedom, 
 of happiness, while suflfering temporary disaster, has 
 been imperceptibly approaching the hour of final 
 triumph. 
 
 Dr. Channing's book is well suited to do good just 
 at this juncture. At the north, its eloquent appeals 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 99 
 
 will find a response in the mind of every man who 
 does not himself deserve to be a slave. The super- 
 ficial, sneering-, infidel reply, which some anony- 
 mous author has published in Boston,* so far as it 
 has any effect on the public mind, must operate to 
 secure for the work before us a wider circulation, a 
 more attentive reading, and therefore a more decided 
 and salutary influence. At the south, its circulation 
 must of course be limited ; but there, hundreds of 
 leading men who would scorn to look upon a tract, 
 or a volume gratuitously circulated, are constrained 
 to buy it and to read it ; and however they may rage 
 against it or attempt to answer it, the time must 
 come, when the seed thus sown upon the axgry 
 waters will have found a soil in which to vegetate. 
 The criticisms pronounced upon it by southern sen- 
 ators in Congress, will only go to promote that dis- 
 cussion of slavery which neither speeches, nor reso- 
 lutions, nor laws, nor lawless violence, will be able 
 to suppress. Such speeches as that of the senator 
 from Virginia! are, if we may resume t]ie figure we 
 have just been using, the wind which will help to 
 carry the scattered and floating seed to the spot 
 where, taking root, it will put forth first the blade, 
 then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. 
 
 At the hazard of seeming somewhat more discur- 
 sive than we are wont to be, we take leave to notice 
 one or two points in the speech of Mr. Leigh review- 
 ing Dr. Channing's book. The manliness and the 
 
 * Remarks on Dr. Channing's Slavery. By a citizen of Massachu- 
 setts. Boston, 1835. 
 
 t Mr. Leigh's speech on abolition of slavery in the District of Colum- 
 bia. New-York Observer, Feb. 13, 1836. 
 
100 PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 gentlemanliness of that speech, entitle it to a degree 
 of consideration which is not due to the vulgar and 
 theatrical chivalry which many southern orators ut- 
 ter so profusely on such subjects. What then is the 
 present state of the slavery question, as it appears in 
 the honorable senator's critique on Dr. Channing 1 
 
 First, if we do not altogether misunderstand the 
 scope of Mr. Leigh's remarks, it is demanded, that 
 the discussion of slavery and the publication of opin- 
 ions concerning it shall be put down at the north, 
 either by legislative enactments or by popular vio- 
 lence ; and the question is, whether this demand 
 shall be complied with. The senator's first and pro- 
 foundest grief in regard to Dr. Channing's book is, 
 that it is the Doctor's " purpose to counteract the 
 efforts of those who are endeavoring to put down the 
 schemes of the abolitionists, by embodying public 
 opinion into efficient action against them." Em- 
 bodying 'public opinion into efficient action ! If any 
 man is at a loss to decide what that means, let him 
 look over a file of the New York Courier and Enqui- 
 rer, or of the New York Evening Star, or of some 
 of the agitating journals of those States in which the 
 Lynch-court takes cognizance of all abuses of the 
 freedom of speech. 
 
 Secondly, the doctrine is now laid down, that it 
 is incendiary to declare that a man cannot rightfully 
 be used as property. Dr. Channing uses this lan- 
 guage : ^' We have thus seen, that a human being 
 cannot rightfully be held and used as property. No 
 legislation, not that of all countries or worlds could 
 make him so. Let this be laid down as a first fun- 
 damental truth. Let us hold it fast, as a most sacred. 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. IQl 
 
 precious truth. Let us hold it fast, against all cus- 
 toms, all laws, all rank, wealth, and power. Let it 
 be armed with the whole authority of the civilized 
 and Christian world." " Now," says the senator 
 from Virginia in reply, '' If Dr. Channing does not 
 know, that such language as this is in its nature and 
 tendency incendiary, 1 insist that he ought not to 
 write upon any subject he so little understands." 
 We say then, the question is, whether this doctrine 
 shall be received as political and moral orthodoxy at 
 the north. The question is not, whether the publish- 
 er of an incendiary book ought to be punished ; it 
 is, what makes the book incendiary? — it is, whether 
 the author, the printer, and the publisher, who were 
 concerned in getting up a paper or book which con- 
 tains the opinion, that man, made in God's image, 
 cannot rightfully be held and used as property, are 
 incendiaries. Let every citizen of the free States 
 make up his mind upon this question. Free States, 
 did we say ? Nay, if this doctrine is to be admitted 
 and established, Turkey is freer than New England. 
 Thirdly, it is a question between Dr. Channing 
 and Mr. Leigh, whether slavery tends to licentious- 
 ness. 
 
 On this point, Dr. Channing has expressed him- 
 self eloquently and with great power. His language, 
 which, in a single word, is perhaps a shade stronger 
 than was necessary, need not be quoted here. Mr. 
 Leigh says in reply, '' I shall content myself with 
 declaring my conscientious belief, that there is no 
 society existing on the globe, in which the virtue of 
 conjugal fidelity, in man as well as woman, and the 
 happiness of domestic life, are more general than in 
 
lOa PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 the slaveholding States.'' We cannot doubt that 
 Mr. Leigh believes as he says. Yet we cannot for- 
 get, that in those States the pnrity of a million of fe- 
 males is at the mercy of masters and of masters' 
 sons, living imder a fervid clime, in idleness and 
 fullness of bread. We cannot forget, that among 
 more than two millions of people in those States 
 there is no such thing as legal marriage ; that among 
 those two millions, the connections which they form 
 under the name of marriage, are always liable to be 
 dissolved, not only at the will of the parties, but 
 against their will, whenever the interest of a mas- 
 ter or of a master's creditors may require a separa- 
 tion ; and that, therefore, among two millions of 
 people there, the connection of husband and w^ife — 
 no, of male and female — can have nothing of the 
 sacredness that belongs to the relation of husband 
 and wife in a civilized and Christian community. 
 We cannot forget, that in those States females of 
 every variety of complexion, from the glossy ebony 
 to that slightest tinge of yellow through which the 
 quick blood speaks as eloquently, perhaps, as on the 
 cheek of the most delicate mistress, are liable to be 
 set up on a table in the most public places, exposed 
 like any other merchandise to the examination of 
 every idler passer by, and sold to the highest bidder; 
 and that the moment the purchaser has laid his hand 
 upon his bargain, she is as completely at his disposal 
 as if she had been sold in the slave-market of Tripoli, 
 to adorn the harem of a Turk. Some may find it 
 easy to believe, tliat every young master at the 
 south is a very Scipio ; but we must forget what the 
 laws are in those States, and what human nature is 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 103 
 
 everywhere, before we can go as far as the senator 
 from Virginia goes, in his vindication of the chastity 
 of the southern slaves. The question, however, 
 whether there is an actual connection between sla- 
 very and licentiousness, is a question more interest- 
 ing and more important at the south than at the 
 north. Let every southern man look around him 
 and see what the facts are. Let every southern mo- 
 ther of a son ask herself, whether she believes that 
 all mothers in the free States have just such anxie- 
 ties as she has. 
 
 Dr. Channing touches on another part of this sub- 
 ject. He adverts to the fact, that many masters 
 have children born into slavery. Most of these child- 
 ren, he presumes, are kindly treated during the 
 life-time of the fathers ; but, as the fathers die, not 
 a few, especially since the obstacles in the way of 
 emancipation have been increased, are left to the 
 chances of slavery. '' Still more, it is to be feared, 
 that there are cases in which the master puts his 
 own children under the whip of the overseer, or else 
 sells them to undergo the miseries of bondage among 
 strangers." '' Among the pollutions of heatlienism, 
 I know nothing worse than this. The heatlien who 
 feasts on his country's foe, may hold up his head by the 
 side of the Christian who sells his child for gain — 
 sells him to be a slave. God forbid that I should 
 charge this crime on a people. But however rarely 
 it may occur, it is a fruit of slavery, an exercise of 
 power belonging to slavery, and no laws restrain or 
 punish it." To this the eloquent senator replies — 
 how ? — by admitting all that Dr. Channing has said. 
 '^ I shall not deny that such facts as he mentions 
 
104 PRESENT STATE OF 
 
 may have occurred. But," he proceeds, '^ is it rea- 
 sonable, is it cliaritable, to allege such iniquities as 
 a reproach against our national character 1" Cer- 
 tainly, Mr. Senator, so long as your laws tolerate and 
 uphold such villany, so long your proud escutcheon 
 bears the stain in the face of all the world. When 
 your legislatures shall doom to the gallows or to the 
 penitentiary the man who sells his children, then 
 will that stain be wiped away. Mr Leigh proceeds 
 to say, that within a year he has seen several ac- 
 counts of parents exposing their new-born infants in 
 the streets of the city of New York ; and he asks, 
 " Is there any man in his sound senses, that would 
 deduce from such facts matter of reproach against 
 the people of that city ?" We answer, perhaps not. 
 But why is it so ? Why are not the people there 
 responsible ? Simply because such exposures there 
 are held as crimes, not merely in the eye of con- 
 science, but in the eye of law. The senator having 
 thrown up this little cloud of dust, makes good his 
 retreat from the point, by saying, " I believe that 
 the judicial records of this country will show that the 
 number of crimes, especially those of deepest atrocity, 
 committed in the non-slaveholding States, is much 
 greater than those committed in the slaveholding 
 States." Pray, Mr. Leigh, do the slaves in your 
 part of the country ever steal? do they commit 
 adultery? are they ever found guilty of assault and 
 battery upon each other? and is there any '^judicial 
 record" showing how often slaves are convicted of 
 such crimes? Nay, if a slave should perpetrate a 
 rape upon the body of a slave, would there be any 
 '^ judicial record" of the crime? If two gentlemen 
 
THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 105 
 
 have a brawl at a tavern, or a rencontre in the streets, 
 and fight it out fairly and handsomely, with fists, 
 with dirks, or with pistols, is there always some 
 '^judicial record" of the transaction? In general, 
 does not the very existence of slavery, by making 
 the master, in numberless instances, judge, jury, 
 and executioner, and by keeping up among the 
 lords of the soil a very peculiar sort of public senti- 
 ment, tend to diminish the number of ''judicial re- 
 cords," rather than the number of crimes actually 
 committed 7 
 
 " Can the slaveholder use the word amalgama- 
 tion without a blush ?" To this question Mr. Leigh 
 replies, " It is absolutely wonderful how little amal- 
 gamation has taken place in the course of two centu- 
 ries." Wonderful it is to us, considering all the 
 circumstances of the case ; and yet we think, that if 
 any man shall venture upon reading Dr. Channing's 
 pungent question in the senate, Avhen Col. Johnson 
 shall have attained to the presidency of that body, 
 there will be some expectation of a blush in certain 
 quarters. But what is the great shame charged up- 
 on Col. Johnson by his political opponents at the 
 south'? Is it simply that he has a family of colored 
 children? Or is it rather, that instead of treating 
 his daughters as if they were cattle, he treats them 
 with something of a father's affection, and even at- 
 tempts to force them upon society, by taking them 
 with him to places of public resort, and by mar- 
 rying them to white men ? We might name the 
 governor of one of the proudest States of the Union, 
 who permitted his daughter to be sold and trans- 
 ported from her native city to the painful and hope- 
 
106 rilESENT STATE OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 less servitude of a plantation in Louisiana, when lie 
 might easily have saved her, and it was proposed to 
 him to save her. Yet so little ignominy attaches to 
 him on that account, that we presume not one in 
 ten thousand of those who admire his greatness, can 
 guess the name of the statesman and patriot who 
 permitted his daughter to be sold into exile and 
 slavery, when one w^ord of his lips would have saved 
 her. The African prince w'ho should do the self- 
 same thing on the banks of the Congo, would for- 
 feit his character : 
 
 ' But Brutus is an honorable man, 
 So are they all, all honorable men.' 
 
SLAVERY IN MARYLAND.* 
 
 [quarterly CHRISTIAISr SPECTATOR, 1836.] 
 
 The author of this book was formerly, for several 
 years, Professor of Languages in the University of 
 North Carolina. Of course he has some qualifica- 
 tions for writing on slavery, which do not belong to 
 every man who undertakes to treat on that subject. 
 This book, however, contains the results, not so 
 much of his former acquaintance with slavery, as of 
 a tour performed by him last summer, with a view 
 to inquiries, in Maryland, Virginia and the District 
 of Columbia. It seems to have been written with 
 unusual candor. The author does not appear to 
 have commenced his inquiries with a predetermi- 
 nation as to the conclusions at which he should ar- 
 rive. We do not remember to have read anything 
 of the kind which seemed so entirely worthy of un- 
 qualified confidence. 
 
 The observations and inquiries which Mr. An- 
 drews had the opportunity of making, in a tour of 
 three weeks, were necessarily limited ; and any de- 
 ductions from them are, of course, liable to be modi- 
 
 * Slavery and the Do:\iestic Slave Trade in the United States. 
 In a series of letters addressed to the Executive Committee of the Ame- 
 rican Union for the relief and improvement of the colored race. By 
 Prof. E. A. Andrews. Boston, 183G. 
 
108 SLAVERY IN MARYLAND. 
 
 fied by the results of more extended investigation. 
 Yet there are some things in slavery, and in the 
 condition of the colored population, which appear 
 to a discerning observer at the first sight; and from 
 which conclusions may be drawn which no subse- 
 quent investigation can set aside. 
 
 What is southern slavery in theory 1 This ques- 
 tion can be answered, without going to the south at 
 all. It can be accurately or fairly answered, only 
 out of the statute-books of the States in which sla- 
 very exists. What is southern slavery in actual ope- 
 ration 1 — is quite another question. Putting our 
 knowledge of the theory of slavery side by side with 
 our knowledge of human nature, we may infer what 
 this system will be in its actual operation. But this 
 is only inference ; and though no man who knows 
 anything of human nature, can fail to acquire in 
 this way some correct knowledge of the w^orking of 
 the system — every rational inquiver must feel that 
 there may be — in the state of society, in the vital 
 energy of the Christianity diffused, more or less ex- 
 tensively, through the community, in the power of 
 public opinion uttered from all parts of the world ; 
 nay, even in the working of enlightened selfishness 
 — counteracting and modifying influences not easily 
 estimated. He must feel, too, that there may be, in 
 the burning sun and enervating air of an almost Ori- 
 ental climate, and in the excitement of commercial 
 speculation, influences that even aggravate the na- 
 tural operation of a system which, in theory, shocks 
 all his sensibilities. The rational inquirer, then, 
 cannot but presume, that the actual working of the 
 system of slavery can only be c^xupletel^ ^nd truly 
 
SLAVERY IN MARYLAND. IQ9 
 
 known by actual obsei-vation, or by the testimony 
 of candid and faithful observers. 
 
 But what is the testimony of observers in respect 
 to the operation of the system of slavery ? One man, 
 having traveled over the south, comes home with an 
 account of the comforts of the slave, his contentment, 
 the lightness of his tasks, his secure provision against 
 the time of sickness or old age, his thoughtless merri- 
 ment, and the contrast between his condition and that 
 of the laz}^, improvident, drunken, ungoverned and 
 unprotected free black; and this is his picture of sla- 
 very. This, we need not say, is the very picture 
 uniformly drawn by slaveholders. Another man 
 will go over the same ground, and will see nothing 
 but horrors, or at least will report nothing but hor- 
 rors. Tlie slave bleeding under the scourge, or 
 fainting and dying under his burdens ; the master 
 indulging all the vices of the pirate ; children torn 
 from parents, and husbands from wives ; these are 
 the figures which fill up his representation. What 
 shall we believe? Shall we receive all that is said 
 by the one, and reject all that is said by the other? 
 Certainly neither of these witnesses reports the whole 
 truth ; though probably each of them reports the 
 whole impression produced on his mind by what he 
 has seen. The observer who represents both sides 
 of the subject, is the one whose story has in itself 
 the strongest indications of complete trust-worthi- 
 ness. There are slaves whose lot is simple wretch- 
 edness, without mixture, without alleviation, with- 
 out hope. On the other hand, there are slaves well 
 fed, well clothed, carefully protected and provided 
 for, kindly and judiciously governed, whose yoke of 
 6 
 
110 SLAVERY IN :MARYLAND. 
 
 bondage is so light that it is hardly felt to be a yoke. 
 To describe the lot of eitlier of these classes ever so 
 vividly, is not to give a full or fair account of sla- 
 very as it is in actual operation. The truth lies be- 
 tween these conflicting statements ; or rather, the 
 truth includes them both, and includes a great deal 
 more. He whose interests or prejudices prevent him 
 from seeing in slavery anything much to be regret- 
 ted, and he whose feelings or predeterminations 
 prevent him from reporting any alleviating circum- 
 stances, may both be valuable witnesses ; for each 
 may report facts of great importance, which the 
 other entirely omits. Such a reporter, however, as 
 the author of this book, is better than both of them. 
 While he represents without fear or favor, and with 
 natural sentiments of indignation, the atrocities 
 which slavery produces, and which are the natural 
 operation of the system, he has no passions and no 
 perverted habits of mind, which prevent him from 
 seeing or admitting into his statement the facts on 
 which the slaveholder relies for the defence of the 
 system. The following statement is one which 
 seems to us important to a right apprehension of the 
 subject : 
 
 ' Among others into whose society I was accidentally thrown, 
 were two families from the extreme south, who were returning 
 slowly homeward from their summer's tour to the northern States, 
 and stopping so long in the principal cities through which they 
 passed, and at the various watering-places which they visited, as 
 to reach Louisiana after the first frosts of autumn should have 
 rendered their return safe. The gentlemen might have been 
 twenty-five or thirty years old ; the ladies were a few years 
 younger. The latter had each the charge of an interesting child 
 two or three years old, the special care of which was committed 
 
SLAVEllY IN MARYLAND. m 
 
 to two colored nurses, who were their only attendants. It was 
 not easy to determine which of the group were happiest ; the se- 
 date, intelligent, and dignified fathers, the accomplished mothers, 
 the playful children, or their young, well-fed, and well-dressed 
 nurses. 
 
 The situation in which domestic slaves are often placed, in 
 prosperous moral and intelligent families, is one of far more un- 
 mingled happiness than is usually imagined by those who have 
 never witnessed it. The mistake into which many fall, upon 
 this subject, arises principally from their failing to estimate prop- 
 erly the amount of happiness occasioned by the mutual affection 
 between the white and the colored members of the same family. 
 This attachment is of course a more available source of happiness 
 in virtuous families, than in those of an opposite character ; but, 
 like parental and filial affection, it is rarely entirely wanting, even 
 in the most hardened and profligate. This relation is in reality 
 more like that of parent and child, than like any other with which 
 it can be compared, and is altogether stronger than that which 
 binds together the northern employer and his hired domestic. 
 The slave looks to his master and mistress for direction in every- 
 thing, and insensibly acquires for them a respect mingled with 
 afiection, of which those never dream who think of slavery only 
 as a system of whips and fetters — of unfeeling tyranny, on the 
 one part, and of fear mingled with hatred, on the other. The 
 latter is the usual picture of slavery which is presented to the 
 people of the north, and it is no wonder that southern masters, 
 who know how wide from truth this representation is, are not 
 particularly ready to listen to the counsel of those, whom they 
 perceive to be so ill-informed upon the subject. Wanton cruelty 
 may be too often practiced by masters, as it is by many parents ; 
 but this, which is but an occasional incident of slavery, should 
 not be exhibited as the prominent evil. This may be removed 
 by the influence of humane feelings, and especially by Christian 
 principle ; but countless evils will still remain, inherent and in- 
 separable from the system.' — pp. 33-35. 
 
 Another aspect of slavery is exhibited in the follow- 
 ing passage. It is in vain to tell a human being, 
 
112 SLAVERY IN MARYLAND. 
 
 with a human heart, that slavery, however disguised, 
 is not " a bitter draught." 
 
 * It is sometimes said, that liberty is not greatly prized by tlie 
 slaves, or even by the free blacks themselves. I have seen the 
 attempt made to convince the slave that liberty would not place 
 him in more eligible circumstances. He would sometimes yield 
 to the arguments, but there was always something in his man- 
 ner which showed that, even if the reason was confounded, the 
 heart did not yield its assent. Although the condition of the 
 free blacks in the southern States is proverbially wretched, and 
 most of them are sufficiently apprized of its inconveniences and 
 miseries by their own bitter experience, yet none of them mani- 
 fest an inclination to return to slavery. Fully acquainted with 
 both conditions, they submit to the inconveniences of freedom, 
 not indeed contentedly, but with no design of improving their 
 circumstances by sacrificing their liberty. While residing at the 
 south, I knew an intelligent free mulatto, whose name was Sam. 
 I do not remember in what manner he obtained his freedom, but 
 he richly deserved it by his uniformly good behavior. A friend 
 of mine who took a deep interest in his welfare, often conversed 
 kindly with him concerning his prospects, and endeavored to 
 suggest plans for his benefit. He was struck with the unfortu- 
 nate circumstances in which the free blacks were placed, and 
 once endeavored to convince Sam that his condition had not been 
 improved by obtaining his liberty. Sam listened to his repre- 
 sentations in respectful silence, conscious of his own inability to 
 maintain the cause of freedom by an array of argument. When 
 my friend had concluded his appeal, Sam's only answer was, 
 " After all, it's a heap better to be free." Brief, however, 
 as the answer was, it spoke the feelings of the whole human 
 race, whether bond or free. If liberty could ever be accounted 
 worthless, it would be such a liberty as falls to the lot of the 
 free negro, when surrounded by slaves and their masters. Yet, 
 with no better prospects than these, he was able to decide, with 
 a clearness of apprehension that nothing could confuse or mislead, 
 that freedom was still invaluable. While this principle remains 
 in full operation in the heart, it is in vain that the slave is con- 
 vinced that his external circumstances would not be improved by 
 
SLAVERY IN MARYLAND. n^ 
 
 obtaining his freedom : though satisfied that by remaining a slave 
 he shall be better fed, and clothed, and sheltered, and nursed 
 when sick or old, he still feels that the power to choose for him- 
 self and to direct his own actions, is more than an equivalent for 
 all these advantages, and his heart replies, " After all, it's a heap 
 better to be free." '—pp. 107-109. 
 
 !- What is slavery in the city of Washington ? — the 
 slavery which is too sacred to be touched by the ex- 
 clusive jurisdiction of Congress? The facts de- 
 scribed below occurred last summer. Our author's 
 informant was '^ a gentleman well known in this 
 country for his literary and scientific attainments." 
 
 « A negro, about twenty- five years old, who is married, and 
 has three or four children, has just applied to my informant, 
 stating that he is to be sold immediately to a slave-dealer, and 
 separated forever from his family, unless he can find some resi- 
 dent in the District who will consent to purchase him. He is a 
 member of a church in this city, and has uniformly sustained a 
 Christian character. His master wishes to raise a few hundred 
 dollars, which he has not the means of doing conveniently, with- 
 out the sale of one of his slaves. Now it happens that the pur- 
 pose for which this money is to be raised is well known, and 
 is no other than to purchase a mulatto wotnan, with whom he is 
 known to be criminally connected. As if even this were not a 
 sufficient provocation to the moral sense of the community, there 
 is an aggravation arising from the motive which determined the 
 master to sell the slave of whom I am speaking, rather than any 
 other. He had endeavored to employ this slave in bringing other 
 colored women into the same relation to him, as the mulatto 
 woman whom I have mentioned, but here the servant felt that 
 he had a Master in heaven, whom he was bound to obey, rather 
 than his earthly master. His refusal had greatly irritated his 
 
 master, and led to his being selected for sale.' — pp. Ill, 112. 
 ******** 
 
 One of the most interesting topics in the whole 
 
 field of inquiry respecting slavery and abolition, is 
 
 the progress of Maryland toward becoming a free 
 
114 SLAVERY IN MARYLAND. 
 
 State. Some facts in relation to this subject have 
 been collected by Mr. Andrews, which are well 
 worthy to be considered by all who would under- 
 stand what prospect there is of the abolition of slave- 
 ry. It is only to be regretted that these facts, in- 
 stead of being scattered here and there through a 
 series of somewhat familiar letters, were not arranged 
 and combined in such forms as to show more dis- 
 tinctly the great principles which they involve. 
 Perhaps, however, the book might in that w^ay 
 have lost in popular interest more than it Avould 
 have gained in philosophical precision. 
 
 '' In this State," says our autlior, '^ slave-labor em- 
 ployed in agriculture has long since ceased^ with few 
 exceptions^ to he valuable.^^ This everybody knows 
 already ; and everybody knows the reason of it. 
 Slave-labor, in Maryland, comes into competition 
 with free-labor, and is therefore unprofitable. And 
 when the political economists of the south have 
 *' exhausted the argument" for the superior profit- 
 ableness of slave^abor in agriculture, it is answer 
 enough to point to the agriculture of Maryland, and 
 to demand of them an instance in which free labor 
 has become unprofitable when placed in competition, 
 on equal terms, with the labor of slaves. Slave- 
 labor then must cease to be profitable everywhere, 
 just in proportion as the labor of freemen can be 
 employed in the production of the same commodities. 
 Let the time come when the labor of intelligent 
 freemen shall produce cotton, rice, and sugar, on a 
 larofe scale, and slave-labor will cease to be more 
 profitable in the agriculture of Louisiana and Missis- 
 sippi, than it is in the agriculture of Maryland. 
 
SLAVERY IN MAR'iLAND. XI5 
 
 In consequence of the unprofitableness of slave- 
 labor, there is an increasing desire among the citizens of 
 Maryland to he rid of slavery. The transportation of 
 slaves by thousands to the southern States, does not in- 
 deed indicate such a desire. But other things men- 
 tioned by our author, do indicate the desire in Mary- 
 land to become a free State. No serious legal difficul- 
 ties are thrown in the way of emancipation. The 
 testimony of one respectable witness, that he is well 
 acquainted with the party, and that he knows him to 
 bear a fair character for honesty and temperance, is 
 regarded by the courts as sufficient to secure for the 
 emancipated slave the privilege of a continued resi- 
 dence within the State. Emancipations are frequent, 
 and are increasingly popular. It is stated that not fewer 
 than fifteen hundred slaves had been manumitted 
 within the three and a half years preceding the date 
 of our author's inquiries ; and that the majorit}^ of 
 these were manumitted without reference to their 
 emigration. Can it be doubted, that if at any time 
 slave-labor should become equally unprofitable in 
 the more southern States, there w^ill be in those more 
 southern States the same disposition to be rid of 
 slavery which nov/ exists in Maryland ? 
 
 Slavery in Maryland is actually on the wane. The 
 number of slaves has been, for a quarter of a cen- 
 tury, continually diminishing. At the first census, 
 viz., in 1790, the number was 103,036. At the end 
 of ten years the increase had been 2.52 per cent. 
 During another ten years the increase was 5.55 per 
 cent. ; so that in 1810 the number of slaves was 111, 
 502, or 8,466 more than in 1790. From 1810 to 
 1820, the decrease was 3.68 per cent. ; and from 
 
116 SLAVERY IN MARYLAND. 
 
 1820 to 1830, il was 4.1 per cent. ; so that in 1830 
 the slave population of that State was less than it 
 was in 1810 by 8,508. The white population in the 
 meanwhile has increased in a constantly increasing 
 ratio — for the first ten years, 3.68 per cent. ; for the 
 second, 8.68; for the third, 10.67; for the fourth, 
 11.87. The time is not far distant, then, when 
 Maryland w^ill be numbered with the free States. 
 Must not other States in their turn yield to the same 
 influences, and become free? 
 
 The diminutio7i of the slave population in Mary- 
 land^ has been accompanied with a great increase of 
 the free colored population. In 1790 the number of 
 free colored persons in Maryland was only 8,043. 
 In 1830 the number was 52,938, making an in- 
 crease of 558 per cent, in forty years. From 1820 
 to 1830, the increase was 33.24 per cent., just about 
 three times as great as the increase of the white 
 population for the same period. It is to be noticed, 
 however, that since the prohibition of the foreign 
 slave-trade, the increase of the entire colored popu- 
 lation, bond and free, has not been rapid. In the 
 ten years, from 1800 to 1810, the increase Avas 16.13 
 per cent. But from 1810 to 1820, it was only 1.17 
 per cent. From 1820 to 1830, it was 5.98 per cent. 
 If Maryland has her Prof. De\v, let him tell us how 
 much the internal slave-trade has to do w^ith this 
 diminished per centage. But however this may be, 
 the great increase of the free colored population, is 
 proof decisive of the tendency toward emancipation. 
 
 Some indications of the same kind appear in other 
 States. In Virginia, the increase of the free blacks 
 in the ten years preceding the last census, was 
 
SLAVERY IN MARYLAND. 117 
 
 27.49 per cent. ; that of the slaves, for the same pe- 
 riod, was only 11.85 per cent. ; that of the whites, 
 15.12 per cent. In North Carolina, for the same 
 period, the increase oftthe free blacks was 33.74 per 
 cent. ; that of the slaves, 19.79 per cent. ; that 
 of the whites 12.79 per cent. In Kentucky, 
 the increase of the free colored population, for 
 the same period, was 67.18 per cent. ; that of the 
 slaves, 30.36 per cent. ; that of the whites, 19.12 
 per cent. In Tennessee, the increase of the free 
 blacks for the same period, was 63.9 per cent. In 
 Ohio, which, bordering upon a slave region, re- 
 ceives a great share of the slaves emancipated in the 
 neighboring States, the increase of free blacks for 
 the same period, was 96.91 per cent. In Indiana, 
 during the same period, 2,499 free blacks were ad- 
 ded to their numbers, making the increase of this 
 portion of their population 195.04 per cent. These 
 statistics show, that emancipation is all the while 
 going on, not in Maryland alone, but in all the 
 States in which the profits of slave labor are dimin- 
 ishing. Taking the whole Union together, no class 
 of population increases so rapidly as the free blacks. 
 But what will be the result of emancipation in the 
 more northern slave States 1 Will the emancipated 
 population be removed 1 Will they be employed 
 as laborers upon the soil ? Will they coalesce with 
 the white population, sharing with them on equal 
 terms in all the employments of society 1 These 
 are questions not to be answered with much certain- 
 ty ; yet some of the statements made by our author 
 may be regarded as affording materials for an ap- 
 proximation to a correct answer. 
 6* 
 
118 SLAVERY IN MARYLAND. 
 
 In Maryland, the labor of the free blacks is not con- 
 sidered valuable. There, as at the north, they are 
 found, not in the country laboring upon the soil, 
 not in the workshop or manufactory, where w^ork 
 is to be done with steady application, but congre- 
 gated in the cities. In Baltimore alone, which con- 
 tains not one twenty-fifth part of the slaves of Mary- 
 land, nearly two-fifths of the free blacks maintain 
 their existence, living by just such employments as 
 support the free blacks in New York and the cities 
 of New England. 
 
 The labor of white men is superseding the labor 
 both of slaves and of the free people of color. In those 
 employments which require severe and steady effort, 
 not only is a decided preference given to the labor 
 of white men, but white laborers are found in suffi- 
 cient numbers to meet the demand. Mr. Andrews 
 tells us, that all the great public works in Maryland 
 have been constructed almost exclusively by the 
 hands of Irishmen. He tells us furthermore, what 
 every traveler passing that way has occasion to ob- 
 serve, that even in Baltimore, the Irish and other 
 foreigners are competitors with the blacks for em- 
 ployment as porters, carmen, ostlers, and domestic 
 sevants. There is a constant immigration of foreign 
 laborers into Baltimore. We find among our memo- 
 randa the following fact, stated at the time in one 
 of the newspapers of that city. Between the first 
 and the twenty-fifth of June, 1833, nearly seventeen 
 hundred emigrants from Europe, of whom about 
 one hundred and fifty were Irish, and the remainder 
 nearly all Germans and Swiss, arrived at Baltimore, 
 and were expected to settle in that part of the coun- 
 
SLAVERY IN MARYLAND. _H9 
 
 try. Such facts show, that in that region the labor 
 of white men is likely to supersede the labor of the 
 free blacks, as well as of the slaves. A similar com- 
 petition exists to some extent in almost every part 
 of the country. An intelligent gentleman from 
 South Carolina, who had no theory to support, re- 
 marked to Mr. Andrews, that even there. Irishmen 
 were ready to do anything that the free blacks might 
 be wanted to do. 
 
 Yet it is not impossible for the free blacks to 
 find employment. The demand for labor is so great 
 in this country, that all sorts of laborers are in re- 
 quest. In New York it is remarked, that the colored 
 people, by their address and ingenuity, contrive to 
 monopolize, to a considerable extent, a certain class 
 of employments, and to turn over to their Irish com- 
 petitors the more toilsome business of carrying mor- 
 tar, breaking stone, or digging and plying the wheel- 
 barrow upon roads and canals. In Baltimore, Mr. 
 A. observed, that many of the free people of color 
 were much better dressed than the lower class of 
 white people, particularly the Irish. As domestic 
 servants, those colored people who have been brought 
 up to that business are far better than any others in 
 this country. Thousands of the better sort of the 
 free colored people at the south, might find immedi- 
 ate employment in NeAV England, to the great relief 
 of many a householder, whose daily grief is to hear 
 the groanings of his helpmate over the unskillfulness 
 and misrule of her kitchen cabinet, and the diflficul- 
 ty, so unheard of in politics, of filling vacant places. 
 
 The mortality among the blacks is greater than in 
 any other class of the community. For eleven years, 
 
120 SLAVERY IN MARYLAND. 
 
 the record of deaths in the city of Baltimore has 
 carefully distinguished the three classes of white, free 
 blacks, and slaves. The deaths among the free 
 blacks annually, are one in twenty-nine ; among the 
 whites, one in thirty-eight ; among the slaves, only 
 one in fort) -four. If distinct records of the deaths 
 in each of these three classes were kept everywhere, 
 the proportion might not indeed be everywhere 
 the same ; but there is great reason to believe, that 
 similar results would everywhere appear. Mr. An- 
 drews suggests the inquiry, whether it may not be 
 that slavery alone prevents the colored race in the 
 United States from a gradual extinction. Let us see 
 what facts there are to answer this inquiry. The 
 colored population of Massachusetts increased at the 
 rate of only 2.62 per cent, in the ten years preceding 
 the last census. Yet Massachusetts, while she sends 
 out no colored emigrants, is every summer receiv- 
 ing into her metropolis colored emigrants from other 
 States. Rhode Island has large towns to give refuge 
 and employment to the colored people ; yet in 
 Rhode Island, for twenty years before the last cen- 
 sus, the colored population was slowly decreasing. 
 Connecticut sends no colored people to Georgia, to 
 Illinois, or to Liberia; but, on the contrary, her 
 cities are continually receiving colored people from 
 the south ; yet in Connecticut the increase of tire 
 colored population, for the ten years preceding the 
 last census, was only 0.38 per cent. None of our 
 readers need to be reminded how the colored people 
 from all the south crowd into the great cities of New 
 York ; yet the increase of the colored population of 
 that State was only 12.17 per cent, in ten years. In 
 
SLAVERY IN MARYLAND. 121 
 
 New Jersey the increase was less than two per cent. 
 Now cut off from these northern States the supply- 
 that pours from the south, and how long would 
 there be here any colored population to be counted 1 
 
 We have no room to go into the theory of this 
 subject. Let it suffice to indicate one or two princi- 
 ples. The only possible check upon the growth of 
 a slave population must be either the cruelty of the 
 master, or his absolute inability to give them food. 
 No moral " preventive check," no prudence, no 
 dread of poverty, can prevent slaves from fulfilling 
 to the utmost that great mandate, '' increase and 
 multiply." And when the children are once 
 brought into the world, they are not the children of 
 paupers, exposed to the wants, the perils, the dis- 
 eases of poverty ; they belong to a rich man, who 
 must feed them and provide for them, if he be not a 
 monster. But when the slaves become free, all the 
 checks upon population begin to operate. And the 
 more sudden the emancipation, the more rapid will 
 be the working of these checks. 
 
 What, then, may we anticipate, as the destiny of 
 the colored population of this country 1 If there are 
 districts of this country, where the climate forbids 
 the white man to labor, those districts will undoubt- 
 edly be inhabited by blacks. But in every other 
 part, will not the white man be ultimately the labor- 
 er and the sole possessor ? It is not for us to an- 
 swer this question positively. We only say, that the 
 question is worth studying. 
 
LETTER 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHIL. CHRISTIAN OBSERVER, 1545. 
 
 [As the following letter is referred to on a subsequent page, and as it 
 contains not only an outline of the following series, but some thoughts 
 which are not repeated elsewhere, it seems proper to give it a place in 
 this collection. It explains for itself the occasion on which it was 
 written.] 
 
 Mr. Editor: — Some person has been kind enough 
 to send me your paper of the 5th instant, in which a 
 writei-jsubscribing himself * A Puritan at the South," 
 animadverts with some freedom upon a speech 
 which he supposes me to have made at the last meet- 
 ing of the General Association of Connecticut, and 
 of which he has found some representation in the 
 Boston Recorder. I have not seen the Boston Re- 
 corder to which he refers, and therefore I cannot say 
 whether the report of my speech there is correct or 
 not. I only know that elsewhere I have seen it 
 decidedly mis-reported. 
 
 The passage which your correspondent has quoted 
 from my speech, is not a very unfair representation 
 of something which I said, if the connection in which 
 it was said is fairly given by the reporter — which I 
 am bound to presume is not the case, inasmuch as 
 
PHILADELPHU CHRISTIAN OBSERVER. 123 
 
 your correspondent makes no allusion to the course 
 of my argument, on which the meaning of that pas- 
 sage entirely depends. I said nothing in that speech, 
 I believe, which I have not often said in print, with 
 at least equal strength of language, years ago ; and 
 because I have taken just the position which I took 
 in that speech, those who in this part of the country 
 call themselves the only <' friends of the slave," have 
 made me — as your correspondent knows, if he knows 
 anything about me in this relation — a mark of spe- 
 cial obloquy. 
 
 My positions were, in effect, and ^'for substance," 
 briefly these : 
 
 1. The relation of master to one whom the laws 
 and the constitution of society have made a slave, is 
 not intrinsically and necessarily a sin on the part of 
 the master ; certainly not such a sin as will justify 
 a sentence of excommunication against him, without 
 inquiry as to how he came into that relation, or how 
 he conducts himself in it. 
 
 2. The master who buys and sells human beings, 
 like cattle, for gain ; who permits male and female 
 servants, placed by law under his protection and 
 control, to live together in brutish concubinage, or 
 in a merely temporary pairing, with no religious 
 sanctity, which is not only unprotected by the law, 
 but which he himself considers liable to be dissolved 
 at (he caprice of the parties, or whenever his conve- 
 nience or gain may require the separation; who re- 
 fuses to train his servants diligently, from their child- 
 hood up, in the knowledge of God and in the way 
 of salvation, and of the book of God, and whose ser- 
 vants, in a word, live and die in heathenish igno- 
 
124 LETTER TO THE 
 
 ranee ; or who treats his servants in any manner in- 
 consistent with the fact that they are intelligent and 
 voluntary beings who were created in God's image, 
 and for whom Christ has died — does not make a 
 creditable profession of Christian piety. Such a 
 master has no more claim to recognition or commu- 
 nion among Christ's disciples than a Turk might 
 have, who, having renounced Mohammed, might 
 present himself for membership in a Christian church 
 while yet retaining a full ''patriarchal" seraglio of 
 wives and concubines. 
 
 3. It is not to be presumed that all masters, pro- 
 fessing to be ''believing masters," are, of course, 
 guilty of all or any of the crimes above described. 
 But so far as the ministers, elders, or members of any 
 church commit any of these crimes, and the church 
 to which they are responsible in respect to their 
 Christian character, does not deal with them as of- 
 fenders, to bring them to repentance, or if they will 
 not repent, to cut them off as reprobate, so far that 
 church is liable to be called to account by every and 
 any church with which it is in communion. And it 
 is the duty of all churches with which a church so 
 neglecting the discipline of Christ's house may de- 
 sire communion, to admonish that church, and labor 
 with it for its reformation, and, in the event of the 
 failure of such efforts, then to withdraw from all 
 communion with it. 
 
 4. Those laws of the southern States, by the force 
 of which the crimes above mentioned, and others of 
 the same general description, instead of being for- 
 bidden and punished, are permitted and promoted, 
 are a shame to human nature, especially when con- 
 
PHILADELPHIA CHRISTIAN OBSERVER. 125 
 
 siderecl as the laws of a people glorying in their 
 freedom, their honor, and {proh pudor) their mag- 
 nanimity. The system of slavery in these United 
 States, as it exists in its own theory, apart from any 
 question of fact in respect to the working of the sys- 
 tem — the system of slavery, simply as set forth in 
 the laws respecting slavery — is a system which be- 
 longs, historically and philosophically, to the lowest 
 stage, save one, of human barl)arism. The exist- 
 ence of such a body of laws in the statute-books of 
 free A.merican states, "Anglo Saxon" in lineage, 
 and pretending to be Christian, is enough to make 
 the cheek of an American, anywhere, tingle with 
 shame. It is often said that no people can be, on the 
 whole, better than their laws are. I believe that thou- 
 sands of the southern people are a great deal better 
 than their laws are. I try all I can to believe that the 
 entire people of the south are better, in fact, than 
 they are, as represented by their laws — though some- 
 times, I must confess, I have to try very hard, espe- 
 cially when such events happen as that which hap- 
 pened a few days ago at Lexington, and that which 
 happened last winter at Charleston. I do believe 
 that there are thousands of southern men whose mo- 
 ral sense is shocked, as mine is, by the atrocity of 
 those defences of slavery which are put forth now 
 and then by the Hammonds, the McDuffies, and the 
 Dews. But, after all, the fact remains. Those bar- 
 barian laws stand in the statute-books ; and of the 
 thousands who at heart detest them, who dares to 
 propose a repeal or an amendment? Who dares 
 even to utter a protest against them ? Public opin- 
 ion at the south — or what passes for public opinion— 
 
126 LETTER TO THE 
 
 annihilates, on this subject, the freedom of the press, 
 the freedom of speech, and even the right of private 
 judgment. No people upon earth are more governed 
 by public opinion, or have less idea of (he possibility 
 of resisting public opinion, than the people of our 
 southern States, particularly in relation to this sub- 
 ject. Public opinion makes them murder each other 
 — like cowards who dare not refuse to do what they 
 know to be wrong — in duels. Public opinion, speak- 
 ing in the hoarse clamors of the blood-thirsty mob, 
 and in the terrific sentence of the Lynch court, com- 
 pels the thousands who detest those laws about sla- 
 very to digest their detestation in silence. This very 
 habit of being governed by a local public opinion, 
 and of regarding public opinion as a force that can- 
 not possibly be resisted, makes the southern people, 
 in proportion as their intercourse wath other commu- 
 nities increases, and the eyes of the nations are turned 
 with closer attention towards their " peculiar insti- 
 tutions," more and more sensitive to the public opin- 
 ion of the world at large. ''They that take the 
 sword, shall perish by the sword." So they w^ho 
 attempt to uphold an atrocious body of laws by the 
 tyranny of public opinion, are already beginning to 
 writhe under the indignant public opinion of the civ- 
 ilized W'Orld. I say, then, let the voice of universal 
 human nature utter itself against those laws. 
 
 It is not through any want of sensibility to shame, 
 but only through ignorance and thoughtlessness of 
 what the public opinion of the world really is, that 
 citizens of the States in which that atrocious system 
 of laws exists, are able to look citizens of other States, 
 or the subjects of other governments, in the face 
 
PHILADELPHIA CHRISTUN OBSERVER. 127 
 
 without blushing. What Virginian or Carolinian 
 would not blush, to be told at a northern watering- 
 place, in the presence of enlightened foreigners — 
 Sir, the laws of your State permit a man to sell his 
 own son, as he would a mule; or his own daughter, 
 only a shade yellower than himself, as he would sell 
 a horse. What stuff is that chivalry made of, that 
 would not cower to be told that in the chivalrous 
 land of the sunny south, the chastity of more than 
 a million of women is without a shadow of legal 
 protection — that the father, the brother, or the hus- 
 band of one of those women, if he should lift his hand 
 against the seducer or the ravisher, might be killed 
 on the spot, as if he were a mad dog ? I cannot be- 
 lieve that the people of the south — the more intelli- 
 gent portion of them particularly — are so insensible 
 to the public opinion of the world as not to care 
 what the world thinks of these laws of theirs, which, 
 instead of requiring the master to render to his ser- 
 vants that which is just and equal, forbid his paying 
 them wages ; which, instead of requiring the mas- 
 ter to see that his servants receive such an education 
 as an enlightened State ought to furnish for every 
 human being reared under its jurisdiction, make it 
 a crime to teach a slave the alphabet ; and which, 
 instead of regarding the slave as a being having per- 
 sonal rights, even against his master, make it impos- 
 sible for the master to endow him with any rights 
 whatever. 
 
 Your correspondent, Mr. Editor, and what is of 
 more consequence, your readers, can see whether 
 my language is, as he affirms, '' sufficiently indis- 
 criminate and abusive to gratify the feelings of the 
 
128 LETTER TO THE 
 
 most thorough-going political revilers of the day." 
 In my views, and in ray language, I ' discriminate' 
 carefully between the relation of a master to one 
 whom society has made a slave, and the conduct of 
 that master in that relation — or in other words, be- 
 tween the powet of doing wrong which the law 
 gives to the master as against the slave, and the use 
 which the master makes of that power. I ' discrimi- 
 nate' carefully between the churches of the south 
 and the offences of individuals in communion with 
 those churches, and instead of excommunicating all 
 slaveholders simply as suchj and all churches which 
 contain slaveholders^ I would, in the discharge of a 
 fraternal duty, call upon the southern churches 
 themselves to put in force the discipline of Christ's 
 house against specific sins^ which their own moral 
 sense acknowledges to be incompatible with the 
 credibility of a Christian profession. I also ^ dis- 
 criminate' between the laws of the Southern States 
 respecting slavery and the blacks, and the individu- 
 al citizens of those States ; and while I regard those 
 laws with unlimited abhorrence as a disgrace to my 
 country and a disgrace to the human species, I re- 
 gard the people of those States as better than their 
 laws — thousands of them a great deal better. I am 
 willing to treat individual citizens of slaveholding 
 States with all the courtesy and respect due to gen- 
 tlemen and to American fellow-citizens, except as I 
 find individuals unworthy of such treatment. But 
 they on the other hand must allow me, here at home, 
 a freeman's privilege of abhorring slavery and of 
 uttering my abhorrence. So I could treat a gentle- 
 manly Turk or Persian with courtesy and hospitali- 
 
PHILADELPHIA CHRISTIAN OBSERVER. 129 
 
 ty in my New England home, but he must not re- 
 quire me to give up my Christian and American 
 opinions, out of complaisance to his Islamism and 
 his polygamy. 
 
 Your correspondent seems to intimate that I, as 
 living in a free-labor State, am necessarily too igno- 
 rant on the subject of slavery to have any opinion 
 worth regarding. As if a man could not tell whether 
 it is wrong to buy and sell human beings at pub- 
 lic auction " in lots to suit purchasers," without liv- 
 ing in a slave State. As if the public opinion of a 
 slave State, armed with the fui4es of Lynch law, and 
 assuming an unlimited arbitrary power over every 
 man's private judgment (unless it is very private 
 indeed) were a necessary guide for erring human 
 nature to a knowledge of the right and wrong about 
 slavery. As if I, living here, where every man is 
 free to think and free to speak on every side, and 
 where I have had the privilege of receiving through 
 the post-office no fewer than three copies of Gov. 
 Hammond's defence of slavery, were less competent 
 to form an unbiased opinion, than I should be if I 
 lived where no man is allowed to speak but on one 
 side, and where, if I should be so unfortvmate as to 
 form an opinion contrary to public opinion, and 
 should be found out in it, the least that I, as a 
 northern man, could expect, would be to be arrayed 
 in tar and feathers, unless I should make my escape 
 as a felon flees from justice. 
 
 Your correspondent farther suggests that if I 
 *^ would reform the institutions of the south," I 
 ought to <^ come and dwell" there, where the work 
 is to be done. Let me say then, that I have not un- 
 
130 LETTER TO THE OBSERVER. 
 
 dertaken to reform the institutions of the south. I 
 leave that work in the hands of the people of the 
 south to whom it belongs, and whom God will hold 
 accountable for it. I acknowledge the kindness of 
 your correspondent's hospitable invitation, but God 
 has given me a better lot. '' The lines are fallen to 
 me in pleasant places." I find myself where all the 
 work that I can do comes daily to my hands ; and I 
 do not conceive that, considering all my relations, I 
 could do more for the kingdom of Christ, or the 
 welfare of my country there, than I can here. If 
 God had cast my lot there, I would stay there ; for 
 nowhere upon earth can more good be done by a 
 good man who is native on the soil and has the con- 
 fidence of the people, than there. I would not go 
 on a foreign mission, and leave that field behind 
 me ; it were as wise to go from China on a foreign 
 mission to Kamschatka. Least of all would I, like 
 some southern ministers, seek a settlement at the 
 north for the sake of getting away from slavery. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 Leonard Bacon. 
 JVew-Haven, SepU 8, 1845, 
 
THE COLLISION 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY AND THE AMERICAN BOARD, 
 
 [new YORK EVANGELIST, IS46.] 
 
 To THE Editors of the New- York Evangelist: 
 
 Gentlemen: — I have felt myself called to prepare the following pa- 
 pers, because I see, in some quarters, evidence that the question be- 
 tween the Anti-Slavery Society and the Foreign Missionary Board 
 needs once more to be distinctly stated, and that the position of the 
 Board is not fairly understood. I send the papers to you, asking a 
 place for them in the columns of your journal, instead of attemptii g 
 any other form of publication, because 1 know not in what other way 
 I can reach so many of those readers who are in a state of mind to be 
 influenced by the views which I wish to present. 
 
 The extent to which my name has been used in connection with this 
 subject, seems on the whole to require that what I publish shall be on 
 my own responsibility. Yours, &c., 
 
 Leonard Bacon. 
 
 New-Haven, Jan, 22, 1846. 
 
 NO. I. THE QUESTION STATED. 
 
 Among the many mischievous effects of slavery 
 in its unnatural connection with our republican and 
 Christian institutions, is that erratic philanthropy 
 which has usurped the name of abolitionism. There 
 is so much in slavery that excites the mind to indig- 
 nation ; the subject, at the same time, is so compli- 
 
132 THE COLLISION. 
 
 cated in its nature and relations, touching upon so 
 many interests, commercial, political, and religious ; 
 that there is no wonder we find opposition to slavery 
 continually tending to extravagances of statement 
 and of action. So it will be while slavery contin- 
 ues. The odious and atrocious injustice of the sys- 
 tem is enough to ''make a wise man mad;" how 
 much more will it inflame to madness those whose 
 feelings are more than a match for their wisdom. 
 
 The Anti-Slavery Societies of the northern States, 
 as is well known, have been for many years coming 
 into frequent collision with all sorts of religious and 
 philanthropic bodies. This has come to pass on the 
 part of the anti-slavery leaders, not in mere malice 
 or for the sake of working mischief, but in the belief 
 that if the religious and philanthropic bodies in this 
 part of the country can all be made auxiliary to the 
 Anti-Slavery Society, then that Society will be strong 
 enough to abolish slavery. Under the influence of 
 such a belief, colleges, theological seminaries, 
 churches and ecclesiastical organizations. Tract, Bi- 
 ble, and Missionary Societies, have all been assailed, 
 with various success. 
 
 The American Board of Commissioners for For- 
 eign Missions, has been to these reformers an object 
 of special regard. So extensive have been the opera- 
 tions of that institution ; so signal has been the suc- 
 cess of some of its missions; and so great is the con- 
 fidence with which it is honored by the New Eng- 
 land churches, and by churches elsewhere, of New 
 England sympathies ; that it has seemed to anti- 
 slavery leaders to be just the instrument with which 
 to accomplish their great design. If the Board of 
 
THE COLLISION. 
 
 133 
 
 Foreign Missions could only be brought into an 
 auxiliary relation to the Anti-Slavery Society, then 
 surely the anti-slavery cause would triumph. 
 
 Accordingly from year to year, for I know not 
 how long, the anti-slavery question in one form or 
 another has been brought, by memorial or other- 
 wise, into the conventions of the Board. To go into 
 the history of these proceedings would perhaps be 
 tedious. A summary may be found in a pamphlet 
 lately published by the Prudential Committee, which 
 is probably within the reach of as many as would 
 take any special interest in reading it. I will say, 
 however, that in my opinion the principal error in 
 the proceedings of the Board heretofore — if there 
 has been error on their part — has been that they 
 have not given, in answer to the various applications 
 that have been made to them from time to time, a 
 brief and peremptory definition of their principles 
 in the form of distinct and well-considered proposi- 
 tions, such as might be easily taken into the mind 
 and easily remembered. The action of tlie Board 
 has not been in the form of resolutions affirming or 
 denying certain propositions respecting slavery ; but 
 only in the form of the acceptance of an essay, or a 
 diplomatic reply to the memorialists, from a com- 
 mittee. In connection with this, there has seemed 
 to be some sort of reluctance to meet the question 
 face to face. Much has been said, and to very little 
 purpose in my view, about the '' one object" of the 
 Board, the propagation of the gospel, and about the 
 impropriety of turning aside from that great and 
 good work for the sake of settling questions about 
 slavery, or for the sake of co-operating in particular 
 7 
 
134 THE COLLISION. 
 
 schemes of reformation ; whereas, nothing is'more 
 palpable than that if the Anti-Slavery Society, as 
 represented by its publications and its executive 
 officers, is right — if the master of a slave, simply as 
 such, without any reference to his treatment of the 
 slave, is *' a man-stealer," and is to be considered b}^ 
 all Christians as a heathen man and a publican — then 
 it is the duty of the Board, as a society instituted for 
 the one purpose of propagating the gospel, to say so 
 outright without regard to consequences, and to in- 
 struct its Prudential Committee and all its agents 
 and missionaries, to adopt that principle unswerv- 
 ingly in all its applications. And on the other 
 hand, if the one only characteristic principle of the 
 Anti-Slavery Society is, as I do earnestly believe, 
 a miserable, paltering, juggling sophism, that can 
 have no better effect than to mislead and madden 
 enthusiastic minds, and to irritate the passions of 
 the slaveholder while it sears his conscience — then, 
 at the very first obtrusion of this principle, it ought 
 to have been met with a firm and peremptory denial, 
 in language not to be misunderstood. But the suc- 
 cessive reports which have been presented by com- 
 mittees and accepted by the Board, have so careful- 
 ly abstained from the abstract assertion of general 
 principles, have had so much to do with the state- 
 ment and explanation of particular facts, and have 
 shown so much desire to conciliate the anti-slavery 
 movement, that the leaders of that movement have 
 been encouraged with the hope of ultimate success. 
 It was quite natural for them to reason that if agita- 
 tion had accomplished so much, then more agitation 
 ould accomplish more. 
 
THE COLLISION. 23^ 
 
 The late annual meeting of the Board, at Brook- 
 lyn, Avas signalized by a discussion of slavery in its 
 relations to the missionary work. Never before had 
 the subject been debated in that body. Many feared 
 the occurrence of such a discussion as a great evil. 
 Many apprehended that it would be accompanied 
 with popular excitement, and with such scenes of 
 agitation as have accompanied similar discussions 
 in other religious and philanthropic assemblies. At 
 former meetings, the subject had been considered 
 only in committees — the reports of the committees 
 being presented near the close of the session, and 
 adopted without debate. But in this instance, the 
 discussion was anticipated by those who planned 
 the arrangement of business for the meeting ; and 
 everything was very properly allowed to give way 
 before the paramount urgency of the anti-slavery 
 question. The debate occupied the greater part of 
 the entire session. It was free ; there was no res- 
 traint put upon the utterance of any opinion, how- 
 ever extreme. On the one hand, there were the 
 strongest denunciations, not only of slavery, but of 
 all who are masters of slaves — on the other hand 
 there was a speech from a South Carolina clergy- 
 man, suited exactly to the meridian of Charleston — 
 and both were heard with exemplary patience. 
 The discussion was bold, partly in consequence of 
 its being free ; every man who spoke seemed to ex- 
 press his opinion without fear of giving offence. At 
 the same time, it was characterized by decorum. 
 Though the number of members present, corporate 
 and honorary, was more than six hundred, all of 
 whom had the same right to speak ; and though, in 
 
136 THE COLLISION. 
 
 the absence of all concert or consultation as to who 
 should lead in the argument, some fifty or more were 
 ready and anxious to take part in the debate ; there 
 was no unseemly contending for the floor, and only 
 once or twice was there any occasion for a call to order. 
 And notwithstanding the necessarily desultory char- 
 acter of an unprepared debate, on such a subject, in 
 such an assembly, all will agree that it was on the 
 whole an uncommonly able discussion. On the 
 part of the Anti-Slavery Society, the leader in the 
 debate was the Rev. Amos A. Phelps, the Society's 
 principal secretary ; a man not surpassed in logical 
 acumen, or in the capacity of seeing the force of dis- 
 tinctions and arguments, or in controversial experi- 
 ence, by any of the chiefs of that organization ; a 
 man who having given the best 3^ears of his life, 
 and the powers of a well-cultivated mind, to the 
 study and practice of anti-slavery as a profession, 
 and having made himself familiar with all depart- 
 ments of the subject, needed not, like some others, 
 to retail the stereotyped common-places of fourth-rate 
 anti-slavery lectures. On the other side, it will not 
 be invidious to mention the speeches of Dr. Edward 
 Beecher and Prof. Stowe, as characterized by emi- 
 nent learning and great force of argument. 
 
 The form in which the question presented itself 
 for discussion on that occasion, was perhaps the 
 very best form in which it could arise. In other 
 forms in which the question might have been pre- 
 sented, it would have been entangled with side 
 questions of expediency ; so that many individuals, 
 dissenting entirely from the characteristic principle 
 of the Anti-Slavery Society, might have been con- 
 
THE COLLISION. 137 
 
 Strained to vote with'the adherents of that principle. 
 Thus, had the question been on the employment of 
 slave-owners as missionaries, the men who hold the 
 doctrine of the Anti-Slavery Society would have 
 answered in the negative, because the slave-owner, 
 as they judge, is in every possible case a man-steal- 
 er ; and at the same time many others would have 
 answered in the negative with equal emphasis, for 
 very different reasons — such as that the slave-owner 
 owes to the slaves who in the providence of God 
 are under his protection, certain duties which re- 
 quire him to remain with them — and that if he is 
 the right man in other respects for the foreign mis- 
 sionary work, he is more likely to do good in South 
 Carolina or Mississippi than in Syria or Africa. 
 Or had the question been whether to send agents to 
 the southern churches, soliciting their contributions, 
 the consistent upholders of the Anti-Slavery Society- 
 would have answered. No, because the southern 
 churches admit slaveholders to communion, and 
 because, in their judgment, every such church is no 
 better than a synagogue of Satan ; while many- 
 others would also have said. No, as thinking that 
 the contributions thus realized would not repay the 
 expense and trouble accruing — or as of opinion that 
 the southern churches have more missionary work 
 among the black heathen within their own borders, 
 than they are likely to attend to— or as judging that 
 any attempt at extensive co-operation between the 
 northern churches and the southern, is likely to re- 
 sult in painful collisions, and to hinder instead of 
 promoting the natural action of Christianity againit 
 slavery. But in this instance the only question that 
 
138 THE COLLISION. 
 
 could legitimately be raised, was the question whe- 
 ther every slave-master is to be excommunicated 
 from the church, simply as standing in that re- 
 lation. 
 
 Perhaps I may be allowed briefly to recall the 
 leading facts of the case to the remembrance of my 
 readers. Negro slavery, it seems, has existed for 
 more than sixty years, to a limited extent, in the 
 Cherokee and Choctaw nations of Indians. The 
 churches formed by the missionaries in those two 
 nations, have received to communion some few in- 
 dividuals who are the owners of slaves. This fact 
 having been seized upon by the Anti-Slavery Socie- 
 ty, memorials were sent to the Board, from some 
 very respectable sources, requesting that the Board 
 would take " such action as shall speedily remove 
 the evil." At the meeting in 1844, these memorials 
 were put into the hands of a committee, consisting 
 of Rev. Dr. Woods and Rev. David Sandford and 
 David Greene, of Masssachusetts ; Rev. Dr. Tyler 
 and Hon. T. W. Williams, of Connecticut ; Chan- 
 cellor Walworth and Rev. J. W. McLane, of New 
 York; Rev. Dr. Tappan and Rev. S. L. Pomeroy, 
 of Maine, and Rev. Dr. Stowe, of Ohio. Of these 
 gentlemen, two, Dr. Woods, and Mr. Greene, are 
 ;«robably the only individuals against whom the 
 Anti-Slavery Society had any special prejudice; 
 three, Dr. Tappan, Mr. Sandford and Mr. Pomeroy, 
 call themselves, and are commonly called, abolition- 
 ists, and are, it is believed, members of the Anti- 
 Slavery Society; Mr. Sandford was himself one of 
 the memorialists. It was the duty of this Committee 
 to obtain information respecting the facts alleged 
 
THE COLLISION. 139 
 
 and complained of by the memorialists, and to re- 
 port at the meeting in 1845. Nor did the gentlemen 
 perform their duty negligently. Every one of them, 
 except Mr. Pomeroy, who was absent in Europe, 
 attended to the business in person. After the neces- 
 sary information had been obtained by correspond- 
 ence with the missions, the Committee met to agree 
 on their report. The draft of a report, which had 
 been prepared by the chairman, was not entirely 
 satisfactory ; and after a full discussion of the prin- 
 ciples that were to be asserted and adhered to, it 
 w^as put into the hands of a sub -committee. At a 
 later meeting, the sub-committee presented a new 
 draft, which, after further discussion and amend- 
 ment, was agreed to as the report of the Committee, 
 and in that form was presented to the Board at 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 The form of the report — the ordinary form of re- 
 ports in that body — had this disadvantage, that in 
 the discussion and decision there was a necessity of 
 taking, or rejecting it, as a whole. There was no 
 series of propositions to be separately discussed, and 
 separately voted on. Some of the most important 
 principles of the case are introduced indirectly, and 
 as it were, by the way, rather than put forward with 
 as much prominence as some might desire. All that 
 the report contains, and all that it does not contain, 
 could hardly be ascertained by the mere hearer, at 
 one reading, or even at two. The representatives 
 of the Anti-Slavery Society, however, were not long 
 in perceiving that it did not contain their doctrine 
 directly or indirectly. It was not enough for them 
 to see, that it condemns the institution of slavery as 
 
140 THE COLLISION. 
 
 an institution at war with natural justice and with 
 all the principles and designs of the gospel, and as 
 an arrangement which the legitimate influence of 
 the gospel will surely abolish ; it must go farther, if it 
 is to please them. All the injustice and mischiev- 
 ousness of the institution, it must impute to every 
 individual whom that institution invests with power 
 over his fellow-men ; and it must pronounce ana- 
 thema against him, without inquiring how he ad- 
 ministers that power. Accordingly Mr. Phelps, at 
 an early stage of the debate, proposed an amend- 
 ment in two parts, for the purpose of making the 
 report agree precisely with the peculiar and charac- 
 teristic dogma of his Society. He moved to amend 
 the report as follows : 
 
 1. By inserting the words, " and practice," after the words 
 " system," in all those passages which speak of the system as 
 wicked, unrighteous, &c., so that they will read " the wicked- 
 ness of tile system and practice of slavery." &c., &c. 
 
 2. By appending the following as the conclusion of the report, 
 viz. : 
 
 *' In conclusion, the Board adopt the following preamble and 
 resolutions as a summary exposition of the views and principles 
 embodied in the foregoing remarks, and of the rules that should 
 govern the Executive officers and missionaries of the Board in 
 their practical application. 
 
 Whereas, in the providence of God, this Board, in conducting 
 its operations among the Indians and elsewhere, has been brought 
 into such contact with slavery as to demand some judgment of 
 the Board respecting its moral character, and the adoption of 
 some general rules of conduct for the guidance of its Executive 
 officers and missionaries, in cases where they are brought in con- 
 tact with it, while seeking their one great object, therefore. 
 
 Resolved, That as this Board regard the system and practice 
 of slaveholding as a great moral evil, entirely opposed to the 
 
THE COLLISION. 141 
 
 spirit and principles of the gospel whose propagation is its espe- 
 cial and appropriate work ; it can never in the persons of its offi- 
 cers, agents, or missionaries, sustain any relation to it, implying 
 either approbation or sanction. 
 
 Resolved, That in accordance with this general principle, this 
 Board cannot appoint or sustain slaveholders, remaining such af- 
 ter remonstrance, as missionaries. 
 
 Resolved, That while this Board will not imperatively direct or 
 concern itself with the internal discipline of churches gathered 
 by its missionaries on heathen ground, as it might seem to be an 
 unauthorized interference with the liberty of Christ's house, so 
 neither can it allow such missionaries to interfere in a similar 
 way with its liberty in the appropriation of its funds ; and there- 
 fore, that as this Board, in the exercise of its liberty, would feel 
 called upon to withdraw its support from missionaries and 
 churches receiving drunkards, gamblers, and the like to their 
 communion and retaining them in it, so it cannot continue its 
 appropriations to missionaries and churches which, after remon- 
 strances on the subject, deliberately continue to receive slave- 
 holders remaining such after due admonition, to their bosom and 
 retain them in it. 
 
 Resolved, That the Board will expect its missionaries, minis- 
 tering to churches that have slaveholders in them, to pursue the 
 same course in respect to their instruction, admonition, and disci- 
 pline as slaveholders, as if the same individuals were drunkards, 
 gamblers, or the like, and that if the missionaries, in the exercise 
 of their liberty and after full dehberation, shall decline to do so, 
 this Board hereby directs its Executive officers to dissolve farther 
 connection with them as missionaries of this body." 
 
 Of this Mr. Phelps, in a document since published 
 by him in his official capacity as Secretary of the 
 Anti-Slavery Society,* says : 
 
 " This, of course, as was our object in offering it, brought the 
 discussion to a point ; and that point was simply this, viz. : whe- 
 ther in the matter of instruction, admonition, and discipline, the 
 
 * American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter, October, 1845. 
 
142 THE COLLISION. 
 
 Board would expect its missionaries 9.;)d i^issipji churches to 
 treat slaveholdingjust as they would drunkenness, gaming, fals-e- 
 hood, idolatry, ai^d the like. The report and the -speakers had 
 virtually said they would expect them to do so in respect to spe- e 
 ciiic forms of maltreatment and personal abuse. The amead-''' 
 ment raised the question whether they would.-expect thenv-i^:do 
 so in regard to slaveholding itself. In other t'erms, it raised the 
 question whether slaveholding, as such, is to be classed with the 
 other offences named,*and whether so classed, instruction is- to be"* 
 given against it by missionaries, and admonition and discipline to 
 be administered against it by them and the churches', in the same 
 way, and onlyin the same, as in respect to said other offences." 
 
 This paragraph has its value, as showing- that I 
 do not misrepresent the actual question between the 
 Anti-Slavery Society and the Ame^jcan Board. The 
 question, according to Mr. Phelps' showing, is not 
 a question respecting '^ specific forms of maltreat- 
 ment." To condemn every specific wrong which 
 the master may commit in theexercise of the power 
 which the 1-aws give him over his slaves, is not 
 enough. To condemn him for buying, and selling 
 human beings as merchandise ; to condemn him, in 
 detail, for regarding and treating his servants as 
 mere chattels ; to condemn him for every particular 
 act of wrong-doing towards them which convicts 
 him of a selfish and unchristian heart ; to condemn 
 him for not duly recognizing their natural rights in 
 the parental and conjugal relations, and for neg- 
 lecting the necessities of their intellectual and moral 
 nature, and their dignity as bretliren of the human 
 family, and as immortal beings to whom God speaks 
 in the gospel — ^^all this is not enough. The Anti- 
 Slavery Society demands that he shall be condemned 
 for the relation itself, without any inquiry touching 
 
THE COLLISION. 143 
 
 his conduct in that relation. In the Anti-Slavery 
 Society's creed, he that condemns a slave-owner 
 only for well-defined individual acts of oppression, 
 does the work of the Lord deceitfully ; we are re- 
 quired to go back farther, and to condemn him for 
 having the power to oppress. 
 
 Before taking leave of Mr. Phelps' paragraph 
 above quoted, I cannot but remark, that the debate 
 itself, as reported in the New York newspapers of 
 that week, does not seem to correspond with his 
 opinion that his motion to amend ''brought the dis- 
 cussion to a point." The speeches prior to his mo- 
 tion — after a preliminary question, strangely raised, 
 respecting the jurisdiction of the Board, had been 
 cleared up — were as nearly to the point as those that 
 followed. The issue presented in Mr. P.'s resolu- 
 tions, is precisely the issue which was presented, 
 under another form, in the report. The question 
 discussed in the report, is not whether slavery is 
 wrong as a political system, and is everywhere and 
 necessarily mischievous ; nor is it the question whe- 
 ther the treating of human beings as merchandise, 
 or as having no personal rights, by those who hap- 
 pen to have the power of so doing, is wrong ; it is 
 simply the question whether the mere relation of a 
 slave-owner is always and necessarily a crime, and 
 as such incompatible with a Christian profession. 
 That question the report answers in the negative; 
 and it proposes, accordingly, that every individual 
 instance of slave-ownership shall be judged in that 
 respect by the missionaries and their churches. Mr. 
 Phelps' amendment, on the contrary, gives to the 
 same question an affirmative answer ; and it propo- 
 
144 THE COLLISION. 
 
 ses to instruct the missionaries everywhere, and the 
 missionary churches, that the mere possession of a 
 master's authority over a slave, independent of all 
 specific exercise of that authority, is to be visited 
 with excommunication. Mr. Phelps' motion, then, 
 produced, and could produce, no effect on the course 
 or progress of the debate, save as it may have 
 helped to diminish the possibility of misunderstand- 
 ing the demands of the Society which he repre- 
 sented. 
 
 It was my wish to finish all that I have to say 
 respecting the late meeting of the Board at Brook- 
 lyn, in a single paper ; but I fear that in attempting 
 to do so, I should occupy more space in the columns 
 of the Evangelist, than would be consistent with the 
 usual variety of matter in this widely read '^ folio of 
 four pages." At this point, then, I pause, like a 
 Congress orator suddenly struck down at the expi- 
 ration of his hour. The present article may be con- 
 sidered as a statement and explanation of the ques- 
 tion on which the Board was to act. In another 
 article, I propose to offer some considerations on the 
 decision of the Board, and the position in which it 
 stands in respect to the Anti-Slavery Society. 
 
 NO. II. 
 
 THE ACTION OF THE BOARD. 
 
 The precise question before the Board should be 
 distinctly remembered. It was not a question re- 
 specting that political institution which we call si a- 
 
THE COLLISION. 145 
 
 very. It'was not a question whether acts of wrong- 
 doing on the part of masters toward their servants, 
 are inconsistent with Christian character and Chris- 
 tian communion. It was simply a question respect- 
 ing the relation between a master and his slaves 
 under* the laws of a State which has incorporated 
 the system of slavery among its political institu- 
 tions ; whether that relation, in itself, and without 
 any specification of distinct acts of oppression com- 
 mitted by virtue of the power which the relation 
 involves, is a crime for which the master should be 
 cut off from communion with every Christian church. 
 This was the question which the report from the 
 Committee answered in the negative, and which 
 Mr. Phelps' motion for amendment answered in the 
 affirmative. 
 
 After the discussion had been prolonged till near 
 the close of the second day, another amendment 
 was moved by the writer of these papers, as a sub- 
 stitute for that proposed by Mr. Phelps. It was in 
 these words : 
 
 " In conclusion, it seems proper for the Board, on this occasion, 
 to put upon record a distinct assertion of the principles contained 
 in the following resolutions : 
 
 1. Resolved, That inasmuch as the system of domestic sla- 
 very, under every modification, is at war with the principles of 
 Christianity, with natural justice, with industry and thrift, with 
 habits of subjection to law, and with whatever tends to the ad- 
 vancement of civilization and the ascendency of the gospel, and 
 inasmuch as it brings upon every community which establishes 
 and upholds it, the righteous displeasure of God, and the repro- 
 bation of the civilized and Christian world, the existence of sla- 
 very in the Cherokee and Choctaw nations is deeply to be la- 
 mented by their friends, and particularly by this Board, as hav- 
 
146 THE COLLISION. 
 
 ing been, for more than a quarter of a century, engaged in labors 
 tending to their moral, intellectual, and social advancement. 
 
 2. Resolved, That while the strongest language of reprobation 
 is not too strong to be applied to the system of slavery, truth and 
 justice require this Board to say that the mere relation of a mas- 
 ter to one whom the constitution of society has made a slave, is 
 not to be regarded as in all cases such a sin as to require the ex- 
 clusion of the master, without further inquiry, from Christian or- 
 dinances. 
 
 3. Resolved, That the missionaries of this Board, everywhere, 
 are expected to admit to Christian ordinances those, and only 
 those, who give satisfactory evidence of having become new 
 creatures in Christ. 
 
 4. Resolved, That the master who buys and sells human be- 
 ings, as merchandise, for gain — who does not recognize in re- 
 spect to his servants the divine sanctity of their relations as hus- 
 bands and wives, and as parents and children — who permits 
 them to live and die in ignorance of God and of God's Word — 
 who does not render to his servants that which is just and equal, 
 or who refuses to recognize heartily and practically their dignity 
 and worth, as reasonable and immortal beings, for whom Christ 
 has died, does not give satisfactory evidence of being born of 
 God, or having the spirit of Christ." 
 
 The reason stated for moving this amendment 
 was in efTect, not that the report does not contain 
 in some form of expression all that is contained in 
 these resolutions, but that it seemed desirable to 
 embody, in a formal series of propositions, or theses, 
 a statement of what is and what is not to be con- 
 demned, making certain distinctions so definitely 
 that all parties should see them, and, if possible, 
 should be compelled to adopt them, or to dissent 
 from them, without mystification. The first reso- 
 lution, accordingly, speaks of slavery as a political 
 institution, and laments its introduction into the 
 
THE COLLISION. 147 
 
 nascent civilization of tlie Cherokee and Choctaw 
 nations ; and thus it contradicts, on the one hand, 
 those who defend and uphold the institution of sla- 
 very, which is done by many at the South, and 
 which Dr. White was understood to do in that dis- 
 cussion — and on the other hand, those who stigma- 
 tize the Board, as defending and upholding slavery. 
 The second resolution denies peremptorily the pe- 
 culiar dogma of the Anti-Slavery Society. The 
 third denies a principle assumed by some who hold 
 that a slave-owner may give undeniable evidence 
 of Christian character notwithstanding his relation 
 to his slaves ; but who insist that even in that case 
 he ought not to be admitted as a Christian to fel- 
 lowship in Christian ordinances. The fourth points 
 out the legitimate, and only legitimate application 
 of church discipline against slavery, which is by 
 censuring and excommunicating the sinner, not for 
 having the power to do wrong, but for doing wrong 
 — not for standing in a certain constituted relation 
 toward his servants, but for his conduct toward them 
 ill that relation. 
 
 This motion to amend was heartily seconded. 
 Nothing was said in opposition to it. But as the 
 second day of the debate was then closing, and as 
 the question before the house was becoming com- 
 plicated with amendment upon amendment, it was 
 judged best to recommit the whole subject ; and 
 accordingly the original report, and both the pro- 
 posed amendments, were put into the hands of Chief 
 Justice Williams and five other gentlemen, one of 
 whom (Rev. John C. Webster) was himself one of 
 the memorialists. That Committee, the next morn- 
 
148 THE COLLISION. 
 
 ing, recommended the adoption of the original report 
 without amendment. In the debate which followed 
 there were some passages which I may be allowed 
 to notice. 
 
 Immediately after the report had been made by 
 Chief Justice Williams, with some explanations of 
 the views of the Committee, the Rev. Dr. Tappan, 
 who had served on both Committees, and who, I 
 believe, not only claims the title of abolitionist, but 
 has long been claimed by the Anti-Slavery Society 
 as a patron, said, according to the summary of 
 the debate given in the New-York Evangelist of 
 that week, ^ 
 
 " That every individual of the Committee approved of the 
 principles of Dr. Bacon's resolutions, but it was feared that to 
 append them to the report would look too much like legislation, 
 and might seem to ecclesiastical bodies as if the Board was 
 trenching upon their proper province. There are also other sub- 
 stantial reasons ; and though the report was believed to contain 
 every principle contained in the resolutions, it was unadvisable 
 to state them in this formal manner." 
 
 The American Board of Commissioners for For- 
 eign Missions combines in one system of operations 
 the foreign missionary charities of the New England 
 Congregationalists, and the Constitutional (or New 
 School) Presbyterians, and a respectable minority 
 in the Old School body, and of the Reformed Dutch 
 Church. The ecclesiastical bodies of New England 
 have no such jealousy as that referred to by Dr. 
 Tappan. Had the resolutions been adopted, no 
 Association, no Conference, no church or council of 
 churches, from Madawasca to Horseneck, would 
 
THE COLLISION. 149 
 
 have suspected that the Board was going one hair's 
 breadth out of its proper province. In the Presby- 
 terian connection (New School) there might be 
 some danger, but not much, of wakening that jea- 
 lousy. The Dutch Church, however, conducts its 
 foreign missionary operations in connection with 
 the American Board, through an auxiliary board of 
 its own, which is under the control of its ecclesias- 
 tical judicatories. In that body, therefore, charac- 
 terized as it is by a large, though not disreputable, 
 share of the ecclesiastical spirit, some jealousy 
 might easily be excited by any ill-considered pro- 
 ceeding. Much deference is due to the judgment, 
 and even to the prejudices, of such men as represent 
 the Dutch Church in the American Board of Foreign 
 Missions, and in other kindred institutions. If those 
 men should say to me that the report in its original 
 form would be highly satisfactory to them and to 
 their brethren, and that the report with these reso- 
 lutions appended would be likely to waken some 
 jealousy on the part of their judicatories, and to 
 retard the progress of missionary zeal in their con- 
 gregations, I should feel at once that an element 
 not before contemplated was to be taken into calcu- 
 lation ; and that whatever advantages would result 
 from the amendment in one direction, might be 
 counterbalanced by the disadvantages in another 
 quarter. Just so, if men perfectly acquainted with 
 the state of the missions to the Choctaws and with 
 the dangers which beset the missionaries, should 
 tell me that the report in its original form would be 
 safe in respect to any use that would be likely to be 
 made of it by wicked men with the design of break- 
 
X50 THE COLLISION. 
 
 ing up the missions, but that the resolutions might 
 be employed by mahcious wliite men to embarrass 
 the missionaries in their relation to the political 
 authorities of the Choctaw nation, and to procure 
 their expulsion from tlie field ; then, though the mat 
 cceluni abolitionists miglit cry out. So much the bet- 
 ter ! — let the missions be broken up ! — let the mis- 
 sionaries be murdered ! — and might insist that the 
 prospect of such resuUs was the best of all reasons 
 for putting the decision of the Board into this pre- 
 cise form ; — my sense of duty would constrain me 
 to hesitate long before determining, in the face of 
 such a risk, to sum up the principles and reasonings 
 of the report in those resolutions at the end. I can 
 conceive, therefore, of very good reasons why the 
 Committee unanimously agreeing in the principles 
 asserted by those resolutions, might deem it unne- 
 cessary and unwise to express those principles in 
 that particular form. And to any reader who cares 
 to know what my opinion was as a member of that 
 Committee, I may say that though my own mind 
 was not fully convinced that any considerable harm 
 was likely to result from the adoption of my amend- 
 ment, I could, and did, acquiesce in the decision of 
 the majority. 
 
 After Dr. Tappan's speech, the Rev. Mr. Web- 
 ster said, that he found himself compelled, with 
 great reluctance, to differ from his colleagues of the 
 Committee, and claimed the privilege of presenting 
 '' a minority report," which he proceeded to offer in 
 the form of a speech.* I subjoin the sketch of his 
 
 * I know not why it should not be stated that in the Committee 
 Mr. W. did not vote against the report— did not give any intimation of 
 
THE COLLISION. 251 
 
 remarks given by the reporters for the New York 
 Evangelist. 
 
 " It was from no want of attachment to the Board, on the con- 
 trary it was because he loved the Board, and because he desired 
 this perplexing question to be settled in such a way as to pro- 
 mote harmony of feeling, that he could not assent to the report 
 as it is. He would have been satisfied with Dr. Bacon's resolu- 
 tions ; and if all the principles of the resolutions w-ere contained 
 in the report, he saw no good reason why they should not be 
 frankly summed up at the close. This would have satisfied all 
 parties. As it is, he feared that a large number of the Board's 
 best friends would not be satisfied. The general impression will 
 be that although slavery is condemned, there is a loop-hole left 
 for all who love to hold slaves." 
 
 I cannot but call attention distinctly to the posi- 
 tions taken by Mr. Webster as a dissentient mem- 
 ber of the Committee. He expressly gives up the 
 Anti-Slavery dogma. ^^ He would have been satis- 
 fied with Dr. Bacon^s resolutions^-^ which contain a 
 deliberate and formal denial of the distinctive doc- 
 trine of the Anti- Slavery Society, and which were 
 proposed avowedly for the purpose— though not for 
 the exclusive purpose — of uttering that denial. Nay, 
 he speaks not for himself only, but for his party. 
 ^' This," he says — that is, the addition of the resolu- 
 
 an intention to offer a minority report — nay, expressly said that he 
 wished to be understood as voting neither for the report nor against it. 
 It was, therefore, with some surprise that his "colleagues" of the 
 Committee found him, in the morning, in the attitude of positive oppo- 
 sition to the decision towards which, in the evening, his attitude had 
 been that of passive acquiescence. His right to change his mind after 
 communing with his own heart on his bed, is undoubted ; but it seems 
 to me that so formal and unusual a step as that of offerino^ a " minority 
 report" ought not to have been taken without giving notice to the ma- 
 jority of the Committee, or at least as much notice as might be implied 
 in a vote against their decision. 
 
252 THE COLLISION. 
 
 tions as an amendment to the report — '^ this would 
 have satisfied all par ties. ^^ His opposition to the 
 report in the original form, is hecause it does not go 
 so far as that amendment. '' The general impres- 
 sion will be, that although slavery is condemned, 
 there is a loop-hole left for all who love to hold 
 slaves." The amendment, then, in his judgment, 
 would have prevented this impression. I have no 
 doubt that Mr. Webster was honest in this ; that he 
 spoke as he felt. Nor have I any doubt that many 
 anti-slavery men of the same kind felt as he did, 
 and verily thought that they would have been satis- 
 fied with my resolutions. 
 
 Mr. Phelps, however, held his ground with un- 
 flinching logical consistency. I might perhaps make 
 one exception to this remark. There was a moment 
 when truth seemed to be breaking into his mind 
 through the thick drapery of sophisms which he 
 weaves so skillfully, but it was only a moment. He 
 made no such admissions as those into which Mr. 
 Webster was led by his less practiced ingenuous- 
 ness. The Anti-Slavery Society would have been 
 in a sorry plight, had its Secretary been so inconse- 
 quent in his reasonings as to profess himself satisfied 
 with a resolution declaring that the mere relation of 
 a master to his slaves is not necessarily a crime on 
 the part of the master. Accordingly, Mr. P. em- 
 braced that last opportunity to reassert his one great 
 principle in a speech, and in a new motion to amend 
 the report. His second motion for amendment was 
 in eff'ect the same with the first. It proposed to 
 make the report declare, in conclusion, that '^ the 
 Board will expect its missionaries to treat slave- 
 
THE COLLISION. 153 
 
 holding", in the matter of instruction, admonition 
 and discipline, in the same manner as they should 
 and would treat drunkenness, gaming, falsehood, 
 bigamy, idolatry and the like ; and that whenever 
 and wherever it shall appear that the missionaries 
 and the churches, in the exercise of their appropri- 
 ate liberty, do not do so, it will be the duty of this 
 Board, in the exercise of its liberty, to dissolve far- 
 ther connection with them." The amendment was 
 rejected without farther discussion; and the original 
 report, as is well known, was adopted by a unani- 
 mous vote of the corporation, including seventy-five 
 individuals there present, from every denomination 
 represented in the Board, and of almost every shade 
 of opinion in those various denominations. Some 
 of those votes, it should be remembered, were given 
 by men who have gloried in being abolitionists, 
 who have co-operated in anti-slavery meetings and 
 measures, and whose names have been — and are 
 now — a tower of strength to the Anti-Slavery So- 
 ciety. 
 
 I now propose to show that the report, as it came 
 from the Committee, and as it was adopted by the 
 Board, does contain everything that was contained 
 in those resolutions which, Mr. Webster assures us, 
 would have satisfied, not only him as one of the 
 memorialists, but ''all parties." The most conve- 
 nient and conclusive method of doing this, is by put- 
 ting the language of the resolutions and the language 
 of the report, upon each of the four topics, side by 
 side. 
 
 The first topic is, slavery as a ^political system, and 
 as introduced into the Cherokee and Choctaw nations* 
 
154 THE COLLISION. 
 
 What do the resolutions say? What says the re- 
 port 1 
 
 Resolution. — '' Inasmuch as the system of domes- 
 tic slavery, under every modification, is at war with 
 the principles of Christianity, with natural justice, 
 with industry and thrift, with habits of subjection tu 
 law, and with whatever tends to the advancement 
 of civilization and the ascendency of the gospel ; 
 and inasmuch as it brings upon every community 
 which establishes and upholds it, the righteous dis- 
 pleasure of God, and the reprobation of the civilized 
 and Christian world ; the existence of slavery in the 
 Cherokee and Choctaw nations, is deeply to be la- 
 mented by tlieir friends, and particularly by this 
 Board, as having been for more than a quarter of a 
 century engaged in labors tending to their moral, 
 intellectual and social advancement." 
 
 Report. — '' The Committee do not deem it neces- 
 sary to discuss the general subject of slavery, as it 
 exists in these United States, or to enlarge on the 
 wickedness of the system, or on the disastrous moral 
 and social influences v^hicXx slavery exerts upon the less 
 enlightened and less civilized communities where 
 the missionaries of this Board are laboring. On 
 these points, there is probably, among the members 
 of the Board and its friends, little difference of 
 opinion." 
 
 Again : ^'The unrighteousness of the princi'ples on 
 which the whole system is based, and the violation of 
 the rights of man^ the debasement, wickedness and 
 misery it involves, and which, in fact, are witnessed to 
 a greater or less extent wherever it exists, must call 
 forth the hearty condemnation of all possessed of 
 
THE COLLISION. ;|^55 
 
 Christian feeling and sense of right, and make its 
 entire and speedy removal an object of earnest and 
 prayerful desire to every true friend of God and 
 man." 
 
 Again: ^'Wherever the gospel is brought to bear 
 upon the community where slavery or any other 
 form of oppression exists, its spirit is decidedly ad- 
 verse to such a state of things J' 
 
 Again : ^'That slavery should exist at all in those 
 tribes, (Cherokee and Choctaw,) who have suffered 
 so severely from the violation of their own rights by 
 their white neighbors, is deeply to be regretted ; and 
 all should earnestly pray that as social improvement 
 and Christian knowledge are rapidly advancing 
 among them, they may speedily and nobly exem- 
 plify the spirit of true philanthropy, as well as the 
 gospel law of love, by showing that they duly ap- 
 preciate the rights and welfare of the whole race of 
 man." 
 
 Further: "The Committee cannot advert to some 
 of the laws enacted by both the Cherokees and 
 Choctaws, without pain and regret, especially those 
 which prohibit teaching slaves to read, throw im- 
 pediments in the way of emancipation, restrict 
 slaves in the possession of property, and embarrass 
 the residence of free negroes among them." '' Sla- 
 very was introduced among these Indians, and has 
 been regulated by them, in unhappy imitation of 
 their white neighbors in the adjacent States.'^ 
 
 Once more: " Viewed in all its hearings ^ it is a 
 TREMENDOUS EVIL. Its destructive influence is seen 
 on the morals of the master and slave. It sweeps 
 away those barriers which every civilized commu- 
 
156 THE COLLISION. 
 
 nity has erected to protect the purity and chastity of 
 the family relations,^' '' A great proportion of the 
 red people who own slaves, neglect entirely to train 
 their children to habits of industryy enterprise and 
 economy^ so necessary in forming the character of 
 the parent and the citizen. Slavery^ so far as it ex- 
 tends, will ever present formidable obstacles to the right 
 training of the rising generation,^ ^ 
 
 So much for the agreement of the resolutions and 
 the report on the subject matter of the first resolu- 
 tion. The second topic is the distinction between 
 the wrongfulness of slavery as a political institution, 
 and the responsibility of the individual master for 
 the existence of the relation between him and those 
 whom that unnatural and unjust system has placed 
 under him ; or, in other words, the distinction be- 
 tween slavery as a system and slaveholding as a rela- 
 tion constituted by that system ; and, as a corollary 
 from this plain distinction, the denial of the Anti- 
 Slavery Society^s dogma, which is held only by re- 
 solutely blinking this distinction. How far do the 
 resolutions and the report agree on this point. Let 
 them speak. 
 
 Resolution. — ^^ While the strongest language of 
 reprobation is not too strong to be applied to the sys- 
 tem of slavery, truth and justice require this Board 
 to say that the mere relation of a master to one whom 
 the constitution of society has made a slave, is not 
 to be regarded as, in all cases, such a sin as to re- 
 quire the exclusion of the master, without farther 
 inquiry, from Christian ordinances." 
 
 Report. — ^'Strongly as your committee are con- 
 vinced of the wrongfulness and evil tendencies of 
 
THE COLLISION. I57 
 
 slaveholding, and ardently as they desire its speedy 
 and universal termination, still they cannot think 
 that, in all cases, it involves individual guilt in such 
 a manner, that every individual implicated in it can 
 on Scriptural grounds be excluded from Christian 
 fellowship. In the language of Dr. Chalmers, when 
 treating on this point in a recent letter, the Com- 
 mittee would say, ' Bistinction ought to he made be- 
 tween the character of a system^ and the character of 
 the persons whom circumstances have implicated there - 
 loith^^ " &c. '' Slavery (says he) we hold to be a 
 system chargeable with atrocities and evils often the 
 most hideous and appalling whicli have either af- 
 flicted or deformed our species ; j^et we must not say 
 of every man born within its territory — \7ho by in- 
 heritance is himself the owner of slaves — that unless 
 he make the resolute sacrifice, and renounce his 
 property in slaves, he is therefore not a Christian, 
 and should be treated as an outcast from all the dis- 
 tinctions and privileges of Christian society." 
 
 If on tJiis point there is any difference between 
 the resolutions and the report, it is that the latter is 
 more anti-slavery than the former. The report some- 
 times, like the Anti-Slavery Society, uses the word 
 '' slaveholding" as synonomous with "slavery;" 
 and it seems to take for granted the idea that the 
 mere ownership of slaves always implies, in what- 
 ever circumstances, some degree of criminality on the 
 part of the owner, and is so much detracted from the 
 evidence of his Christian character. In the language 
 quoted from Dr. Chalmers, it seems to be implied 
 that though the master of slaves may perad venture 
 be a passably good man, notwithstanding that unfor - 
 8 
 
J58 THE COLLISION. 
 
 tunate relation, still if he were only a better man — 
 if he had a little more of Christian principle— rhe 
 Avould cease to stand in tliat relation ; whereas, my 
 doctrine — though I confess that in that hastily drafted 
 resolution, it is not so amply and distinctly stated as 
 it should have been — reaches to the extent of admit- 
 ting the possibility of a case in which the man's in- 
 telligent and deliberate consenting to stand in the 
 relation of a master to those whom the law has 
 made his slaves, his holding and executing instead 
 of renouncing, the trust which the State, under a bar- 
 barous constitution of society, has put into his hands, 
 shall be a brighter and more conclusive evidence of 
 his disinterestedness and Christian integrity, than he, 
 in those circumstances, could achieve by any act of 
 manumission. 
 
 The third topic is the denial of all tests of church 
 communion which are not also tests of spiritual regen- 
 eration. On this point, let the resolution speak, as 
 before, and then the report. 
 
 Resolution. — ^'The missionaries of the Board, 
 everywhere, are expected to admit to Christian or- 
 dinances, those^ and only those who give satisfactory 
 evidence of having become new creatures in Christ. ^^ 
 
 Report. — '' As the ordinances of baptism and the 
 Lord's Supper are obviously designed by Christ to be 
 means of grace for all ivho give credible evidence of 
 repentance and faith in Him, these ordinances cannot 
 scripturally and rightfully be denied to professed 
 converts from among the heathen after they shall 
 have given such evidence." 
 
 Again : '^ On this principle of receiving to their 
 churches all those, and only those, who give satisfac- 
 
THE COLLISION. 
 
 159 
 
 tory evidence of repentance and faitli in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, they [the missionaries] all appear to 
 have proceeded.'^ 
 
 The fourth topic is the proper application of church 
 discipline in respect to slavery. On this subject the 
 dictate of common sense is that the master who ex- 
 ercises his legal power over his servants to do them 
 wrong, is to be censured, not indeed for having the 
 power to do wrong with legal impunity, but for the 
 specific wrong-doing. 
 
 Resolution, — '^The master who buys and sells hu- 
 man beings, as merchandise, for gain ; who does 
 not recognize, in respect to his servants, the divine 
 sanctity of their relation as husbands and wives, and 
 as parents and children; who permits them to live 
 and die in ignorance of God and of God's Word ; who 
 does not render to his servants that which is just and 
 equal ; or who refuses to recognize, heartily and 
 practically, their dignity and worth as reasonable 
 and immortal beings, for whom Christ has died ; does 
 not give satisfactory evidence of being born of God, 
 or having the spirit of Christ." 
 
 Report. — ^'Should any church member who has 
 servants under him, be chargeable with cruelty^ in- 
 justice or uNKiNDNESs towards them^ should he ne- 
 glect what is essential to their present comfort or their 
 eternal welfare; or should he in any manner trans- 
 gress the particular instructions which the apostles 
 give concerning the conduct of a master, he would 
 be admonished by the church, and unless he should 
 repent, he would be excommunicated,^^ 
 
 Again: '^In respect to the kind and amount of 
 instruction given by the missionaries, in relation to 
 
IQQ THE COLLISION. 
 
 slavery and the duties of masters and slaves, the 
 missionaries seem substantially to agree. Mr. By- 
 ino-ton says, ^ We give such instructions to masters 
 and servants as are contained in the epistles.' 'In 
 private we converse about all the evils and dangers 
 of slavery.' Of a similar tenor are the remarks of 
 Mr. Wright. 'The instructions, public and private, 
 direct and indirect, have been such as are found in 
 the Bible.' " 
 
 On this point, then, either the report is entirely 
 unworthy of credit, as a representation of facts, or 
 any master in a church under the care of our mis- 
 sionaries, who should be convicted of any of the spe- 
 cifications set down in the resolution, ''would be 
 admonished by the church ; and unless he should 
 repent, he would be excommunicated." And in the 
 name of justice — nay, in the name of Christ, whose 
 honor is so deeply implicated in this matter — I de- 
 mand that the contrary shall not be asserted or as- 
 sumed as the basis of argument against the mission- 
 aries or the Board, without clear proof. 
 
 If any man, then, shall venture to affirm that there 
 are masters in our Cherokee and Choctaw churches, 
 w4io buy and sell human beings, as merchandise, for 
 gain — who do not recognize the divine sanctity of 
 the relations of husbands and wives, parents and 
 children, among their servants — who permit their 
 servants to live and die in ignorance of God and of 
 God's Word — who do not render to their servants 
 that whicli is just and equal — or who refuse to re- 
 cognize their dignity and worth as reasonable and 
 immortal beings for whom Christ has died — I de- 
 mand of that man that he shall identify the church 
 
THE COLLISION. 161 
 
 and the offender ; that he shall, in the presence of 
 that church convict that offender, not of sustaining 
 the relation of a master, but of some of these specific 
 Avrong-doings ; and that, having done this, he shall 
 bring back a well-authenticated statement to show 
 that the church, with the specifications distinctly 
 proved, refused to censure the offender. If he will 
 not, or cannot, do this, let him confess himself a ca- 
 lumniator of God's people. 
 
 At the risk of being tedious, I must ask two ques- 
 tions, in view of the comparison which I have thus 
 instituted between the resolutions presented by my- 
 self and the report adopted by the Board. 
 
 First, How was it possible for Mr. Phelps, with all 
 his perspicacity, to say, as he says in the manifesto 
 from which I made a quotation last week : 
 
 " The anti-slavery sentiments expressed by such men as 
 Messrs. Bacon, Hawes, Beecher, Stowe, Dwight, &c., are not to 
 be taken as defining at all the actual position of the Board. They 
 are the sentiments of individuals. They did not prevail in the 
 Board. On the contrary, the Board distinctly rejected the reso- 
 lutions of Dr. Bacon, \vhich were a summary expression of them. 
 The Board, therefore, is no more to have the credit of them than 
 it is to have the credit of the sentiments expressed by Dr. Ide and 
 other abolitionists, and embodied in our amendments. It is no 
 more to have the credit of them than the curse of what was ut- 
 tered by the slaveholder, Elipha White, and his worthy compeer. 
 Dr. Wisner. It is to have neither the credit, nor the curse of 
 either, but must stand and be judged solely on what it did and 
 what it refused to do — on the report adopted, and the amendments 
 rejected." 
 
 The Board did not '^distinctly reject" the resolu- 
 tions proposed by me. In regard to those resolutions, 
 the Board took no distinct vote, except the vote by 
 
162 THE COLLISION. 
 
 which they were referred to a committee. The ques- 
 tion of adopting or rejecting them was never put. 
 The only amendment '^rejected," was Mr. Phelps' 
 second amendment. So far as any ^'anti-slavery 
 sentiments expressed by such men as Messrs. Bacon, 
 Hawes, Beecher, Stowe, Dwight, &C.5" were 'sum- 
 marily expressed' in my resolutions, they are all ex- 
 pressed, as I have show^n, not indeed more summa- 
 rily, but more fully, and with even more of a tech- 
 nically anti-slavery tone, in the report adopted by 
 the Board. I am far from imputing to Mr. Phelps 
 any intentional misrepresentation. I only suppose, 
 that in the singleness of his devotion to the cause of 
 his society, he did not examine, so carefully as he 
 should have examined, the facts that lay in the printed 
 documents before him. 
 
 Secondly, Is it not plain that those who would 
 have been ''satisfied" with the adoption of the reso- 
 lutions proposed by me, ought to be satisfied, if they 
 are reasonable men, with the report as it stands? Is 
 it not plain that, in lending their voices to a clamor 
 against the Board, as if those resolutions contained 
 something which the report, as adopted, does not con- 
 tain, they will put themselves into a position in 
 which they must appear very much like tools in the 
 hands of other men ? Those men w^ho would have 
 been thus "satisfied," will find a much better guide 
 in their own instinctive connnon sense, and their 
 love of substantial and practicable usefulness, than 
 in the transcendental formula? of the Anti-Slavery So- 
 ciety, or the movements of its Executive Committee. 
 
THE COLLISION. 163 
 
 NO. III. 
 
 WHAT HAS CHURCH GOVERNMENT TO DO WITH SLAVERY ? — 
 WHAT IS SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES ? 
 
 Immediately after the publication of the first of 
 these articles, I received a friendly letter from Mr. 
 Phelps, representing- that I omit all notice of what 
 he deems an important qualification of his position. 
 An extract from his letter, and a brief explanation 
 of my views in regard to it, may serve as an intro- 
 duction to what I propose to say on another part of 
 the general subject: 
 
 *' My position, then, allow me to say, is just this, that the mere 
 fact of slaveholding, in the same way and in the same sense, as 
 the mere fact of drunkenness, falsehood, or gaming, is (1) to 
 constitute the ground and occasion for instruction, public or pri- 
 vate, or both, against it ; (2) that such instruction resisted, and 
 the thing persevered in, are to be the ground and occasion for 
 admonition, or the commencement in some way of religious dis- 
 cipline ; and (3) that instruction and admonition both resisted, 
 and the thing still persevered in, are to constitute the ground and 
 occasion for excommunication. This I hold to be the general 
 rw/e, admitting possibly of exceptions, but of none save such as 
 could be admitted in regard to the other cases named, and on the 
 same proof or grounds as in respect to them. And this 1 hold 
 not on the alone ground of the sinfulness of slaveholding in all 
 cases (though I believe that), but on the broader, and what might 
 be the common, ground of all parties, that it is justly, in this day, 
 an occasion of reproach and an appearance of evil from which 
 every follower of Christ is bound, at all hazards, to abstain — in 
 other words, that if not sinful in itself, it is, to quote the Presb. 
 Book of Discipline, something ' in the principles or practice' of a 
 man, fitted to ' tempt others to sin, and mar their spiritual edifica- 
 tion' — not, in a word, walking orderly. 
 
164 THE COLLISIOX. 
 
 The point, however, to which I wish particularly to call your 
 attention, is that of instruction and admonition previous to ex- 
 communication — making the final excision not for the mere fact 
 itself, hut for the fact persevered in against such instruction and 
 admonition. In this view, the mere fact is not excision. It only 
 raises the question of character and becomes the occasion and 
 ground for instruction. It puts the man on the proof of his char- 
 acter. That is all. If he can prove his case an exception to the 
 general rule, very well ; then, just as in the other cases, let him 
 stand in the church, not according to the rule, but a confessed, 
 and everywhere understood, exception to it." 
 
 Mr. Phelps assures me tliat he regards this '^ qua- 
 lification of his position," for so he calls it, as " very 
 important." But I must confess it does not strike 
 me as affecting at all the position which he and the 
 Anti-Slavery Society are understood to hold. If 
 anybody had imputed to Mr. Phelps and his col- 
 leagues an intention of •' exscinding" all slavehold- 
 ers from the church, in violation of all the rules and 
 forms of church discipline, as an accidental majority 
 in the Presb3^terian Assembly of 1837 " exscinded" 
 some 60,000 church members in Western New York 
 and Northern Ohio — then this qttalification of his 
 position would have been important. In reference 
 to the actual question, the ^'qualification" is alto- 
 gether irrelevant. The question is not whether the 
 master of a slave shall have the privilege of being 
 instructed and admonished, privately, and by the 
 church, (according to Christ's precept, Matt, xviii. 
 15-17,) before the final sentence of excommunica- 
 tion ; but w^icther tlie admonition shall be for the 
 mere fact that he sustains the relation of a master, 
 or for the very different fact that in the exercise of 
 the power v\4nch that relation confers upon him he 
 
THE COLLISION. 165 
 
 has been guilty of some specific injustice toward the 
 slave. Mr. Phelps' position is, that the relation it- 
 self is the crime — that the man is to be admonished 
 for having" the power to do wrong — that if, under 
 admonition, he does not repent and ^' bring forth 
 fruits meet for repentance," by immediately abdicat- 
 ing that power " at all hazards ^^^ he is to be excom- 
 municated. The only exceptions to this rule which 
 he would admit, are such exceptions as w^ould be 
 admitted in regard to drunkenness, falsehood and 
 gaming. In other words, there is to be no exception ; 
 for that Mr. Phelps can imagine a case in which a 
 drunkard, a liar, or a gamester, who refuses to re- 
 pent and reform after due instruction and admoni- 
 tion, ought not to be excommunicated, is what my 
 respect for him will not permit me to believe. 
 
 To prevent any misunderstanding it seems proper 
 to say expressly, that Mr. Phelps' letter was written 
 with no view to publication, and w^ith no intention 
 of engaging in a reply to these articles of mine. I 
 have made this quotation — not without first asking 
 and obtaining liis permission — because I knew not 
 in what other way I could so properly render what 
 he regards as justice to him. I have added the ex- 
 planation of my own view^s because it seemed no 
 more than justice to myself. 
 
 Dismissing, tlien, this mutual explanation between 
 Mr. Phelps and m3^self, I proceed to consider more 
 distinctly the general question Avhich has come up 
 between the Anti-Slavery Society and the Board of 
 Missions, and which is urged as a practical question 
 upon all the churches in the United States. What 
 is the natural and legitimate action of Christianity 
 8* 
 
IQQ THE COLLISION. 
 
 against slavery ? What should he done on this suh- 
 ject by the churches, administering and applying 
 the principles of Christianity to determine the ques- 
 tion of the visible Christian character of individuals 
 claiming recognition of Christ's followers 1 In other 
 words : What has church government to do with 
 slavery ? 
 
 Let us take this question as it actually arises in 
 the United States. Let us look at " slavery as it is" 
 in our own country, w4iere after all we have far 
 more to do with it than we have to do with slavery 
 in any other country. Tt may be presumed that 
 when we have answered the question in relation to 
 our ow^n country, so as to be sure that our answer 
 rests upon the right principles^ it will be easy enough 
 to answer the same question in regard to any other 
 country. 
 
 In fifteen of the twenty-eight States of this Union, 
 there exists in the structure of society a certain ar- 
 tificial relation between man and man, a relation of 
 power on the one hand and of dependence and sub- 
 jection on the other, which is the subject matter of 
 our present inquiry. The population of those States 
 is divided into two great classes, the free and the 
 enslaved, with a smaller intermediate class whicli, 
 under the established policy of most of those States, 
 is rapidly diminishing. The free are those of un- 
 mixed European blood, or of what passes for such. 
 The enslaved are of another race ; the great majority 
 being of pure African descent, and those of mixed 
 blood being counted with their African kindred. A 
 few of the enslaved race have acquired an imperfect 
 and precarious freedom hedged in with various dis- 
 
THE COLLISION. 
 
 167 
 
 abilities, and they constitute an anomalous class be- 
 tween the bond and the free. 
 
 The theory of society in ail that portion of the 
 Union, is that the state consists only of one class, 
 the free ; and that the enslaved race have no rights, 
 no being, as members of the body politic. The 
 state is considered as having its existence in and for 
 its white inhabitants only. Laws are enacted, 
 magistrates are chosen, justice is administered, so- 
 ciety itself exists, not with the remotest reference 
 to the welfare of the negro as an end, but only for 
 the protection and the interests of that part of the 
 population which belongs to what naturalists call 
 '^ the Caucasian variety'^ of the human species. If 
 certain forms and degrees of cruelty are prohibited 
 by the laws, it is not on the ground that the negro 
 has any human rights, but only as '^ cruelty to ani- 
 mals" is prohibited by the laws of every civilized 
 community, because it is offensive to human sensi- 
 bilities, and because it tends to brutalize the temper 
 and manners of the people. The theory of society 
 there regards the black population as in the state 
 but not of it. The state does nothing for their im- 
 provement or elevation ; it cares not for their morals ; 
 it takes no^cognizance of any of their wants as hu- 
 man beings. With the inconsiderable exception of 
 the anomalous class of free blacks, it knows them 
 only as property like other cattle. In the theory of 
 society — in the laws — and generally in the admin- 
 istration of law — they are regarded not at all as per- 
 sons, but only as chattels. In Virginia, I believe, 
 and perhaps under some other jurisdictions, the 
 state does not even hang a negro for murdering his 
 
168 THE COLLISIOX. 
 
 master, without first buying- him of the master's 
 heirs, and so making him public property for that 
 public use. 
 
 Accordingly, the law, throughout those States, 
 presumes every black man to be somebody's pro- 
 perty, till his exemption from the rule is made out 
 by positive evidence; just as elsewhere every horse, 
 every cow, every pig is presumed to have an owner, 
 and whoever pretends to be the owner is so unless 
 another claimant appears with superior evidence of 
 legal ownership. In most of those slave States, the 
 most stringent regulations make it well nigh impos- 
 sible for a slave to become a freeman ; and generally 
 the free individuals of the enslaved race were made 
 free long ago, before the present policy was fully 
 established. If a master abdicates his power over 
 his slave, the state concerns itself immediately to 
 put that slave under another master, by requiring 
 the sheriff to sell him sub hasta. 
 
 In other words, the structure of society through- 
 out that portion of the Union is such, that the state 
 refuses to take the African population under its pro- 
 tection or government. That entire moiety of the 
 population the state regards not as citizens, nor 
 even as its own subjects, but only as property be- 
 longing to citizens. It insists that every black shall 
 have a master, as his proprietor, and therefore his 
 protector and governor ; it guaranties to the master 
 all the physical force necessary to keep his slaves 
 in subjection ; it allows him to inflict almost any 
 punishment short of death at his own discretion ; it 
 interferes between him and his slaves only to prevent 
 certain extreme cruelties on the one hand, and on 
 
THE COLLISION. 169 
 
 the other to foihid those acts of indulgence and 
 beneficence which are considered inconsistent with 
 the permanence and security of the system. For 
 all that protection which every subject has a right 
 to expect from the government that is set over him, 
 and for nearly all that salutary control which it is 
 the business of civil government to exert over the 
 actions of its subjects, the black man must look not 
 to the state, but to his master. The master upon 
 his plantation is a petty monarch, with the powers 
 of an African or Oriental despot ; the negroes upon 
 his soil are his subjects. If he needs a military 
 force to suppress an insurrection of his subjects, or 
 to compel their obedience, the state comes to his 
 aid. If one of his slaves commits some crime par- 
 ticularly dangerous not to him only or tojiis planta- 
 tion, but to the public considered as consisting of 
 white men, the state takes the work of trial and 
 punishment into its own hands. If his administra- 
 tion of his power becomes in certain particulars too 
 oppressive, or in certain particulars too lax and 
 beneficent, the state counteracts that '^ evil exam- 
 ple '' by the infliction of penalties upon him. If he 
 abdicates his power, the state will commit that 
 power to some other person. The state considers 
 the blacks as a barbarous hostile population which 
 it utterly refuses to take under its protection ; and 
 it tolerates their existence within its boundaries 
 only on the condition that all the most essential 
 duties of government, in respect to them, shall be 
 performed by individuals sustaining towards them 
 the relation of proprietorship. 
 
 Such is the system of society— the structure and 
 
170 THE COLLISION. 
 
 arrangement of civil relations— which in fifteen of 
 these United States is established under the name 
 of slavery. The institution is entirely and essen- 
 tially barbarous. No form of government on earth is 
 more at war with every just conception of the nature 
 of man and of liis rights as a member of society. 
 All that I know of the ordinary operation of this 
 form of government, in its influence on industry, on 
 morals, on all the interests of the individual and of 
 the commonwealth, is in harmony with its theory. 
 And in proportion to the progress of civilization 
 among the enslaved portion of society, the intrinsic 
 wickedness of that mode of government becomes 
 more glaringly evident, and more offensive to the 
 moral sensibilities of mankind. The system of ar- 
 rangements for the government of the negroes was 
 established long ago, Avhen the ancestors of those 
 negroes, captured in the ambushes and fights of 
 hostile tribes on the banks of the Zaire and the 
 Gambia, were introduced by crowded shiploads into 
 dependent and feeble colonies under the relentless 
 legislation of the mother country. In that age those 
 arrangements might have seemed to be excused by 
 the plea that there was no other way of dealing with 
 savages so desperate, under the sense of recent en- 
 slavement, and so ignorant even of the language of 
 their masters; though even then they must have 
 been condemned, by a thoughtful sense of justice, 
 as inexcusable. But now the atrocity of those ar- 
 rangements stands out in strong relief against the 
 sky before the gazing world ; for now the negroes 
 are as native to the soil as their masters ; and not- 
 withstanding that tyrannical opposition to their im- 
 
THE COLLISION. 171 
 
 provement and progress which is kept np by the 
 state and generally by the individual masters, they 
 are slowly but steadily rising towards a level with 
 the superior race in all the essentials of civilization, 
 and are already as unlike the barbarians that were 
 brought from Africa, as the high-bred Virginian 
 lady, than whom, perhaps, there lives no specimen of 
 womanhood more admirable, is unlike her fair an- 
 cestor, warranted ^' incorrupt,'^ who was sold to a 
 planter husband some two hundred and thirty years 
 ago, for one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco. 
 The question before us is not whether the politi- 
 cal system which puts the black population of the 
 southern States into the power of individual mas- 
 ters, absolute and irresponsible, and which studious- 
 ly withholds from them all human rights, is con- 
 sistent with the law of God. Nor is it the question 
 whether the free people of those States, in their 
 sovereignty, ought to enter at once upon the long- 
 neglected work of reforming their barbarous institu- 
 tions. Nor are we to inquire here respecting the 
 duty of the slave — whether he owes any allegiance 
 to the state which refuses to protect him or to re- 
 cognize him as a man — whether in all circumstances 
 he retains the right which our national legislation, 
 our diplomacy, and our last war with Great Britain 
 have challenged for all mankind, the right of expa- 
 triating himself and renouncing his allegiance to the 
 government under which he was born — whether, or 
 in what circumstances, he may rise up with his 
 brethren in bondage to throw off the yoke, to assert 
 their freedom, and to form a new constitution. Nor 
 have I any occasion here to answer the question 
 
172 THE COLLISION. 
 
 whether I may rightfully give shelter, andfoodj and 
 clothing to a fugitive from Virginia, and money to 
 help him on his way to Jamaica or to Canada.* 
 The only question is, What has Christianity to do 
 with the reformation of this whole order of things, 
 which is known by the name of slavery? And, in 
 particular, what has Christianity, in the form of 
 church government, to do in the business of setting 
 right the wrongs of so wicked a system of social 
 order ? 
 
 One of the embarrassments incident to this mode 
 of communicating with the public, is the necessity 
 of breaking np a discussion of an important and 
 complicated subject into weekly chapters, and thus 
 separating parts that ought to be presented in close 
 
 * An anonymous friend, who writes to me from New York, says, 
 " At this moment, I am called upon to aid a poor fugitive with his wife 
 and five children, who have escaped the were relation, having arrived 
 from Virginia last evening. As this is a case of frequent occurrence, 
 will Dr. Bacon please to indicate my duty in the next Evangelist 1" 
 
 The proposer of this case of conscience is probably capable of seeing 
 that his question has no bearing whatever on the subject of the present 
 discussion. Yet, that I may not seem to treat even the writer of an 
 anonymous letter with neglect, I will answer his question frankly. If 
 a " fugitive with his wife and five children" were to come to me with 
 the confession that he had run away from the mere relation of servitude, 
 and not from any unkind, oppressive or unchristian treatment on the 
 part of his master, and should ask mc to help him with money, I should 
 probably esteem that fugitive a shiftless vagabond ; I should tell him 
 that by his own showing he had no occasion to run away, and that if 
 he had expressed a reasonable desiie to emigrate to some other coun- 
 try, his master would doubtless have put him in the way of helping 
 himself instead of depending on charity : and I should probably reserve 
 my sympathy and my aid for those fugitives who run away from actual 
 and specific oppression. And if I should find that the case of this fu- 
 gitive from the mere relation of servitude is "a case of frequent occur- 
 rence," I should think much better of the masters, and much worse of 
 the slaves, than I now do. 
 
THE COLLISION. 173 ' 
 
 connection with each other. But to this disadvan- 
 tage I submit, for the sake of speaking to thousands 
 at once. The further discussion of the question, 
 this week, would make too long an article. I can 
 only indicate, as with a word, the intended course 
 of the discussion, asking the reader to wait patiently 
 till he is sure he understands me. 
 
 What has Christianity — what has the church to 
 do with slavery? JVothing — and yet everything. 
 In one sense — in one mode of action — nothing* In 
 another sense, and by another kind of influence, 
 everything. 
 
 NO. IV. 
 
 WHAT HAS CHURCH GOVERNMENT TO DO WITH SLAVERl^ 
 
 The question respecting what Christianity, and 
 particularly the Christian church, has to do with 
 forms of civil government, and with those relations 
 of man to man which exist in the structure of soci- 
 ety — is, at the present day, at least as important as 
 the question respecting what the state has to do with 
 Christianity. What the state has to do w^ith the 
 church, is pretty well understood in this country, 
 and is in the way to be understood throughout the 
 world. What the church has to do witli the state 
 is not, in all quarters, so well understood. And yet, 
 is it not self-evident that if, as we hold, the state is 
 to let the church alone, the church on the other 
 hand must let the state alone 1 The views which 
 I have been led to entertain on this subject, are 
 
174 THE COLLISION. 
 
 submitted to the public with diffidence, as my con- 
 tribution to the discussion of a great and comprehen- 
 sive question. 
 
 Moses, as God's messenger to a chosen race, es- 
 tabhshed, in the name of God, a system not of 
 morals merely, nor of religion, but of political order 
 and government. There is no religious institution 
 in the Old Testament which is not also political. 
 Lessons of morality, and of faitli and devotion, not 
 only in the Pentateuch, but generally in the Scrip- 
 tures of that dispensation, are given in the closest 
 combination with national history and municipal 
 regulations. The idea of a church distinct from the 
 civil state is not in the Old Testament. Conse- 
 quently, the system of the Old Testament was a 
 system incapable of extension in the world. It 
 was constructed for one nation only, and could not 
 be imparted to another. It was designed not for 
 man as man, but only for man as an Israelite in the 
 land of Israel ; and he, of any other race, who would 
 embrace the system and enjoy all its privileges, 
 must renounce his country and nation and become 
 an Israelite by adoption. The reasons of this di- 
 vine arrangement would be an interesting subject 
 of inquiry ; but the fact is all that concerns us at 
 present. 
 
 The Old Testament, then, is a political book ; as 
 really so, though not as exclusively, as the Federal- 
 ist, or Hallam's Constitutional History. Is the New 
 Testament, in this respect, like the Old? Does the 
 New Testament contain anything of the nature of 
 civil regulation? Does it lay down any principle 
 or rule with reference to political sul)jccts, such as 
 
THE COLLISION. I75 
 
 tlie structure of the state, the liberty of tlie indi- 
 vidual members of societ}^, the distribution of politi- 
 cal powers, the responsibility of rulers to the peo- 
 ple ; — or does it take all these things as it finds them, 
 and leave them, as it leaves the physical sciences 
 and arts, to take their chance with the general pro- 
 gress of human improvement ? Did Christ set him- 
 self up — was he announced by his apostles — as a 
 legislator for society, and a reformer of political in- 
 stitutions ? On the contrary, is it not one of the 
 most wonderful of the divine wonders in the char- 
 acter and history of our Saviour, that, pressed as he 
 was on every side by the politicians of that day, 
 Pharisees, Herodians, Sadducees ; by all the nation- 
 al feelings and impulses of the Jewish peoj)le, and 
 by the universally understood identity of politics 
 and religion — he so carefully and skillfully avoided 
 committing himself on any political question what- 
 ever. Is not the same thing in the conduct of the 
 apostles, and the primitive churches under their di- 
 rection, almost equally wonderful ? Christ's king- 
 dom, as announced by himself and his apostles, was 
 not of this world. The church had nothing to do 
 with the social or political relations of its members. 
 It had no concern with any movement towards the 
 re-organization of society. 
 
 I do not suppose that I am propounding a novelty, 
 or that what I am now saying is likely to be con- 
 tradicted by any for Avhom I write. And yet I 
 would have the reader dwell upon this peculiarity 
 of Christianity and of the Christian church, till he 
 shall see it with the same sense of its importance 
 which has been impressed upon my mind. The 
 
176 THE COLLISION. 
 
 New Testament shows us no Moses, standing before 
 Pharaoh to demand the emancipation of an oppressed 
 people — no Joshua, conquering a land of promise 
 and dividing it among the conquerors — no Samuel, 
 framing' new constitutions, and anointing kings in 
 God's name. But it shows us Paul in chains, now 
 reasoning with Felix, now answering before Nero ; 
 and Jesus of Nazareth, at the bar of Pilate, testify- 
 ing to the truth, and declaring, ^' My kingdom is not 
 of tliis world." Had Pilate been converted, would 
 Christ have required him to throw up his commis- 
 sion of procurator of Judea? Had Nero been con- 
 verted, would Paul, before admitting him to baptism, 
 have required him to abdicate his imperial power, 
 and to leave the nations of the Roman empire to 
 constitute themselves, if they could, into a great fed- 
 eral union of free republics ? 
 
 The system of the New Testament is, therefore, 
 capable of universal extension. It addresses itself 
 not to sovereigns or states as such, prescribing to 
 them new laws and political institutions, and sum- 
 moning them to launch upon the sea of revolution, 
 but to individuals, calling them to repentance. 
 All that it demands of states and governments, as 
 such, is toleration for itself — " freedom to worship 
 God." Thus it goes out into all the world, preach- 
 ing to every creature that will hear, commanding all 
 men everywhere to repent, and leaving all political 
 relations and institutions to adjust themselves as 
 they may — and as under God's providence they must 
 — to that altered state of things which exists wherev- 
 er the gospel prevails. 
 
 This is not only a distinction between Christiani- 
 
THE COLLISION. 177 
 
 ty and the system of the Old Testament ; it is equal- 
 1}^ a distinction between Christianity and all the 
 schemes of human wisdom for the redemption of the 
 world from misery. St. Simonism, Fourierism, So- 
 cialism, and all other isms of that kind, propose the 
 re-organization of society as their object ; for they 
 regard all the evil that is in the world as the effect 
 of bad S3^stems of government, bad laws, bad social 
 arrangements ; and they, therefore, have no doubt 
 that human nature will do well enough if it can be 
 relieved from the pressure of disadvantageous cir- 
 cumstances. Christianity bears no resemblance to 
 these projects. It simply proposes to make men bet- 
 ter — individual men — by inspiring them with new 
 ideas and new principles of action, so that instead of 
 being selfish they shall be benevolent, and instead 
 of wronging and oppressing one another they shall 
 recognize each other as brethren, and delight to do 
 each other good ; and it leaves these new ideas and 
 principles to work out their own effects upon the 
 structure of society. 
 
 Christianity, then, at the beginning, as announced 
 by Christ himself and his apostles, had nothing to 
 do in the way of interference with politics and le- 
 gislation. It did not undertake to reform or change 
 any man's condition as a member of society. And 
 yet that gospel which we find in the sermon on the 
 mount, in the Epistle to the Romans, in the story of 
 the crucifixion, was destined, and was in one sense 
 designed, to effect the greatest changes in the struc- 
 ture of society throughout the world. In the ideas 
 and principles proclaimed by Christ and his apos- 
 tles, and put on record in the Scriptures of the New 
 
178 THE COLLISION. 
 
 Testament, there came into the world a power, the 
 progress of which from age to age, and from land to 
 land, is the path of revolution. ^' Behold," saith 
 God in reference to the diffusion and victories of 
 the gospel — '^ Behold I make all things new." The 
 kingdom which is not of this world was destined to 
 change the world that knows it not ; as the changes 
 of unconscious nature, the tides, the winds, the sea- 
 sons with their bloom and their decay, are all effect- 
 ed by influences that are not of earth, but radiate 
 from other spheres. The propagation of those ideas 
 which constitute the gospel, their progressive ascen- 
 dency in the minds of men, their dominion over the 
 public sentiment of nations and of the world, was 
 to work out in the end the universal re-organization 
 of society — the recognition of the brotherhood of all 
 mankind as the only just basis of legislation — the 
 abolition of all unrighteous laws and of all those in- 
 stitutions founded on force and maintained by fraud, 
 which withhold from labor its due recompense — the 
 annihilation of all artificial restrictions upon indus- 
 try and commerce — the breaking of every yoke of 
 bondage — the subversion of every aristocracy and 
 every throne. 
 
 To some readers, all this may seem entirely aside 
 from the subject in hand. I feel that the complete 
 illustration and expansion of the suggestions I have 
 been making would require a volume instead of a 
 newspaper article ; and I can only hope that these 
 views will fiad some further explanation as I pro- 
 ceed. 
 
 It is notorious that when the apostles went abroad 
 through the Roman empire preaching the gospel 
 
THE COLLISION. I79 
 
 and gathering converts into churches, slavery — 
 that is, labor without wages, the bondage of the 
 laborer to the employer, labor performed under the 
 authority and power of a master — slavery involving 
 the master's property in the servant — was every- 
 where the ordinar}^ form of service. If that system 
 of slavery, as a system recognized and regulated by 
 law, was in some respects less atrocious than the 
 system which exists in our southern States, it was in 
 other respects more so. It was at once less atro- 
 cious and more atrocious than the system with which 
 w^e have to do, because the power of the individual 
 master was more nearly absolute, the state not troub- 
 ling itself to prevent either kindness or cruelty on 
 his part. The master could emancipate his slaves 
 if he pleased, and society did not refuse to receive 
 them as freemen. Or, Avithout emancipating them, 
 he could educate them to any extent to which either 
 kindness or avarice might prompt him; and, when 
 they were educated, he could turn their talents and 
 acquirements to account in almost any employment. 
 On the other hand, if he was disposed to be cruel, 
 there was no severity which he might not practice 
 towards those who, in the unpitying eye of Roman 
 law, were to him just what the captive is, by the 
 laws of savage war, to his Indian ca ;ior. The slave 
 was liable to any torture upon any caprice of suspi- 
 cion — liable to death in any form at his master's will, 
 without even the allegation of a crime. And as to 
 the numbers of the slaves, it is enough to remember 
 that the poor could sell their children or themselves 
 for bread — that kidnapped children and women, not 
 negroes only, but of every language and complexion, 
 
ISO THE COLLISION. 
 
 if carried to any considerable distance, could be sold 
 with almost certain impunity — that every swoop of 
 the imperial eagles, every plundered city, every con- 
 quered province swelled the myriads of the en- 
 slaved — that no triumph moved in glittering pomp 
 from the Campus Martius to the Capitol, which did 
 not glut the market with fresh herds of captives, ^i 
 How did the apostles, and the churches under 
 their personal instruction, conduct in respect to such 
 a structure of society? Did they demand directly, 
 everywhere, in God's name, the immediate and 
 universal abolition of slavery? Did they exclude 
 the master from communion simply for being a mas- 
 ter? Was the relation of a master to a bond-ser- 
 vant, without any consideration of the master's con- 
 duct in that relation, counted and treated as a crime? 
 I answer, without the least hesitation, J\'o. I have 
 given some serious attention, at various times, to the 
 arguments of those who try to answer. Yes ; but I 
 must confess, that whatever ingenuity there may be 
 in them, and whatever respect may be due to the 
 good intentions of their authors, they produce no 
 conviction on my mind. The evidence that there 
 were both slaves and masters of slaves in the churches 
 founded and directed by the apostles, cannot be got 
 rid of without resorting to methods of interpretation 
 which will get rid of anytliing. The violence put 
 upon the sacred records by High Churchmen, or by 
 Universalists, | does not exceed the violence with 
 which these men, to whom 1 would impute no lack 
 of reverence toward the Word of God, torture the 
 Scriptures into saying that which the anti-slavery 
 theory requires thejn to say. 
 
THE COLLISION. jgj 
 
 How then (many an anti-slavery reader will be 
 ready to ask) do I avoid the conclusion that the 
 Bible warrants and sanctions slavery? How? — 
 Simply by the all-sufficient consideration that the 
 Bible, not being given to the world as a book of 
 politics, and not undertaking at all to reform the 
 world by prescribing forms of government, or by rec- 
 tifying those political and civil relations which con- 
 stitute the structure of society, seeks only to recon- 
 cile men to God, illuminating them from on high, 
 and inspiring them one by one with principles of 
 righteousness and love, and leaves the whole matter 
 of civil and social improvement to the common sense 
 of men thus enlightened and renewed. The fact 
 that the Bible does not contradict the vulgar astrono- 
 my of the ages in which it was written, is impotent 
 if urged against tlie demonstrations of Newton and 
 Laplace. The fact that Jesus of Nazareth drafted 
 no declaration of independence for Judea, is impo- 
 tent as an argument against the self-evident truths 
 of the American Revolution. The fact that Paul 
 held no conventions, and uttered no protests, against 
 the political system under ^which, in his days, the 
 world was groaning, is impotent to prove that the 
 Roman empire was not a system of outrage against 
 right, and its history a history of inexpiable robbe- 
 ries and slaughters. Even so the fact that Christ and 
 his Apostles did nothing in the way of denunciation 
 or direct interference to abolish the relation of master 
 and slave, and to introduce the better system of free 
 labor for wages in its stead, is equally impotent to 
 prove that the enslaving of millions of human beings 
 in these United States, and their conversion by law 
 9 
 
132 THE COLLISION. 
 
 into mere chattels, robbed — so far as the state can 
 rob them— of every human right, is not an atrocity 
 fouler than the wrongs of Pharaoh against Israel, 
 and worthy to be — as it is — the scorn and indigna- 
 tion of the Avorld. 
 
 If it is the slaveholder who asks me how I avoid 
 the conclusion that the Bible warrants and sanctifies 
 slavery, I return the question to him. I put the in- 
 quiry to Governor Hammond and his associates in 
 the task of vindicating '^ the peculiar institutions" 
 of the south — Do you believe that the Bible warrants 
 and sanctions the slavery which exists in South Caro- 
 lina 1 Does your belief in the Christian religion 
 require you to believe that the system which con- 
 stitutes one-half of your human population mere 
 merchandise — chattels— things incapable of suffering 
 any injustice — is right before God, and ought to es- 
 cape all censure from the moral sense of Christen- 
 dom 1 Why ? This is the only answer — Slavery 
 existed in the Roman empire ; the apostles admitted 
 masters of slaves to communion in their churches ; 
 therefore slavery was right then ; therefore slavery 
 is right now, right in principle and right in the de- 
 tails ? Do you believe this, Mr. Hammond ? Then 
 you believe that the slavery which the Apostles saw 
 everywhere was right, for in this argument your be- 
 lief that the slavery which now exists at Charleston 
 is right, is only an inference from the righteousness 
 of the slavery w^hich existed eighteen hundred years 
 ago at Antioch and at Rome. You believe that 
 Christianity gave its Divine authority to sanction a 
 system by which all captives in war were slaves in 
 the hands of the captors, and were sold after a vie- 
 
THE COLLISION. jgg 
 
 tory like sheep in the market; — a system which en- 
 slaved not negroes only but men of every complex- 
 ion ; not savages only but men of the most civilized 
 races — the Jew with all the glory of his history and 
 his hopes, the Greek Avith all the beauty of Apollo 
 in his face and form, as well as the painted Briton 
 or the fair-haired Saxon ; not the degraded only, 
 born and trained to drudgery, but the refined and 
 cultivated, artists, poets, men of letters, as well as 
 '' field hands" and '^ house servants." You believe 
 that if Napoleon, when his armies were sweeping 
 Europe, had brought back with him to Paris from 
 each vanquished country, myriads of miserable cap- 
 tives to be sold as so much plunder, and among those 
 myriads high-born ladies prized for their deli- 
 cate and graceful beauty, [nobles torn from their 
 ancestral halls to be footmen on the carriages, and 
 cup-bearers at the banquets of the victors, artists 
 from the academies, and scholars from the universi- 
 ties, as well as mechanics from the towns and labor- 
 ers from the fields — that slaver}^ would have had its 
 warrant from the precepts of the gospel of love.* To 
 bring the argument nearer home — you believe that 
 if, in the contingencies of another conflict w^ith Great 
 Britain, your State should fall for a time into the 
 power of the enemy, and the prisoners hurried to 
 the ships from your cities and plantations, should be 
 transported to London and sold there as you sell 
 
 * This argument from the character of Roman slavery, and this par- 
 ticular illustration, are presented with great force (if I remember aright 
 what I read ten years ago) by Dr. Channing. I would have used his 
 language rather than my own, if his little work on slavery had been, at 
 the time of writing^ within my reach. 
 
134 THE COLLISION. 
 
 negroes, yonr wives and daughters for seamstresses 
 and chambermaids and children's nurses, your judges 
 and senators for attorne3^s' clerks, your merchants 
 and bankers for book-keepers and household ste\v- 
 ards, your men of literature and science for private 
 tutors, and your sporting gentlemen for grooms and 
 dog-whippers — Christianity would warrant and sanc- 
 tion the sale, and would rivet the chains forever upon 
 the limbs of all your chivalry. No ! you do not be- 
 lieve that the gospel of the Anointed One, who came 
 to preach glad tidings to the poor, deliverance to the 
 captive, and the opening of the prison doors to them 
 that are bound, is the warrant of negro slavery ; 
 and you deceive none but )^ourselves when you 
 say so. 
 
 But do I mean to say that the apostles, on the 
 principle of not meddling with questions of a politi- 
 cal nature, permitted men bearing the Christian 
 name to treat their fellow-men as chattels, buying 
 and selling them like cattle, and driving them like 
 cattle with tbe whip? Do I hold that the apostles, 
 and the churches under their teaching, recognized as 
 believers and members of the body of Christ, men 
 who arbitrarily and violently separated children from 
 parents and wives from husbands, or who in any 
 way disregarded the human rights of those whom 
 the structure of society had placed as slaves under 
 their control ? No ! — no ! — a thousand times, M ! 
 Every passage of the New Testament which shows 
 that there were slaves and masters in the churches 
 of that age, and that the Apostles did not undertake 
 to abolish the relation by authority, shows also that 
 in that relation the master was to commit none of 
 
THE COLLISION. Ig5 
 
 these acts of wickedness. If I had reason to think 
 that what I am writing would find its way to the 
 south, to any considerable extent, I w^ould go into 
 the particular examination of the passages referred 
 to. But I am writing for readers who, I am sure, 
 will not challenge me to the proof when I say that 
 in the primitive churches there was no more distinc- 
 tion between the master and the slave, on account of 
 that relation, than there is in one of our churches 
 between the householder and bis hired man, or be- 
 tw^een the master mechanic and his journeyman ; 
 that a master who should be convicted of treating 
 his slaves, converted or unconverted, otherwise than 
 as the law of God requires every man to treat his 
 neighbor, would meet with prompt rebuke and cen- 
 sure ; and that the question in regard to a master's 
 government and usage of his servants would be, not 
 what does the law of slavery permit him to do, but 
 what does the law of love plainly require him to do. 
 This, then, I understand to have been the apos- 
 tles' method of dealing with slavery. They sum- 
 med up the ethics of Christianity in the law of love ; 
 but many particular applications of that law were 
 left, as of course they must be, to the common sense 
 of individuals. The man who, professing to believe 
 in Christ and to be governed by Christian principles, 
 showed in his conduct that he was governed su- 
 premely by selfish passions — whether the love of 
 pleasure or the love of gain, the love of ease or the 
 love of power — was disowned as not having the spi- 
 rit of Christ. The rich man and the poor man, the 
 master and the slave, w^ere tried by the same rule. 
 No sumptuary laws were prescribed to limit the ex- 
 
186 THE COLLISION. 
 
 penditures of the rich ; no tithing or per centum wvis 
 levied on his income, in the name of charity, by rule ; 
 how he should spend, and how he should give, it 
 was for his discretion to determine ; but if his con- 
 duct in these respects was such as to demonstrate a 
 supremely selfish disposition, he was of course re- 
 jected. It was not prescribed to the poor what stand 
 they should take for the assertion of their political 
 rights, what employments they should follow, or 
 how many hours should be a day's work ; but if the 
 poor attempted to throw themselves upon the church 
 for support, and to live in idleness and as scandal- 
 mongers, under pretence of devotion and religious 
 zeal, the rule was, '' He that will not work, neither 
 let him eat." The slave was not instructed nor 
 stimulated to run away and try his capacity of self- 
 government and self-support ; nor was he told that 
 the gospel was his master's warrant for oppressing 
 him ; but he was expected to act, even in his servi- 
 tude, from Christian principles, glorifying God, and 
 if his conduct toward his master, or toward any other 
 person, betrayed the dominion of a selfish spirit, 
 Christ and the church had no part in him. So the 
 master was not required to begin his Christian pro- 
 fession by dissolving the relation between himself 
 and his slaves, renouncing his authority and tutel- 
 age over them, and placing them out of his govern- 
 ment and protection— though that was practicable 
 under the Roman law ; hut if, retaining them under 
 his power, he treated them as his cattle rather than 
 as his fellow-men, immortal and responsible like 
 himself, and like himself redeemed with the blood 
 of Christ — if they were to him the mere instruments 
 
THE COLLISION. 137 
 
 of his indolence, his luxury, or his gains — if he did 
 not consider h\s power over them as a trust ratlier 
 than a possession, commiUed to him, in the arrange- 
 ments of Providence, for their present and eternal 
 welfare rather than for his worldly weahh — if his 
 conduct toward them indicated the ascendency of 
 selfishness over conscience and love — then for those 
 specific things, whatever they were, which were the 
 indications of an unchristian character, he was liable 
 to censure in the form of admonition and rebuke; 
 and when admonition and rebuke were ineflfectual 
 upon him, he became to the brotherhood '' as a 
 heathen man and a publican." 
 
 I give out no challenge. I have no expectation 
 of being drawn into a vindication of my suggestions 
 in these essays, against any unfavorable judgment. 
 But I am confident that this representation of what 
 the Apostolic Christianity had to do with slavery, 
 is that which accounts for all the phenomena of the 
 New Testament records on the subject, and is that 
 which neither the defenders of slavery on the one 
 hand, nor the asserters of the anti-slavery formula 
 on the other, can set aside. In this view of the New 
 Testament teachings, I think we have the key which, 
 if rightly used, will unlock the difficulties of the 
 subject. The example of the apostles is our safest 
 guide in the administration of church government 
 over the masters of slaves. 
 
 Not to be misunderstood in any quarter, is more 
 than I dare to hope for. Yet let me ask the impa- 
 tient reader, ready to denounce me for daubing with 
 untempered mortar, not to be too impatient, but to 
 contain himself, if he can, till next week, and read 
 
188 THE COLLISION. 
 
 NO. 
 
 SHALL WE FOLLOW THE APOSTLF^S IN THEIR ADMINISTRATION OF 
 CHURCH GOVERNMENT OR SHALL WE TRY TO DO BETTER ? 
 
 It is plain to me that in some particulars the con- 
 duct of the apostles respecting slavery, is not an ex- 
 ample for us. Our political position, as citizens, 
 authorizes us to act as the apostles did not act, and 
 as they could not act consistently with common 
 sense. They, as subjects of the Roman government, 
 had no political power or responsibility ; and they 
 acted accordingly. If we were situated as they were, 
 it would be wise to do as they did. But we call our- 
 selves freemen, in a free country. We may demand 
 of our fellow-citizens, whose equals we are, and with 
 whom we share in the sovereign power of the State 
 in which we reside, such measures, Avithin the legiti- 
 mate power of the State, as are suited to effect the 
 peaceful abolition of slavery at the earliest practica- 
 ble date. We may demand of the government of 
 the United States, in which we have a voice as citi- 
 zens of the Union, that in all its legislation, in all 
 its diplomacy, and in all its judicial and administra- 
 tive proceedings, so far as its legitimate powers ex- 
 tend, man shall be recognized as man, w^ithout re- 
 gard to his complexion. We may demand that 
 where the jurisdiction of the United States is abso- 
 lute and " exclusive," as in the District of Columbia, 
 and in territories not yet organized with legislative 
 bodies of their own, all those law^s which constitute 
 the system of slavery, and by the force of which a 
 
THE COLLISION. Ig9 
 
 portion of the population are made mere chattels in 
 the possession of irresponsible masters, shall be swept 
 away. We may demand that the custom-house 
 shall recognize no human being as a piece of mer- 
 chandise, and that no slave, as such, shall be entered 
 upon the manifest of a ship's cargo. We may de- 
 mand that all slaves passing forth, upon the high 
 seas, with their masters' consent, beyond the juris- 
 diction of the local laws that make them slaves, shall 
 be free b}^ the laws of the Union, as they are free by 
 the law of nations. And in a country like ours, 
 where thought and speech are free, where every- 
 thing may be brought to the ordeal of discussion, 
 and where the deliberately formed opinions of the 
 people, as shaped by free inquiry and debate, are 
 sure to control, in time, the course of legislation and 
 of government, we may address ourselves to the 
 public in behalf of such an object, singly or in as- 
 sociation, through the press or in the popular assem- 
 bl}^, or in any way in which we can obtain a favor- 
 able hearing. We, as American citizens in this nine- 
 teenth century, have many things to do which the 
 apostles, in their age, and in their position as sub- 
 jects of the despotism by which the world was gov- 
 erned, could not dream of doing. 
 
 But some will ask. Is not the conduct of the apos- 
 tles, in this respect, an example for ministers of the 
 gospel, though not for men in other employments ? 
 Undoubtedly, so far as ministers of the gospel are in 
 political relations like those in which the apostles 
 acted, they will do well to follow the example of the 
 apostles. If a minister of the gospel is called to perform 
 his ministry in a country where he is a mere subject, 
 9* 
 
190 THE COLLISION. 
 
 and not a citizen, and where he has no political rights 
 or functions, it will be best for him not to meddle 
 with political questions at all. But if he is a free 
 citizen of a republic, and as such shares in the re- 
 sponsibility of popular sovereignty, the example of 
 the apostles in abstaining from questions of legislation 
 and politics, is obviously no example for him. His 
 duty as a citizen, and how it is modified by his duty 
 as a minister of the gospel, he must ascertain for 
 himself, by the light of general principles, in the ex- 
 ercise of his own common sense. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the apostles, in their 
 preacliing, meddled at all with any political question, 
 or any point of legislation. We have no reason to 
 think that their oral discourses differed in this re- 
 spect from their epistles. They required of masters, 
 not kindness merely, but — what is of far more sig- 
 nific^ncy— justice, toward their servants.* They 
 required of servants fidelity towards their masters. 
 But in respect to the abolition of slavery, and in re- 
 spect to measures and arrangements tending towards 
 that end, they said notliing. Are we, therefore, who 
 are now ministers of the gospel in the United States, 
 bound to keep silence on the subject of slavery, save 
 as we reiterate the teachings of the apostles on the 
 relative duties of masters and slaves? I think not. 
 We are American citizens ; and our hearers are 
 American citizens. Not only do we stand in a dif- 
 ferent position from that in which the apostles stood, 
 
 * A man may be kind, as language is ordinarily used, toward his 
 dog, or his horse ; he can he just only toward his fellow-men ; for just- 
 ice implies rights. 
 
THE COLLISION. 19ji 
 
 but our hearers live, as it were, in another universe 
 from that in which the hearers of the apostles lived. 
 Our hearers are men to whom is entrusted the wel-' 
 fare of their country, and all coming generations ; 
 their moral and intellectual character as affected by 
 the ministration of the Word of God, is one element 
 of the power that controls laws and institutions, and 
 determines all questions of public policy. So far as 
 political questions are at the same time moral — ques- 
 tions of right and wrong, questions of the application 
 of the law of love — so far it will be impossible for a 
 free and faithful minister of Christ, rightly dividing 
 the word of truth, entirely to avoid them. To keep 
 such a question as that of slavery out of the pulpit, 
 in such a country as this, must be impossible, as long 
 as the pulpit is faithful to its trust in quickening the 
 moral sensibilities, and in forming and guiding the 
 moral judgments of those who sit under its influence. 
 In a country where the question of war and peace, 
 in a given emergency, is to be determined by the 
 voices of the citizens, if the pulpit does not breathe 
 into the minds of those who sit under it a just Chris- 
 tian abhorrence of war as a means of settling inter- 
 national disputes, the pulpit virtually defiles itself 
 with blood. So in a country of free speech and 
 thought, where millions of human beings are con- 
 verted by law into chattels, and are treated as having 
 no human rights, if the pulpit never, in any way, 
 leads the hearers of the gospel to feel that, as citi- 
 zens partaking in the sovereignty of the republic, 
 they have something to do for the reformation of 
 such injustice, it is so far recreant to the ends for 
 which it exists ; it abandons a great moral question 
 
192 THE COLLISION. 
 
 to be determined by the low influences of selfish par- 
 tisan politics. The preaching is not worth much, 
 which does not help men to understand and feel 
 what God would have them do in all their moral re- 
 lations. 
 
 It is not necessary for me here to remark the limi- 
 tations which a sound discretion imposes on the dis- 
 cussion of such questions in the pulpit. The man 
 who has not common sense enough to avoid, in the 
 pulpit, the agitation of certain questions of mere 
 policy, which the legitimate application of the law 
 of love leaves undetermined — still more the man 
 who has not common sense enough to avoid ques- 
 tions merely personal, such as the merit or demerit 
 of particular candidates for office — the man who 
 makes his pulpit a place for repeating on the Lord's 
 day, the substance of what he has been reading 
 through the week in a partisan newspaper — the man 
 who has a political hobby-horse which he rides in 
 every sermon — will hardly learn much from any- 
 thing that I can say to set him right. What I am 
 insisting upon is not that ministers shall make them- 
 selves leaders in the strifes of political partisanship 
 — not that the people shall go to church on Sunday 
 to learn which ticket they must vote on Monda)^ — 
 but only that the absolute silence of the primitive 
 preachers of the gospel, respecting the legislation 
 and policy of the Roman empire, imposes no obliga- 
 tion on their successors in the United States, at the 
 present day, to maintain the same silence respecting 
 the legislation and policy of this country. We are 
 not bound to follow even the apostles, blindly, but 
 only as we see the principles on which they acted, 
 
THE COLLISION. jqq 
 
 and tlie application of those principles to our duties, 
 in our relations. Cliristianity is not a religion of 
 forms, or of merely specific regulations, but a religion 
 of affections and of principles. 
 
 How is it, then, in regard to the administration of 
 church discipline ? Is the example of the apostles, 
 in this respect, obligatory upon us 1 I answer. The 
 principles upon which tlie apostles, and the churches 
 under their personal direction, acted in respect to 
 the admission and exclusion of individuals asking 
 to be recognized as Christians, are principles which 
 we cannot refuse to follow without rejecting the 
 authority of the apostles. What are those princi- 
 ples ? And in particular, what are the principles on 
 which they acted in respect to the admission of mas- 
 ters and slaves to membersliip in the church ? If 
 they acted upon the principle that the mere relation 
 of a master to his slaves, without considering his con- 
 duct in that relation, is irreconcilable with a Chris- 
 tian profession, and is therefore to be renounced '^ at 
 all hazards ;" then we must adopt that principle and 
 act accordingly, or else we must deny their authori- 
 ty. If, on the other hand, they evidently rejected 
 that principle — if they recognize masters of slaves as 
 believers — if when insisting on the duties of a master 
 toward his slaves they never insist on an immediate 
 legal emancipation — then it is quite plain to me that 
 the master of a slave, simply for being such, if that 
 is all that can be alleged against him, ought not to 
 be excluded from communion in our churches, unless 
 we can do better than the apostles did. 
 
 Can we, then, do better than they did 1 Setting 
 aside their example, as not binding us to do likewise 
 
194 THE COLLISION. 
 
 — admitting that, through ignorance or inadvertence, 
 or under the pressure of peculiar circumstances, the 
 apostles and the churches under their personal direc- 
 tion may possibly have done that, in relation to sla- 
 very, which we ought not to do — let us inquire for 
 ourselves, whether there is any sufficient reason, on 
 what we recognize as Christian principles, for ex- 
 communicating every master of slaves, simply be- 
 cause he is a master. 
 
 At the risk of becoming wearisome by so much 
 iteration, I must once more ask the reader not to 
 misunderstand me, for I have the best reason to 
 know that there are readers who have not yet ap- 
 prehended the palpable distinction upon which I 
 am insisting in all these articles. My doctrine is, 
 that if the master of slaves refuses to recog-nize 
 those slaves as his brethren of the human famil}^ — 
 if he regards them and treats them not as his fellow- 
 men, for whose welfare he is in God's providence 
 responsible, but as his property merely, his chattels, 
 which he has a right to use as he pleases — if he does 
 not use his power over them conscientiously, as a 
 trust committed to him for their good — he is to be 
 rejected by the church, because he does not deal with 
 his servants according to the spirit of the law of love, 
 and the positive precepts of the New Testament. 
 That my doctrine is sound, so far as it goes ; that 
 the church has a right — nay, that it is bound to act 
 upon my doctrine — is not in dispute. The question 
 is whether the church has a right to go farther, and 
 to demand of the master, under pain of excommu- 
 nication, that he, shall ** at all hazards" dissolve 
 the connection between himself and his slaves, shall 
 
THE COLLISION. I95 
 
 divest himself of all power to govern or protect them, 
 and shall leave them wholly and immediately to 
 their own capacity of self-control, and to the tender 
 mercies of a State that regards them as barbarians 
 and as enemies. 
 
 On this question, I hold the negative ; and the 
 Anti-Slavery Society, as popularly and naturally 
 understood, holds the affirmative. To put the ques- 
 tion, and the reasons why I hold the negative, in a 
 clear light, I will state not an extreme case, nor an 
 imaginary one, but an actual instance of slavehold- 
 ing. I have in my mind's eye a slaveholder whom, 
 as I understand his character, no church has any 
 right to exclude from its communion. There are 
 obvious reasons why it should be improper for me 
 to name liim, or identify him before the public in 
 any such way as would make him a subject of dis- 
 cussion in this part of the country or of jealousy 
 among his neighbors. I know that such slaveholders 
 as he are rare ; but I would hope that there are 
 more than one ; and I trust that no individual will 
 be designated, either here or at the south, as the 
 only man between the Potomac and the Gulf of 
 Mexico to whom my description can be applied. 
 
 The gentlemam whom I have in view found him- 
 self, on coming of age, the lord of a plantation, and 
 the master of (we will say) a hundred slaves. The 
 plantation was his birth-place and the scene of his 
 childhood ; but he had been absent many years, as 
 is often the case with southern young men sent to 
 the north for an education ; and at the age of twen- 
 ty-one he returned to his home to take the control of 
 his property, with a mind enlarged by liberal studies, 
 
196 THE COLLISION. 
 
 and with a heart quickened, I doubt not, by the 
 grace of God. Thong-h a hereditary slaveholder, he 
 inherited from his parents no passion for the vindi- 
 cation and maintenance of slavery ; and his educa- 
 tion in classical literature, his familiarity with history 
 and with the lessons of political and moral science, 
 his intercourse with liberal and enlightened men, 
 and his personal observation of the effects of freedom 
 upon the industr}^, intelligence and morals of the 
 people, had inspired him with an intelligent and 
 determined dislike of the system with which his birth 
 had connected him. His mother and sisters had 
 their rights in the estate when it came into his pos- 
 session, but there was nothing in their views that 
 was likely to embarrass him in any desire or attempt 
 to do justice to the slaves. 
 
 Great was the joy of the negroes at seeing their 
 own master among them ; for they trusted that they 
 were no longer to be under the control of adminis- 
 trators, or agents, or '' hirelings whose own the sheep 
 are not." Many were the greetings of old women 
 who had borne him in their arms when he was an 
 infant or had fanned him as he slept in his cradle — 
 of old men who had been the confidential servants 
 of his father long before '^ young master " was born, 
 and of young men with whom he had played when 
 they were little children together. But to him it 
 was a day of sad and serious thought. What would 
 God have him to do? — was the question. Had it 
 been in his power to convert those slaves into a free 
 peasantry, he would have done so, but that it was 
 impossible for him to do. The State, in all the 
 power which it had given him over those people, 
 
THE COLLISION. iQ'j 
 
 had given him no power to confer such a blessing 
 upon them. What, then, was he to do? He had 
 dehberated in his thoughts on the plan of removing 
 them to some northern State, or to Africa, that 
 there they might be free. But, while he felt that in 
 that way he could soon rid himself of a painful care 
 and burthen, and while he knew that the sale of his 
 lands without the slaves would enable him to live 
 in easy circumstances at the north ; he was not 
 convinced that the welfare of the slaves, or the wel- 
 fare of the country, would be promoted on the 
 whole, by such an arrangement. His conscientious 
 conclusion was that the law of love — duty to those 
 slaves— duty to his neighbors and their slaves— duty 
 to his native State and to his country at large—re- 
 quired him to accept the trust which in the provi- 
 dence of God had been devolved upon him, and to 
 fulfill that trust to the best of his ability. Accord- 
 ingly he remains a slaveholder to this day. 
 
 I have been upon that man's plantation, and have 
 had various means and opportunities of becoming 
 acquainted with the system on which he is acting, 
 and with his views in pursuing that system. It 
 might not be right for me, without his consent, to 
 attempt a description of the system in its details ; 
 and indeed my memory, unaided by any written 
 document, might not be sufficiently exact for that 
 purpose. A mere outline of the principles by which 
 he is guided in performing Avhat he regards as his 
 duty will be sufficient. The idea which lies at the 
 basis of his conduct in respect to his slaves, is not 
 the idea that they are his chattels, and that he may 
 use them as a northern farmer uses his oxen, for his 
 
198 THE COLLISION. 
 
 own ends without an}^ regard for tlieir welfare ; it is 
 the contrary idea tliat they are liis fellow-men, de- 
 pendent on him for all that protection and control' 
 which a good government ought to exert over suh- 
 jects so weak and helpless as they are. If the State 
 would have permitted him to pay them wages for 
 their work, and then to require them to provide their 
 own supplies, I have no doubt he would have done 
 so long ago. But not being able to do what he would 
 he did the best that he conld. Each family on his 
 plantation has its house, with a certain amount of 
 suitable furniture; its little plot of ground to be cul- 
 tivated by the members of the family for their own 
 pleasure or profit ; its regular supplies of provisions, 
 according to the number of the family ; its new suits 
 of clothing, at stated intervals, for man, woman and 
 child ; and its medicines and medical aid in sick- 
 ness. In lieu of all that the free operative would 
 pay for these accommodations out of his wages ; and 
 in lieu of all militia service, and all town, county 
 and State taxes, each slave — for to them the master 
 stands in the place not only of landlord and employ- 
 er, but of town, county and State government — per- 
 forms a certain daily task amounting to something 
 more than half a day's labor. The remainder of the 
 day they employ at their own discretion in their gar- 
 dens or their houses, or in a field whicli the men are 
 permitted and encouraged to cultivate in common on 
 the plan of a joint stock company. The products of 
 all this portion of tlieir labor are their own— their 
 'peculium ; and when they have anything to sell of 
 their own raising, they have their choice to sell it to 
 their master, if he wants it, or to send it to a neigh- 
 
THE COLLISION. I99 
 
 boring market town. Their money, thus acquired, 
 they expend for what they value as hixurics or com- 
 forts, or they hoard it for some future use they know 
 not what. Their master told me that if in any 
 emergency he should want to borrow a thousand dol- 
 lars, and should be sure of being able to repay it 
 speedily, he had no doubt he could raise that amount 
 upon his personal credit among his slaves. 
 
 All the arrangements which I have mentioned 
 were made, not in mere good nature towards the 
 slaves, nor simply as the most economical system of 
 management, but as part of a system of measures 
 and influences for their improvement. There was 
 much pains-taking by their master and by the ladies 
 of the family, to inspire the people with the tastes 
 and wants of civilization. There was a school for 
 the children, where they had been taught to read, till 
 some alarm in the country had compelled the teach- 
 ers to confine themselves to other methods of instruc- 
 tion. Every evening, at a stated hour, the people 
 of the little village were assembled in a room which 
 served as chapel, where their master read the Scrip- 
 tures to them and led them in worship. Once every 
 week, besides the Sabbath services in which the 
 whites and blacks of several plantations were united, 
 the pastor of the church in the neighborhood preach- 
 ed to my friend's people in a style suited to their 
 capacity ; and they were even then beginning to like 
 his preaching better than the noisy rant they had 
 been used to, because it was instructive, or because 
 in their phrase, they could get hold of it better. Their 
 labor was stimulated, as I have shown, not by the 
 slavish incitement of fear, but by the manlike im- 
 
200 THE COLLISION. 
 
 pulses of hope and gain. The obedience required of 
 them was felt to be obedience to salutary laws rather 
 than to despotic will. Punishment, of whatever kind 
 or degree, was inflicted, not as the master's wrath 
 because his interests were neglected, but as the exe- 
 cution of law against what the conscience recognized 
 as crime. Nor were crimes punished without the 
 formality of a trial. And to develop and strengthen 
 the sentiment of justice among the slaves some rudi- 
 ments of trial by jury had been introduced into the 
 administration of government over tliem. 
 
 Enough has been said, perhaps, for my purpose, 
 but I want the whole case fairly stated. It is to be 
 acknowledged, then, that the people on my friend's 
 plantation do not consider themselves free ; they are 
 not free, they are slaves. The discipline on his 
 plantation is not lax, but strict ; his people are in 
 every respect orderly, and are obliged to be so. It is 
 to be acknowledged, also, that he makes money out 
 of the labor of his slaves — more than most masters 
 make on the same soil, who treat their slaves like 
 cattle — though much less, I doubt not, than the China 
 merchants of New York make out of the labor of 
 their seamen, and less than the manufacturers on 
 the Naugatuc make out of the labor of their well-paid 
 operatives, and less than he might make if he should 
 sell them all, and invest the proceeds in stock of the 
 proposed railway between New York and New Ha- 
 ven. If it be asked whether he communes with his 
 servants at the Lord's table, I am compelled to con- 
 fess that he docs not, for the reason that he is a 
 Presbyterian, and they being Baptists, will not admit 
 him to communion. 
 
THE COLLISION. 
 
 201 
 
 Here, then, is a slaveholder — a voluntary slave- 
 holder — one, who in the exercise of his free agency, 
 accepts and sustains ''the relation of master to those 
 whom the law makes slaves;" and the question is. 
 Shall he be cut off from the church simply because 
 he stands in this relation ? 
 
 It may be argued that this man's policy is alto- 
 gether mistaken — that by the kindness and justice 
 of his administration, as a master, he is doing nothing 
 for the anti-slavery cause, but is enabling such men 
 as I am to 'apologize for slavery ' — that if he would 
 embrace the doctrine of immediate emancipation, 
 and make his slaves free by a formal act at all haz- 
 ards, or if he would remove them to the north or 
 west, and make them free in a land of strangers, he 
 would do much more good than he is now doing — 
 that if he were to treat his slaves w^ith the utmost 
 cruelty, starving them into skeletons, scourging them 
 to laceration, washing their stripes with aqua-fortis, 
 hunting them out of their refuges with bloodhounds, 
 he would be actually doing more than he is now 
 doing to hasten the downfall of the system. I will 
 not go into that argument, for it is not at all to the 
 purpose. Admitting that the man errs in judgment, 
 you cannot prove that he errs guiltily. Whether he 
 is wise or unwise, he is, beyond dispute a believer in 
 Christ ; he takes the Holy Scriptures for his rule of 
 faith and practice ; the law of love is written on his 
 heart by the spirit of God : whatsoever he would 
 that men should do to him, he is doing even so to 
 them. He has found these black "neighbors" who 
 long ago, on the highways of this wicked and plun- 
 dering world, had fallen among thieves, and had suf- 
 
202 THE COLLISION. 
 
 feied divers grievous wrongs, and bad been left more 
 than balf dead ; he is treating them with compassion, 
 binding up their wounds, and pouring in oil and 
 wine ; he is putting them upon his own beast, and 
 taking them to the inn. You may denounce him as 
 a Samaritan because he rejects your formula ; you 
 may say that his treatment is not judicious, that his 
 surgery is old-fashioned, and will never result in a 
 cure ; that he ought to use your patent nostrums, your 
 hydropathic bandages, your homeopathic powders, 
 your 'magical pain extractor,' and that if you had 
 the patients in hand, you would cure them all in 
 half an hour. All this may be as you say, I will not 
 dispute it ; but after all the man is a good Samari- 
 tan ; he is neighbor to the poor negroes that had 
 fallen among thieves ; and there is neither principle 
 nor rule, in the New Testament, which authorizes 
 any church to exclude him from communion. 
 
 I need not deny that the cause of human liberty 
 and of human happiness — the great cause of God in 
 the world — would be more promoted, if the man of 
 whom I am speaking should follow the example of a 
 friend of his in the same county, who has removed 
 his slaves to a free State, and has discharged him- 
 self of all further responsibility in respect to them. 
 But is this so plain and certain, so infallibly revealed, 
 that the man who does not see it may be censured 
 by the church, and excommunicated for not seeing 
 itl Who has not known many an instance in 
 which a patient, who might have recovered with 
 competent medical attendance, has died before his 
 time, because his friends had more confidence in 
 some advertising quack than in a scientific and skill- 
 
THE COLLISION. 203 
 
 ful physician ? Yet the church does not excommu- 
 nicate such persons. Why not 7 Because, plain as 
 the matter is to others, it is not plain to them ; and 
 it is not the province of the church to settle such 
 questions. The friends who called in the quack were 
 honest in so doing ; they did it in pure love for the 
 sufferer; they did it, praying for God's blessing; and 
 though life was sacrificed, the church does not in- 
 terpose with its censures. Questions of medical 
 practice are not to be decided by the clergy, or by a 
 church meeting. The Bible does not reveal God's 
 will upon that subject. Clear as it may be to some of 
 us that the policy which the man of v/hom I speak 
 has adopted is erroneous, there is no infallible judge 
 this side of Rome, to decide the question against his 
 conscientious judgment. 
 
 I say, then, charge upon the slaveholder some spe- 
 cific crime, and prove it. Show that he treats his 
 servants as mere property ; show that he does not 
 respect or guard their domestic relations ; show that 
 the chastity of their wives and daughters is not pro- 
 tected under his government ; show that he keeps 
 them in ignorance of God and of God's Word ; show 
 that he permits them to steal, to quarrel, to break 
 the Sabbath, so that they do not injure him ; show 
 even that he runs in debt on the credit of what they 
 would sell for if seized by the sheriff; and for any 
 such thing he may be admonished by the church, 
 and if he will not hear the church he may be ex- 
 communicated. But where has Christ given the 
 church authority to decide upon forms of govern- 
 ment, to proscribe political institutions, to adjust the 
 relations between rulers and subjects 1 
 
204 THE COLLISION. 
 
 NO. VI. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHURCH COUNTERACTING SLAVERY. HOW? 
 
 Suppose the gospel to be preached for the first 
 time in a civilized slave state — civilized in the same 
 degree in which the slave States of this Union are 
 civilized — civilization being carried as far as is com- 
 patible with a structure of society so essentially bar- 
 barous. Suppose tliat the gospel, as a revelation of 
 God's character and moral government, of the way 
 in Avhich sinners may be forgiven and saved, and 
 of those divine truths by the sj^iritual perception of 
 which the soul is renewed to holiness — is preached 
 without any particular exposition of its bearings on 
 the political institution of slavery, or even on the re- 
 lative duties of masters and slaves. On tlie one 
 hand, the consciences of the people have not been 
 sophisticated with atrocious arguments in defence 
 of slavery ; on the other hand, the intrinsic injustice 
 of the institution and the mischiefs which it works 
 upon the morals, the intelligence and the industry 
 of the community, have never been pointed out to 
 them. To that people the gospel is preached in its 
 principles — " repentance toward God and faith to- 
 ward our Lord Jesus Christ.^' The all-comprehend- 
 ing law, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
 thyself," is clearly announced as God's law for the 
 universe. The character of God, who ''hath made 
 of one blood all nations of men," and who "now 
 commands all men everywhere to repent, because he 
 hath appointed a day in which he will judge the 
 
THE COLLISION. 2Q5 
 
 world in righteousness " — is exhibited in all the illus- 
 trations of its glory, which the gospel affords. Christ 
 is " set forth evidently crucified," as '^ a propitiation 
 for the sins of the whole world." It is proclaimed 
 that '^ if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature," 
 and that in Christ — in the bonds of allegiance and 
 love to him, in the unity of communion with him — 
 all the distinctions which divide men, whether dis- 
 tinctions of race or language, of nation or condition, 
 are merged, and all are on one footing. These prin- 
 ciples, we will suppose, find audience ; and, by the 
 grace of God, they enter into some hearts with a 
 quickening power. How will they operate in re- 
 spect to slavery 1 
 
 The first effect of Christian principle on the mind 
 of a master toward his slaves, is to make him recog- 
 nize those slaves as his brethren of the human race, 
 who, though they may not be his equals in the eye 
 of the state, are his equals at the tribunal of God. 
 Not only is that natural instinct strengthened and 
 elevated, which prompts him to treat his servants 
 kindly, as he Avould his dogs or his cattle, because 
 they are his ; but he is made to feel that these ser- 
 vants, placed under his power and protection, are, 
 like himself, the subjects of God's government, ra- 
 tional and responsible ; that like him they are made 
 for immortality ; that like him, involved in the ruin 
 of a common apostacy from God, they are tiie ob- 
 jects of God's care and compassion, and of the re- 
 deeming love of One who gave himself a ransom for 
 all. He feels that in the sight of God he and the 
 meanest of his slaves are equal — equally worthless 
 as sinful creatures, equally precious as immortal 
 10 
 
206 THE COLLISION. 
 
 souls. He feels, within, the movement of the Spirit 
 of God's love, writing upon his heart and breathing 
 into his soul's life the law, " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself." The first impulse upon his 
 mind is that these poor people are his neighbors, and 
 must be treated accordingly ; that he must do them 
 good to the extent of his opportunities ; that he must 
 by all means make them acquainted with God and 
 with the way of salvation ; that the first of all his 
 duties to his fellow-men, is his duty to these wronged 
 and helpless creatures whose entire destiny, from 
 this time onward, is so much within his power. Can 
 he any longer treat these persons as things which, 
 having no rights, can suffer no injustice? Can he 
 treat them as merchandise, property, creatures made 
 to be bouglit and sold 1 Can he leave them in tlie 
 power of a mere hireling, a low and brutal overseer? 
 Can he refuse to acknowledge and protect the do- 
 mestic relations and affections which nature, too 
 strong to be entirely subverted by oppression, has 
 established among them ] Must he not begin to 
 treat them in all respects as men having the com- 
 mon rights of human nature? Must he not begin 
 to treat them in all respects as men made in God's 
 image, and redeemed from the wrath to come by 
 Christ's atoning sacrifice ? I am not speaking of 
 how a man may act, who has received Christianity 
 as a dead tradition including a divine warrant for 
 enslaving the "• cursed race of Ham." I am not 
 speaking of how a man may act who knows the gos- 
 pel only under the forms of a " hard-shell " Antino- 
 mianisQi. I am not speaking of what a Christian 
 man may do contrary to the principle of Christian 
 
THE COLLISION. 207 
 
 love, through inadvertence or under the power of 
 some special temptation. I only ask the reader to 
 imagine for himself the spontaneous operation of the 
 " new heart and new spirit " in a master of slaves ; 
 and I say that to him thus renewed by the gospel, 
 those slaves are no more things , inferior creatures, 
 whom he may use for his own pleasure or gain with- 
 out any regard to their welfare, but fellow-men who 
 are of as much worth in the sight of God as he is, and 
 whose welfare he is bound by God's law to value as 
 if it were his own. 
 
 Let us now extend our view somewhat. Instead 
 of a solitary master receiving the gospel and acting 
 under its impulses, without any aid or sympathy 
 from other minds around him, we have — let us say 
 — a dozen families living in habits of frequent ami- 
 cable intercourse. Into each of these families, dis- 
 persed to some extent among families of a very dif- 
 ferent character, the gospel has entered with some- 
 thing of its renewing power. These families con- 
 stitute a Christian congregation. The heads of these 
 families, sustaining similar relations to the enslaved 
 peasantry on their several plantations, as well as to 
 their several household circles, are under each 
 other's influence ; and as fellow-believers, they are 
 Avatching over each other " to incite to love and good 
 works." In their conferences and consultations, 
 their duties in the various relations of life come into 
 discussion, and are made the subject matter of mu- 
 tua exhortation, and among the rest, not last nor 
 least, their duties as masters, individually and col- 
 lectively. As Christian men, moved by the spirit 
 of Christ, they talk with each other about those slaves 
 
208 THE COLLISION. 
 
 of theirs, what shall be done for them ; and in all 
 their debates the slaves, instead of being regarded, 
 according to the theory of the laws, as inferior crea- 
 tures, beings without rights, mere property to be use^ 
 for the benefit of their owners, are regarded as men 
 whom God made in his own image, for his own ser- 
 vice, and for immortal blessedness, and whom Christ 
 has redeemed. And in this way, the influence 
 which the gospel has on each individual apart, to 
 make him feel that the slave is his brother and must 
 be treated accordingly, and to make him ask, ^' He 
 that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how 
 can he love God whom he hath not seen?" is 
 strengthened by the association and Christian sym- 
 pathies of the individuals with each other. Thus 
 w^e begin to see some rudiments of the legitimate 
 action of Christianity and the church against sla- 
 very. Christianity and the cliurch recognize the 
 slave as a man, an immortal spirit, a creature hav- 
 ing rights, his master's equal before God. 
 
 And as Christianity and the church extend them- 
 selves, slaves too begin to experience the quickening 
 power of the gospel. Here we have a new element. 
 In the church, tlie slave is not only a brother by the 
 tie of a common humanity, but a brother in Christ. 
 The master and the servant share in thoughts and 
 emotions, in experiences of infirmity and deliverance, 
 in joys and hopes, which place them on one level. 
 Both walking in faith and love, and breathing the 
 same spirit of adoption, both are alike the servants 
 of Christ and tiie freemen of the Lord. Consequent- 
 ly a new feeling of respect and affection springs up 
 in the mind of that master toward that servant. Nov 
 
THE COLLISION. 2Q9 
 
 IS this all. As religions instruction is communicated 
 to the slaves upon one plantation and another, and 
 as the fashion of teaching slaves the truths and duties 
 of Christianity spreads in the communitVj not only 
 is there an effect upon those who experience the full 
 power of the truth, but others partake in the move- 
 ment. The servants of Christian masters first, and 
 then to some extent the enslaved as a class, rise 
 gradually, but steadily, in the scale of intellectual 
 and moral being. And as they rise ; as they be- 
 come more intelligent, more cultivated, more civil- 
 ized ; as their higher human nature, in distinction 
 from their merel}^ animal instincts, is developed ; 
 their brotherhood in the human family is more dis- 
 tinctly felt on all sides, and demands a more formal 
 recognition. While this process of reformation in 
 the ideas and sentiments of the people is going for- 
 ward, the moment is steadily approaching in which 
 the laws will chronicle the change, and will acknow- 
 ledge the slave as a man, for whose welfare the State 
 is bound to provide, and whose inalienable human 
 rights the State is bound to protect. Whenever that 
 moment arrives, a new order of things — which had 
 been preparing itself as silently perhaps, and per- 
 haps as unsuspectedl}^, as some great process of cre- 
 ative nature — makes its appearance. The motion 
 on the dial-plate was slow — nay, imperceptible to 
 hasty and impatient eyes ; but meanwhile the unrest- 
 ing pendulum within, and the weights and wheels, 
 were doing their office unobserved. At last the clock 
 strikes twelve ; midnight is past, and though dark- 
 ness still lingers, the hours of a new day begin to be 
 numbered. 
 
210 THE COLLISION. 
 
 But such a result will not be attained, or at least 
 will be indefinitely postponed, unless Christianity is 
 dispensed and exhibited in the form of church disci- 
 pline. A lax administration of church discipline, in 
 respect to the conduct of masters towards their ser- 
 vants, will accomplish, more speedily and effectually 
 than can be done in any other way, the complete de- 
 gradation of Christianity, and will especially and 
 primarily counteract its legitimate operation against 
 slavery. Let us observe, then, how church discipline 
 will be administered in a slave State like that pre- 
 sented in our hypothesis — a state in which the gos- 
 pel has begun to be preached without an}^ pro-sla- 
 very or anti-slavery commentary, and in which there 
 have begun to be believers, both masters and ser- 
 vants, who have received the gospel, not as a tradi- 
 tion of dogmas and regulations, but as life in Christ 
 and in the Spirit of God. The answer, I think, can- 
 not be difficult to any man who understands what 
 effect the gospel produces on a mind regenerated by 
 its power. All will agree with me in affirming that 
 the administration of church discipline, in the cir- 
 cumstances represented by our hypothesis, will in- 
 clude the following particulars. 
 
 1. Members of the church, if they are masters of 
 servants whom the law regards as property only, and 
 whom the law therefore treats as having no personal 
 rights, will not be allowed by the church to regard 
 their serv^ants as the law regards them, or to treat 
 them as the law treats tliem. The master who buys 
 or sells his fellow-men for gain, or out of regard to 
 his own convenience merely, will be admonished, 
 and if he does not repent Avill be excommunicated ; 
 
THE COLLISION. 21J_ 
 
 and the consideration that the law permits him to do 
 so will no more be admitted as a justification, than 
 the parallel fact that the law of New York refuses 
 to recognize fornication or adultery as a crime, would 
 be admitted as a reason why the church may not 
 censure those who are guilty of such offences. The 
 master who disposes of his servants just as he would 
 dispose of any other property — giving- them away, 
 hiring them out, or otherwise using them simply for 
 his own ends, without regard to their wishes and 
 interests — will be admonished like any other offender, 
 and if admonition is ineffectual, will be excluded 
 from the communion of the saints. The master 
 who, because the law regards slaves as incapable of 
 acquiring or possessing property, will not allow his 
 servants to have anything which under his protection 
 and government they can call their own, who per- 
 mits them to have no time that is theirs, no earnings 
 or savings that are theirs, and who treats them in 
 no other way than as a humane man treats his cat- 
 tle, Vv^ill be dealt with by the church as one who 
 gives no evidence of being actuated by the spirit of 
 Christ. 
 
 2. The relation of master to servant, where ser- 
 vants are slaves, is one whicli involves constant 
 temptation to acts of passion and of injustice in the 
 administration of power. For all such acts a mas- 
 ter who professes to be a believer is accountable to 
 the church. The master of a ship at sea is intrust- 
 ed, necessarily, with a despotic power over the sail- 
 ors. All men know how liable that power is to be 
 misemployed, how many acts of cruelty are perpe- 
 trated on shipboard, in passion or caprice, or by the 
 
212 THE COLLISION. 
 
 deliberate abuses of the power committed to the mas- 
 ter. All men know, too, that if a shipmaster is a 
 member of a church, and there comes to that church 
 the report of any such offence on his part, the matter 
 will surely be investigated, and the offence, if proved, 
 w^ill be visited with appropriate censure. Just so in 
 a church which contains masters of slaves, and in 
 which Christianity has not become a tradition cor- 
 rupted by the expositions of such rabbis as Gov. 
 Hammond, every instance of passion or injustice in 
 the administration of the master's government, will 
 be the subject-matter of church censure. The church 
 will no more permit cruel or unjust punishments to 
 be inflicted on slaves whose master is responsible to 
 the church for whatever concerns his Christian char- 
 acter, til an it would permit a passionate and cruel 
 master to inflict the same punishments on hired ser- 
 vants or apprentices. 
 
 3. The church which goes to this extent in watch- 
 ing over such members as sustain the relation of 
 which we were speaking — and to this extent it must 
 go if it does not utterly dishonor the name of Christ 
 — will necessarily go farther. There are some ob- 
 vious positive duties, which a master in fellowship 
 with the church cannot be permitted to neglect. It 
 is not enough for him to abstain from direct personal 
 acts of cruelty and oppression ; the slaves have a right 
 to look to him for the blessings of good government 
 and protection, so far as it is in his power to dispense 
 such blessings ; they have a right to look to him, for 
 they can look nowhere else. The first of all their 
 rights as human beings living in society, a right 
 which transcends even their right to personal liberty, 
 
THE COLLISION. 213 
 
 is their right to he governed, and well governed, 
 and to have all that protection from their own evil 
 propensities, and from the evil propensities of other 
 men, which good government affords. He can 
 hardly be guilty of a greater wrong against them, 
 than that which he commits, if through any neglect 
 of his, they are not protected as men and governed 
 as men. If, then, he fails to place them under such 
 a system of regulations as is suited to promote their 
 individual and social well-being — if he does not care 
 for and protect their persons, their little possessions 
 and their morals— if he neglects to guard, as a ma- 
 gistrate, the chastity of females, or to uphold the 
 sanctity and permanence of the marriage tie — if he 
 neglects to restrain them from petty larcenies against 
 each other, and from quarrels and fightings — if he 
 allows or connives at drunkenness and rumselling 
 among them — if he does not require them to keep 
 the Sabbath by resting from unsuitable occupations 
 — his brethren in the church will not fail to admon- 
 ish him, and when admonition has been found inef- 
 fectual, they will disown him. 
 
 4. Nor will this be all. The relation which he 
 sustains to his servants, as being to them in the place 
 of the State, involves only a part of his positive du- 
 ties towards them. As a Christian man looking upon 
 the ignorance and debasement of these his depend- 
 ent neighbors, he is bound to care for their entire 
 welfare as spiritual and immortal beings. He is 
 bound — and by all the movements of the Spirit of 
 Christ within him he is impelled — to provide instruc- 
 tion for them, and especially to make them ac- 
 quainted with God and with the way of salvation 
 10* 
 
214 THE COLLISION. 
 
 through Christ. If he neglects this duty, if his ser- 
 vants are permitted to live and die in heathenish ig- 
 norance, if he does not labor in the spirit of self-de- 
 nying love to win them to God, and to train them 
 for God's service and for immortal blessedness, the 
 church will strive to bring him to a sense of his du- 
 ty, and thiding him incorrigible, will declare that he 
 has not the spirit of Christ and is none of his. 
 
 Such being the administration of church discipline 
 in the community vvljich we have supposed, it is evi- 
 dent that there the slaves of '' believing masters" 
 will be treated, and their masters will be required by 
 the church to treat them, in effect, as if they were 
 hired servants, or apprentices, under the protection 
 of law. How obvious is it that such an administra- 
 tion of Christianity will tell, gradually perhaps, but 
 infallibly, on the entire character of that community, 
 quickening and guiding the moral sense of the whole 
 people. How obvious that in that community the 
 human sentiment which recognizes the slave as a 
 man, and which acknowledges his human rights — 
 the sentiment which when it comes to assert itself 
 through the forms of legislation, will speedily work 
 out the abolition of slavery — cannot but be making 
 piogress. How obvious that in that community not 
 only the slaves of '' believing masters," but the 
 whole of the enslaved population, Avill be continual- 
 ly and irresistibly rising in tlieir intellectual and 
 moral character, and commanding more and more 
 of the respect of the ruling class. How obvious that 
 Christianity, thus administered, will spread itself in 
 that community, and will act with a power continu- 
 ally increasing, till every fetter is brokeH, and the 
 
THE COLLISION. 215 
 
 soil, no longer exhausted by the curse of slavery, 
 shall brighten into beauty like Eden, and shall give 
 up its riches freely, to fill the hands of free and hap- 
 py industry. Where Christianity is clearly and faith- 
 fully preached as the law of the spirit of life in Jesus 
 Christ, and where it is administered in the form of 
 a legitimate and fraternal church discipline, slavery 
 must be a transient institution, for slavery belongs 
 entirely to that order of things which the ascendency 
 of Christianity annihilates. Christianity civilizes, 
 all its tendencies are towards the highest possible 
 forms of social order and improvement : slavery is 
 essentially barbarous. Christianity humanizes, it 
 develops the faculties and affections of true manhood 
 in every individual whom it reaches : slavery brutal- 
 izes. The genius of Christianity is love and good 
 will : the genius of slavery is violence and fear. 
 Christianity makes all men equal in God's regard, 
 equal before the dread bar of justice, equal at the 
 cross, equal at the throne of grace, equal in the 
 church : slavery abhors the idea that every man is, 
 in respect to rights, the equed of his fellow-man ; it 
 rejects the law of thought which makes justice and 
 equity (or equalness) convertible terms in every hu- 
 man language. Christianity is light, it quickens 
 every mind into intelligence, it pours upon all souls 
 an illumination from the skies : slavery is of the 
 darkness, it hates and dreads the light, it seals up 
 the souls of men in ignorance, it gathers around itself 
 night deep and murky, for darkness is its element. 
 Christianity and slavery, wherever they co-exist, 
 must needs be like the Ormuzd and Ahriman of the 
 Persian mythology — the opposite principles of light 
 
216 THE COLLISION. 
 
 and darkness — forever contending each to subdue the 
 other. If Christianity continues to hokl forth its 
 hght, in that h'ght slavery must decay and perish. 
 If Christianity yields, obscures its light, and enters 
 into a confederacy with darkness, it decays and dies 
 in the chains of its captivit}^ 
 
 I dare not ask for another column in this week's 
 paperj and therefore, though I am anxious to bring 
 the discussion to a close on my part, I must post- 
 pone the application which I intend to make of 
 these remarks, till I can have another hearing. 
 Meanwhile it will not have escaped the reader's 
 notice, that though I commenced with a review of 
 the action taken by the Board of Foreign Missions, 
 and though the general title with which I began has 
 been retained for the sake of marking the continuity 
 of the series, I have in view not merely the specific 
 missionary question touching the Cherokee and 
 Choctaw churches, but that more comprehensive 
 and momentous ecclesiastical question, with refer- 
 ence to which the debates at Brooklyn were con- 
 ducted. The time has come, when the ministers of 
 the gospel and the professed followers of Christ, in- 
 dividually and in their various ecclesiastical assem- 
 blies, are called to inquire calmly yet earnestly, whe- 
 ther the churches in the slaveholding States, with 
 which they are respectively in communion and cor- 
 respondence, are really acting in conformity with 
 Christian principle towards such of their members as 
 are owners of slaves. The reports are such concern- 
 ing the administration of discipline on this subject in 
 the southern churches — the extent to which those re- 
 ports have gained belief throughout the Christian 
 
THE COLLISION. 2_[7 
 
 world is such — that, in the absence of any authentic 
 denial of their truth on the part of those churches, 
 the question, What ought we to do in this ^natter ? 
 must come up in all the ecclesiastical bodies with 
 which those churches are in correspondence. It is 
 well known what arrangements are in progress to 
 urge this question effectually upon the notice of the 
 Triennial Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, now 
 soon to meet. It is equally well known that the 
 same question will be introduced again — as it has 
 been heretofore under one form and another — in 
 those Congregational bodies of New England which 
 are in correspondence with the two divisions of the 
 Presbyterian Church. This question ought not to 
 be evaded or postponed ; nor can it be much longer. 
 Those who have favored me with letters, anony- 
 mously or otherwise, proposing particular points for 
 my consideration, will probably find their inquiries 
 answered, either formally or informally, before I 
 close. Every communication which in any way 
 helps me to know how far I am understood or mis- 
 understood, is thankfully accepted, though it may 
 not be in my power to make any other than this 
 general acknowledgment. 
 
 NO. VII. 
 
 DUTY OF THE CHURCHES IN THE FREE STATES. 
 
 The idea of communion among Christian church- 
 es, or between confederacies of churches, implies 
 some degree of responsibility in regard to the main- 
 tenance of church discipline. Much more is this 
 
218 THE COLLISION. 
 
 implied, where communion takes ilie form of a set- 
 tled correspondence and regulated intercourse. Such 
 mutual responsibility, necessary as the basis of mu- 
 tual recognition, is not inconsistent with mutual 
 independence and mutual equality of powers. In 
 the language of the Cambridge Platform, (ch. xv. 
 §2,) illustrating this principle, ''Paul had no author- 
 ity over Peter, yet when he saw Peter not walking 
 with a right foot, he publicly rebuked him before 
 the church. Though churches have no more au- 
 thority one over another than one Apostle had over 
 another, yet as one Apostle might admonish another, 
 so may one church admonish another, and yet with- 
 out usurpation." I quote this not as " authority," 
 but as good common sense well expressed. 
 
 I need not, then, spend any time in showing that 
 the churches in the free States have a right to con- 
 cern themselves with the manner in which discipline 
 is administered, or not administered, in the Southern 
 churches. The only questions are, whether there is 
 In existing facts an occasion for the exercise of this 
 right ; and if so, in what form and by what pro- 
 cedure shall the right be exercised 1 
 
 To the first of these questions, the existing facts 
 are a sufficient answer. A " common fame" has 
 spread through this land, and has been sounded out 
 to the ends of the world, which charges upon the 
 southern churches, indiscriminately, a scandalous 
 neglect of Christian discipline. It is charged upon 
 those churches that members in full communion, 
 office-bearers, ministers, commit, uncensured, and 
 habitually, crimes which cause the name of Christ 
 to be blasphemed. It is charged upon them that 
 
THE COLLlSIOi\, 
 
 219 
 
 communicants, elders, pastors, preachers of what 
 pretends to be Christianity, are tolerated in treating 
 their servants, whom barbarous Laws have put into 
 their power, as mere property, to be bought and sold 
 for gain, or at the convenience or caprice of the 
 buyer and seller. It is charged that masters in 
 the communion of those churches are tolerated in 
 governing their servants and dealing with them, not 
 as human beings having human rights, but as cattle 
 driven to their labor with the whip, moved by no 
 human impulse to industry, and having no more in- 
 terest in their own labor than the muzzled ox '' that 
 treadeth out the corn." It is charged that the ser- 
 vants of such masters live and die without the know- 
 ledge of God's illuminating and quickening Word > 
 with no advantages or means for the development 
 of their nature as intelligent beings created in God's 
 image; borne down under an oppression heavier, in 
 this most vital respect, than that which degrades the 
 subjects of Russian or Austrian despotism, more 
 unchristian than even that which keeps down the 
 slaves of Antichrist himself within the immediate 
 civil jurisdiction of Rome. It is charged that ser- 
 vants of such masters, when their masters might 
 protect them, are robbed of God's primeval institu- 
 tion of marriage; that instead of being permitted to 
 live together, husband and wife, in a relation which 
 can be dissolved only by death, or by crime on their 
 part, they live, male and female, in a temporary pair- 
 ing unsanctioned by religion, unprotected by powder, 
 and liable to be dissolved at the convenience of the 
 master. It is charged that the chastity of female 
 servants, under such masters, has no protection 
 
220 THE COLLISION. 
 
 against the frauds or the violence of licentiousness. 
 It is charged that hy the authority of such masters, 
 children are torn from the fathers and mothers to 
 whom God gave them, and are sold as merchandise. 
 I do not make these charges against the southern 
 churches ; nor do I take it for granted that these 
 charges are all true. What I say is, that these charges 
 are uttered by "common fame" — are believed 
 by millions — are carried abroad to the farthest out- 
 posts of civilization in every quarter of the world — 
 have never been disproved — have never been met 
 by those churches with anything like an adequate 
 and authentic denial. 
 
 In the existence of such facts there is, beyond con- 
 troversy, an imperative occasion for the exercise of 
 that right of inquiry and admonition on the part of 
 other churches, which is inseparable from the idea 
 of communion. If these charges, so widely pub- 
 lished, and so widely believed, are not a sufficient 
 reason for putting the churches of the slaveholding 
 States upon their defence, nothing can be. The im- 
 putations against their Christianity are not less seri- 
 ous than if they were charged with tolerating in 
 their communion the rationalism of Germany, the 
 fooleries of Oxford, and the impostures of Rome and 
 of Nauvoo. In some way they should be sum- 
 moned, as churches, to answer for themselves 
 whether these things are so. And if they refuse to 
 meet the inquiry, or fail to vindicate themselves ; or 
 if, admitting that the matters of fact alleged against 
 them are true, they do not repent under admonition, 
 then the communion between those churches and 
 the churches of the north and of the west must end. 
 
THE COLLISION. ^21 
 
 The light of every northern ecclesiastical body to with- 
 draw communion, in such a case, from the southern 
 churches, would be too manifest to be questioned. 
 
 In what form, then, and by what course of pro- 
 cedure, may this right of inquiry and of ultimate 
 non-communion be most advantageously exercised? 
 On this point, it will be sufficient to advert to tlie 
 established relations and formal correspondence be- 
 tween the southern churches of various denomina 
 tions, and those churches in the free States with 
 which they agree in the forms of doctrine and of 
 worship. 
 
 The General Assembly of the Presbyterian church 
 exercises, by the terms of its constitution, a general 
 superintendence over all the affiliated synods, pres- 
 byteries and congregations. Every subordinate 
 judicatory is responsible to the assembled represen- 
 tatives of the whole communion, for all its errors or 
 deficiencies in respect to the administration of dis- 
 cipline, and is, accordingly, liable to be admonished 
 or instructed by the General Assembly. Such being 
 the fact, can there be any doubt as to what the 
 General Assenjbly — whether Annual or Triennial 
 — can do, and ought to do, in reference to the ^fama 
 clamosa^ of which I have spoken 1 Let the Gene- 
 ral Assembly take notice of this ' crying fame' which 
 so dishonors, not only the Presbyterian church as a 
 great confederacy of Christian congregations, but 
 also the name of Christ himself; and by that su- 
 preme judicatory let it be enjoined on all presbyte- 
 ries and church sessions, to inquire whether any of 
 the ministers or members under their care are guilty 
 of the sins thus charged • upon the Presbyterian 
 
222 THE COLLISION. 
 
 church, to visit such offenders with due censure 
 wherever they may be found, and to report liere- 
 after, at each General Assembly, whether such 
 crimes are indeed tolerated or winked at within their 
 respective jurisdictions. It is in the power of each 
 synod in the free States, nay, of each presbytery or 
 church session, to address the General Assembly 
 with reference to so great a scandal, and to demand 
 some decisive action for the removal of the reproach. 
 The Congregational bodies in New England, and 
 in the other northern States, have no cliurches in 
 the slaveholding States, and therefore are not 
 directly implicated in these charges. Yet their 
 ecclesiastical intercourse with the Presbyterians of 
 the south is so intimate, that it could hardly be 
 more so if the two denominations Vv'ere fused into 
 one. Church members and ministers pass from one 
 communion to the other continually, as easily as 
 they pass from one part of the country to another. 
 As far as New England is concerned, the various 
 Congregational organizations maintain communion 
 with each of the two great divisions of the Presb)^- 
 terian church by an interchange of delegates. Thus 
 the Congregational body in each of these five States 
 has a stipulated right to speak to tlie General 
 Assembly in the same way in which one Congre- 
 gational church, according to the Cambridge Plat- 
 form, may speak to another. If then, at the 
 approaching sessions of the General Assembly, that 
 body — either of the two bodies bearing that name 
 — shall neglect to take some efficient measures for 
 the removal of the great scandal, which for some 
 twenty years has been continually growing, till it 
 
THE COLLISION. 223 
 
 has become offensive to the moral sense of Chris- 
 tendom, it will remain for the New England Con- 
 gregational Associations and Conventions, at their 
 meetings immediately following, to take np tlie 
 subject, and separately or jointly to expostulate with 
 the General Assembly on its unchristian neglect of 
 Christian discipline. Then, if at the end of another 
 year such admonition shall not have been duly 
 noticed — if the scandal remains untouched by the 
 judicatory immediately responsible for it to the 
 Christian world — if the one Assembly shall have 
 been too much occupied with the scandal of young 
 people's dancing, to attend to such a scandal as this 
 — if the other Assembly shall have been so engrossed 
 with the question whether the Rev. Mr. McQueen 
 shall or shall not violate the law of North Carolina 
 by putting away his wife, that it can do nothing 
 towards refuting or removing the imputation which 
 makes it responsible for innumerable acts of oppres- 
 sion — it will be for these Congregational bodies to 
 take another step, and by a solemn act and declara- 
 tion before the world, to dissolve all the existing 
 relations of intercourse and correspondence with the 
 General Assembly — which ever it may be— that has 
 proved recreant. From that time forward, the way 
 will be plain for every Congregational church in 
 New England, to withhold all acts of communion 
 from every southern church which does not dis- 
 tinctly clear itself from this scandal. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the General Assembly, or 
 rather the two Assemblies, should take decisive 
 measures in relation to the scandal of which I am 
 speaking — if orders should go down from Philadelphia 
 
224 THE COLLISION. 
 
 next May, requiring all tlie presbyteries and church 
 sessions south of Pennsylvania to take notice of 
 certain specifications alleged by common fame 
 against their administration of church discipline, 
 and enjoining upon them an immediate and un- 
 shrinking attention to every instance in which a 
 master does not render to his servants strictly, so far 
 as his power over them extends, that which is just 
 and equal — what would the result be in relation to 
 those churches'? Of course, it is impossible to 
 foretell. The worst that could happen would be the 
 immediate withdrawal of those presbyteries and 
 congregations from all connection with the Presby- 
 terian body. And if that event should come to pass, 
 from such a cause^ few would regret it ; for such 
 action on the part of those churches, in such circum- 
 stances, would be an unqestionable demonstration 
 that the common fame of which I have spoken is 
 true — too true to bear investigation. And what 
 branch, I will not say of the Presbyterian church, 
 but of the universal church of Christ, is that which 
 would desire to retain in its connection congregations 
 so defiled with the guilt of inhuman oppression, 
 and so obstinately and passionately resolved upon 
 cleaving to that iniquity? My own belief is that 
 this would not be the result ; that in certain districts 
 of the south, the churches would rejoice in such 
 an opportunity of defending themselves against the 
 imputations under which they suffer; that in those 
 churches the administration of discipline would be 
 greatly invigorated ; that on the other hand, such 
 churches as proved contumacious, would be dis- 
 graced even in their own consciences and in the 
 
THE COLLISION. 225 
 
 e3'es of oppressors around them, and if not utterly 
 abandoned to delusion and sin, would presently 
 begin to reform themselves ; and that the legitimate 
 living power of Christianity and the church to 
 counteract slavery, and to effect its abolition by 
 effecting a change in the sentiments and habits of 
 society, would soon begin to be manifested through- 
 out the south. In this way I should expect to see 
 the principle introduced into the southern churches 
 and gradually propagated there, that the holding of 
 a slave is prima facie evidence of wrong-doing, that 
 it creates some presumption of guilt on the part 
 of the master, and puts upon him the burthen of 
 showing that he is actually loving mercy, doing 
 justly, and walking humbly before God. This 
 principle has been proposed and urged more than 
 once, with great power, by Dr. Robert J, Breckin- 
 ridge. If he will carry this principle through, and 
 cause it to become law in the synod of his native 
 State, sit mihi magnus Apollo, Thenceforth let all 
 that he has said and done against New England be 
 forgotten. 
 
 It remains to show what I regard as the advan- 
 tages of this course of procedure, over that which is 
 commonly understood to be proposed by the Anti- 
 Slavery Society. The proposal of the Anti-Slavery 
 Society, as language is ordinarily understood, is that 
 slaveholding itself — the simple relation of a master 
 to those whom the law of the State regards and treats 
 as slaves — shall be the subject matter of admonition, 
 and then, if not abandoned, of excommunication. 
 Our proposal, on the other hand, is that the exercise 
 of a despotic power, in any specific form of injustice 
 
226 THE COLLISION. 
 
 or oppression, shall be the subject matter of censure. 
 Our proposal admits that, inasmuch as the possession 
 of despotic power is ordinarily accompanied by some 
 wrong-doing in the acquisition or in the use of it, it 
 may be a reasonable rule of discipline to regard the 
 mere possession of such a power as 'prima facie evi- 
 dence of sin, and as constituting at least an occasion 
 for investigation. The other proposal regards the 
 power itself as sin, and excommunicates the master 
 simply for standing in that relation. 
 
 The first advantage of our proposal is, that all who 
 love justice and mercy, and really desire the aboli- 
 tion of slavery, can unite upon it. Men whose reve- 
 rence for the Scriptures forbids them to adopt the 
 anti-slavery formula, and who yet love righteousness 
 and hate oppression, can act in this procedure. Nor 
 do I see how any anti-slavery man can refuse to con- 
 cur in it so far as it goes. He may find fault with it 
 because it does not go far enough ; but how can he 
 lift his voice or his hand to oppose it ? He may hold 
 his own distinctive principle uncompromised, and yet 
 vote to enforce the discipline of the church against all 
 those definite specific sins which are none the less 
 sinful if his principle is true. But on the other hand, 
 there are multitudes of men in the churches and in 
 the ministry, this side of Maryland, Avho do not 
 adopt, and cannot be made to adopt, the mode of 
 discipline recommended by the Anti-Slavery Society. 
 It is easy to denounce these men as actuated by the 
 most unchristian motives, and to imagine that they 
 can be coerced into conformity, but after all they are 
 neither fools nor rogues. It is easy to say of them, 
 as an anonymous ^^fellow-sinner '^ of mine, who 
 
THE COLLISION. 2^ 
 
 Avrites to me from New York, says, in the fervor of 
 his spirit, " Hell never enacted upon our miserable 
 earth a species of wickedness too base to find clerical 
 defenders and apologists. War, murder, inquisi- 
 tions, drunkenness, despotism, and lastly, that sum 
 of all villanies, slavery, have never wanted advocates 
 among the clergy." But after all, the men of whom 
 I speak are conscientious in standing off from the 
 Anti-Slavery Society, and the men of the Anti-Sla- 
 very Society know it, even while denouncing them. 
 Doubtless such men as Jeremiah Day, Noah Porter, 
 Lyman Beecher, Leonard Woods and Moses Stuart, 
 not to extend the catalogue, are as ''grasshoppers," 
 in the eyes of the Anti-Slavery Society ; but after 
 all, in any attempt to secure the application of church 
 discipline to the masters of slaves, it is better to have 
 even such men with you, if thereby you can do some- 
 thing without compromising any principle, than it 
 would be to insist upon a course in which they can- 
 not follow you. 
 
 Another advantage which our proposal has, is that 
 it presents an issue upon which slaveholders cannot 
 sophisticate their consciences as they do in their ar- 
 gument with the Ami- Slavery Society. ' Slavery, or 
 slaveholding,' says the Society, 'is necessarily, and 
 in all circumstances, the sin of the slaveholder, and 
 therefore the slaveholder, if after admonition he does 
 not renounce his authority, at all hazards, is to be 
 excommunicated as an incorrigible sinner.' 'No!' 
 says the slaveholder, 'the Bible is not written on 
 this principle ; in the Old Testament, and in the 
 New, the Scriptures recognize servitude as an ac- 
 tually existing relation; nor did Christ or his apes- 
 
228 T^E COLLISION. 
 
 ties enjoin on masters any duty of immediate eman- 
 pation, at all hazards, as a condition of salvation, 
 or as a condition of membership in the church.' 
 Having thus met the issue raised by the Anti- 
 Slavery Society, and having answered their position, 
 as it is easy for him to do to his own entire satisfac- 
 tion, he feels that the Bible is on his side; if "the 
 Abolitionists" are wrong, he, of course, is right; 
 slavery is therefore all right, and he has nothing to 
 do in the case but to support himself by the labor of 
 his slaves if he can, or by selling them if their labor 
 proves too unproductive. But our proposal presents 
 another issue, and one which the slaveholder can- 
 not get rid of so easily. It comes to him with the 
 question, What are you doing for those poor neigh- 
 bors of yours, over whose Avelfare for time and for 
 eternity the providence of God has given you a 
 power so full of awful responsibility 1 How are you 
 treating them '? Do you pretend that God has given 
 to you the dominion over them, as over the beasts of 
 the field? Do you treat them as if they were your 
 cattle ? Or do you treat them as your fellow-men, 
 your equals before God, and according to the law, 
 Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself? Is their 
 toil for you, uncompensated toil ? Or is the power 
 which you have over them so administered by you, 
 that the relation between you and them exists, in fact, 
 for their benefit, rather than for yours ? If you rob 
 those helpless beings of their human rights — if you 
 do not render to them that which is just and equal — 
 your pretence to be a Christian is a foul dishonor to 
 the Christian name. 
 
 It is another advantage of our proposal that it is 
 
THE COLLISION. 22^ 
 
 the very thing which the Anti-Slavery Society pro- 
 fesses to propose when it undertakes to define its 
 own position. Since I began the publication of these 
 articles, some one has sent me the Anti-Slavery Re- 
 porter for July, 1845, containing the official account 
 of the proceedings of the Society at its last annual 
 meeting. Among the twenty-three resolutions adopt- 
 ed on that occasion, to many of which I could most 
 heartily subscribe, the following is marked with a 
 pen for my special attention : 
 
 *' 10. Resolved, that by slaveholding this Society understands 
 the holding and treating of human beings as property ; and main- 
 tains that to hold and treat a human being thus, is universally 
 and always sinful, and ought to be everywhere immediately 
 abandoned." 
 
 Let us take this, then, as an authentic exposition 
 of what the Anti-Slavery Society means when it 
 demands that the churches shall, by the proper 
 course of discipline, exclude all slaveholders from 
 their fellowship. " This sin," as they say in the 
 resolution immediately following — the sin thus de- 
 fined — '^ the holding and treating of human beings 
 as property"^^ — this, and not the sin of being a mas- 
 ter of slaves, '^ is inconsistent with Christian char- 
 acter and a regular standing in the church of Christ, 
 and ought to be made the subject of remonstrance 
 and discipline, according to each one's distinctive 
 methods of procedure, in every branch of that 
 church." Need I say that this is just what I am in- 
 sisting upon? This identical sin of holding and 
 treating men as property is one of those sins connect- 
 ed with slavery, for which I would have discipline 
 administered in all the churches. 
 
230 THE COLLISION. 
 
 Where then do I differ from the Anti-Slavery So- 
 ciety 1 Just on this point. I utterly repudiate their 
 definition of slaveholding. I deny that they have 
 any right to make such definition. Their attempt 
 to do so is a fraud upon themselves and upon the 
 public. Such a definition is an abuse of words fit 
 only to juggle with. It is the fountain-head of a 
 perpetual stream of sophistry. Words have a mean- 
 ing of their own which cannot be set aside by an 
 arbitrary definition. Words, and especially such 
 words as we have to do with in political and moral 
 inquiries, are not like the arbitrary symbols of al- 
 gebra Avhich bear any meaning we choose to put 
 upon them for the particular operation in which we 
 are using them. I have no right to say that Trinity 
 church spire is surmounted by a Turkish crescent, 
 even though I explain myself by saying that cres- 
 cent means cross. 
 
 My objection to the resolution which I have 
 quoted, is that it is not true. It is not true as a de- 
 finition ; neither is it true as an averment of what 
 '' the Society understands by slaveholding." No 
 doubt the gentlemen of the Society think they mean 
 by slaveholding what the resolution says they mean. 
 No doubt they think that by slaveholding they mean 
 not only the holding of slaves but the holding of 
 them as property ^ and the treating of them as pro- 
 perty. No doubt they are perfectly unconscious of 
 the transparency w^ith which their cardinal sophism 
 shines through the very language in which they 
 wrap it up : ' Resolved, that by slaveholding we 
 mean slaw eholdi7ig and a certain kind of treatment.' 
 This very series of resolutions shows that in spite 
 
THE COLLISION. 231 
 
 of their unanimous resolve, they do not mean what 
 they intend to mean. In the eighteenth resohition 
 they declare ^' that for missionary boards to appoint 
 and support slaveholders as missionaries is a viola- 
 tion of the spirit and teaching of Christ." What are 
 they talking about in this eighteenth resolution ? 
 The very thing that they have been talking about 
 year after year in their continued assault upon the 
 American Board of Missions respecting the case of 
 the Rev. J. Leighton "Wilson, lately of Cape Palmas 
 and now at the Gaboon. Mr. Wilson is or was the 
 master, the owner of certain slaves in Georgia, and 
 is therefore, or was, a slaveholder in the legitimate 
 meaning of the word ; but to say of him that he 
 holds and treats those men as property is a calumny 
 for which I cannot believe that the authors of those 
 resolutions intended to be responsible. The fact is, 
 that by that word ^ slaveholder' they understand just 
 what other people understand by it, ^ the master of 
 a slave;' and then from their arbitrary definition of 
 slaveholding they derive the irresistible corollary 
 that every slaveholder holds his slaves as property 
 and treats them accordingly. 
 
 I have been for several years past not very familiar 
 with the current anti-slavery publications ; but I 
 rarely light upon a newspaper of that class which 
 does not contain some specimen of this sophistry. 
 Thus in a number of the ^'Liberty Press," published 
 at Utica, (Jan. 18, 1846,) which has happened to 
 fall in my way, I find a communication commenting 
 on a paragraph from the ^' Dayspring," descriptive 
 of slavery and the slavetrade in Abyssinia. '' The 
 gospel," says the Dayspring in that paragraph, 
 
232 THE COLLISION. 
 
 ^' seems to be the only sure means to put an end to 
 these horrid customs." This sentence the writer in 
 the Liberty Press takes for his text, and after pre- 
 mising that the Dayspring is published by the 
 American Board of Foreign Missions, he gives out 
 in an interrogative form the slander that this is "the 
 same Board of Foreign Missions which, after solemn 
 deliberation and discussion, resolved to employ 
 slaveholders as their agents in foreign countries to 
 propagate that gospel." I call this a slander, for it 
 is not only not true in the false and forced sense 
 which the Society in its definition tries to attach to 
 the word ' slaveholding,' but it is not true in any 
 sense. But let us go on with this writer. "It would 
 be amusing," he says, "to hear one of these agents 
 preaching, as Mr. Smith would say, gospel politics 
 to the people of Abyssinia, whose overseer in Caro- 
 lina was perhaps at that moment chaffering with a 
 negro buyer about the price of a handsome female 
 slave for the New Orleans market." See the 
 sophism ! If Mr. Wilson is, or was, a slaveholder, 
 then by the very definition of slavery, he holds and 
 treats human beings as property ; and of course he 
 sells the female slave, high-priced because of her 
 beauty, for the New Orleans market. The writer 
 adds, " There can be no doubt that a part of the 
 funds of this Board of Foreign Missions consists of 
 the avails of the sales of husbands, wives, parents 
 and children, separately, to slaveholders in different 
 and distinct parts of this extensive country." Of 
 course there can be no doubt of it in the mind of a 
 man who reasons in this way. Such calumnies 
 thrown about " thick as leaves in Vallambrosa," are 
 
THE COLLISION. 233 
 
 the natural product of the primal sophism, ^ slave- 
 holding is slaveholding and something more.' Such 
 a sophism assumed as a first principle, taken into 
 the soul and kept there till it affects the entire system, 
 becomes a disease of the intellect and of the moral 
 faculties, which shows itself in the passionate belief 
 and the reckless utterance of w4iat any sane man 
 would know to be falsehood. When I see such 
 things, I cannot but be reminded of the language in 
 which the prophet sets forth the morbid effect of idol 
 worship on the intellectual and moral nature : ^^ He 
 feedeth on ashes ; a deceived heart hath turned him 
 aside that he cannot deliver his soul nor say. Is there 
 not a lie in my right hand 1" 
 
 When I began this series of communications, I 
 had no expectation whatever of taxing to so great an 
 extent the patience of the editors and readers of this 
 journal. But having begun, I found myself con- 
 strained by a sense of duty to go on. Had I written 
 for the sake of writing, I should have written on 
 some other theme, on which I might write more 
 easily and with less hazard to my own good name. 
 My experience heretofore has shown me that when 
 I write on this subject, I must make up my mind to 
 encounter reproach from the most opposite quarters. 
 But I have not suffered this, or any other considera- 
 tion personal to myself, to restrtiin me from speaking 
 what seems to me to be truth, important and timely. 
 I have not written with a view of confirming what 
 others have written whose views I presume to be 
 generally coincident with my own; for though I am 
 aware that Professor Pond has been writing in the 
 New England Puritan, and Dr. Edward Beecher in 
 
234 THE COLLISION. 
 
 the Boston Recorder, it has not been convenient for 
 me to read either their articles or what Mr. Phelps 
 has written in reply ; and as for Dr. Woods' two 
 communications in the Puritan, which I have read 
 with great pleasure, I knew nothing of them till 
 most of my articles were written. At what seems 
 to me a serious crisis in the history of our country 
 and of Christianity, I have written to express my 
 deep and long-matured convictions, and thus to dis- 
 charge my own soul of the burthen which I felt that 
 God had laid upon me. 
 
 What I have to expect from the organs of the 
 anti-slavery party, it is not difficult to conjecture. 
 A question will be raised about my motives; or 
 rather my motives will be represented as unques- 
 tionably selfish and base. Last autumn I had occa- 
 sion, in reply to an assault from the south, to publish 
 a letter to the editor of the Pbiladelphia Observer, 
 which the readers of the Evangelist may remember. 
 That letter was copied into the Emancipator, with 
 something like a column of commentary in this 
 vein :* 
 
 " Some are trying to see how far they can carry their conces- 
 sions in favor of slavery, without absolutely awakening pubhc 
 indignation against themselves at the north. Others are with 
 equal assiduity trying to see how far they can carry their con- 
 demnation of slavery, without actually cutting themselves off 
 from religious association with the south. The former class are 
 seeing how near they can come to the justification of slaveholding 
 without being actually identified w'ith slaveholders : the latter, 
 how near they can come to its condemnation without being actu- 
 ally identified with abolitionists. 
 
 * I find this not in the Emancipator itself, but in another paper which 
 was put into my hands for another purpose. 
 
THE COLLISION. 
 
 235 
 
 "These latter gentlemen profess to hold the same views of 
 slavery that they have always held. And perhaps, in many 
 cases, they may he able to show where, ten or fifteen years ago, 
 they expressed the same condemnation of slavery that they do 
 now. The difference is, that formerly they came reluctantly to 
 the expression of these views, lest they should be taken for abo- 
 litionists—now they do it eagerly, lest they should be deemed 
 apologists for slavery. Formerly, they put forth their anti- 
 slavery sentiments as an apology for acting against abolition; now 
 they put forth their excuses for slaveholding as an apology for 
 speaking against slavery. 
 
 " Of this class of theologians, no one has from the beginning 
 come nearer to abolition without hitting it, than the Rev. Leonard 
 Bacon, D. D., of New-Haven." 
 
 To such libels scattered broadcast over all the 
 north, and proceeding from men who know me well, 
 and who are known to have been once my friends, 
 I expose myself when I utter my convictions on this 
 subject. It seems not to enter into the thoughts of 
 those writers, that a man who differs from them on 
 this most complicated theme, may possibly be honest. 
 My answer to their imputations is, Perhaps my 
 motives are important to the question of the sound- 
 ness of my arguments ; perhaps you know my mo- 
 tives better than I do; yet God knows them better 
 than you do ; to my own master I stand or fall, and 
 ^' with me it is a very small matter that I should be 
 judged of you, or of man's judgment." 
 
236 THE COLLISION. 
 
 NO. VIII. 
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 I thought I had finished, when I appended to my 
 last communication a postscript of condensed replies 
 to those of my correspondents, known and unknown, 
 whose inquiries or suggestions might seem to them 
 not to have been sufficiently noticed heretofore. But 
 as that postscript was not pubhshed in the last num- 
 ber of the Evangelist, and as the editors have thus 
 left me at liberty to continue the discussion for an- 
 other week, it seems proper to draw out the postscript 
 into a concluding chapter of explanations. And 
 this is the more important as the publication of my 
 last week's essay brought me an immediate return 
 of questions, some of which seem to show that my 
 views are not yet, in all quarters, perfectly under- 
 stood. 
 
 I. A correspondent in Ohio, who writes as a 
 friend, though his name is to me that of a stranger, 
 asks me to re-examine one position. The passage 
 to which he refers is that in my second communi- 
 cation, which represents the burthen of proof as de- 
 volving upon those who shall hereafter bring certain 
 accusations against our missionaries and churches 
 among the Cherokees and Choctaws. This, he 
 thinks, is a mistake. He says, '^ The .fact of a man 
 holding his fellow-man as property, on the face of it 
 appears wrong. Let the Board, by proper explana- 
 tions, show that these are cases of a peculiar char- 
 acter that exonerate those who do it from the charge 
 of guilt. The missionaries are not a set of felons 
 
THE COLLISION. 23-7 
 
 that we are trying to convict. They are honest men, 
 and we will give entire credit to their statements. We 
 only ask for facts, and will judge for ourselves. If 
 we think they and the Board mistake in regard to 
 their duty, we will say it in all kindness as friends. 
 We shall not abandon the Board or the missionaries 
 till we find they adopt as a settled policy the practice 
 of admitting slaveholders to communion and church 
 fellowship." 
 
 I have accordingly ^' re-examined" my position, 
 and I find that my correspondent has quite mistaken 
 my meaning. If he in his turn will ^^ re-examine," 
 he will see that what I say in that place is founded 
 entirely on the explanations which the missionaries, 
 and the Board as speaking in their behalf, have 
 given. My position is this : Either the report made 
 at Brooklyn, and since published, is entirely unwor- 
 thy of credit as a representation of facts, or if there 
 is in any church under the care of our missionaries 
 a master who buys or sells human beings as merchan- 
 dise — who does not recognize, in respect to his ser- 
 vants, the divine sanctity of their relations as hus- 
 bands and wives, and as parents and children — who 
 permits his servants to live and die in ignorance of 
 God and of God's Word — who does not render to his 
 servants that which is just and equal — or who re- 
 fuses to acknowledge their dignity and worth as 
 reasonable and immortal beings for whom Christ 
 died — that master, upon being convicted of any such 
 specification, '' would be admonished by the church, 
 and unless he should repent would be excommuni- 
 cated." We have the dcjclaration of the Board to 
 this effect, founded upon the information received 
 11* 
 
238 THE COLLISION. 
 
 from their missionaries, and using to a considerable 
 extent the very language of the missionaries them- 
 selves. From this time forward those who shall as- 
 sume the responsibility of affirming the contrary, are 
 bound to prove what they affirm. 
 
 But my friend says, ^' Give us the facts, in each 
 case of slaveholding, and we will judge for ourselves." 
 To me it seems that if we know the principles on 
 which those missionaries and churches administer 
 discipline, and if we have their comprehensive de- 
 nial of all facts inconsistent with those principles, 
 tbat is enough. Whether the facts in a particular 
 case are such as show that a man is, in the judgment 
 of charity, a Christian, acting in a Christian spirit, 
 is a question upon which none are so well qualified 
 to judge as that man's Christian neighbors, the very 
 church with which he is in covenant. If my corres- 
 pondent is charged with being a forger, on the ground 
 that inasmuch as he is a skillful penman he has it 
 in his power to commit forgery upon a sufficient 
 temptation, and if I am therefore required to deny 
 him fellowship, his denial of the charge is enough 
 to put all who repeat it upon the duty of proving it. 
 If the church to which he belongs is charged with 
 admitting forgers to communion because it admits a 
 man who can forge if he chooses, it is enough for 
 that church to deny the charge and to demand the 
 proof. Just so if a church is charged with admitting 
 oppressors to communion because it admits '' believ- 
 ing masters," who could oppress if they would, and 
 who would be oppressors if they were not believers, 
 it is enough for that church to meet the charge with 
 a denial. Such is the position of the Cherokee and 
 
THE COLLISION. ^39 
 
 Choctaw churches and of the missionaries there ; 
 and such is the position of the Board. 
 
 It is to be observed here that the charge of admit- 
 ting slaveholders to communion is not denied ; but 
 the charge of admitting o^pre^^or^ to communion is 
 denied comprehensively and in various specifica- 
 tions. So, in the case supposed, the church to which 
 my correspondent belongs does not deny the charge 
 of admitting to communion a man who can commit 
 forgery if he will ; it only denies the charge of ad- 
 mitting one wdio does comn)it forgery. If I can find 
 reason to believe that a church in a slaveholding 
 country will rigidly administer discipline against all 
 specifications of oppression, I shall not doubt that 
 the influence of that church will be as efficient for 
 the promotion of freedom and of righteousness as if 
 it were to excommunicate men simply for being 
 slaveholders. As for the '' settled policy" of the 
 Board, I can only speak from my knowledge of the 
 men and of the churches ; but I think I may say 
 that two points are immovably settled ; — first, that 
 the missionaries are never to permit any sort of op- 
 pression, on the part of those under their care as 
 converts, to pass uncensured ; and secondly, that no 
 considerations of expediency, either political or ec- 
 clesiastical, will be deemed a sufficient reason for 
 adopting a formula w^hich would exclude from the 
 missionary work the author of the first epistle to 
 Timothy, and of the epistles to the Ephesians and 
 Colossians. 
 
 II. The friend who writes to me from Maine, and 
 whose ingenuousness I cannot question, has miscon- 
 ceived (and therefore I presume that others equally 
 
240 '-i'i^^ COLLISION. 
 
 candid have also misconceived) the meaning of the 
 note in which I answered a case of conscience about 
 a slave who runs away from the mere relation of 
 subjection to a master's confessedly beneficent au- 
 thority. In my understanding- of the case, the mas- 
 ter who conducts himself in that relation according 
 to the impulses of a Christian spirit, would readily 
 permit his slave to emigrate, if so disposed, and 
 would put him in the way of helping himself, so 
 that the necessity of the slave's running away to 
 avoid what might happen in case of his master's 
 death, and the consequent necessity of his throwing 
 himself on the sympathies of abolitionists as a men- 
 dicant, would not exist. 
 
 III. Another, writing from a village in Central 
 New York, wishes me to '^ discuss two questions." 
 ^' Does the law of love plainly require any master to 
 control the services of his servant, against liis will, 
 without reward, during his (the servant's) lifel If 
 not, does the law of love plainly ijermit the master 
 to control the services of his servant, against his 
 will, without reward, during his life 1" 
 
 To discuss these questions in detail might exhaust 
 the patience of those who are waiting to reply to 
 me. I can only give my opinion. (1.) The law of 
 love requires every master to render to his slaves, 
 in the best practicable form, a just equivalent for all 
 their service. He may not be able to render that 
 equivalent in the form of wages, and he may err in 
 judging what wages he would have to pay them in 
 a state of freedom ; for the theory of fair wages sup- 
 poses that the laborer and employer are at once 
 mutually dependent and mutually independent ; 
 
THE COLLISION. 241 
 
 and the rate of wages, i. e., the price of labor, i. e., 
 the share which labor is to have in the division of 
 what is the joint product of labor, skill and capital, 
 is determined, just as the price of any other com- 
 modity is determined, by the state of the market. 
 But no conscientious man will consider himself enti- 
 tled to use the services of his fellow-men, simply 
 because he has power over them, without rendering- 
 to them what he in his conscience regards as a just 
 equivalent. Such equivalent may be rendered in 
 the form of food, clothing, house-rent, protection, 
 and an accumulating fund as in a savings bank, 
 which is ultimately to establish the slaves as free in 
 some free country. Or it 7rMy be rendered in some 
 other^way. (2.) I hold that the law of love requires 
 the master to regard the relation between himself and 
 his slaves as a relation to be dissolved as soon as it 
 can be done consistently with the welfare of the 
 slaves. If one slave and another dies before that time 
 arrives, it is analogous to the case of an apprentice 
 dying in his minority. The master's right to main- 
 tain the relation, for the protection and government 
 of the slave, as long as the slave lives, unless the 
 slave chooses to become free by emigration, is far 
 less doubtful than his right to maintain it till his own 
 death shall throw them into the hands of his heirs 
 or of his creditors. 
 
 IV. In my description of a case of actual slave- 
 holding, there was a sentence which has excited a 
 violent curiosity in the mind of the "fellow sinner," 
 who, under various signatures, has favored me with 
 several communications, the first of which was the 
 
242 THE COLLISION. 
 
 case of conscience. Of the master whom I described, 
 I said, '' The discipline on his plantation is not 
 lax, but strict ; his people are in every respect order- 
 ly, and are obliged to be so." These few words 
 raise in my correspondent's mind *^ visions of over- 
 seers and cowskins ;" and he desires me to tell him 
 whether I ''witnessed a Christian flagellation laid 
 on according to apostolical sanction." Frankly, then, 
 I witnessed no such thing. And furthermore, in all 
 that I have said about applying '' discipline," "strict 
 discipline," in the church, to those who are guilty of 
 certain offences, I do not mean such discipline as 
 has been used against heretics in Spain, nor do I de- 
 mand that the offenders shall be flogged with '' cow- 
 skins." And if, in describing the management of a 
 Christian shipmaster, setting it in contrast with that 
 of many a rough and brutal captain, I should say, 
 "The discipline on board his vessel is not lax, but 
 strict ; his men are in every respect orderly, and are 
 obliged to be so," I should not mean that he has no 
 method of maintaining order and discipline, but by 
 the rope's end. Or if, in describing a schoolmaster 
 as very unlike those of the tribe of Mr. Squeers, I 
 should say, " The discipline in his school is not lax, 
 but strict ; the boys arc in every respect orderly, and 
 are obliged to be so," I should not mean that he is 
 in tlic habit of whipping and kicking his pupils. 
 Discipline is not of course cruelty. 
 
 V. From another correspondent I have received 
 several inquiries — of which he says, " These are 
 practical questions, and I presume there are many 
 who would like to know how you would answer 
 
THE COLLISION. 243 
 
 tliem." I will, therefore, answer his questions as 
 briefly as I can, in the order in which he proposes 
 them. 
 
 1. He asks whether, if a clergyman from the 
 south should come to New Haven, and should be 
 commonly reported to be a slaveholder, I would re- 
 gard that reputation as prima facie evidence against 
 him, and would, on that account, refuse to invite 
 him to my pulpit. To this I answer, that as mat- 
 ters now stand, in respect to discipline in the south- 
 ern^churches, I should delay asking a slaveholder, or 
 one commonly reputed to be such, to preach for me, 
 till, either by friendly conference, or in some other 
 way, I had obtained such knowledge of him as would 
 enable me to believe that he is endeavoring honestly, 
 and in the fear of God, to render to his servants that 
 which is just and equal. But after obtaining satis- 
 faction on this point, I should have no scruple what- 
 ever. The difficulty is, that as matters now are, the 
 fact of a man's being a Presbyterian minister at the 
 south in ever so high standing, is not of itself suffi- 
 cient evidence, nor is it even prima facie evidence, 
 of his being free from very gross sins ; such as mak- 
 ing merchandise of men, women and cliildren, who 
 happen to be placed helpless in his power ; or sun- 
 dering the husl^and and wife, the parents and their 
 child ; or compelling them to toil for him all their 
 lives long, without once asking himself conscien- 
 tiously what he owes them for their toil ; or leaving 
 them to the tender mercies of a wicked overseer, who 
 cares not for their welfare or their rights. There- 
 fore, as in the case of a minister from Germany, the 
 official certificates of his ordination and of his unim- 
 
244 THE COLLISION. 
 
 peached standing would be no evidence of his not 
 being a rationalist ; and as in the case of a minister 
 from the Church of England, the official certificates 
 of his ordination and of his unimpeached standing 
 would be no proof of his making any profession of 
 what we call evangelical piety ; so in the case of a 
 minister from certain regions of the south, the like 
 certificates would be no conclusive evidence of his 
 not being an oppressor of his fellow-men. I do, in- 
 deed, know a slaveholder who often preaches for me, 
 and whose slaveholding is not the least scandal in 
 my eyes. If the south were well supplied with just 
 such ministers as he is, we might hope to see great 
 changes there. 
 
 2. My friend also inquires whether, if a layman, 
 reputed to be a slaveholder, should offer himself for 
 admission to my church, I would admit him without 
 an examination on the point of his slaveholding. I 
 answer, that in respect to occasional communion, we 
 are not accustomed to make any examination of 
 strangers professing to be Christians, who happen to 
 be present in our assemblies. But admission to 
 membership is another affair ; and if one reputed to 
 be a master of slaves should offer himself, we should 
 desire to know how he performs his duties toward 
 those ignorant, unprotected, helpless men, so abso- 
 lutely committed to his power. We should certainly 
 desire to know whether he is treating them accord- 
 ing to the law of love, or whether he is treating 
 them as property. 
 
 3. Another question is, whether I would employ 
 slaveholders as missionaries, either at home or in 
 foreign countries. I think that when God qualifies 
 
THE COLLISION. 245 
 
 and calls a southern slaveholder to preach the 
 gospel, he does not often call such a man to Africa 
 or China. Let him preach at home, and if he will 
 preach faithfully, and administer discipline faith- 
 fully, so far as the administration of discipline is in 
 his hands, I see no reason why we should not help 
 him if he needs assistance. It is by the labor of 
 just such men on their native southern soil that 
 slavery is to be abolished. 
 
 There is one more point of explanation to which, 
 in conclusion, I would ask the attention of the 
 reader. Some may think that in my theory of how 
 Christianity may and will operate for the extinction 
 of slaver}^, a great amount of time is required, 
 whereas we want, and ought to have, some quicker 
 process. Undoubtedly slavery ought to be abolished 
 much sooner than it is likely to be ; but how can we 
 abolish it? The problem of the abolition of slavery 
 in this country is altogether unlike the now accom- 
 plished problem of the abolition of slavery in the 
 British colonies. The abolition of slavery was 
 imposed upon Jamaica and Demarara, and the other 
 British countries at this side of the Atlantic, by an 
 extrinsic physical force which could not be resisted. 
 How long Avould the abolition of slavery in those 
 countries have been deferred if it had waited for the 
 spontaneous action of the colonial legislative assem- 
 blies ? Had Jamaica been an independent state 
 — had its laws been simply the expression of the 
 judgments and sentiments entertained by its white 
 population, what could have been effected there by 
 political and religious agitation in Great Britain 
 — liberty tickets — Exeter Hall speeches — votes of 
 
246 THE COLLISION. 
 
 the Congregational Union or of the London Mis- 
 sionary Society? The slaveholding States in the 
 American confederation, considered as States, are 
 free ; no Imperial Parliament can dictate laws to 
 them. The abolition of slavery can be imposed 
 upon them from without by no other agency than 
 war — an agency which I do not believe the anti- 
 slavery societies or their members expect to employ. 
 In those States, then, the abolition of slavery, if 
 effected by any peaceful process, Avill take place 
 only as the result of a change in the people there 
 — a change which shall make them recognize the 
 slave as a man — a change Avhich shall make them 
 understand and feel that a free black peasant, 
 laboring for wages and taking care of himself, is a 
 practicable thing, and is every w^ay a better thing, 
 more sightly to the eye, more agreeable to the moral 
 sense, more safe and profitable to the landholder 
 and to the State, than a slave laboring under the 
 lash of a driver, and taken care of as a horse is b}^ 
 his owner. The true problem for anti-slavery phi- 
 lanthrophy is, how to effect that change in the 
 minds and hearts of the southern people — that 
 change in their judgments and affections — out of 
 which the legislative abolition must proceed. And 
 to me it seems that either that moral and intel- 
 lectual change must be despaired of entirely, or the 
 chief agent in effecting it must be Christianity, 
 under such an administration of it as, in these com- 
 munications, I have attempted to describe ; — not 
 Christianity in the form of law concerning itself 
 with outward civil relations, but the Christianity of 
 light and love — the Christianity of spiritual indi- 
 
THE COLLISION. 247 
 
 vidual regeneration, recognizing as Christians all 
 those^ and only those, who give evidence of loving 
 Godj and of loving their neighbors as themselves. 
 

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